When a 10-year-old sobs at her 5-year-old sister’s birthday party, something’s terribly wrong.

It’s been two hard weeks on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Last week, an episode full of laborious preparation for a 5K charity-run ended with Gia sobbing and singing a lament at her sister Milania’s birthday party. Gia’s mother Teresa is clearly no Mother Teresa, and her ongoing feud with her brother Joe and his wife Melissa is tearing the poor little girl apart.

Some say agony is a poet’s best friend, but all we hear in this song, intended to unite the family, is a cry for help: “Waking up in the morning…I just wish things would get better…but it all seems to stay the same…I am worrying and worrying…It is just too much.”

There was, however, a bit of humor thanks to Caroline Manzo’s brood. As Lauren, Albie, Chris, and their gay roommate Greg drive to the race, they make fun of Teresa and Joe, who are heading to the race with a mess of sausage and a jug of wine.

Albie quips, “Things Joe Giudice doesn’t ask before leaving the house: Is this legal?” while Lauren asks, “Is Teresa going to show up drunk?”

Then they begin to joke about Teresa’s penchant for book-writing. It seems her hit Skinny Italian isn’t enough. They want more and pretend to be Teresa at a meeting pitching ideas to her publisher.

“I’m writing a book about charity events because charity is really important to me, and it’s called Walking Italian.”

“I’m going to write a book about my sister-in-law called Jealous Italian.”

“I’ve got an SAT-prep book called Stupid Italian.”

“I’m writing a Kama Sutra,” they conclude, and we can assume you know what that would be called.

But in spite of this brief moment of levity, these episodes are all about what’s to come from the bitter tears of Gia Giudice. Will there be peace or will there be war? Everyone packs up to head to the Dominican Republic to decide.

“I wonder if going back to Punta Cana will rekindle the past,” muses Kathy Wakile. We suspect Kathy secretly hopes that Punta Cana means “place of peace” since it was the site of happy holidays of yore. We also secretly think she can’t really tell the difference between Punta Cana, Shangri-la, and Nirvana as she evokes, for us, Katherine Hepburn in Suddenly Last Summer. Let’s hope there are no cannibal children in Punta Cana!

Ducks waddle in frozen New Jersey as a sneaky bassoon plays in the background of this week’s preparations for the vacation to fix all ills. But soon everyone’s off with their skimpiest swimwear to Punta Cana. After an unremarkable Manzo home video montage of antics on the plane, the families arrive and fail to notice the folkloric dancers in traditional costume swirling around the baggage claim area. That’s because Teresa’s suitcase full of jewelry fails to appear.

The men, indifferent to this disaster, order beers at a concession while Teresa has a brief episode. If Caroline is correct, the airline might have actually saved Teresa’s life. “Sharks like shiny things,” Caroline had warned daughter Lauren before take-off. Thoughts of Teresa’s severed leg in a shark’s jaw briefly invaded our thoughts, but fortunately that scene was never to be realized.

Joe Giudice has even gone to the trouble of learning the local language, shouting “Hey, amigo, could you pull over some place?” As the limousines stop along the scenic highway, almost all of the men get out to pee in the grass. “Jersey has arrived in Punta Cana!” Melissa exclaims, leaning out the window, dismayed at the men’s small bladders.

They arrive at the lavish Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, and it seems like everyone is getting along, even if the Manzo children argue over who will take which room. Joe Giudice says that he and his wife might as well have separate rooms, since Teresa has her period. It doesn’t put a damper on the spontaneous fashion show she gives next morning at breakfast, showing off each and every one of the bikinis and sheer “cover-ups” she’s brought for the beach.

Caroline, suffering from a migraine, covers her eyes. Her son says, in between Teresa’s costume changes, that with the gold pumps, Teresa looks more like a stripper.

We are more and more thrilled by the ongoing commentary provided by the Manzo boys and their gay sidekick Greg, who have become the saving grace of the entire show.

But once Teresa and Melissa started posing for rival photo shoots in their Punta Cana ensembles, we knew trouble was on the way. So did Kathy. “Everyone knows there can be only one Punta princess,” she says in a video diary. Strangely enough, it is Kathy who Teresa attacks.

We like to think of this part of the episode as “Showdown on Juanillo Beach,” and we’re grateful that Quentin Tarantino wasn’t available to direct the episode.

As the group lounges in chairs before a beautiful vista, Joe Giudice runs his mouth about the restaurant he and Teresa will be starting, Villa de Vino. Clearly a lot of wine was flowing when he decided that a restaurant based on his wife’s cookbooks was a good idea. Then again, maybe that’s no worse than his ambition to “go back into construction” after his bankruptcy proceedings and fraud conviction.

When Kathy mentions that she and her husband Rich landed on the idea of catering instead of a restaurant so as to have more time with their kids, Teresa flips out. “So what are you saying,” she demands. Teresa remembers a comment Kathy made about the christening, early this season, when she said that Teresa’s girls were unattended during the brawl.

“They were never unattended!” Teresa shouts.

Bravo interrupts Teresa’s gold-lame-tinged tirade long enough to show footage of three of Teresa’s girls entirely by themselves at the christening.

As the rest of the vacationers are about to pass out from boredom, Joe and Teresa decide to take their toys and play elsewhere. When they’re too far from the others to be heard, Joe shouts loudly, “It doesn’t matter what they say.” We’re thinking this is true. Joe and Teresa are so full of delusion they have no idea what anyone is actually saying to them.

The camera tracks Joe and Teresa, waddling off into the sunset alone, like a pair of quacking Jersey ducks.

We think it’s only a matter of time until they’re voted off the island.