In Defense Of Being Petty: Margaret Joseph’s Savage Antics Are The Only Good Thing About ‘RHONJ’

We all know that the 14th season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey hasn’t been a winner, hence the historic lack of a reunion for the season. Jen Aydin said the non-reunion viewing party was “quite pleasant,” a phrase that I like to associate with gardening on a lazy Sunday afternoon, not a Real Housewives sit-down we’ve earned after a season of unresolved bitching back and forth. It’s sad that most of the cast can’t be in the same room with each other, at least not without shoving each other and/or calling each other the actual devil. The serious side-picking has become an insurmountable roadblock to filming an enjoyable TV show — except when the editors intercut Joe Gorga’s crew downing bone marrow shots while Luis’ bros are forced to record horrifically cringe messages of love to their wives in his basement podcast studio. Now that was entertaining. Why? Because being petty is eternally hilarious. In fact, the only antidote to RHONJ’s divisiveness is to inject low-stakes high-drama stunts to take the wind out of how Sopranos-like this family drama has gotten. John Fuda poking fun at that time Luis said he wore Nono’s pajamas, Danielle whispering an outfit dig and running out the door, Marge texting receipts to Dolo from across the room: these are the only glimmers of hope from this season for a reason. But Marge didn’t stop there. Here’s a quick explainer of Margaret’s “death of dignity” funeral flowers joke on Teresa that I legally must warn you is the funniest thing you’ll read all day.

What is going on with Margaret Josephs, Teresa Giudice, and Luis Ruelas’ Lawsuit on RHONJ?

Image Credit: Getty Images

On the penultimate episode of this flop of a season, Teresa decided to host a gathering with her girlie pops to legally prove that Margaret is the root of all evil. With the way Gia hyped up Margaret’s alleged shocking wrongdoing in the episode prior, you would have thought that Teresa discovered Margaret had a plan to steal the Declaration of Independence. But Teresa wasn’t trying to bash Margaret at this event, no, no. She was merely requesting that her personal attorney James Leonard (who has zero involvement with Luis’ case) show everyone that Margaret (who is not a plaintiff, defendant, or even a witness in this case) is “head-spinningly” involved in Luis’ legal battle (though James nor Teresa nor Luis are allowed to discuss the situation on camera with any level of detail that might actually explain something) behind Margaret’s back to all of her friends.

In the end, James (who represented Teresa when she went to jail back in 2015) presents literally zero evidence that Margaret communicated with Luis’ ex to concoct a plan to expose him, other than proclaiming it to be a fact, just like Teresa has already done a million times. All due respect to Luis’ pops, but the saying is that the cream always rises to the top meaning good will always win in the end. Maybe if Luis and his family were more focused on this stressful lawsuit instead of figuring out ways to pin responsibility on Margaret, the whole ordeal could be over sooner.

Why Margaret send Teresa flowers on RHONJ?

Margaret responded to the news that she was going on trial in front of a jury of her peers without even being present by digging deep into the trenches of pettiness. Teresa and James’ kitchen campaign was interrupted mid-sentence by the delivery of a funeral arrangement that read “Dear Teresa and James, sorry for the loss of your dignity. Love, love love, Marge.” To sign it with Teresa’s trademark catchphrase? Iconic levels of petty. Was this a ridiculous thing to do? Sure, but I’d rather watch my Housewives de-escalate unnecessarily dark beef with a gag-worthy “gangster” bit than lean into the dark-sided energy. To be fair, it is a little undignified for an actual esquire to engage in such frivolous behavior they know would never hold up in court. Remember when Kim Zolciak went into the new home of one of the most famous black women on reality television and called her dirty? Nene could’ve made a whole think-piece about how hurtful and harmful it was, but instead, she and Greg showed up in exterminator costumes on Halloween. The lesson here is to let the Housewives be petty! It’s frankly all we have sometimes.