RHONJ S14 Finale: the End of an Era

The Real Housewives of New Jersey is dead. This franchise was unique because they weren’t limited to a city, but was given a whole entire state for a franchise. Teresa Giudice put Bravo and the Real Housewives franchises on the map with her iconic table flip, and the fact that she was the only talent that the network paused production to wait for her to come home from prison before resuming filming again — a topic of sore contention for other Bravolebrities, like Tamra Judge on the OC, for example — although Tamra will never admit that.

The season 14 finale is the most lackluster (and at the same time, anticipated) episode of the Bravo Housewives franchises. At this point, you could almost tell that the NBC/Bravo network executives had dropped hints to the executives at Sirens Media that their production crew most likely won’t be retained. It’s not just the talents that need to update their resumes, the same could be said for the Sirens Media production team assigned to RHONJ. They are now also out of a job and paycheck as well — from the camera crew to the editing department, to the audio guy.

Rails Steakhouse was the last time there was a major cast change. Jacqueline Laurita came back for one season, and then left again — and it was Dolores’ first season, as well as the introduction of Siggy. The last to arrive for Dolores’ “last supper” event was Teresa; she also ends up being the second-to-last to leave (with Jen Aydin), and Dolores leaves last. The first to leave is Jenn Fessler, who doesn’t want to be a part of the shit show after Danielle Cabral tries to lunge across the table at Aydin — apparently Cabral tried to pull a Teresa scene reminiscent of the Nashville scene where Marge was wearing the food.

The curtain has been pulled back, and if you follow my recaps on social media, then you’d know that I’ve been referencing the last season of Mob Wives in comparison to season 14 of RHONJ. When VH1 was done with Mob Wives, you saw production break the fourth wall just like they did with this last episode of RHONJ. From a producer saying Cabral had to leave, to Dolores going up to Aydin and asking if it was okay that Cabral stayed and if she felt “safe”.

The “sit-down” was preceded by a very staged-looking meeting between Dolores and Margaret; the former having just came from Teresa’s equally lackluster meeting with her lawyer, James Leonard, trying to explain what’s been happening behind the scenes with Louie’s Lifetime movie psycho-ex. While Teresa was unable to provide anything shocking or salacious to us viewers (since her fans already knew the ex was crazy, and the Teresa haters would never change their opinions about her or Louie regardless of any evidence), it was enough for Dolores to question how long Margaret has been in contact with Louie’s ex — and just to be clear, it is ONE particular ex that is putting that extra psycho energy out there about Louie, despite the haters wanting to portray it as multiple exes that he’s fighting in court with.

Although Dolores is nonchalant when she learns Margaret has had contact with the ex (even though Marge claims it was only after her son was allegedly called — which, she actually changed up that timeline multiple times in just this single episode), things go left when Margaret claims she invited Dolores to last year’s “reunion planning” session at her house. Dolores calls Marge a lying cunt — and although Dolores is adamant that Marge is lying about it, this outburst of anger is reminiscent of when Dolo got in Danielle Staub’s face because Staub said that Dolores had told her that Teresa only cares about money — which I also believe that Dolo did say; just like I believe that Dolo knew about the reunion meetup, but she was very aware of how it would look on camera since she had denied even knowing about it.

Marge got a taste of the, “Welcome back, scumbag!” — and Marge probably realizes now that Switzerland was, in fact, not neutral and was actually playing both sides and looking out for what was most beneficial to Switzerland. Fessler is very quiet during all of this, as she’s probably wondering who is actually lying — in dueling confessionals, Dolores states that she now realizes that Marge is capable of lying on her too; while Marge doubles down that she did let Dolo know about the meetup and invited her to join in on it too.

Melissa, knowing that she might lose a seat next to Andy Cohen to newbie Cabral, at a reunion that they all had anticipated was going to be happening (at least when they were filming this scene) — shouted out “white trash” to Teresa, knowing that was her only opportunity to try to get an interaction with Teresa so that Messy G can stay relevant for the season. Her delulu ass is realistic enough to know that she needs to have conflict with Teresa to get any scenes aired, and she’s been trying all season — but most of her scenes end up on the editing floor instead of our TV screens; unless it involves Teresa… like Antonia’s Sweet 16 party.

When all the ladies return to the table, Margaret and Teresa finally get their face-to-face. Admitting she has spoken to Louie’s ex, but getting her timeline messed up again — something that Dolores caught right away and brings up in her confessional, Margaret wants to convince everyone at the table (and the viewers at home) that she was never in cahoots with the ex. Marge needs to save herself, so she throws Jackie under the bus by telling everyone at the table that Jackie had Lifetime movie psycho-ex over her house back in February 2021. Jackie at first denies it, but when told that she should come clean, especially if there’s proof — she does, and you can just tell how badly everyone there at that table wants to dethrone the queen of RHONJ (with the exception of Aydin, who’s happy being in the supporting actress category instead of the leading role).

Here it is, the unsatisfying ending that I’ve been comparing all season to the series finale of Mob Wives, when there was no resolution between Drita and Karen, and the death of Big Ang was what closed out their finale sitdown; including bringing on two new girls for that last season as well; and if my memory serves me correctly (which it does), the two new girls on the last season of Mob Wives was also one blonde and one brunette.