On a sick day, I need some Jersey to soothe my soul, and my boredom. For this recap, we are going way back, back into time. There are vacations, there are girls’ trips, and then there are trips to Vermont with Jacqueline Laurita, Teresa Giudice, and Melissa Gorga, where the scenery is beautiful, the accommodations are presumably expensive, and the emotional stability of the entire group is hanging by a thread. This particular getaway was supposed to be a final opportunity for the ladies to spend time with Teresa before Joe Giudice begins his prison sentence. Melissa suggested the trip as a gesture of friendship and support. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have considered that Jacqueline Laurita might arrive with a personal grievance, a collection of old accusations, and the determination to make sure everybody hears about them.
We pick up on the second day of the Vermont vacation, following the previous evening’s spectacular disaster involving Jacqueline and Teresa’s friend Robyn. The two women had gotten into an increasingly aggressive confrontation, culminating in a full-blown argument around the bonfire. Robyn calls Jacqueline a soldier for Teresa and says she wants to “rage on her ass.” Jacqueline, who is an idiot, then sits on Robyn’s lap screaming for a while, before Dolores and the other women have had enough and they all retire for the evening.
The problem now is that Jacqueline is feeling victimized, Teresa is not particularly sympathetic, and Melissa is caught in the middle of a situation she would probably prefer to resolve without anybody throwing another log on the fire.
Dolores and Siggy are trying to comfort Jacqueline, who is still extremely upset about the previous night’s altercation. Jacqueline feels that Robyn crossed a line, that Teresa should have defended her, and that the entire situation has been handled terribly. She is particularly upset that Teresa doesn’t seem to recognize how threatened and uncomfortable she felt.
Dolores attempts to explain the situation to Melissa and Joe, essentially telling them that Jacqueline is so upset that somebody needs to make a decision. Either Robyn and her friend leave, or Jacqueline is going to leave. Dolores, as usual, is the sole voice of reason in this crowd.
This is already a ridiculous position for a vacation to have reached. The group has been in Vermont for approximately five minutes, and they’re now negotiating guest removals like they’re running a luxury hotel with a particularly aggressive human-resources department.
Melissa says she’ll speak to Teresa and see what she wants to do.
Dolores goes back to Jacqueline and explains that she’s trying to work things out. Jacqueline becomes emotional, explaining that she loves Teresa and has known her for fifteen years. She insists that she only wants to protect Teresa.
And this is where things get complicated.
Jacqueline has a long history with Teresa, including years of friendship, family gatherings, weddings, children growing up together, and enough accumulated resentment to fill several storage units. She believes she knows Teresa better than almost anybody else. She also seems to believe that this gives her a special authority to interpret Teresa’s friendships, motivations, and decisions.
Unfortunately, Teresa is not particularly interested in being managed.
Melissa goes to speak with Teresa and explains that Siggy and Dolores have approached her about Jacqueline’s feelings. She tells Teresa that Jacqueline feels threatened by Robyn and that either Robyn needs to leave or Jacqueline will.
Teresa is immediately irritated.
She doesn’t believe Jacqueline was genuinely threatened, and she certainly doesn’t intend to ask Robyn to leave. From Teresa’s perspective, Jacqueline started the confrontation, the situation escalated, and now Jacqueline is demanding that everyone rearrange the vacation around her feelings.
Teresa is not about to do that.
Robyn eventually decides to leave anyway, along with her friend Christina. She explains that she wants Teresa to enjoy the trip and that she would rather not remain in the middle of the conflict. Teresa is upset and tells her she doesn’t want her to go, but Robyn has made her decision.
So now the trip has officially lost two guests, one friendship has become considerably more damaged, and Jacqueline is still convinced that she is the injured party.
Excellent vacation planning, Melissa.
That evening, everybody gathers for dinner, and Teresa is still upset about Robyn’s departure. She looks around the table and announces that they are two people short.
Jacqueline questions her.
“Two short?”
Teresa explains that Robyn and Christina left because they were told Jacqueline felt threatened.
And just like that, dinner becomes a courtroom.
Jacqueline immediately pushes back, insisting that she offered to leave. Teresa is not interested in that explanation. She believes Jacqueline instigated the confrontation with Robyn and then somehow managed to turn the entire situation into a referendum on her own victimhood.
Teresa is furious that Jacqueline has created this mess and now expects everyone to sympathize with her.
Jacqueline, meanwhile, feels betrayed. She has known Teresa for years, and she cannot understand why Teresa is taking Robyn’s side instead of defending her.
The two women are now arguing about what happened the night before, but the actual incident is rapidly becoming secondary to the much larger question of who is loyal to whom.
Teresa tries to disengage, but Jacqueline continues pressing her position. Chris Laurita steps in, attempting to calm Teresa down. He reminds her that Jacqueline has known her for a long time and loves her. He insists that Jacqueline was only trying to protect her.
It’s a nice sentiment, but Teresa is not buying it.
Teresa believes Jacqueline has been deliberately provoking her and manipulating situations to make her look bad. She doesn’t want another lecture about how Jacqueline is simply trying to help.
And then Jacqueline makes the accusation that Teresa has set her up.
At this point, Melissa gets involved.
Melissa tells Jacqueline that she doesn’t like the way Jacqueline is coming at Teresa. She says she feels threatened by the way Jacqueline is behaving.
This is not the response Jacqueline wants.
Jacqueline has apparently entered the dinner expecting Melissa to be an ally, or at least somebody who will recognize that she is the wronged party. Instead, Melissa is defending Teresa.
And now Jacqueline has two enemies at the table instead of one.
She becomes increasingly angry, the conversation gets louder, and the entire dinner is spiraling beyond any reasonable possibility of recovery.
Jacqueline shows us her crazy and calls Teresa a criminal and a felon. She also calls Melissa a liar and calls her out for having had four nose jobs. Joe Gorga and Chris Laurita look shell shocked.
Jacqueline eventually gets up and storms out of the restaurant.
Chris follows her, because somebody has to retrieve the woman who has just abandoned dinner in the middle of a full-scale friendship implosion.
Outside, Jacqueline tells Chris that she’s going home with him. She is done with the situation and done with the people at the table.
Inside, Siggy and Dolores attempt to explain Jacqueline’s perspective to Teresa.
Siggy points out that Robyn did make the first move toward Jacqueline and was aggressive during the encounter. She reminds Teresa that she wasn’t present for the entire interaction and therefore doesn’t know everything that happened.
Dolores explains that Jacqueline really wanted someone to acknowledge how she felt. She wasn’t necessarily asking Teresa to agree with every detail of her account. She wanted her longtime friend to show some understanding.
Teresa responds that she would have been willing to do that, but Jacqueline immediately attacked her.
And honestly, this is the central problem with these women. Everybody wants their feelings validated, but nobody wants to be the first person to validate anybody else’s.
Teresa eventually announces that she now sees Jacqueline for who she really is and wants nothing more to do with her.
Outside, Jacqueline is equally furious. She tells Chris that he’s noticed she isn’t crying, because she finally sees Teresa and Melissa for the disgusting people they really are.
Chris agrees that she has finally learned what they’re like and can move on.
It’s a remarkable moment because Jacqueline and Teresa have spent years having one of the most complicated friendships in the franchise. They have gone through periods of closeness, estrangement, reconciliation, and renewed suspicion. But now, apparently, the friendship has reached its final destination: mutual disgust in a Vermont parking lot.
Back at the table, Siggy is increasingly distressed by the whole thing.
She tells Teresa that they’re too old for this and that the behavior is reminiscent of high school. She feels bad for Jacqueline and believes she is vulnerable.
Teresa reminds Siggy that she’s vulnerable too. Her husband is about to go to prison, she has four daughters to think about, and she is dealing with an enormous amount of emotional pressure.
This is a legitimate point. Teresa is facing an extraordinarily difficult period in her life, and the trip was supposed to give her a little breathing room before Joe’s departure.
But the vacation has somehow turned into a friendship autopsy, with everyone arguing over who is sufficiently supportive of the woman whose husband is about to be incarcerated.
The irony is that Teresa and Jacqueline both seem convinced they’re the person being abandoned.
When the women return to the house, Jacqueline is packing her bags. Siggy comes to check on her, asking whether she’s okay.
Jacqueline insists she is. She believes Teresa and Melissa have twisted the truth and made her look like the villain. She calls them disgusting people and says they don’t deserve to have her in their lives.
Siggy seems relieved that Jacqueline has reached some kind of conclusion, even if that conclusion involves ending approximately fifteen years of friendship.
Meanwhile, Siggy is reaching her own breaking point.
She speaks with Dolores and announces that she wants to go home. She’s exhausted by the fighting and doesn’t want to spend another minute mediating arguments between grown women.
Dolores tries to remind her that they only have one more day together, but Siggy is clearly running out of patience.
She says that if New Jersey weren’t eight hours away, she’d start walking home immediately.
And frankly, given the state of the vacation, walking eight hours through the wilderness might actually be the most relaxing activity available.
The next morning, Teresa calls Joe to tell him about the previous night’s argument.
She explains that Jacqueline called her a criminal and that the whole situation was completely crazy.
Joe advises her to forget about Jacqueline and enjoy the remainder of the trip with her cousins.
The criminal accusation is especially explosive because Teresa’s legal troubles are not some abstract subject of gossip. She has already served time in prison, and Joe is approaching his own incarceration. The subject is deeply personal, and Jacqueline knows exactly how sensitive it is.
Teresa is understandably furious that Jacqueline has gone there.
Meanwhile, Siggy and Dolores are waking up with the emotional hangover of two women who have spent an entire evening trying to keep a group of Housewives from destroying one another.
Siggy tells Dolores that she’s sore all over from crying.
Not from skiing. Not from hiking. Not from any of the recreational activities one might reasonably expect on a Vermont vacation.
From crying.
This is not a girls’ trip anymore. This is an involuntary emotional-resilience retreat.
Teresa and Melissa discuss the previous night’s confrontation. Melissa says she doesn’t feel like she lost a friend because Jacqueline never really was one.
Teresa agrees that she wants nothing to do with Jacqueline.
The two women appear to have reached a united front, and their relationship is noticeably stronger than it was in earlier seasons. Melissa has become an important source of support for Teresa, particularly as Joe’s prison sentence approaches.
And Jacqueline is clearly having difficulty accepting that Teresa and Melissa have developed a friendship that doesn’t revolve around her.
Over in the living room, Siggy and Dolores are having a quieter conversation. Siggy announces that she doesn’t want to spend any more time with Teresa and Melissa. She has had enough and wants to go home.
When Teresa and Melissa come in and begin discussing plans for the day, Siggy makes it clear that she isn’t joining them.
She tells them that she’s been through a war and needs to be alone.
Teresa tries to convince her to stay, but Dolores steps in and explains that neither she nor Siggy wants to spend the day with them. They’re leaving.
Teresa and Melissa eventually wish them well, and the two women prepare to depart.
Once they’re gone, Siggy tells Dolores how relieved she is not to be going anywhere with Teresa and Melissa.
The vacation has now managed to alienate nearly everybody from nearly everybody else. The original guest list was apparently too ambitious.
Back in New Jersey, Jacqueline visits Kathy and Rosie.
She tells them about the fight with Teresa and Melissa, explaining that she called Teresa a criminal.
Kathy and Rosie are visibly stunned.
This is quite a moment. Jacqueline has managed to turn a disagreement about a guest at a Vermont vacation into a confrontation involving Teresa’s criminal conviction, Melissa’s past, and the complete destruction of a fifteen-year friendship.
And she seems remarkably comfortable recounting it.
Then, in one of the more amusing turns of the episode, Jacqueline suggests that the three of them should get together more often.
Kathy and Rosie, who have their own complicated history with Teresa, are apparently now being welcomed into Jacqueline’s post-Teresa social circle.
Nothing says healing like recruiting your former friend’s estranged relatives.
Meanwhile, back in Vermont, Teresa and Melissa are finally having the vacation they were supposed to have in the first place.
They spend time together, and Teresa eventually becomes emotional when discussing Joe’s impending departure.
This is the real reason Melissa organized the trip. Teresa is facing the prospect of raising four daughters without her husband at home, and the reality of what is coming is beginning to sink in.
Melissa offers support and reassures her that she’ll get through it.
Teresa tells Melissa that she really appreciates her being there for her.
And there it is. After all the screaming, accusations, dramatic exits, and friendship funerals, the trip finally produces the moment of genuine support it was supposed to be about.
Unfortunately, it took an entire cast implosion to get there.
Jacqueline has lost her friendship with Teresa, Melissa has made her allegiance clear, Siggy and Dolores have essentially declared themselves emotionally unavailable for the remainder of the vacation, and Teresa is left trying to enjoy a few peaceful hours before her husband goes to prison.
Vermont was supposed to be a getaway.
Instead, it became a spectacular demonstration of what happens when years of unresolved resentment, competing loyalties, and one very unfortunate dinner conversation are packed into a mountain resort.
And Jacqueline Laurita, having called her longtime friend a criminal and accused Melissa of all manner of things, is apparently ready to move on.
The other women may need a little more time.
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