STUPID ASHLEY INTERVENTION PART II
Previously: Ashley's many parents gathered round and stabbed her with their steely knives, but they just couldn't kill the beast.
Jacqueline: "Oh man, I never noticed what a fucking monster our daughter is. I mean, she's the worst -- that's nothing new -- but this was just vicious. Did you hear the part where she called me a whore for getting pregnant in the first place?"
Chris: "Let your ex handle it. Not for any other reason than the fact that I have done my due diligence on treating that creature like a person rather than the goblin in a potholder she actually is."
The Ex: "Ashley, when you called your mom a whore just now I began to see their side of things."
Ashley: Rewrites history as usual.
Stepmother: "And yet everything your mom is saying is stuff I have personally witnessed. You are disgusting, just a wretched durian-fruit of a person."
Ashley: "You're just saying that because... Something about how victimized I am all the time."
The Ex: "In the real world, you require money to exchange for goods and services."
Ashley: "What a mean thing to say! Everybody is so mean all the time!"
The Ex: "Like, at some point it just reflects horribly on all of us. How you are. How about you go outside and talk to your mom, so she'll stop crying in public. Then I won't feel totally trashy for being involved in this. Your mommy is crying, make her stop."
Ashley: "That's so mean."
The Ex: "Tell your mother that you love her. We could easily have aborted you, I don't know how else to say it. Life could be very easy for you if you would stop tripping over yourself and being such a dickhead all the time."
Ashley: "That's so mean."
Meanwhile, Jacqueline is outside screaming at Chris and thinking about how maybe they should just fucking kill her and be done with it. It's pretty amazing.
Jacqueline: "Somewhere between the part where she called me a whore for getting pregnant at 20, and the part where she said California was an escape from our toxic family, I had an a-ha moment. It was like Oprah appeared to me and said, Jackie, you did your best. Some children are just born bad. And then I felt free."
The Ex: "Be nice to your mom, Ashley."
Ashley: "That's so mean!"
Jacqueline: "No, don't. Just get lost. I don't even care anymore. You're disgusting."
Everybody Else: "This is a rough time to be involved in this situation."
Jacqueline: "Seriously, the drama and the reconciliation and the tears, none of it is real anyway. The burden of reality suddenly happening in front of my eyes has made me act a little crazy, but I'm not going to go back."
Ashley: "You need to meet me halfway."
Jacqueline: "What does that even mean?"
Ashley: "Like how Teresa always says, and it means that I get to be ass-awful to you all the time and you have to take it. Halfway. Like, I'll promise to keep acting the exact way I always act, and you promise to do everything I say. Meet me halfway."
Jacqueline: "I have been doing that your whole life. This warped mess is the result. You are the result. Halfway to being a person. The shitty half of a person."
Ashley: "Why am I the only one that needs to change, here?"
Dads, wrongly: "Because you're the child."
Correct answer: "Because you are abominable. This isn't about authority or respect, it's about the fact that you are an asshole."
Ashley: "You wouldn't even go to therapy with me!"
Jacqueline: "That is a lie."
Ashley: "I don't mean in the factual sense, I mean in the way where I felt ganged-up on by you and the therapist! If you'd gone to therapy with me in good faith, you would have finally understood how I am right about everything. Instead, you controlled the mind of the therapist to make him think I am the bad guy. As usual."
Jackie: "Translation, the therapist told you to listen to me and you quit therapy because he wouldn't lend medical credence to your repulsive pity party."
Ashley: "That's such a lie!"
Jackie: "So you're still going to therapy?"
Ashley laugh-cries stupidly like always, stares into space like the bovine sponge she is, delivers a little treatise to the camera about Jacqueline's arrested development and how it keeps her from understanding how right Ashley is about everything. Then she actually complains about someone else having a victim mentality, then she yells at Chris for the fact that she was even fucking born. I side with her on that one. This whole time, Jackie has crawled inside of a wall or something to get away from her.
Dads: "Like why are you so angry about inconsequential crazy shit all the time?"
Ashley: "Because she blames me for everything!"
Dads: "Everything like what? What are you talking about?"
Ashley: "I am just blindly firing into the crowd! Don't ask me to explain myself!"
Jacqueline: "It would be nice to have a normal relationship with her, and I feel left out of parenting."
Chris: "You should tell her that."
Jacqueline: "Number one, I tell her that every episode. Number two, I don't know if I was clear about this, but fuck her. Fuck that girl. I don't care how she feels right now. She has done absolutely everything humanly possible to drive this truck into the ditch -- let's see what happens."
The four parents stand around and stare at each other in mute wonderment about what a worthless bitch Ashley is. They are shell-shocked. They have been through something.
KATHY
Kathy: "I am going to be a caterer and open a restaurant and write bakery cookbooks. In order to accomplish these things, I am going to become a Goddess. First, I need a snake oil salesman to come clear out the evil of the house."
Zen Jen: "I have a bottle of sand and some sage to burn, and whatever else is dumb."
Rich: "My wife has a lot of ideas. This is one of them."
They burn out a bunch of some energies and then attract some other energies. Zen Jen is wearing all the bracelets that ever existed. Then everybody sits around making wishes. I like Kathy, but it's shit like this that makes you look so dumb.
MORE ASHLEY
Ashley: "Man, I hate my mom."
Lauren: "Man, my mom hates me."
Ashley: "When you asked me to do this art or whatever, I felt like you were doing something nice for me. But now that you want me to accomplish it, I feel like you're being mean."
Lauren: "I kind of knew you were going to flake on me with this, but I went through with it anyway because I'm nice. You burn every bridge with a sort of reckless shittiness."
Ashley: Instantly starts smile-crying for no reason.
Lauren: "So now you're being victimized this way too? What a coincidence that everybody's against you all the time."
Ashley: "Yeah, it really gets me down."
Lauren: "I think maybe you realize that you suck on such a fundamental level that the question of living up to anyone's expectations is already kind of moot."
Ashley: "That's true, which is mean. Reality makes me smile-cry."
GIUDICES
Teresa: "It is really hard being scam artists; people are always suing us for fraud."
Attorney: "That is a very tasteful fuchsia chinchilla collar you're wearing. Here is some paperwork showing how you are fraudulent hucksters."
Juicy: "I feel like you're telling me to lie about everything."
Teresa: Lies about everything.
Attorney: "See, when you sign somebody else's name, for example, that's fraud."
Teresa: "People will totally sue you for things like that, even if you admit to your fraud. I guess you can't trust anybody not to sue you for falsifying documents. I guess that's just the kind of world we live in."
Attorney: "Your conspicuous consumption was already damning on its own because you're trash, but now it's going to save you because you can sell all that crap."
Teresa, out of nowhere: "Jewesses are money-hungry prostitutes, generally speaking."
ELSEWHERE
Caroline: "I love to read the newspaper, Jackie, especially when you're talking to me. Here's an article about Teresa and Juicy's fraud, let's discuss it."
Melissa: "Read this newspaper to me, Kathy. You can read, right?"
Kathy: "It says that Teresa and Juicy settled because of all their fraud."
Melissa: "I feel bad about their misfortune, as you can tell from this shit-eating grin on my face."
Caroline: "It's kind of crazy how deluded and corrupt the Giudices are."
Jackie: "I feel like we shouldn't be talking about this. Let's keep talking about it, though."
GODDESS PARTY
Kathy, characteristically: "You feed your body with food."
Melissa: "All this food looks amazing. I can't wait for your seventeen businesses."
Kathy: "Brussels sprouts. Exist."
Melissa: "Kathy makes love to food. I am still confused about sex in lots of ways."
Rich: "You don't need Zen Jen to smudge our house with sage, you need to get a priest in here to exorcise the horror from inside of Teresa."
Melissa: "Is that Holy Water? I think it would kill Teresa if she touched it."
Kathy's Kid: "Yeah, giving Teresa Holy Water is really bitchy. I am a kid and I get this. So what is wrong with you guys?"
Melissa: "On that topic, I think that Teresa thinks that Rich is obsessed with her."
Kathy: "On the list of insane shit that Teresa says, that is pretty low-level."
Caroline: "I am going to Kathy's party for some fake drama, and I'm taking Jackie."
Jackie: "I can't wait to see what kind of bullshit Teresa starts! I'm so excited about this prospect I'm not even worried about Ashley anymore. This is just what the doctor ordered."
Everybody: Starts drinking for when Teresa gets there.
Kathy: "Middle-Eastern food is from the Middle East."
Caroline: "I had that in Dubai. Also in the Middle East. Boom."
Everybody is there, cheering and having fun and talking about boots and drinks and food and Goddesses and whatever. It's lovely. Teresa's not there yet, so everybody's still happy.
Kathy's Other Kid: "I need to go do homework."
Jackie: "Wait, you don't think of homework as something terrible your mother is inflicting on you?"
Caroline: "I never have problems with my kids. At least I never had a daughter."
Everybody: Is shocked when Jackie tells them about the "Pregnant at 20" gibe.
Caroline: "As an expert on everything that exists, I think you should beat the shit out of her. But don't let her to go California. Keep her here and cry whenever she goes to the store, that's what I'd do."
Caroline's kids are pretty awesome, it's true. But Lauren is the best one, and Caroline barely notices her existence, so that tells you a little bit.
Teresa: "Is Norway in the Middle East?"
Everybody: Grateful as usual for Teresa's continued existence.
Teresa: "If I was throwing a Goddess party, I would have naked Goddess guys around."
Kathy: "I have these Goddess bracelets for everybody. I will tell everybody your personal propaganda that you desperately need us to believe about you."
Teresa: "I will quibble with everything that you say, in order to make it about me."
Kathy: "Ahem. Like for example Caroline, you're so wise and matriarchal. Jackie, you're such a good parent with a terrible kid that just happened for no reason. Melissa, you have a lovely singing voice and a heterosexual husband."
Teresa: "I am wise and matriarchal and a great parent and I can sing."
Kathy: "Teresa, your most Goddess quality is that you are oblivious to the consequences of your actions."
Teresa: "Is that a compliment?"
Kathy: "Also, your spooky fake smiles and laughter are admirably lifelike."
Teresa: "Okay, that definitely sounds like a compliment."
Caroline: "Kathy, all your talk of starting business after business has helped me make up my mind about fleeing the sinking ship that is Teresa."
Kathy: "That's all I ever wanted. Yes, we can be friends."
Melissa: "Is there room for me in your new coven that hates Teresa?"
Kathy: "That coven is as big as the world, my dear."
Teresa: "I am sitting right here! Pay attention to me!"
Caroline & Kathy: "That's so great that we're best friends now and we're both restaurantreuses."
Teresa, shitting diamonds at this point: "I am opening a restaurant. Skinny Italian Bistro."
Caroline & Kathy: "You really have to be so focused, like we are. Businesswomen like us that have restaurants."
Teresa: "I said I am opening a restaurant."
Caroline & Kathy: "I love your Goddess shirt and your Goddess hairdo and our wonderful children. We have been so blessed."
Teresa: "I AM OPENING A RESTAURANT TOO!"
Melissa: "...There we go. Teresa does not disappoint."
Kathy: "What will you be doing in this imaginary restaurant?"
Teresa: "I will wear beautiful gowns. That will be my job. At the restaurant I am opening."
Kathy: "Um, sure. God forbid I make fun of your very fancy pizzeria you're already using to launder money, but by all means tell us more about this new venture."
Teresa: "Actually, I am opening five restaurants. I am opening a restaurant inside of a restaurant. I am opening a restaurant on the moon. Skinny Italian Bistro di Luna."
Kathy: Loving the shit out of this.
Teresa: "Kathy's so stupid that she put parsley in her food, which is not a Middle Eastern thing because we don't use it in Italian food."
Kathy: "Just eat the fucking salad. It's a salad."
Teresa: "I have one again mistaken Jacqueline's shit-stirring for accomplice-ship, and will be making an ass of myself about the parsley. Probably I am not even talking about parsley. I could be talking about literally any food item and calling it the name of some other food item. Whatever it is, I'm going to laugh in Kathy's face about it even though she clearly knows what she's doing, whereas I am illiterate."
Jackie: "I can't believe what an asshole Teresa is being to Kathy's face about the salad. This is so awesome!"
Teresa & Ashley: Are assholes in the exact same way. Like to a spooky degree. They should trade daughters and Gia can come live with Jackie and Ashley can move to the Giudices and Milania will kill her in her sleep.
Teresa: "Let me try and spin our fraud in terms of how amazing it makes us."
Nobody: Is buying it.
Teresa: "Apropos of nothing, I am going to start some shit about how you know Kim G."
Melissa: "I didn't know you at that time, we weren't spending time together."
Teresa: "How dare you say that!? Just because it's true."
(Much pointless discussion of Kim G. Somewhere she's rubbing her witchy twig-fingers together and gnawing on them. It's dumb, Teresa-dumb.)
Caroline & Kathy: "How did you manage to make this thing about you? Bring out the bellydancers."
Teresa: "Why would I be turned on by lady bellydancers?"
Melissa: "I'm so bisexual!"
Kathy: "Let's dance with the bellydancers."
Jackie: "I am so drunk!"
Teresa: "Melissa is, by the way, dressed like a slut."
Caroline: "Lauren, take as many pictures as you can of this."
At no point does any of this make any sense. Kathy gets these ideas and they're so insane in scope and they never make any sense and they're wasted on assholes like Melissa and Teresa anyway, and it's all so half-assed and weird and ephemeral what she's trying to do all the time. What she's trying to create for us, the experience that she's creating. Maybe it's a giant clockwork and at the end of a season or two from now it'll be like, "Oh, Kathy's design was so large I couldn't see it but now it makes sense." God love her, but at least with a Kim G or a Caroline you know where you stand. Kathy just seems to be trying on reality like a fashion show all the time and it makes me uncomfortable.
MORNING
The second Ashley walks into the kitchen, the little boys start crying because her vibe is so terrible. They should smudge her. The new plan is that Ashley will go to California and become homeless, like they were trying to keep her from doing the whole time she dismantled her mom's brain the other night.
Jackie: "Have fun going to California! I think our lives will be much improved by having you not shitting on them all the time."
Ashley: "So that's what I am doing. Suck on that!"
Jackie: "Fine, go for it."
Ashley: "This is all your idea anyway, so stop trying to stop me."
Jackie: "I'm not trying to stop you. I mean, this is an idiotic plan, I didn't come up with this plan at all, but go for it. Fuckin' have a ball."
Ashley: "You are such a bitch."
(Time stops. Time itself can't believe how ridiculous Ashley is.)
Jackie: "Have fun in California, asshole."
Ashley: "Unbelievable. Can you believe what a bitch your wife is?"
Chris: "I am kind of over this whole thing, actually. You've warped the dynamic so badly in this house that I don't even have to pretend to like you anymore."
Ashley: "Don't you call me disrespectful, you old goat."
Chris: "That right there is you being an asshole."
Ashley: "How dare you call me an asshole?"
Et cetera. Oh my God. Can we just fast-forward to the part where she leaves the show? I mean, it would be different if Jackie didn't clearly bear the responsibility of her horrible daughter: She knows this is her fault, and that's why she always takes the bait. But on the other hand, how old do you have to be? Because in the time that Ashley has taken to become a truly epic asshole, Jackie's become a pretty great person, insightful and funny and sweet. The other set of parents seem to be pretty cool too. Sucks to be Ashley, but that's for Ashley to deal with. Kick her out.
Chris: "Ashley, you need to understand that not one part of this situation is something you can't overcome, and not one part of it arises from anywhere other than your attitudes and behavior. You feel trapped by a reputation, but your reputation only develops from your behavior. The rest of us have very short attention spans and we have no reason to hold anything against you. Stop acting like an asshole and -- as if by magic -- you won't be an asshole anymore. You have a family that loves you very much and would do anything to help you."
Ashley: Runs screaming and smile-crying into the house, of course, to get away from this very sensible, calmly delivered, rational and caring advice.
Ashley: "They won't stop trying to help me! I have to go to California and get away from all this support and caring and love!"
Jackie: "Listen, can we just toss her out of the house? Please?"
Chris: "Yeah, no kidding. Pull the trigger."
Ashley: Literally taking breaks from lying to her dad on the phone so she can scream at Jacqueline to shut up. God.
Jackie: "I have failed as a mother, which feels bad. On the other hand, my daughter is like this Confederacy Of Dunces clueless dickhead, so..."
Ashley: "Anyway Dad, my Mom sucks and I wish she was dead."
(She hears Chris coming.)
Ashley: "I have to go, okay?"
Chris: "Hey, Ashley? Call a friend and get the fuck out of our house. Now."
Awesome. So awesome. We'll see if it sticks; if it does, they just saved her life. If it doesn't, she really is Teresa and nothing could have helped anyway. Either way, I love Jacqueline and I think it's just terrible how all of this went down. Poor gross Ashley.
week: Hookah party with Kathy, who would seem to be going ahead with this Middle Eastern thing she's got going on; Juicy and Joe finally have the bareknuckle fight over Teresa that she's been wishing for ever since she was a super creepy little girl.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps True Blood, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Desperate Housewives for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion.
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