This week — on Monday, July 15, to be exact — the irreparably divided cast of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” convened at Rails Steakhouse in Towaco, N.J. to film a very different kind of reunion for Season 14. In fact, it wasn’t a reunion at all, but a watch party, in which they convened under one roof to watch the finale, for what is likely their last gathering together, given the toxic split in this cast. Practically from the start of the season in May, “Real Housewives” executive producer Andy Cohen has made no secret of the fact that this once-beloved part of the Bravo franchise will be heading for a reboot after it concludes on Sunday, Aug. 4. (A spokesperson for Bravo declined to comment.)
Monday’s caucus was unusual in every way, given that only one previous “Real Housewives” season — the disastrous 13th season of “The Real Housewives of New York City” in 2021 — hasn’t had a reunion. Nor was Cohen in attendance, even though he’s hosted every reunion of the show since Bravo began the powerhouse franchise in 2006 with “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”
Instead, two groups from the cast viewed the finale in separate rooms. Anyone who has watched the the tortured past few seasons of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” can imagine what the split was, but yes, the groups were divided between sisters-in-law Teresa Giudice and Melissa Gorga. Team Teresa comprised full-time cast member and loyal collaborator, Jennifer Aydin, along with Giudice’s former enemy-turned-inexplicable-ally, Jackie Goldschneider (in a “friend” role this season).
Cast member Dolores Catania — who has somehow remained as a Switzerland figure, against all odds — went between the two rooms.
In the second room were Gorga, Margaret Josephs, Rachel Fuda, Danielle Cabral and “friend” Jennifer Fessler. Except for Fessler, these women are sworn enemies of Giudice’s, and she sure doesn’t like them either. Josephs has levied accusations against Giudice’s husband, Luis Ruelas, alleging at the Season 13 reunion that he had called her adult son at work and threatened him. (Ruelas denied that accusation.) As for Fuda, she and Giudice have been fighting all season, ever since Giudice told their castmates (and the world) in the May 5 season premiere that Fuda’s husband John was “the biggest drug dealer in Bergen County” as a young man. (John Fuda responded on Instagram the night of the episode, in the somewhat tongue-in-cheek form of a press release about himself, writing that he’s “worked tirelessly to overcome challenges,” and refuses “to be defined by past mistakes.”) With Cabral, her beef, at least so far this season, is not with Giudice, but with Aydin. The two had a physical altercation in the June 23 episode.
The watch party will air as a special on Aug. 11, the Sunday following the season finale. Whether it’s one episode or more has not been decided.
What happens in the future with “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” is anyone’s guess, whether the show is in for a full-scale reboot — as happened with “The Real Housewives of New York City,” after unlucky Season 13 — or rebuilding around a few current cast members, as has recently befallen “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Cohen has said repeatedly that Bravo and the show’s producers won’t begin to strategize until the current season ends.
The Season 14 premiere began in a flash-forward, showing the aftermath of the cast’s finale dinner, also at Rails, with a stricken-looking Catania sitting by herself, as broken glass was being swept up from the floor. Early in the season, the network let it be known that there would be no reunion for this cast, as a result of whatever it was that happened that night. Improbably — despite the Dead Women Walking vibe hovering over it — the current season has been entertaining.
Regardless, it’s a sad conclusion for the Gorga-Giudice clan. When “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” premiered in May 2009, Giudice immediately became one of the greats ever to do this job, which has seen her through prison, bankruptcy, divorce and remarriage. Giudice’s sister-in-law, Melissa Gorga, made her “Housewives” debut in Season 3, and instantly, things got ugly between her husband, Joe, and Teresa. Though the brother and sister have tried and failed to reconcile many times over these many seasons, that charade concluded in Season 13. At the reunion last year, Giudice demanded Gorga’s ouster, which Bravo did not accomodate.
Though the two women have existed in relative peace during Season 14, with the fighting mostly happening around them, the rot at the center of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” has proven to be too much for Bravo to bear.
