When you choose to invest your time in something like Mob Wives, you experience the ups and downs of their private lives about as much as they do, crying, laughing, and getting frustrated with a pretty tight knit group of people. It can make for an exhausting watching experience, especially once the show delves deeper into its unique premise, but how deeply you wind up caring for certain members of the cast separates it from other shows of its ilk. And there’s nothing better than watching the light bulb finally pop up over somebody’s head as they truly, truly get it for the first time.
Unfortunately for Renee, it took the downfall of her father and her ex-husband before she got that the life may not be for her. She may have talked about it in the past, her need to get out of the line of fire for once, but somehow, some way, she always came back to the life and her position in it. Dammit, this is Anthony’s daughter and Hector’s wife, the baddest chick with the tightest connections in her borough, and nobody could tell her anything. But Renee doesn’t have Anthony and Hector in her life anymore; for the first time in her life, the two pillars of family that Renee clung to aren’t there. And it terrifies her, but that fear comes from a place of change. Renee’s life is going to be really different from here on out and she has to figure out who she is if she’s to survive. For years and years, Renee identified herself and her self-worth through the status of the men in her life, ignoring the person she was for the people that her father and husband were. We’ve already seen that Junior’s cheating greatly impacted Renee’s opinion of herself, so combine low self-esteem with her depression and the absence of her father and Renee’s very much on the edge.
But you know what? I’d be lying if I said that watching her vow to figure out who she really is didn’t get to me. That’s some powerful, deep stuff and a major breakthrough for Renee, reality TV or no reality TV. Once the cameras go home and the checks from VH1 stop coming, she’s going to have to go on with her life and making the choice to pick yourself up and progress can only help her in the long run. I don’t think that Renee will go from her current state to perfectly self-actualized individual in 4 seconds, but the difference is that now she’s giving herself a chance. It took a season and a half of tears and heartache for her to understand that it’s one thing to want to get out of the life and it’s another to do the work to getting out. Renee seems ready to do the work now and put herself before other people, likely for the first time in her life, and that type of epiphany is what makes Mob Wives a special show.
The only thing is, though, that she needs to not fall into the gossip as much. Once again, Karen decided to twist another person’s words and use them against them, as Carla mentioned that Renee had to know that something was up. Not that Renee was complicit in Junior’s months long cooperation – that Renee acknowledged how different Junior was being and that behavior change signaled something. Plus, she reiterated a point I alluded to above, in that Renee was often held back from evolving/growing by her unhealthy relationship and “cutting the cord” could be the best thing for her, in the long term. Although I think that Karen is genuine with her love for Renee, I have to say, she was irking me tonight pretty badly. Renee may be (very) wrong to believe her as opposed to going right to the source, but Renee’s not in the strongest state of mind right now. Karen took advantage of how vulnerable and hurt that Renee has been this season and decided to cause a little drama between two friends of nearly three decades. All season long, Karen has known just what to say to rile Renee up, generally getting her frothing at the mouth and letting her loose on either Carla or Drita. And you know what? That’s, for lack of a better word, icky. Being a troublemaker is one thing, but when you manipulate someone that’s not 100% merely to poke at other people, you’re a mess and not in the good way.
Now that Renee has decided to remove herself from the life, maybe taking her ear out of the streets wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Watching somebody have a major breakthrough like Renee had tonight is one of the things that keeps me firmly a reality TV fan. Rag on whatever you want about the genre, but Mob Wives is at the top of its game when it dials back the interpersonal drama and lets us merely observe an unusual subculture. Admittedly, I had gotten a little tired of Renee’s breakdowns and crying fits, but it’s all worth it (and then some) to bear witness to the first step toward the new Renee Graziano. That Renee may not be fully formed yet, but I’m more than ready to watch her being built from the ground up.
Thoughts, Quotes, & Observations:
-“I guess he was cheating on her, but with the feds.”
-“It’s like your father. His head’s never on straight.”
-Apologies for the lack of an article last week. I had one written, but it was a casualty of a server upgrade.
-I’m sad Drita won’t be getting in the ring.
-Has anybody read Karen’s book or listened to the audio? Thoughts?
-I think one of the main reasons I grew weary of Renee’s crying was that she often talked about her son and the effect everything had on him. We’ve never seen AJ upset about his father/grandfather, so Renee’s reaction felt a little disjointed from that.
-A Mob Wives producer thinks she should have known about what Junior was up to.
-Renee’s home was almost robbed recently.
-Here’s the full video for French Montana’s “Everything’s a Go”, featuring Drita.
–Karen: “Being a Gangster Was Like Being Brad Pitt in Hollywood”
-Guess which of the wives is getting her own spin-off?
-Renee slammed her co-stars on Twitter. But which Dancing with the Stars pro would she want to be partnered with if she appeared on the show?
-Next week on Mob Wives: Renee comes for Carla and Junior’s cooperation yields the arrest of five more men.
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