Recap: Exploring the Compound and the Boutique

Each Monday, Eli Yudin and Carey O'Donnell, authors of the very, very funny Twitter account @NotTildaSwinton, will be recapping the Real Housewives of New Jersey for us. Below, their next installment.

Carey: The penultimate episode! I don't even know how long we've been watching this season at this point. Maybe we've always been watching; since we were young, since we could see that something was red or orange, know something felt hot or cool, this season has been on without us ever even acknowledging it -- a grey glow at night in a dark TV room without windows. I would say I was relieved that it's ending, but that's only partially true. There's always a pang of sad at the end of a story, but this story was always ending before it even began. Before Caroline paced around her large kitchen while her family slept, then, stopping to stare out into the blackness behind her back deck. Before Teresa and Brudda Joe were riding bikes as kids through the woods, and Teresa fell off her bike, spilling out onto the tan dirt, cussing at Joe as he sped ahead laughing. She looked down at her knee -- a small red rip on the cap. It didn't hurt, though. She brushed herself off, set her bike up right, and then, for no reason whatsoever, quickly looked up at a high tree above her. On one of the branches, Kim D. the crow sat perched, looking right back at Teresa below. 'Yes,' Kim D. thought. Teresa could hear that too, that "Yes." She first thought it was the slowly chilling September winds, caught through a tunnel of trees, but it sounded husky, throaty. A husky, throaty voice she would come to know in many years. One day, at Posche, Teresa was sipping a mimosa with some women she didn't know too well. She was a little quiet, but friendly, smiling, listening to them laugh. The receptionist, on the phone with a customer, asked Kim D. a question. "Yes," she replied, then slipped back into the conversation she was having. Teresa froze, almost dropping her drink on the black Posche carpet. She heard it, that same voice she heard as a girl in the woods. Everything went silent and slowed down, except for her own heartbeat, and Teresa slowly looked over at Kim D., chatting and laughing and flaring her nostrils. "Yes," she heard again. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Kim D. shot back a quick glance, a small grin. Teresa pulled her fur coat towards her chest and turned away.

BUT LET'S MOVE ON! Melissuh and Gorgon Joe head down to the glimmering, bronze city of Orlando, Florida so Melissa can work more on her music with celeb manager Johnny Wright. They arrive at a large, ugly house that seems to wrap around an entire block, and on the screen, a text appears that says, "Johnny Wright's Compound," which is then reaffirmed by Melissa who says excitedly, "Look! It's Johnny Wright's compound!" Thank you for that. Johnny wants the rising songstress to sing live on a radio show that has launched many successful acts like 'N SYNC, Britney Spears, the Jonas Brothers, etc. They have 24 hours to pack in 2 weeks worth of musical boot camp. "I've gotten this far without professional training, so I think I'll be good!" Melissa says. She does some vocal drills with one of Johnny's people, Gorgon Joe hovering on a couch in the back. She has some ability, but it's mostly bad, cracked notes. Gorgon admits she's not that good, but insists that no matter what, he thinks she sounds like an angel. That's sweet! Later, she performs on the show and the other cast members gather round to listen to it, fighting off laughter. In one interview, Kathy tries so hard to be polite about her cousin-in-law's live song. "I think she did great," she says in this strange, stifled tone. She probably went home, into her laundry room and laughed/screamed, kicking the washing machine and pulling her own hair out.

Eli: Yes, the teal dreams of Orlando. I don't really know what there is in Orlando other than one of the Disney Lands or Worlds or Places or whichever it is. I believe that Johnny Wright has had some hand in the success of all these bands based on the MTV awards that he has in his COMPOUND, but I still feel as thought there's a definite possibility that he's just an actor. The songwriter, Justin, is definitely a real songwriter, or a GREAT actor, to show that full level of discomfort while watching songs he's slaved over be twisted and affected by Melissa Gorga's stylings. She performs in some sort of radio thing at a radio place that's apparently famous, despite my never having heard of it, in some sort of saran-wrap like dress, doing a dance that mainly consists of her cupping her boob repeatedly. And the crowd loves it. Yet another testament to the power of a producer who knows the combination of tones that releases mindless dopamine in listeners. As far as talent goes, however, Melissa could surely be much worse.

Carey: We cut to another vast, Italian restaurant in a shopping mall, where Teresa sits at a table for lunch, wearing a purple fur coat and fedora and looking like a Times Square pimp from the '70s. A large black Escalade pulls up, and a driver actually gets out to open the door for someone. You hear Godfather-esque music and see only two pin-thin legs and black suede heels stepping out of the car. It's Victoria Gotti! A caricature artist's greatest work! She and Teresa met on Celebrity Apprentice and according to Teresa, have stayed very close. Victoria seems comfortable on camera -- after all, she used to have her own show in the golden era of reality TV. Victoria is also used to bad press, not just about her infamous father. In 2005, she claimed she had breast cancer, later changed her story to having precancerous cells (instead of a full on cancer diagnosis), received tremendous backlash in the media, and had her TV show canceled. She later went through financial probz of her own, including a home foreclosure. ET CETERA, ET CETERA. Yes, the fallen reality star. Teresa has already chosen Victoria to guide her over the River Styx into in the reality TV-famous afterlife. Victoria asks some legitimate questions, including ones about Joe's legal woes, and how he faces jail time, and if Teresa is going to be play if he goes, and if she has she told her daughters, and RAH RAH RAH RAH. Teresa gets teary-eyed when she mentions that she and Joe have told Gia what was happening, briefly letting go of this monkey bar of delusion she's been dangling from for years. Teresa looks exhausted. You could tell she wanted so badly to just fall into Victoria's boney frame and get put into the Gotti escalade and drive off into the amber winter light to Long Island or anywhere but there.

Albie and Chris have since given up on blk water (which I told my own personal tale of last week), and are opening a restaurant called "Little Town NJ," where they will apparently be serving a menu of vagueness. "Come on in! We are very lost people," the sign out front should read. They're having a grand opening soirée, and eeeeeveryone is showin' up. After some people arrive, Caroline walks in. "Where are my boys!?!" she yells, Lauren tailing behind her. Lauren, the forgotten monument. She looks amazing, and has a nice job, and a boyfriend and I want everything good to happen for her. Anyway, Caroline continues to be bizarre about her sons. They sample these bread ball things, and Caroline says, "IT'S NO BROWNSTONE!" It's NOOOOO BROWNSTONE, BOYS! Ya here that, FUCKERS?! What an awful thing to say to your kids. At least pretend everything is perfect at the opening night of your sons' fake restaurant that you paid for, and save the concerns and criticisms for pillow talk when they start getting bored with it in like a month. Albie says, "Well, we...we kind of want our own taste, so I guess that's good then!" It was so sad. Then big Albert walks in, and the boys are terrified of his opinion.

Eli: Luckily they receive Albert's blessing on their "beefsteak sandwiches." I feel like the word "beefsteak" itself is redundant, or sounds like the name of a sort of vegan beef-alternative like Tofurkey. As far as we can tell, the restaurant has two dishes, which are the aforementioned beefsteak and some sort of meatball thing which is the wrong color and more shiny than one would prefer. But to be honest, their restaurant really doesn't affect my life in any way, so I wish them the best of luck and a positive business experience.

Carey: THEN THE OPENING OF POSCHE 2. Yes, Kim D. the crow had announced earlier that she was going to open a NEW boutique location, simply called "Posche 2." POSCHE 2 sounds like a sequel to a terrible action movie. Posche 2: The Rise of Phoenix Cruiser, starring Kim D. as Phoenix Cruiser, a tough-as-nails and super chic C.I.A. agent who was left for dead by her partner on a mission in the Middle East. Anyway, she's having a biiiiig girls' night party at Posche 2 where you can come and get your hair and makeup done and drink Tang and Popov vodka. Teresa and Melissa have decided to take out Penny -- whom I'm sure also saw Kim D. the crow when she was a little girl. "She'll be der! I have to invite her: she's a customer!" Kim D. says about Penny. How terrifying is Penny, though? She's this great, tall thing, with a fake blonde ponytail. Her eyes are always wide and she's sort of hunched over and smiling at all times. From the side, she looks like the Pixar lamp. She arrives at the event, pacing around and muttering to people. Jacqueline has now been involved in Penny and her hubby's tweeting war, where some comments were made about Nick, Jacqueline's autistic son. Understandably, Mama Bear goes AWOL. She approaches this withered aspen tree with a blonde weave and is like, "You don't know me," blah blah blah. Midway through their argument, Penny stops Jacqueline, puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "I love autistic kids, though." She says it in this serene, confident way that is on par with an indirectly racist person defending themselves with "Some of my best friends are (insert race)." Jacqueline kind of cocks her head back. "I taught autism," Penny adds, as her closer. Yes, Penny taught autism. She majored in Communications with an Autism minor. That's really great, Penny. Jacqueline closes her mouth, and nods. What can you say to that? Nothing. You don't say anything.

Melissuh comes over and asks Penny to step outside (she doesn't actually say step outside) to chat with her and Teresa. Penny agrees, and they move into another room, with Kathy, Caroline, Jacqueline and some other random women following behind like debris. Basically, Penny says what everyone has been suspecting: Teresa had something to do with these rumors of Melissa cheating on Gorgon that Penny and her husband have randomly been spewing out of their fat Internet mouths. Teresa vehemently denies this, and gets super aggressive with Penny. I guess I believe both of them. Teresa must have met Penny at some dinner months and months earlier, feeling this familiarity between them, this kinship, marked by Kim D. the crow decades earlier. She probs asked Penny to maybe mention a few things about her brother and Melissa on Twitter, just to have those blind items out there. "U see that?! We got her!" Penny texted Teresa in the beginning: "She's going down! Bitch!" Another text: "I want her to be dead." Another: "Let's drink her blood." Teresa got so freaked out at Penny and her enlisted hubby's intensity that she backed away from them. She had no idea they would take it this far, and now here they are, fighting inside a boutique called "Posche 2," surrounded by silent, gawking women. As Kim D. was taking care of something with the front computer, the din of the party lessening slightly, she could hear a Teresa shriek. She cocked her head to the side, but didn't turn around. Penny and Teresa were fighting. She had found them when they were girls and now they're here. With her. Fighting. Yelling. Crying. Preparing for something even bigger. Something different was coming to Posche 2 that night. This was where they were meant to be. 'It's wonderful,' Kim D. thought.