Leopard is the New Black
This episode proved that New Jerseyans aren’t afraid to say the “L” word – Leopard. There was so much leopard in this episode, Jack Hanna should’ve been the narrator. But leopards weren’t the only creatures that figured prominently in this episode’s theme. We went from the land to the sea talking about fish. More on that later.
The opening shows us all the moms getting their families ready for the day. Melissa, who plans on going into the city to buy clothes for her new boutique, gets support from her daughter, Antonio, with the motivational declaration, “Boutiques suck.” Then, when Melissa calls to ask her husband, Joe, to help out with the kids two days a week, he tells her lovingly, “Impossible. You’re stressing me out.” Melissa, you should’ve asked him if he could help with getting the poison out of his body. He would’ve been home in two seconds.
Teresa gets her kids off to school and she tries to entice hubby Juicy Joe to do yoga. While she’s waiting for him to get out of bed, she takes some time to tell us about how it’s hard to be monitored all the time now that’s she’s home. She’s learned a valuable lesson in that she has to make sure something is right before she puts her John Hancock on anything. Just then, the doorbell rings. Wouldn’t it have been great product placement if it turned out to be an agent from John Hancock Life Insurance? But no, it was just Jacqueline, who stopped by unexpectedly. “What’s she doing here?” Teresa tells the camera. I’ll tell you what she’s doing there – sparing us from the sight of Joe, the human zeppole, engaged in a downward dog. (I still have night terrors from seeing Joe Giudice doing a split in a prior season.) Jacq is seeking clarity on where she and Tre stand friendship-wise. She starts to cry, which prompts Tre to confess, “Since I was at ‘camp,’ I prayed a lot. I learned to forgive.” Perhaps the audience should also forgive Teresa’s euphemism of the word “camp” for prison. But, who knows, they may be giving out badges for shank making in the big house now, in which case the word “camp” may be apropos. After all, it is the ultimate sleepaway.
Tre asks Jacq, “Do you pray?” I bet Jacqueline prays that all those leftover bottles of black water disappear from the basement of her house. “I’m obsessed with yoga,” Tre prattles on, telling Jacq that she can put her legs all the way back over her head. Jacq appreciates how that skill can be put to good use in the bedroom. Tre, knowing Jacq has a penchant for a good sex toy, talks about all the sex that was going on at her women’s “camp” utilizing such handmade devices as gloves, maxi pads, and toothbrushes. Hey, Proctor & Gamble, if you need any folks in your product research and development area, you may want to pay a visit to Teresa’s old “camp.”
Now back to Melissa who is in New York City buying clothes for her store, Envy, with her older female business partner, Jackie. Jackie, sporting spiky pink hair and a pink tutu, answers the question, “What would Carrie Bradshaw look like when she checks into assisted living?” They disagree on some of the fashions Envy should stock. Melissa thinks that the beige pantsuit Jackie is pushing would not appeal to her customer base. But, it sure would make a great outfit to wear to Wednesday night Bingo!
Meanwhile, Siggy, wearing a full length mink coat and a new face, visits Dolores at her old marital home, which is now her current home. She’s also pushing design advice, but this time it’s interior design, not fashion. As she tells Dolores the items she needs to get rid of and what she should buy, we could see the joy her passion for design brings to Siggy’s face – well, at least to the degree her new face allows her to register any emotion. In what could be the best scene of the night, we get a close-up of Siggy smiling spastically, which makes us feel sorry for her and scares the bejeezus out of us at the same time. Just as Siggy and Dolores conspire to get Jacqueline and Teresa back together, Jacqueline arrives to tell them that she’s been at Tre’s and they are on the path of rebuilding their friendship. They celebrate with champagne, but Dolores cautions, “We’re not going to hold hands and skip through the tulips.” I don’t want to underestimate the importance of having girlfriends, but these ladies make it seem like the possibility of a renewed friendship between Tre and Jacqueline is on the same scale as a NATO agreement.
Even Melissa ponders this complex issue. When Tre tells her sister-in-law that Jacqueline came to see her, Melissa tell us, “I don’t know how long all this koombiyah will last.” After all, Jacq is deep and she needs answers. C’mon, Melissa, Jacq has answers. Tre has already told her how you can make your own sex toys simply by visiting your nearest Rite Aid.
Back to Dolores. We are introduced to her kids and her ex-husband, Frank, who stops by with armfuls of food. Frank conveniently lives right down the street and it’s obvious that he and Dolores still have a great bond. He tries to remember if son Frankie had been born while he was still living at the house. Blaming raging hormones as the reason that Dolores threw him out, she sets the record straight by telling him hormones had nothing to do with it. It seems it was more about the Dominican girl he was seeing. In all fairness, we don’t know if he was actually cheating on Dolores while she was pregnant. Maybe he was just interviewing potential nannies.
We get little snippets of Siggy here and there as teasers to what may lie ahead this season. Siggy tells us that is her real name and when she was a kid, they called her names like Squiggy the Sea Monster. We have to remember that Siggy is from Israel. In our country, Squiggy is a beloved name, recalling fond memories of Lennie’s friend from Laverne and Shirley, who won us over every time he said, “Hello.” Anyway, Siggy lets us know what a great friend she is, even going so far to say that if someone wet her pants, she’d clean up her mess. Sheesh, Siggy. I have OCD. I don’t need that idea planted in my head, especially since I’m still trying to shake the thought of a yoga panted Joe Giudice cross-legged in a lotus position.
Siggy seems to sum up her place amongst the Italian group of gals with her philosophy of, “The thing that’s important to Jews is important to Italians.” I don’t know about that, Siggy. I think my Italian mother would’ve preferred my brother becoming a priest over becoming a doctor. How about yours? Siggy was nervous about meeting Teresa for the first time, but she tells us that as soon as she met her, “All my butterflies died.” It’s kinda similar with the rest of us, if you substitute “brain cells” for “butterflies.”
That Siggy is a pistol, but she does give us a little TMI. Sharing the fact that you no longer have a uterus or fallopian tubes is not something we need to know right now – or ever. In fact, any reference to the medical word for a female organ is a surefire way to drive the men from the TV. An ovary holds no interest for someone with male genitals, even if it’s Caitlin Jenner.
Back to Dolores and her family. Her mother, brother, uncle, and grandmother are over at her house, and even her 102-year-old grandmother is wearing leopard. Do you want to know how we got the expression, “A leopard doesn’t change its spots?” >From seeing how 102-year-old Italian women dress.
At one point, and I’m not even sure what it was in reference to, Dolores announces, “Prison is more accepted in the Italian culture.” Was that her way of introducing us to her family? And, in Italian culture, what is prison more accepted than? Marrying an Asian? I can tell you right now, my Italian uncle married a Chinese woman and they opened up an upscale Chinese restaurant in the Poconos. True story. My family had some issues in the beginning, but, then they tasted the house specialty, Moo Shu Pasta Fazool, and they were won over. Okay, so I made up the house specialty. It was actually Egg Foogetaboutit. But, I digress.
Back to the Housewives and New Jersey. Anyway, when Dolores’s uncle tells his 102-year-old mother that he has to get her home, she replies, “The parties over? That’s nice.” Truer words were never spoken, Grandma.
Well, the real party comes when the girls celebrate Dolores’s birthday at a restaurant. The theme is understated sophistication featuring black dress and pearls. Psych! It’s leopard, of course. The guests are wearing leopard print tops and jackets and hats and scarves and shoes. There’s even a leopard print frame and a leopard print cake. It looks like there was an explosion at Great Adventure’s Safari Park. Teresa does a good job of ignoring her cousins, Kathy and Rosie. Melissa tells a story about how her husband was hot for Dolores growing up – she was a childhood friend of his older sister, Teresa. This leads to a series of bawdy stories that the ladies act out.
Teresa regales the crowd with her delightful story about two girls enjoying each other’s company at “camp” aka “prison” aka “the big house.” It seems T. didn’t have a nose for news at first. I can’t go into details in a family newspaper, so let’s just say the incident reminded me of that old joke:
Q: What did the blind man say when he passed a fish store?
A: Hello, ladies.
Hmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with why Squiggy always said, “Hello.”
As the party continued, hilarity ensued. Tre says, “It’s good to laugh and release those Saratogans.” She might have meant Serotonin, but, then again, this is Teresa, so it’s hard to say. Maybe she was referring to the denizens of that city in upstate NY known for its race track. She also called a “whirlwind” a “world wind,” but that’s an easy mistake to make if you’re not a weatherman.
Everyone feels triumphant that Tre seems to be back as Lucy to Jacqueline’s Ethel. Tre has made a new friend in Siggy and is looking forward to meeting Siggy’s second husband, especially after Siggy’s rousing endorsement of him. “For the first time in my life, I’m having orgasms,” Siggy victoriously declares. Uh, wasn’t Siggy a relationship expert? The ladies got drunker and the sex talk turned to a more graphic topic that can’t be mentioned here. Let’s just say that it was about whether any of the women had the capability of squirting a lemon into water – if you took away the lemon and the water.
The episode ends with Siggy putting on her shearling trimmed slippers in a parking lot and traipsing to her car while an inebriated Melissa is being driven home by Teresa. Melissa throws her head back and waves her arms as she yells out, “I’m my own spirit animal.” And I’m betting that the spirit animal is a leopard.
Next week: Teresa tells her husband Joe that if he cheats on her, there is no forgiving. Hmm, the dude’s about to go to “camp.” What is he supposed to do if someone with a name like The Viking takes a liking?
Eileen Budd is a comedienne and writer who is currently working on an anthology of true stories of mid-life daters. If you have a dating story that happened to you (funny, inspiring, or downright weird), please send it to: datingover40tales@gmail.com.