When Angelina Pivarnick returned to the Jersey Shore franchise, her presence initially seemed like a bit of a gimmick.
After all, Pivarnick was barely involved with the original series, and it felt as though she was brought in to round out the cast after it became clear that Sammi Giancola wanted nothing to do with Jersey Shore Family Vacation.
But what started as a bit of amusing stunt casting ended up breathing new life into a show that was in danger of growing stale.
Most of the Shore OGs are in very stable places in their lives these days, but Angelina provides the series with a much-needed dose of chaos.
Angelina got married and got rich just like the rest of the cast, but her wealth came much later, and her marriage? Well ...
Back in January, Chris Larangeira filed for divorce from Angelina.
But on the current season of Family Vacation, Chris and Angelina are still fighting to save their marriage.
Thursday night we saw the couple attend a sex therapy session, and the scene was unexpectedly heartbreaking, as it seemed that Pivarnick and Larangeira were actually making progress.
"I feel like, pissed off, when you're lazy. [I don't like] when you don't listen to me," said Pivarnick to kick things off.
"I feel sometimes you don't take accountability for your actions. That pissed me off. I've had a lot of abandonment in my life and and I feel like being left for two months, that's a big thing for me, especially because of my father," she continued.
"But you came back ... you came back and now we're trying to work on our marriage."
Angelina went on to reveal that Chris helps her take a brighter outlook on life, saying:
"The fact that you were my best friend, you are very happy go lucky, you look at life like the glass is half full.
"I look at life a little like a Debbie Downer and you lift me up from that."
Chris chimed in saying that after he and Angelina separated for two months, he "realized how much I love you and I wanted to work on the marriage."
He promised not to leave again "because I can't handle that."
"I don't like that you don't put me first. That you put your friends, family, everyone else first instead of me," he told Angelina.
"When I tell you things I like, you still just disregard it and do the opposite. That's it for the negatives."
"Maybe he really does love me. It's nice to see emotion. I haven't seen emotion from Chris in a while," Angelina said in a confessional segment.
"Chris and I, tonight, have made a little bit of a breakthrough. It's reassuring that I know he loves me."
She went on to say that for the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful about the future of her marriage:
"I feel like Chris and I have such a great bond, he is one of my best friends. I also do feel like Chris and I have a lot of similarities," Angelina continued.
"The breakthrough Chris and I had ... was actually pretty good. We'd like to take that and I would like to continue that.
"Hopefully, we'll be on the track of goodness from here."
Sadly, we know that the good times were short-lived.
The current season of Shore was filmed in November and December of last year, and Chris filed for divorce a few weeks after it wrapped.
Apparently he did so after learning that Angelina had been cheating on him for two years.
No amount of sex therapy can undo that damage.