“Nothing caught on fire, nothing exploded,” Caroline reported last week after returning from a whirlwind Italian tour with the family. How naïve that sounds after another season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey!

The show has struggled to stop flirting with comparisons to The Sopranos and finally make it big time, New Jersey style.

“Can we find the solution to make her go away?” Caroline asks at a family sit-down. Talk about waste management — it sounds like someone could end up in a trunk.

Meanwhile, Caroline’s arch-nemesis begins to speak in the third person: “Danielle’s mafia’s in place …There’s guns here — Caroline, know your place!”

But let’s not rush to the anti-climactic finale. As in any action film, the buildup is everything.

As the Manzos arrive chez Giudice, Teresa and Joe comfortably cook side-by-side. Caroline’s forgotten the wine and apparently Joe has stowed his SlapChop, forgotten his fickle finances, and let Theresa, in an apron worthy of a French maid, take charge of the pasta as Jacqueline and Chris show up.

That’s right. The conglomerated Manzo clan can’t do anything without a detour to Danielle-land. Caroline feigns exhaustion with the situation then provocatively asks Jacqueline how Ashley’s doing, what with the assault charges pending. So dinner becomes a council of war. Should Caroline approach Danielle to ask her to drop charges?

Caroline texts Danielle from a set of chairs so overstuffed they’d make Louis XIV proud. Caroline then exacts a promise from everyone else to keep Ashley in check. How like a fairytale! Will Ashley turn into stone after one more insulting text?

Meanwhile, Danielle summons all her analytic powers to parse Caroline’s brief text. “I’d like to invite you,” Danielle scoffs. What significance that she used “I!” Daughter Jillian, as always, sees more clearly. “What sane person would want to go?” she asks.

Besides, Danielle doesn’t fear Caroline anymore. “You’re not Carmelo [sic]. You’re not a Soprano,” she says. This is a video confession, but we do think she was absolutely true to The Sopranos with its amazing malapropisms. With just one word, Danielle has spliced Caroline Manzo and Edie Falco to produce an NBA superstar and candy-bar hybrid, a marketing executive’s dream!

Another waxing moon drifts over the home of Jacqueline Laurita as a sensitive-yet-ominous piano arrangement lingers. Jacqueline holds her baby as she lays out the case to Ashley. Ashley insists on her innocence, saying Danielle is, “like herpes that never goes away.”

Jacqueline’s oafish hubby Chris sees things more pragmatically. “It’s a waste of time and it’s becoming a waste of money,” he insists. For whom, Chris? Andy Cohen could be bulking up his 401(k) with Ashley-Danielle-inspired overtime (not to mention medical leave, but more on that later).

Most great epics include elaborate arming scenes, a tradition passed down to the contemporary action film. In Franklin Lakes, it seems, for “arming” substitute, “endless over-analysis before a captive audience of family and or bodyguard friends.” And, of course, fix your makeup and pick a suitable frock.

Danielle feels the love and light, so she calls her energist to be “scanned.” Is this the same energist who “scanned” Jacqueline once over the phone? And does that cost extra minutes? After a pathetic attempt at meditation-mudras with her smartphone on her lap, Danielle heaves a deep sigh or two and struggles to appear serene as a sitar plays. Bravo to Bravo’s music editors once again.

It’s no surprise that as the two women meet for their private sit-down at The Abbey, a dark and dull restaurant out of a lesser romantic novel, both are filled with delusion. The question remains, who is the more deluded? Caroline wears a garish blue cocktail-dress. Danielle is dressed entirely in black and carrying a huge quilted purse that looks like it might contain a gun.

Caroline is cordial when she says “you must be wondering why I called you here.” We thought it was supposed to be a meeting of the minds, but Caroline is acting like she’s Queen Elizabeth, about to bitch-slap one of her ladies-in-waiting. Danielle’s a character even David Chase couldn’t write. What was this Manzo mom thinking?

Caroline calls the recent months “a crazy Merry-go-round.” The carnival metaphor will come back to haunt her in a few moments, but for the time being the women are civil. And Caroline continues to play innocent, saying that she’s merely puzzled as to why Danielle needs to pursue legal matters with Ashley.

It becomes evident that Caroline fancies herself as some sort of clan boss who “stands with her family.” Really? For weeks and weeks, she’s been a peripheral character on the show, mostly moping about her lonely kitchen as her young-adult children flee the roost and her husband makes sure he’s got plenty of work to keep him at the office.

We were waiting for a meaningful jab, a real zinger, and we found it when Caroline called Danielle a clown. Rarely quick-witted, Danielle comes back strong: “You’re calling me a clown with that red hair?” We have to admit that Caroline looks a lot more like she’s ready to sell cheap hamburgers and fries under a pair of golden arches.

This painful tête-à-tête can’t last, so Caroline goes in for the kill: “When I called you garbage, I meant that you were garbage.” So much for reconciliation. Danielle is the one who walks out, however, and as she reaches for her hand-held in the misty night, she finally thinks of a retort: “She ain’t no matriarch of my family,” she says in disgust, adding “Teresa’s husband is a drunk! Jacqueline is certifiable! And Teresa, my daughters at that age wore lace and crinoline. Not leopard!”

Back home, Danielle makes her gorgeous adolescent daughters thank her bodyguards and give them a hug. It’s a creepy-pervy moment, but then again there have been so many this season. Caroline stomps off to The Brownstone for mushy pasta and red sauce with the expectantly-waiting Manzo clan. She tries to end the season with an “a la familigia!” moment reminiscent of Moonstruck, but she’s definitely no Cher.

After the fight, there’s little to do but read a series of dull recaps. Teresa insists her $11 million bankruptcy did not include a foreclosure on her home. Ashley paid a mere $189 fine with all other charges dismissed. Danielle’s embroiled in another sex-tape scandal featured in the pages of Hustler. And we’re too bored to let you know what’s happening with Caroline’s brood.

With all this endless anti-climaxing, you may have nodded-off during the commercials. We sure didn’t. The trailers of the reunion alone were worth the price of admission, and we can’t wait for the “real” fight to come. There was even a brief tantalizing glimpse of Andy Cohen getting his ass shoved back into a chair.

Was it a brawling Caroline, a tipsy Jacqueline, a crazy-eyed Danielle, or a scrappy Teresa that finally put him in his place? Our money’s on Teresa. She doesn’t need a table to terrify.