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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: August 30, 2010
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Season 1, Episode 17. [Stream on Hulu]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The first-season reunion for The Real Housewives of New Jersey set the table. That’s where Caroline Manzo tearfully accused Danielle Staub of doing something so heinous against her family that it could never be forgiven. Because the Jersey season of Housewives was sold on this very wink-wink Sopranos vibe (they’re all living in big mansions bought on credit! And they’re all related!) and because of Danielle’s shady Cop Without a Badge past, viewers began speculating whether Danielle had put out a hit on one of the Manzos, or something similarly sordid. The truth was simply that Danielle had provided Dina’s estranged husband with information that could have helped him in the pair’s custody battle. Dastardly, but not the stuff of crime dramas.
The second-season reunion managed to get tempers even hotter, and for what turned out to be an even more tedious reason. But that didn’t matter. We didn’t find out for months, even years, that Danielle’s major sin against Teresa was engaging in a whisper campaign with Teresa’s brother and sister-in-law (with whom she wasn’t on the best of terms, as we would see in subsequent seasons). All we knew was that when Danielle cocked a pointed eyebrow Teresa’s way and incredulously asked why Teresa had never been to see her newborn nephew, Teresa essentially levitated off of her seat and summoned the powers of the She-Hulk, and she shoved an intervening Andy Cohen back into his chair and let loose a string of threatening expletives Danielle’s way.
Watch Teresa’s face as she screams at a retreating Danielle, while Andy and Caroline try to hold her back (thanks for the assistance, Jacqueline; appreciate it). She’s barely present in her body. You ever hear someone joke about having a rage blackout? That’s Teresa in this moment.
Meanwhile, the eternal debate rages on: was Teresa screaming “Do not bring up my family!” or “Do not break up my family!”? Both seem plausible given what we ultimately learned about the context. Personally, I think she said both, “bring” first and “break” second. But you’re welcome to hash this out on Twitter.
This would be the final episode Danielle appeared in, until her impending return to the show for season 8. In her two short seasons, Danielle basically redefined the Real Housewives franchise and opened it up to some of the more spiteful, nearly-violent moments that have peppered its history. For now, though, just appreciate how close Teresa came to throwing Andy Cohen on the ground.
