Growing Up Gotti, Season 2, Episode 2: The Quack Attack is Back

We pick up right where we left off last episode (which you can read about here if you haven’t already) – John falling off his pocketbike with a loud crash and his friends running off after him. Will he be okay? Will Victoria take off for the Hamptons to check in on the boys? And will Quack Quack prove himself to be a worthy chaperone? I have my doubts.

As the boys run toward John, they’re yelling, “John, are you okay?” And we finally hear, “Yeah, I’m fine.” He just totaled the bike doing a wheelie. His arm is cut up, but other than that, he’s okay. John explains to us what happened and I wonder if this will be a new feature of the show, the boys talking to the camera. They didn’t do that much, if at all, last season. And I think it will add to the show (as long as they put up the subtitles because otherwise I’d be lost) to hear from them when they’re not all worked up, screaming at their mother or each other.

Anyway, now that the pocketbike is totaled, Quack Quack – the chaperone! – brings out some big motorized vehicle. An ATV maybe? I’m not exactly sure, but it looks like the thing that Victoria’s ex-husband gave Frankie last season for his birthday. Quack Quack peels out on the thing while John and his friends watch. Who’s the chaperone? Anyway, Victoria calls Quack Quack (which she’ll do often) to check in. He tells her that everything is fine, they’re just getting ready for a barbecue. Victoria doesn’t seem to believe him and asks, “Did my ex-husband send you here to drive me crazy?” Quack Quack, who doesn’t seem to get the joke, tells her, “Nobody’s driving you crazy.” Anyway, they get off the phone and we see, through his dirty looks and angry mumbling, that John is still ticked at Frankie. So Quack Quack is trying to talk them down, telling everyone to get along. Wow, that was easy.

There’s another problem at Victoria’s house. The wind apparently blew a wrought-iron cabana into the pool. Yup, there it is. Whoa, it’s pretty big, and it’s at the bottom of the deep end. Victoria calls Jen, her assistant whom we sometimes don’t see for weeks at a time, and has Jen call Luigi to get it out of the pool. Luigi gets a pole and hooks it onto the cabana and pulls it to the side of the pool. I hope it doesn’t scratch the liner, those things are expensive. Anyway, he’s pulling the cabana out of the pool slowly, while Jen says, “Luigi, you’re strong.” Helpful! But Luigi breaks his bracelet so he’s annoyed. He gives it to Jen and says they have to fix it. She walks away with it, but I’m not sure where exactly she’s going. He got the cabana out of the pool – hey, it’s something! Although I wonder what happened to those geese...

It’s dinnertime and Frankie is cooking a feast. Frankie tells us that they decided since there’s no place to eat nearby, that they’d have a barbeque. He also tells us that his mom acts like he’s some great cook but what’s so hard about throwing some chicken on the grill? See, this is the kind of information that was missing last season. And, that was funny!

Luigi goes in to talk to Victoria and she asks if he wants money for fishing the cabana out of the pool. He tells her that he broke his bracelet and his watch so she owes him money. Victoria is telling him that he gets nothing. She also says, “I used to cook you dinner, you son of a bitch.” So Luigi breaks her picture frame. Um, okay. I don’t think either of them is really ticked, this is just how they do it. Anyway, the phone rings and it’s Quack Quack. He’s reporting on the day, that they just played football and went into the pool. She asks what the plan is for the night and Quack Quack says he’s not sure, they might go to the Star Room. Even though Victoria already told him no clubs, she just says there are to be no girls in the house. Uh huh. I’d say Quack Quack is more likely than anybody to bring girls back to the house.

It’s club time and the boys basically walk into the club, shake some hands with the bouncers, and that’s that. It’s harder for me to get into a club and I’ve been legal for almost six years! Everyone gets in... except Quack Quack. Heh. Inside, the boys are chilling and John asks where Quack Quack is. Well, he’s outside the ropes, my dear.

Victoria is still up at 1:30 a.m., worried about the boys. She says that she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in 18 years. When she was growing up, her parents told her where she was going, not the other way around. Susan asks her if she wants to go to the Star Room. OH, PLEASE DO IT!! Instead, she calls the boys’ cell phones. But they’re all going to voicemail because they’re too busy dancing with the women at the club. Oh, apparently Quack Quack got into the club because when Victoria calls his cell, he’s too busy dancing with some girl, whose face is blurred out, to answer. Bad move. She leaves a message that, again, there are to be no girls in the house and he needs to call her on the house line as soon as he gets her message.

Everyone is leaving the club and who’s the only one with a girl? That’s right, Quack Quack. He’s returning Victoria’s call and tells his little escort, who’s got a blurred-out face, to be quiet because it’s disrespectful to talk while he’s on the phone. The girl can’t follow instructions and starts talking. Victoria hears her and asks who it is. Quack Quack, lying through his teeth, says, “Oh, it’s a friend of mine. I ran into her at the Star Room and I’m giving her a ride home because she doesn’t live far from here.” Apparently, his bedroom is on the way to her house, because they stop there for the night before he takes her home the next morning. Good move!

When the boys wake up, Quack Quack is gone. Back on Long Island, Victoria is still worried because she heard a girl’s voice when she was talking to Quack Quack. But he won’t answer his cell phone, so she calls Carmine, saying that he’ll tell her the truth. He basically tells her what happened, and she’s not happy, obviously. But the boys will be home that day and she’ll talk to Quack Quack then.

The boys get home in once piece. John’s arm is cut up from the bike accident and Victoria zeroes in on it. He tells her that he hurt his arm throwing the baseball. Oh brother. Anyway, Victoria doesn’t believe him and he tells her what happened. She’s ticked that Brian didn’t tell her that John fell off the bike. Quack Quack shows up and she confronts him with everything – including leaving the boys alone to drive a girl home, a girl who stayed the night in the house, in the same room. She says that for all he knows, she could be a thief. The funniest part is that Quack Quack says she’s not that type – she told him that she’d never done “that kind of thing before.” Like she’d admit to going home with strangers she meets in clubs. Of course, I’m sure the camera crew helped Quack Quack’s luck with the ladies. Victoria is on a roll – he was supposed to be babysitting, nothing else. She says what he did was wrong and tells him to admit it. He never does. She brings up John’s injury and he says that he thought it happened when they were playing football. It’s like talking to a wall!

We go back to the home movies of the boys as little kids and Victoria says that they proved, with this trip, that they can take care of themselves, that they’re not babies anymore. After all, they were more responsible than their 34-year-old chaperone!! But that doesn’t quell her anger. As we end, we hear her ask Brian, “What is wrong with you?”

Joan is an editor in Boston. This week her only worry is how the Patriots will do against the Colts. If you want to discuss it, or any reality show, email her at Joanie1835@hotmail.com. Go Pats!

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