‘Jersey Shore’ Recap: It Is What It Is
Last night’s episode was the first in a longtime where it felt like the group could finally shrug off the stinky, shaggy coat of Ronnie and Sammi’s romance and shake their umbre asses freely. “I unfortunately punched Ronnie in the face, and in some light, it brought the house a lot closer,” Sammi mused. That is the absolute incorrect conclusion to draw, but does speak to what a good time everyone is having now that Sammi has swallowed her pride and rejoin the party.
The episode was so charming and goofy in fact, not even the blood spewing from various cast member’s orifices could stop the fun. After a long night at the club, Snooki joyfully topples over the babygate onto JWoww’s dog pen and falls asleep amid the chew toys. It’s never seemed more endearing that the Situation dresses his lady guests in their own pair of matching Situation pajamas before they smoosh. After trying to force-feed him fries, Sammi laughs with horror as an impressively drunk Ronnie barfs so loudly it interrupts the Sitch’s romantic interlude in the next room. Ronnie vomits so much and so violently, in fact, that he somehow damages his asshole, leading to the sweaty, nervous trip to the proctologist of our dreams. “Is there any pain around the rim at all?” the jovial doctor asked Ron as he winces. “I promise I won’t do anything graphic.” Watching Ronnie and Sammi giggle together over his blown-out booty hole and good-natured terror (“Doc, you could at least buy me dinner first!”) was a sweet reminder as to why these two mooks ever got together in the first place. Alas, there is no cream to heal their relationship, as we would soon find out.
Snooki attempts to hook it up with perfect gorilla Jeff only to find she too is gushing blood; it’s just assumed, however, that she would never let something so trivial as bodily functions stand in the way of a good time. After spending a dizzy day canoodling on the gondola and exploring his tongue ring, Snooki finds out Jeff used to be engaged and bails out, enraged. Jeff calls the house again and again, allowing a delightfully manic Pauly D the chance to intercede on Snooki’s behalf. “You better send roses with some fried pickles,” Pauly howls before slamming the duck phone down. More and more the show’s theme tends to be how hard it is recognize the awesomeness of being single. Snooki and JWoww sigh around the T-shirt shop about being lonely and looking, but as far as the show is concerned, they’re having the time of their lives before they enter their own version of Sammi and Ronnie’s House Of Eternal Sorrow. Watching JWoww push Snooki around in a stroller tricycle, break it and then flee the drugstore suggests their spin-off is going to have all of the good vibes and screaming exits of the original show, only without the paralyzing hostilities.
The ladies later visit The Love Shack, where JWoww fully transforms into the Amazonian leather goddess she had just writhing just below the surface. “I look like a hot drunk baseball player,” Snooki exclaims in her Hustler batboy get-up. But like every fun time, it must end, specifically in the form of another fight between Ronnie and Sammi. In going look at novelty penis straws, it seems Sammi has violated the cardinal rule of their relationship: Neither of them can be happy for more than a 24-hour-period. Perhaps it was violating this same rule that caused Ronnie’s digestive tract to shut down earlier; their time is up, and it isn’t pretty.
The feud began with an uncleaned fridge and a callous insult toward Ronnie’s vodka sauce, but to say the fight “began” is to insinuate that there was ever a time where the fight had not started, stretching back into time immemorial, which is simply not the case. The whole house gets filled with their aggression; “Hell has to be just like this,” Vinnie remarks as the two scream. As seems to be their pattern Sammi forces Ronnie to dump her again and again. “I need closure,” Sammi pleads, but none will come. “I’ll make you crumble,” he snarls back with icy determination. Finally, they arrive at a mutually upsetting but inevitable conclusion to break it off…only to have the promos for next week highlight Sammi’s determination to win Ronnie back. Will the cloud never be lifted? Will the house never been clean? Maybe if the show would cushion their plotline with 40 minutes of Snooki flipping over that gate; it’s the only thing that can make their romance even remotely palatable.