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Last night's episode of The Sisters Pose 'n' Swag was basically about the same old fights as always. Well, the issues were the same, but the circumstances were different. Also, Juicy Joe fell down.

Ugh, I am so sick of talking about Teresa and Melissa fighting. First off, why the hell is this season so long? This was, by my count, the FIFTEENTH episode of the season! That is way too many episodes! I'm sorry, but the Teresa/Melissa/Joe/whoever the fuck else fight is not interesting enough to sustain this many episodes. Sure they threw us a bone for a couple of weeks with the hilariously dumpy Bouffant nonsense, but mostly this entire season has been about Teresa being stupid and her brother being stupid and Kathy being stupid and Melissa being stupid, all pointing their stupid at one another. It's a big circle of stupid that we're forced to stare at for an hour every week on Sunday night, of all nights. It's just cruel and annoying! And boring!

Do I care that Teresa finally invited her brutha Joe to a book signing and that he was like "Absolutely, I will of course support my sister."? Nopers, I do not really care. Do I care that Joe then decided he didn't want to go because Teets' husband, also named Joe, was sending him mean text messages about bashing his fuckin' head in and wiring his jaw shut? (It was nice of Joe to offer to at least do the wiring, I mean usually the person that beats you up doesn't do that, the hospital does, so that was gracious of him.) No I do not care! I'm actually thinking about it and is there any way, ever, to care about the dynamics of someone's book signing? Nope! I don't think so. "Well, we've all had our book signings, so we know what that's like." - Absolutely nobody. It's just not good dramatic territory, guys. And also, were you to have a book signing (none of us will ever have a book signing), why would it be a thing that your family came? If it's a book reading, perhaps. If it's a book talkback and cocktail reception, maybe. But just you sitting at a shitty table covered in a shitty cloth and signing autographs and taking pictures with dopey fans? No, why would you ever subject your family to that misery? It make-a no sense! But make-a no sense translates to "makes perfect sense" in Gorgon tongue, so it was a big deal for Jiggles to get invited to his sis's thing. And then it was hard for him because his brother-in-law was being mean, so he didn't know what to do.

He ended up coming. Yeah but it wasn't til the end. Teresa sat there all night signing autographs and taking pictures with people, and Joe was nowhere to be found. People passed by — dopey women, a few young girls, one teenage boy who said "Omigod you look great" and then "proposed" to her and it was like, oh ha ha, have fun in the next, what do you think dear readers, eighteen months? It's going to be an interesting eighteen months for that boy, but then he'll be so happy! — and Teresa stared at the doors, wanting so desperately to see her Pachycephalosaurus-headed brother come lumbering through them. But she waited and nothing happened. All her fans cleared out, even Kathy and Jerf Goldblum came by for a seriously frosty and awkward exchange, and still no Joe. But then, finally, at long sweet last, the doors of the empty bookstore creaked open and there was Joe with his nougat sliver of a bride Melissa. Teresa was happy. And she understood. It's the Gorgon way to be late. That's just how Gorgons are. So Joe asked her to sign his book and she weakly protested but then did anyway, but not before hesitating, not sure what to write. Finally she figured it out and scrawled out with her crayon "2 Joe who I lov moar then enything. I miss my brother. Lov, Tereesma." She could barely stifle her weeping as she wrote this but even so Joe forced her, creepily, to read it out loud. They bonded and were kind to each other and it was great for them.

Until of course Joe then brought up Other Joe's nasty text messages and Teresa hardened up into defensive mode and Melissa stood behind her husband, arms folded, like some sort of gum-clacking henchman. Melissa and Joe went back and forth about how badly Juicy Joe treats the Pachycephalosaurus, and nothing got resolved, it just ended with a mild detente and Teresa curious to talk to her husband. So the book signing was officially over. A weary store clerk came out and broke down the table and shut the lights off and locked up the place and got in his car (well not "his" car, his mom's car, she let him use it when he has work, "I'll just walk over to Gail's house, she'll keep me company while my man's out working!", the clerk hating that his mom called him her "man," but technically his father was gone, so he was the man of the house) and drove over to his friend's house just to hear him gush all night about meeting Teresa (the clerk let his friend skip the line), the two of them sitting on the friend's bed, all the while the clerk saying over and over in his head "Just do it, just do it, just kiss him, he wants to, he just doesn't know he wants to, he won't know until you just do it, just do it, just do it," but he won't, he never does, so it's another night of sighs for this poor book store clerk.

While that sad scene was playing out, Melissa went home to go sing with her sisters. Or rather Melissa was going to sing while her sisters watched in the producers' booth. She was recording yet another version of "On Display," so she wailed out her flat notes and stuck notes and guttural notes and sharp notes and wonky notes while the producers shook their heads in the booth and tried to focus on the checks they'd soon be cut. The sisters were loving it, fancying themselves all Solange Knowleses perhaps, dancing in the booth and singing along in their furs, just the sad thump of a bunch of people in a basement in New Jersey, making their synth music to pass the time before they eventually slip off into wintry death. Sigh.

Back at Villa Giudice, Teresa arrived home to get some answers about these texts from Joe, but she wasn't really gonna get 'em. Not straight, at least. See Joe was pretty far in his cups, guzzling down sour Dornish reds (sorry guys, the references will stop someday, maybe) like they were water, so was not about to give Teresa any real, concrete answers. Instead, in fact, he was busy encouraging his daughter to do gymnastics on the hard marble floor, protected only by a small rainbow collared mat. Great idea, everyone! It was such a great idea, in fact, that Joe decided he wanted to show everyone how he could do a flip. So he basically threw himself down onto the mat, twisted his oafish body over itself, did some strange kind of bounce, and landed with a squishy thud on the hard, hard marble. Then Gia the Gymnast started shrieking bloody murder (was she drunk too?) because it seems that Joe had chipped a toof. Oops! Haha, yikes. In front of guests! Teresa said "I'm a little embarrassed..." Uh, a little? Try a lottle. You should be a lottle embarrassed that your husband, drunk as a monk in front of his approx. twenty-six small children and in front of adult guests, did a flop-sault onto the floor of your foyer and broke his damn toof. You should be very very embarrassed about that.

Teresa should also be embarrassed about the stupid conversation that happened afterwards, during which Joe started bellowing to Teresa about her brother, and then the cellphone was brought out to inspect the text messages, but nothing was resolved. That was embarrassing, in front of guests. Joe just kept bellowing on about how awful Joe Gorgon is and Teresa's face grew darker and sadder, sadder and darker, and you could see, maybe just barely see, a little speck in her eyes, a tiny but growing seed of doubt in Joe's authority. Maybe he really was being too mean to her brother. Maybe she really could see her brother anyway. Hm. Hm. At the end of the scene Teresa was possessed of a small, quiet Hm., thrumming somewhere deep inside her own body, the string note of knowledge, of recognition. The first dawnlike sunbeams of figurin' it out.

That is that for them! There were other interludes this week. Lauren Manzo finally got the T-shirts she'd requested from her cousin Bouffant, so it seemed like Bouffant had actually delivered on a promise. Of course, though, Lauren pointed out that Bouffant had said she'd take care of the whole process, which she didn't do, she merely put her cousin's face on a T-shirt and Lauren did the rest. But oh well! Oh well. Jacqueline was pleased that Bouffant had even done anything, so I guess the bar is going to firmly remain pretty low. Which I guess isn't unrealistic. Not for ol' Flop Hat. Not for that glazed rumproast.

While Bouffant was busy not making T-shirts, her mother was going to a strange hookah den with her friends to get high on smokes and elixirs and sway around like a desert slave girl. It was Jerf Goldblum's birthday, so Kathy planned a party at a Middle Eastern bar/restaurant/lounge kind of place that had belly dancers and hookahs. Everyone was taking tokes and getting "high," being all strange and nasty and weird. Joe Gorgon asked to smell his wife's armpit. Jacqueline's eyes rolled back in her head and she took to the dance, flailing and swaying about, limbs akimbo, hair big and wild and weird. The music grew louder and louder and the room began to spin. Caroline cackled her low basso profundo, the sound warped and slowed-down like a monster's. Chris lay twitching on a stack of pillows, belly dancers encircling him, enticing him with their fabrics and gyrations. They were all totally fucked up, taken in by the smoke and the dancing and the music, which Caroline said "enveloped you," but said it like an envelope you get in the mail. I blame the hookah. The hookah's mysterious magic. The smoke and the toke. Hiss, bell, and rattle.

Finally, we look upon the show's two true sons, the two princes of this kingdom, one the young lordling of light, his sigil a flaming chalice. The other the dark duke of night, his standard a mangy rat on a dark purple field. Though they are forever opposed opposites, they do work together to better their kingdom. In this instance, they want to start a business together, preferably with the help of their uncle Chris, who is in some sort of clothing business. But clothing is not what Christopher and Albie are after. At their first big boys business meeting with their uncle, Christopher suggested a travel guide to toilets, mainly to be used to look up the best place to take a shit wherever you may be. "Other than a whore's mouth!!!" Christopher roared, slamming his cup of mead down on the table, his brother and uncle looking at him with revulsion. "No, Christopher, we don't want to be in the shit business," Albie said. Instead, it seems, they'd rather be in the water business. They met with the owners of a small company that sells water, a business lead they like, one they hope their uncle Chris will be able to pass on to his sons. (Bouffant will be kept high in a tower for the rest of her life, as no man will marry her.)

You see, this is not just any water! This is black water. Yes, black water! Like what Bette Midler thought roads were in the beginning of Hocus Pocus. I don't actually know what this black water is, I can't really imagine it, I'm maybe even hearing the phrase "black water" incorrectly, but I'm just going to go with black water. They think there could be a good market for it, for this mysterious dark potion, so they'd like to invest. Uncle Chris isn't quite as convinced, but it looks like it might happen. If one of the young lords doesn't fuck it up, of course. The potential for that is present and great, but we'll keep our fingers crossed that they'll pull it off. An adventure! Setting off into business together, the two of them, the two brothers! I wish them luck with their accursed black water. It's demonry to be sure, but I know they'll sell it as honest and noble as they can. Godspeed!

And godspeed to the rest of you. Whether you're fighting with a sibling or blissed-out on hookah juice, I wish you luck. And I wish you luck too, book store clerk. You've put in the work and I hope it pays off. I hope that your friend, with his Teresa Giudice posters in his room and (undoubtedly) large iTunes library of pop divas, comes to his senses and sees you there too. That he says he is sorry and foolish to have missed it for so long. Or maybe just pretended to miss it, that really he knew it all along, knew it every day that he'd wait outside the book store for the clerk to get off work, and when the clerk came outside and saw his friend there, oh that look he would get. The sweetness and sadness and weary relief of it. The friend must have known then. But sometimes these things take time. Sometimes the waiting's just part of the story.

In this show's case, the waiting is too much of the story. Just get to it already, huh! Come on! Just do it! Just end! I'm sitting here on the bed next to you, just waiting for you to end. C'mon. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it.