'Housewives' Laurita, Giudice Patch Things Up

This week’s “Real Housewives of New Jersey” resurrected some old issues from last season and solved— temporarily at least — some from this season.

After taking a break last week, the show continued the wives’ trip in California. As some of the crew tried their drunken hand at surfing while the rest of them looked on amused, everything appeared to be suspiciously normal.

"It’s almost too good to be true at this point,” Albie Manzo comments.

Jacqueline Laurita looked like she had a good time, but was sad about her still-strained relationship with Teresa Giudice.

“Things seem to be going good with Teresa, but it’s kind of making me sad because I know how we’d be on this trip had we been close," Laurita said.

The fight between Laurita and Giudice forced the rearrangement of some travel arrangements. Giudice and her husband Joe traveled with Joe Gorga and his wife Melissa. 

Melissa Joe and Kathy Wakile, Teresa’s cousin, that she was happy with the arrangement.

“I think putting us together in the closed space like that was probably the best thing,” she said. “I’m so happy for Joe.”

In fact, it was not the Gorga/Giudices siblings but the Manzo siblings that brought on the trip’s first meltdown.

During the ride to another camp site, Albie Manzo revealed to his sister Lauren via walkie talkie that he has asked his girlfriend Lindsay to move in with him, his brother Chris, and their roommate Greg Bennett.

“I really feel like if they could replace me with their new friends that they could and maybe they already have,” Lauren said.

Later that night, over a miraculous home-cooked meal, Albie and Chris started teasing sister Lauren for the way she talked to her boyfriend Vito. When she began to get upset, her parents told her she was overreacting and she locked herself in one of the RVs.

“As long as the two of them are happy, as long as they have each other, that’s all that matters…I’m sick of being the only one who tries to have a relationship with them,” Lauren said.

Caroline seemed unsympathetic in the moment, calling her daughter an expletive, but in her interviews she said: “I lost Lauren somewhere in the mix of my boys and she just feels pushed out, left out, and not good enough in so many, so many ways.”

The issue was brought up last season when the boys moved to Hoboken, but it is the first time it's been mentioned this season.

The focus then shifted back to Teresa and her relationship with Jacqueline.

While nursing a severely swollen ankle, Teresa said: “I’m looking at Jacqueline and she looks like really sad, like a lost puppy, and it made me cry even more. I miss having fun with the old Jacqueline. I still haven’t given up on this friendship.”

With this in mind, she invited Jacqueline to help her serve dessert on the last night in the RV park. While everyone waited for their apple pie and fruit, the two sat down to discuss the argument about stories in the press that ended their once close bond.

“I’ve been having fun so far on the trip, but I want to know where do we go from here," Teresa asked, “I’m still hurt by what you did.”

“I was hurt, too,” Jacqueline said.

“Yeah, but I never did nothing to you," Teresa said, again.

“I would never question what you did, because I don’t care,” Giudice said. “I wouldn’t pry into your business.”

“I don’t call it prying; I call it caring. I’m trying to explain to her what I feel a friend is and she’s telling me what she feels a friend is, and I feel like we’re not on the same page with that,” Laurita said. “There’s like a language barrier.”

Then the women talked about putting an end to their relationship.

“I won’t ask questions; it’ll just be surface; we’ll just keep drinking,” Laurita said.

“After this trip, then we should just go our separate ways,” Giudice said.

That brought Laurita to tears. Giudice asked her to stop. They seemed to realize that because both of them cried, it means they really do care about each other.

Giudice promised that the women would have a real friendship. They hugged each other for a long time.

But despite what happned on the episode, Laurita's and Giudice's friendship is still irrevocably damaged. 

“As soon as I know my name is Caroline Manzo, Jacqueline is going to get hurt,” she said. “I wish I could say something but I can’t. She has to learn this for herself. I can’t help her.”

"The Real Housewives of New Jersey" airs at 10 p.m. on Bravo.