Supersize Me – NOT
This episode was 15 minutes longer than usual and that’s 15 minutes of my life I can never get back. For the opener, we get more of the same Teresa vs. Melissa rehashing how the other person destroyed the family relationship. The conversation is equivalent to two 5-year-olds discussing who took the other’s pail and shovel.
“You’re a doody-head.”
“No, you’re a doody-head. A double-doody-head.”
And so it goes even if the words weren’t exactly the same. Melissa drags out the money card to try and hit Teresa where it hurts – in the wallet. Why don’t you just slice T. in the gut with an American Express black card, Melissa, and let her leopard print entrails hang out? We learn that T.’s husband owes money to a plumber. Melissa tells an imaginary Joe Guidice, “Just pay him the $1,000. Your wife wears more than that on her feet.”
Then there’s the big sin Melissa committed by having her children photographed for a Christmas card by the same photographer that Teresa had found to take photos of her own children. T. was upset because she didn’t want all the pictures to look alike. Teresa, you do get that there are different people in the photographs, don’t you? I can use the same photographer as Selena Gomez but I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to make Justin Bieber want to ask me out.
Teresa recounts the Christmas Eve when a girl called her brother, Joe, while Melissa was at her future in-laws’ house. Melissa got so crazy jealous that she stormed out and didn’t come back. The problem, Melissa, is that you eventually did come back. You should’ve just stayed out of the picture – especially if Teresa’s photographer was taking it.
There was an attempt at reconciliation with Teresa asking if Melissa and Joe were coming over for Christmas and Melissa says yes. All I know is Melissa better not show up with a tray of those Shop-Rite sprinkle cookies or all hell is gonna break lose. Note to Melissa: GET PIGNOLI COOKIES. Maybe Kathy can whip you up a truckload or two. More of Kathy in a minute.
The Teresa-Melissa summit ends with T. declaring, “I’m the most loving person there is” and Melissa responding, “Quit while you’re ahead.” Something tells me that, at some point, there’s gonna be another rumble in the sandbox.
Back to Kathy, who is going over her dessert recipes, dreamily pondering how she can share her baked love with the world. Why does Kathy always look like the Pillsbury Doughboy slipped her a roofie? She’s like Betty Crocker on Klonopin. Even though she’s just considering a dessert catering business, her husband, Rich, wants to open an entire restaurant. “I’m not talking about you doing piggies in a blanket,” he tells her. No, Rich wants the real deal – an upscale dining establishment. That is why he takes her to look at a pizzeria type joint in a stripmall. I don’t know why you’re concerned, Kathy. Your husband started out in the gas station business so he knows about food – as long as you stick to pasta fazool or escarole and beans. But Kathy’s no pushover. “I don’t work for him at home and I’m not gonna work for him outside the home.” You go, girl. What you do with your Yule Log-sized cannolis is your own bizzness.
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
The Guidice clan gathers at their cabin in the Catskills – or Katsakills as Senior Guidice calls it – and Teresa has invited the Manzos. Caroline says, “I love the Catskills but this is Teresa’s Catskills. I’m afraid.” And well you should be, Caroline. From the moment we see T.’s leopard print luggage and Jacqueline’s husband, Chris, packing up the rifles, we know this is going to be like the Italian version of a Beverly Hillbillies pajama party. Jacqueline is freaking out and asks her husband, “You really want to bring guns? I have a look of concern on my face but you can’t tell because of the Botox.”
And so they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly – uh, the Katsakills, for the weekend. In the car, Chris offers Joe a bag of snacks. “Do you want to taste my nuts?” This sets the tone for entire trip. When they arrive at the Guidice compound, which resembles a very large carport, Joe’s father greets him with a hug saying, “Who’s this fool?” A very horny fool, Mr. Guidice, that’s who. Throughout the weekend, Joe slaps Teresa’s behind, rolls her around on the bed they first “christened” 13 years ago, and introduces her to a vibrating penis ring.
T. is quick to clear up that the size of the ring is not an indication of the size of her honey’s member. Then she shows us how much the elastic ring can stretch. Oh, God, how can I scrub that image out of my mind? There isn’t enough Ajax on the shelves.
And there’s more. T. faces Joe on the quad (all-terrain vehicle), thanks him for the ride, and promises him, “I’ll give you a ride later.”
In between the sexual innuendos, there is, of course food. Lots and lots of food as you would expect. Only this food is country-style like pasta mixed with assorted varmints that had been stalked and killed. The Guidice clan includes Joe’s father, brother, uncle and other back woods folk who like to hunt and fish and play banjo. Well, they don’t actually play the banjo but it ends with a vowel so they probably think it’s Italian. They’re all whooping it up, shooting watermelons hung from trees, drinking homemade wine that Jacqueline thinks smells of “rotten eggs and old dog farts,” then going out and riding quads drunk in the dark.
It’s Deliverance meets Goodfellas. I thought I heard Joe saying to the watermelon right before he blasted it apart, “So I amuse you? You think I’m funny? How am I funny?”
First, I didn’t even know what a “quad” was until I saw that it was an ATV. Why the Guidices have enough of them to outfit a redneck army is another thing. Are they planning on kidnapping Larry the Cable Guy in the middle of the night? Get-R-Done, boys. Caroline can’t wait to get the heck out of there and her son, Albie, who now lives in a luxury high-rise in Hoboken, looks like he’s going to either cry or wet his pants or both when he looks around and trembles, “I’ve never been in the woods.” Guess we can rule out that Albie was a Boy Scout. But his brother, Christopher, takes things in stride concerning his mother’s worry about the danger of ATVs. “Al drives like a bitch. She has nothing to worry about.” You just know that if the Boy Scouts had a badge in setting up strip club/car wash joints, Christopher would have gotten his badge at 10.
The group takes some time out to go to the B & B Lounge since the locals said the nightclubs in the Catskills were just like in the big city. Teresa tells us, “It was like Fifth Avenue ‘enraided’ the Catskills.” Isn’t that what Attila the Hun did to Italy? Maybe she meant “invaded,” or maybe she meant “raided,” but you gotta admit, if you’re gonna make up a word, it’s kind of a clever word, even though T. thought she was using a word that was legitimately in the dictionary. T. wants to find a guy for Caroline’s friend, Delores, at the nightclub but T. thinks the “pickins were slim.” I don’t know what she’s talking about. There was that guy who could shoot a black ping pong ball out of his mouth (thank God it was his mouth). Guess it’s easy to do that when you don’t have any teeth that can get in the way. But T. dismisses the lot of eligible bachelors. “Guys in Jersey have muscles and good hair.” Yes, those are the essential qualities for a solid, successful relationship for sure.
Despite the good times, and good fashion, including Teresa’s shagadelic Sasquatch boots and pink zebra pj’s with matching footwear, the weekend sadly has to come to an end. Joe isn’t thrilled with the prospect of his brother-in-law being invited over for Christmas but resigns himself to it. “I’m definitely giving him a wedgie one day. I’m gonna pull his underwear over his head.” Now, that’s a Christmas present that has some thought put into it. Perhaps steeling himself for the holidays, Joe brings everyone to pray in the chapel of St. Michael that was built at the end of the Catskills cabin’s driveway. Now, New Jersey certainly has its share of religious statues in front of homes, especially Hoboken with its share of Our Lady of the No Parking Zone statues, but an entire chapel in your driveway? Even the Pope doesn’t have that, but if he watches the show, something tells me that pretty soon, the Pope Mobile is going to be parked outside a chapel of St. Michael in Vatican Square. “Good-bye St. Michael. See you next time,” Joe tells the statue. And the statue probably said, “Good riddance,” silently under its breath.
Curious scenes of the night? Antonio Gorga, Joe and Melissa’s daughter, is in a Fred Astaire Ballroom Christmas show. As her parents get ready to see her perform, Joe has another performance on his mind. Ever the horndog, seeing his wife in a red dress turns him on so much, he charges her like a bull charging the waving of a red cape. “Get off of me,” she dismisses him. And they’re off to see their precious 5-year-old oddly paired up to dance with a very tall black man who resembles Ru Paul not in drag. He twirls her in her little lace tights as she soaks up the spotlight, just like her mother. Although the two of them made for an unusual performance, it could have been kind of cute until we see that the others in the show consist of chubby middle-aged women in Grecian gowns and Roaring Twenties outfits fulfilling their latent ballroom fantasies. As they watched the bizarre showcase, I don’t know if it was Kathy or Richie who whispered to the other, “I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.” My guess was that it was Richie because Kathy, with her wide-eyed hazy stare, already appears to live in the Twilight Zone 24/7.
Another curious sight but unrelated to the ballroom act? Joe Guidice did a split at the Catskills cabin. It wasn’t quite as good as the one he did in the photograph that was shown when he was younger and had a Botchagaloop mustache, but impressive for a little 40-year-old zeppole.
Next episode: Joe Gorga prances around in a glittery spandex dress. That man sure likes to dress up in drag. They better not take him up to the Katskakills in that outfit or he’s gonna be squealing like a pig.
Eileen Budd can be reached at pretty.funny@hotmail.com or leave a comment here.