The show all of Staten Island has been waiting for—VH1's Mob Wives—premiered last night and it was straight out of the Real Housewives playbook, crossed with Jersey Shore, with conflict and lots of makeup and cleavage and curses and big jewelry and drinking and Staten Island accents. Plus, there are pretty shots of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge!
The reality show follows Carla Facciolo (her dad went to prison), Drita D'avanzo (wife of Lee D'avanzo, alleged lead of a Bonanno and Colombo crime family farm team), Renee Graziano (daughter of alleged high-ranking La Cosa Nostra member Anthony Graziano and Karen Gravano (daughter of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, who was a government witness against John Gotti) in Shaolin and most of the tension is about Karen's return from Arizona, where her family moved after Sammy The Bull told on the mafia. Renee is very much about the Omerta, so Renee freaks out when Karen comes back—she says of her friends, "These f—in’ bitches set me up!" and "A rat is a rat is a rat. A snitch is a snitch":
Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker writes that the show is "funny, appalling, and frightening...swiftly paced, reality-TV at its most effusively dismaying." SILive.com readers aren't as pleased: "Dam I'm sure glad I am not an Italian" and vow to ban establishments shown in the episode, like Fushimi, South Fin and "Lee's Tavern?? OMG, my pal must be rolling in his grave. What the heck were they thinking?? After 47 years, you have lost me as a customer, no more clam pies, no more late night calamari... oh, the pain!"
And mob wives are no joke—check out 2:39 of this video:
