Stank Face-Off

S03E06

By the time Teresa asks how they can move forward, Joe says he's done talking. Teresa tries to convince him to reconcile for their sick father. Joe tells her to call Melissa and work things out with her and their mom. With that, they part ways.

The night, Kathy and rich head over to some friends' house for (gasp) a non-Italian dinner. Joe and Melissa also show up because the hosts are the Gorga family's accountants and Joe built their house. As everyone sits down for dinner, Melissa brings up Joe and Teresa's meeting, so he gives the recap. Melissa claims she doesn't want to have a blame-filled shouting match with Teresa and would be happy to say what's done is done and move on. Then she tags on "...until you kick me in the head the time."

Since that conversation is clearly going to go swimmingly, Melissa thinks she'll be able to bring up Kathy, too. Kathy explains that Teresa has insulted her family members several times, then argued that Kathy is too sensitive. She thinks Teresa lacks accountability but nevertheless tells Melissa that she can handle her conflict with Teresa herself.

Piqued by the shit-talking, the hostess brings up an incident in which Teresa was rude. Joe defends his sister, saying she's going through hard times lately. Kathy smugly interviews that Teresa's spending has caught up with her. As you'll recall, the purported start of the conflict between these two was Rich's insistence on chastising Teresa for her overspending. Still, Rich and Joe both insist they would have helped out Teresa if she'd asked. Melissa, too, claims she'd like to reach out to Teresa. When Joe suggests as much, though, Melissa says dubiously, "We'll see how it goes..." I'm not saying Teresa's all right in this situation, but she's definitely not all wrong. Melissa wouldn't know a truce if she had a white flag shoved up her ass. That girl is never going to let this fight die.

The day, Caroline prepares for her radio debut. She is understandably nervous that no one will call or that she'll flub reading the commercials and introducing the traffic. Lauren and Albert, however, think she's going to do a great job.

Meanwhile, Teresa visits Jacqueline's house. Teresa gives her the rehash of her sit down with Joe and fills in some of the back-story on Teresa's distrust of Melissa. As she tells it, Melissa once said that she wasn't "stupid like her sisters," meaning that she found someone with money. Coupled with Joe and Melissa's short courtship, Teresa sees Melissa as a gold digger. As Melissa sees it, Teresa's far more materialistic and incapable of self-sufficiency than she is.