This episode can really be boiled down to three things: drinking, shopping, and fighting – all things that, I’m pretty sure, you don’t have to go to a castle outside Dublin to do, especially the women on this show.
Everyone is upset on Rachel’s behalf for Danielle calling her a rat, something that multiple confessionals have let us know is the meanest insult that a woman from New Jersey could hear. Danielle is mad that Rachel told Marge that Teresa and Jennifer Aydin had warned them about her. Now Rachel thinks that Danielle is a rat for going around telling people she’s a rat. But also, somehow, Margaret is involved because she’s mad that Jen and Teresa told Danielle that she has an “arsenal of information” to use against her friends. I have no clue what is going on here or why Rachel and Danielle are mad at each other except that maybe they don’t want to be mad at any of the old guard because they don’t want their slot on the show challenged.
When Marge asks Danielle if she thinks she has an arsenal, she says that Margaret hears things. She specifically means that Marge has heard about Melissa maybe making out in the back of a car with some other dude, but she doesn’t want to bring them up. This, of course, leads to Jennifer saying that Marge talked about Luis last year. To clarify: Marge did say something about Luis, but it was information that was available on the internet, not anything she had heard. Also, unlike what Jen and Teresa say, she let it go. She only mentioned it once to tell Teresa to get ahead of it.
On the bus into the city, Jen Fessler recounts that Jeff cheated on her and they broke up for two years and dated other people, but then got back together. Everyone on the bus says that infidelity isn’t a deal breaker for them, except for Teresa, who must think infidelity is defined as incarceration followed be deportation.
When Rachel asks if Teresa’s kids and Melissa’s kids get along. Teresa (of course!) says, “They were, but Antonia …” before she can even finish that sentence, causing Melissa’s inner momma tiger to come roaring out. She doesn’t want Teresa to say anything negative about her daughter. Teresa claims she’s not, but the insinuation is there. Now we’re going tit for tat. Melissa and Joe came to a thousand and one family events, so Teresa will harp on the one time they didn’t, when Antonia had a cheer competition in another state. Melissa recalls the time when Gabriella couldn’t come to Papa Gino’s first Communion because she had a soccer game.
“It’s always tit for tat with you,” Teresa says. Jesus Christ. Nope, it’s truth for moron. This is Melissa saying that they didn’t get all bent out of shape when one of Teresa’s girls was busy, so drop it. Teresa says that she wants the kids to all stay close, but Melissa has the most withering comeback: If Teresa wants them to be close, she should give them the example of what it is like to be close and have Melissa in the wedding. (Also: why didn’t she invite her niece and nephews to be a part of the wedding? We all know the answer, this is rhetorical.) As Melissa talks to Marge about the situation, we get the first hint that they might not attend her wedding.
Conversation shifts, as it must, to Jen Aydin, Thirst Queen of Paramus, even in Ireland. She and Marge get into it while Rachel and Danielle get into it. Jen calls Marge mean, and in a rare instance for anyone on the series, Marge takes accountability and apologizes for calling Jen A. a drug addict, but not an unprovoked one. Never satisfied (and because she again had rehearsed something), Jen A. ignored the apology and mock Marge for using big words. Since Marge had called her duplicitous (not really that big a word), Jen A. countered with “How about boogawolf, you know what that means?” No one knew the term, because no one does, but it’s real. Melissa asked Siri, who said it meant an ugly or nasty person. Jen Fessler nailed it; Jen A. had ransacked the dictionary, desperate to find a word that would burn Marge. Too bad it was so ridiculous the joke backfired on herself.
In other news, Jennifer Fessler also faceplants on the streets of London and shakes it all off. Why isn’t this housewife full-time? Ah yes, because she is in her fifties, Jewish, and educated. I said it. Prove me wrong. Marts don’t get you very far on the show. Disagree? Just call me a boogawoof.
See you next week!
