Real Housewives of New Jersey isn’t exactly the crown jewel of the Real Housewives franchise. To me, it’s more like the tacky cousin you see a few times a year. Don’t get me wrong — I love me some Real Housewives — but I always felt that New Jersey’s ladies were too busy table flipping to make the show very interesting. I mean, last year there was more focus on their personal lives than the show itself, what with Teresa Giudice’s arrest. But it wasn't always that way. The Real Housewives of New Jersey started off a very different show.
It all seems so long ago that Teresa, Jacquelyn, Danielle, Dina, and Caroline were simple women living a simple life in a town called Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. Dina and Caroline weren’t necessarily kind to outsiders but tolerated them, while their sister-in-law Jacquelyn and best pal Teresa looked on and added to the fun. You guys, I wanted to believe in Real Housewives of New Jersey again. I wanted it to take me back to 2009, when the show premiered and I still wanted to watch. So what did I do? I went back to 2009 (on my Hulu+, at least) and watched the pilot episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey . With six years and fresher, wiser eyes (really though, I did get Lasik) between me and my initial viewing, here’s what I picked up on from the pilot.
1. How Did We Not Know The Giudices Were Committing Money Fraud?
Teresa goes on and on about how her “juicy” (I still can’t get over it so I’m repeating it over and over) husband is in construction, and, I don’t know, probably “waste management,” and it’s taken them three years to build their dream home: A fortress of marble, onyx, and granite. Teresa goes to the store and spends $120,360 on furniture, and, citing the downward economy at the time, pays entirely in cash. Come on. I will never, ever see that much money in cash in one place in my lifetime, and Teresa is slapping it down on the counter like my quarters when I buy a King Cone from my local bodega.
2. “Bubbies” Is Underused
There’s a whole scene in the pilot about how Teresa doesn’t have any “bubbies” (aka breasts) and how her clothes would fit better and she would be so much happier with them. I’m all for plastic surgery if it makes you happy, so I don’t care about that so much as I care about the word “bubbies” being used 75 times in three minutes. It’s like the “crack” scene in Mean Girls but with harsher accents.
3. Milania Was, Is & Ever Shall Be A Queen
Teresa’s daughter Milania is perhaps the most, um, vocal of her children, even on today’s RHONJ, and you definitely see the roots of that here. This kid has even inspired her own parody Twitter account (which is hilarious and has language that is not safe for work). Milania gets what she wants and she gets it now, and that’s completely apparent in the pilot.
4. Danielle Would Totally Be Using Tinder Today
After introducing all of the ladies, the first episode focuses on Danielle’s dating life and how she’s having crazy-hot phone sex with a guy she met on the Internet who calls himself Gucci Man (not to be confused with rapper Gucci Mane). I’m not too sure of exactly which dating sites were around 6 years ago, but Danielle seems like Tinder came along at the perfect time for her. Though I do know a few couples that have gotten into relationships from a Tinder match, it is used often for sex, and it seems like D. Staub would be into that. Can’t promise if anyone on there is rich, though.
5. There Are Serious Mean Girls Cool Mom Vibes
All of the daughters talk about their respective moms being their “best friends,” and Dina’s daughter goes so far to say, “If I had like, a fat, old mom, I would hate it.” Adorable. Jacquelyn and Danielle remark that their kids are their BFFs, and like, you can’t be their friend. You have to be their parent. I suppose this is why we see these kids going off the rails in the later seasons.
6. All Of The Houses Look The Same
For all of the money Teresa was spending building that “French chateau”-inspired house of hers, it looked a lot, well, like all of the other houses. Same grandiose detailing, same circular driveway, and same pillars on the front. For more than a million dollars, I would want something a little different, wouldn’t you?
7. Jacquelyn Is The Charlie Brown Of The Group
All of the other women use Jacquelyn as a pawn to service their own respective feuds, and even her sisters-in-law don’t take her seriously. She’s like a little kid that their brother just happens to be married to. I did laugh when she said she thought New Jersey was the “armpit of the Earth” when she first moved to the East Coast, because Jacquelyn is originally from Las Vegas, and girl, do you know the weird stuff that happens in Vegas? You were not immune.
8. All Of The Clothes Are Shiny
The introduction dresses, the halter-tops, the shoes, the nails, everything: It’s all shining, shimmering, splendid. All of the jewelry is also like, grotesquely large. It’s like wearing a doorknocker on your neck, but I suppose that New Jersey’s housewives aren’t big on subtlety.
9. Blood Is Thicker Than Water
I mean, that’s what they just kept saying over and over and over, so you have to believe it, right?
Honorable mentions for Real Housewives of New Jersey: The crazy cars in everyone’s driveways (as if you leave the Maserati out in the rain), the audacious jewels, and the accents, oh, the accents. Will the Real Housewives of New Jersey ever be my favorite of the franchise again? I doubt it. But it was nice to relive the glory days.
Images: Bravo; Giphy (9)
