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On last night's episode of Rhymes With Orange, our wivery wives were done with New Year's, finished with the holidays, so it was time to get down to work. They rolled up their sleeves and barreled off into January.

Guys I am sick and about to go to a doctor's appointment, so I need to keep this brief. Things happened on the show last night. Not 'uge things. Not enormous things. But things. Caroline's daughter, Caroline 2: The Revenge, feels awkward and sad about her weight which is unfortunate and such a nasty thing to feel sad and bad about, so whatever, there aren't really any jokes there. Caroline, standing in her enormous live-in closet, comforted The Revenge as best she could, but The Revenge still felt sad and then made sad jokes about sausage fingers and we all just went siiiigh and realized that we'd been there too. Don't fret, Caroline 2! You'll be fine. You are fine. Don't you got a man? You got a man. Why are you fussed?

Elsewhere, things were happening at the Gorgons. Oh holy christ these Gorgons. Remember how Joe built Melissa a basement sex dungeon/recording studio? Well, yeah, now is the time to use it. So they invited over a bunch of black guys to record Melissa singing and there were some awkward black jokes and Joe did the hip-hop hug with them, because they're black I guess, and the whole thing was just gross and embarrassing. Joe kept telling Melissa to sing sexy, to "pretend the mic is me," which I guess meant his penis? Because his penis is short and fuzzy and surrounded by metal wiring? I don't know. Though he was right to coach Melissa, because when she sang her hit song about not wanting to be famous anymore (she was not famous then, she barely is now, I do not get this song) she sang a completely different tune? Like, just flat-out, fist-fuck, clear blue yonder made up a new melody to the song, and all the music producer guys sat in the little recording booth and went "Uhhh...." Yikes, Meliss. Yikes Berol. Just yikes.

So that was tragic and ugly, but almost not near as sad and silly as when, previous to her big recording debut (or maybe after, who really knows), Melissa had a confab with her sisters, Goneril and Regan. Oh, sorry. Uh, Goneryl and Reegyn. They've changed the spelling to include Ys because I guess Ys look better on camera. (I'm looking at you, "Lysa.") Anyway, the point is all these harpies were talking and at one point Lysa Lysa said to the rest of the cult jam, "I went to a psychiks and the pychiks said that I had an aunt who was coming through and I said 'No aunt, no aunt.. Oh my father Anthony... ' and the psychik said 'Oh, yeah, right that's what I meant. Ant, Ant. Anyway, he's saying to your sister to dream big and try hard and things will be great in the end.'" Oh, so ghosts come back from the netherworld under great duress simply to issue vague platitudes and wan encouragement? Thanks, ghosts. Thanks for nothing.

Though I am skeptical, Melissa was not. Oh man she was so moved, crying even, because clearly her Ghost Dad was talking about her singing career. She couldn't believe that Ghost Dad was saying this stuff. "I don't talk to medians," she told us. And all of our heads fell off and rolled around the banquet hall (you guys watch this show in your banquet halls right?) and our eyes kept blinking and a question mark thought bubble burbled out of our mouths. "Median," Melissa? Really? You're gonna go with "median" on this one? OK. Sure. There was a median who saved a wench like you. Terrific. Run with it. Be a singer in your basement. Or, I DON'T KNOW, set a good example for your children and go get an education and learn what the world is, and trust me there is a world beyond your stupid rock castle and your ugly husband. Yup! There is a world out there and it would be nice if your kids' mom knew anything about it. "Median." Go fuck yourself with median, you rich adult who can afford an education but doesn't get one because she's a lazy piece of shit. Ugh. Sorry guys! She makes me angry. "Median." Honestly.

Over at Melissa's enemy's house, the Giudices were doing a photoshoot. Yeah, Teets has some kind of new cooking book coming out that's all about her mom's recipes, so she invited the cooking book camera people over to her house to shoot photos of her family cooking. Only, of course, she and Joe signed that terrible contract with the mysterious man in a red suit and a pointy goatee back when they wanted to have kids, so all of their children are terrible devil children whose eyes burn with the fiery coals of hell itself. So they were all a'squirmin' and a'squigglin' and all manner of things, and the photographers just couldn't believe it. Teresa was totally embarrassed and everyone wanted to die and the girls kept shrieking and it was just all so stupid, the way they snapped into focus when the photographer said "cheese," trying to look like this happy placid family, because who would ever know. Well, the people who watch your show will know, Teresa. And they're the only people buying your stupid books. So basically everyone knows. Oh well.

Uh, what else. Oh, yeah, Kathy and Jerf Goldblum had this ridiculously frustrating conversation about their daughter being sixteen and obviously sex starts being a thing around then and Kathy wanted to talk to her to tell her to be safe and Jerf was just like "No, she's sixteen. What're you tawkin' to her about sex for? She's sixteen. She's not gonna do nothin'. We say nothin', she'll do nothin'." Which is a great, completely realistic view of teenagers. Don't talk about the scary naughty bits at all and that will make your kids never do the scary naughty bits. I also really hate this ingrain sexism, in that I'm sure they won't have a conversation of this type about their son, because boys gotta sow their wild oat or whatevuh, y'know, boys will be fuckin' boys, of course. But girls, oh no. Girls are treasured flowers who don't want to have sex themselves, they just might be corrupted by some hot-doggin' boy. Gross, everyone. This thinking is gross and old and old and gross. Kathy was trying to be reasonable but Jerf wouldn't hear it because he's one of those dads who, oldly and grossly, thinks he owns his daughter's vagina. You don't, Jerf! Hate to break it to ya.

But yeah, after all that Kathy took the teen girl to the store to go shopping for a dress for a dance and they tried on all these hideous dresses that Kathy vetoed because they showed off too much or accentuated too much or whatever. The dress the girl really wanted was, I'm pretty sure, the dress that Miss Missouri 1998 was buried in, but oh well. No accounting for taste. In the midst of all this, Kathy decided to have the sex talk, because a clothing store called The Fig Leaf is probably the best place to have this conversation with your teenager, especially when there are television cameras there. Good thinking, Kathy. Or, more like, good way to totally sell out and embarrass your daughter in the blind pursuit of airtime. Terrific mothering! Terrific mother. Fuck you, actually.

And then we come to the champion of last night's tale, horrible terrible awful gut-suckingly shitty Bouffant. Oh holy sweet christ. So you know how everyone hates her and wishes she would get her Hot Pocket-softened ass off the goddamn couch for once? Well, Jacqueline is fed the fuck up with dealing with this on her own, so she called Bouffant's dad and was like "You gotta come up and help me straighten this cooze out." So the dad did come up, with his aging Hooters waitress of a wife (she doesn't really do floor shifts anymore, but she manages on Thursday afternoons), and they planned a little intervention on Ashley's life. See, her new thing is that she's going to Move To California, because that's a thing that she is totally ready to do. Just up and Move To California, because sure. Because, what, she has 50,000 Twitter followers so that means she's people? People who can Move To California? No, absolutely not. The hilarious thing is that earlier in the season she was talking about her fancy Lizzie Grubman running people over because you're an asshole internship and how it wasn't what she thought it would be or something and she was also talking about wanting her own apartment in New York and she said "I just wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw," in this sorta charmingly self-deprecating way, and we all thought "Aw, she's learned." But, oops, nope, hahaha, she has not learned anything. She is just now deciding that Carrie Bradshaw is too hard, so she'd like to be Lauren Conrad. So she's Moving To California, aka hauling her Hostess-stuffed rear end to Los Angeles to do... god only knows what. Some sad fashion line. Some sad stab at reality television. Some sad. Just some sad. Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

Jacqueline and hubby and ex and ex's wife obviously know all this, so they took her to Double Crown (stop being around the corner from my house, please) to ask her: "Ashley, what are you going to do with this dying squawking heap of elephant vomit you call a life?" Ashley was super late because she's an asshole and was wearing a stupid fucking straw fedora because she's an asshole (seriously, if you own one of those, I love you but burn it, burn it so much, they are so awful, girls and guys, they are so so so terrible and you look like a jackass, so burn that hat) and when confronted by her parents was just like "Noooo...." because she never has anything to say, because she has nothing to offer. "Noo.... Guys.... Noo.... I meeeean.... California... Noo... Guyysss... I meeeaan.... Guys..." That's all she ever says. It's dreadful. So Jacqueline pressed the issue and that's when Bouffant said something akin to this: "Well, I don't have a kid at 20, so I think I at least deserve a little praise for that." [blink blink] [blink blink] [rubs eyes] [blink] I'm sorry. Exsqueeze me? Bitch did you just chastise your own mother for having you? Your mother who puts you on reality shows and puts a roof over your butternut squash of a head and who keeps in you flop-hats and bad makeup? Did you just throw it in her face that she was a young parent? I'm sorry. That's insane. I don't know where you, dear readers, came up in the world, but I grew up on the mean streets of Boston (I grew up on the relatively nice streets of Brighton) and if I had said something like that to my mother when I was younger, heck if I said it now, the entire neighborhood would explode. My mother would become nuclear, in that instant, and we'd all be dead. I can't imagine ever saying such a thing to my mother, mostly because my mom's great and I love her, but also because you just do not say that shit to mom. You just don't. Ashley should be beheaded. There, I've said what we're all thinking.

Jacqueline of course stormed out in tears, because what else can you do at that point, and Bouffant was all "Ugh, whatever, she sucks, don't you see how she sucks?" and everyone slapped her and we all wanted to die and the episode ended. In the middle of things! In medias res! In Flubber Fanny's Family Freakout. What a dump. Next week Bouffant continues her plans to Move To California, so we'll have to see what happens.

Until then, be good to your mothers. They're nice ladies, I'm sure.