Previously on Jersey Shore: I wrote a thesis on the identity crisis of Snooki, while she cried for her boyfriend and then had sex with one of her roommates.  Perhaps I’m overthinking these recaps.

This week: we begin on the morning after of shame.  Snooki wakes up at 7 am, which is evidently a first for her.  She wakes up Jenny because she “needs a girlfriend to talk to,” and I’m left to wonder what exactly J-Woww gets out of this relationship.  Snooki’s cover story is that she and Jionni were broken up.  Let’s put this in our pockets in case we need it for later.  Jenny tells Snooki about what Mike said about her last night and Nicole freaks out.  Mike comes in to see what the hubbub is and he gets yelled at, so the Situation decides it’s time to call … the Unit.

Yes, evidently Mike has a friend he calls the Unit.  Now if the Situation has his name because of his abs, does the Unit have his name because of … ewww!  I don’t want to know that about my friend, let alone call him that all the time.  Anyway, Mike talks to the Unit and confirms that he had sex with Snooki while the Unit had sex with Ryder.  Snooki’s story is crumbling by the minute.

The girls go to breakfast and Snooki has two mimosas and complains about Mike.  It’s good that Jenny got up early for this.  Back at the house, Mike puts together a master plan to find out who the rat in the house is: he’s going to tell a lie, namely that the Unit is calling Jionni to tell him that Mike had sex with Snooki, and see who spreads that rumor.  Immediately the girls say that they have to tell Snooki.  Quite a plan.

On the way back from breakfast, Snooki buys a ginormous bottle of wine because … why am I looking for reasons for her behavior?  Anyway, she gets the wine home safely without incident.  No, of course she doesn’t; it breaks, and it’s hilarious, if you don’t understand comedy.  When she gets back, Sammi tells her about the Unit thing and Snooki flips the fuck out.  Surprising.  In the attempted salvaging of Mike’s plan, he says Ron told Sammi about the Unit lie and this proves that Ron’s the rat, but we know that she just overheard it.  Nice work, Mike.

Mike tries to talk Snooki down and now he’s saying Sammi overheard him.  Well, if she overheard him, then there is no rat.  This is the worst plan ever.  Seriously, Mike is on his high horse acting like he’s the noble one and they’re horrible, but he’s the one who lied, and everybody else just did what they said they’d do.  I don’t know what this all accomplished, other than lowering my already low opinion of Mike.  He now feels that Snooki is at fault, because she should have just come to him instead of believing what people told her.  People, I’ll remind you, who heard Mike say the exact words they repeated to Snooki.  Mike, of course, thinks that this is his greatest plan ever.  Someone will have to explain to me why.  Ronnie tries to pull an I-told-you-so, claiming he knew about Mike from the beginning.  “And you thought I was crazy,” he says.  Well, it’s not like you both couldn’t be crazy, Ron.

The next day, the sexes split: the girls go out wine tasting, dressed in hats that I can only describe as drunk Easter bonnet, and the boys fly to Sicily.  We get some nice shots of the Sicilian countryside, and I’m reminded of all the opportunities this show has missed to show how beautiful Italy is, instead focussing on blurring Snooki’s crotch.  The girls’ destination is an old castle and winery.  Do they care about the wine and the history?  Nope, they care about a tossed off comment that the place was haunted.  Snooki is way too loud and ridiculous.  Again I say, surprising.

In Sicily, Mike tries to play soccer (yep, I’m not calling it football) and people just start kicking the ball as hard as they can at his face and crotch.  Awesome.  Meanwhile at the winery, Snooki makes an ass out of herself by burping and yawning during the wine tasting.  When the explanation is over, she says that she wants everyone to stop talking wine and to start talking about her now.  Mrs. DLW calls her the most selfish person on Earth; I cannot disagree.  Perhaps in response to my recap from last week, Jenny actually confronts Snooki on her nonsense.  Snooki says she still loves Jionni, and J-Woww says, “If you loved Jionni, you wouldn’t have had sex with Vinny.”

Snooki, shockingly, does not handle this well.  She thinks Jenny is not being a good friend and isn’t being there for her.  You know, Jenny, the one who’s constantly there for her.  Over in Sicily, there’s an amazing meal and great time with Vin’s family.  Back on the mainland, Snooki is already drunk and making an ass of herself at another part of the wine tasting.  By the way, if you find Snooki delightful during this part and not all annoying and horrible, please stop watching Jersey Shore.  It’s doing you more damage than you can imagine.  Anyway, Snooki has a screaming argument with Jenny which Mrs. DLW translates as, “Me me me, my relationships are all about me.”  She speaks fluent Snooki.  Snooks storms out because nobody will sugarcoat things for her.

Snooki continues to misunderstand the concept of friendship on the ride back to the house.  Friends are, evidently, people who tell you what you want to hear, damn the truth.  In the actually lovely Sicilian storyline, Vinny is happy that he had a chance to connect with his family and the boys all seem at peace after a wonderful day of food and hospitality.  Why didn’t they spend more time on this story?  It seems great.

Back at the house, Snooki forgives Jenny because … I don’t know, she sobered up?  Why do I keep looking for reasons?  Didn’t I learn before?  She calls her dad for advice on Jionni and he tells her that Jionni changed his Facebook status to single.  Oh my God!!  Mark Zuckerberg is rolling over in his grave.  It’s common knowledge he sleeps in a grave, right?  Anyway, she calls Jionni and he reacts to her call like a normal person would.  He asks, “Why would I want to talk to you?  You broke up with me.”  But don’t you understand that the world revolves around Snooki, and we are all subject to her every whim?  Snooki doesn’t think they were broken up, just that they were taking a break.  Snooki evidently is a Friends fan.  Then she … hold on, what’s that in my pocket here?  Do you feel that, guys?  My goodness, it’s the thing I put there at the beginning of the episode.  What was it again?  Oh, right, Snooki said that she and Jionni were broken up.  I’m glad I remembered to hold onto that.  Ugh, horrible.  If I keep this up, Mario Lopez might invite me to be on another Snooki episode of H8R.  Snooki decides this would be a good time to tell Jionni about hooking up with Vinny.  Jionni doesn’t take this well.

Snooki calls Jionni again (the next day, I think) and feels the need to give him details of her encounter with Vinny.  Long story short: Snooki tells Jionni that she and Vinny fooled around, but didn’t have sex.  Jionni, I’m guessing because a producer is giving him stacks of money, decides to give Nicole a second chance and get back together with her.  I think we’re way past tenth chance at this point, but whatever.

The boys return and Snooki asks Vinny what happened between them.  Snooki is claiming that she doesn’t remember, and Vinny’s calling her on her bullshit.  We have to hear the recap from Vinny, and Snooki learns that she did, indeed, have sex with Vinny.  Because Jionni hasn’t had a bad enough day already, Snooki calls him back to tell him that she really did have sex with Vinny.

I never thought I’d say this, but poor Jionni.

A few last things:

• Snooki yelling “Crazy Pants!  You’re Crazy Pants” should totally be sampled by a DJ and put into a dance song.
• Regarding the above, it shouldn’t be DJ Pauly D.
• Thanks for the shot of Ronnie putting on deodorant.  I needed that.
• Pauly knows what the Vinny “putting it in” sounds like?  That’s disturbing.

All right, make your case for Snooki below.  Or just take a look at the picture at the top of this recap and feel free to join me in my derision.  Either way.