Jersey Shore

Previously on Jersey Shore: Snooki almost got an intervention for dating a guy with some semblance of etiquette and a weirdly-spelled name, and not for, you know, getting crazy drunk all the time.  By the way, I watched some of H8R on Wednesday, so I can guarantee that this episode of Jersey Shore will not be the worst tv show she’s on this week.

This week, we pick up where we left off, Jenn & Ron confronting Snooki on their way to work, and now Jenn says she wants to give Snooki a reality check.  Is that how they pay people on reality shows?  Zing, boom!  This recap is great already.  Snooki is upset about this and about her job, because she doesn’t want to work today (as opposed to her other industrious days).  At work, Ronnie swears at and sexually harasses women in the street while Jenn and Snooks talk about their upcoming road trip to Riccione.  They’re really good at their job.  They take a fifteen-minute break to shop and, of course, they’re back in fifteen minutes.  (That statement was to weed out all of the people who don’t really watch the show.)

Snooki goes home and calls (ugh) Jionni and he says that all of the people on Jersey Shore are crazy.  What took him so long?  He proclaims that he’s not coming to Italy now.  Yay!!!  And then exciting packing montage!  I mean, packing montage!  I mean, snooze.  Pauly notes that there are eight bags and two Fiats and tells us, “You do the math.”  This isn’t Pauly being hacky, it’s his serious message about not being able to do math.

Back from commercial, and on the road to Riccione (the San Francisco treat)  Deena doesn’t at all gross me out when she dances in the car and then Snooki gives us a lesson in geography and we’re all dumber for it.  The guys and girls walk through the town, and we learn that Mike has an Italian doppelganger and Snooki wants to get drunk.  Ah, vacation.  The girls do sad drinking games, by themselves, in the middle of the day, while the guys stare at old asses.  All Italian citizens combine to form one guy who tells the girls to stop yelling about vaginas on the beach.  Word, signore.  Word.

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All right, I know I’m all delayed on this one (sorry, was out of town), so I’ll dispense with the “previously on” jokes.  I mean, it was Mike hitting a wall; I can’t really add to that.

This week we get a few beautiful glimpses of Florence before we move into Mike’s personal pity party.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s not in pain, I’m just constantly reminded of the fact that he brought this on himself.  I once punched a brick wall in annoyance, and I shut up about the pain I was in because it was my own damn fault.  Thank goodness I’m terrible at punching things, or I would have broken my hand.  Anyway, Mike’s sad about not being able to do his laundry (and other things), but I’m sure he won’t spend the rest of the episode wallowing in self-pity.  Not at all.

Ronnie tells Sam that he loves her no matter what and they’re going to talk later.  As an opposing viewpoint, I hate this relationship no matter what and I never want to talk about it again.

Pauly and Vinnie put on an “hilarious” sketch about Mike’s neck brace (there’s no way of making those quotes more ironic, is there?), while Mike talks to the Sistuation about his neck pain.  Mike wants to leave because he’s not having fun but Ron says he here’s for him and convinces him to go out with the roommates.  After Ronnie’s wise council (that’s not a phrase I thought I’d ever say), Mike makes a decision to stay and acts like he single-handedly beat cancer with his bare hands.  If I were more cynical, I’d say he’s just staying because he’s fairly certain that the cameras aren’t going to follow him back to America.  Oh wait, I’m just that cynical

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Previously on Jersey Shore: Previously?  The last episode was just on.  I mean, there’s barely been time for the spittle that was flying off of fake-crazy Mike’s mouth to dry.  And now it’s a new episode??  What’s next, Lady Gaga performing as Ralph Macchio from The Outsiders?

All right, I didn’t even realize a new episode was on until Monday morning, so I’m writing this now.  Dumb, stupid extra episode of this show.  Anyway, previously really there was about to be a fight and then, I’m assuming, really unrealistic footage of what is coming in this new episode, which suggests that Mike is going to flatline in the hospital.  I imagine once he is revived from this, he’ll have visions of women saying, “You lied to me, Situation.  You told me you loved me and you lied.”  Let’s move on before I keep showing my age.

So the event I’ve been awaiting for far fewer days than I anticipated: it’s fight time!  This is gonna be so great!  And it starts when Mike fights … himself.  Seriously.  He bashes his own head into a wall.  What a cheat!  Ron doesn’t understand Mike’s “If I do this to myself, what will I do to you?” strategy and starts trying to beat up Sitch, ripping Mike’s shirt.  Abercrombie & Fitch’s p.r. people are delighted!  Security separates them and all of a sudden everybody in the place starts swearing at each other.

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Previously on Jersey Shore: They were super-boring and I was super-hilarious in writing about said boringness.  I also realized that half of the show’s seasons have taken place outside of New Jersey, so maybe they should think about naming it “Occasionally Jersey Shore,” or “What Baby Boomers at My Office Call The Decline of Civilization (While They Ignore the Fact That They Had a Show About a Talking Horse and Two Monster Family Sitcoms).”  Too wordy a title?

Anyway, forget about the past, it’s the present, and the bright sun of Florence brings us the twins still in the house.  Brittany leaves after what I’m sure is another unsatisfying evening with Mike, so the Situation goes to tell the other twin that her sister is gone.  “I’m an individual, okay!” she snaps back, and I realize I have forgotten her name.  (See what I did there?)

In the next scene I realize that Jersey Shore is slowly becoming a really, really, really dumb version of Seinfeld, in that some event happens (in this case it’s Deena sharing of/taking away the other twin with/from Vinnie) and that the next three scenes are just people talking about that event.  The difference: Seinfeld did it in inventive ways and was intentionally funny.  Anyway, it makes recapping the show a lot easier, since it’s a whole bunch of “they talk about what just happened.”  In this case, it’s Vinnie & Pauly, and from them I learn that MTV now censors the phrase “went down.”  It takes me a second to do a little Wheel of Fortune on it, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.  Why stop there, MTV censors?  Can’t you censor the whole show?  This scene ends with Vinnie (I think) pumping up Pauly’s shoe.  Michael Jordan is surely turning over in the piles of money on which he sleeps.

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Previously on Jersey Shore: Italy’s Gonna Need A Long Shower After This  – The gang dicked around Italy (callback from last week!), and Ronnie, in the face of declarations of love from his former inamorata Sammi, believed the wisest choice for him was to eat something and fall asleep.  Ah, love.  I mean, amore.

This week: A rare jump ahead in the timeline of Jersey Shore, a show that is super good at showing us something, going to commercial, coming back and showing it to us again, and then flashing back to it later on.  We’re later on in the evening and Mike has hooked up with Brittany again.  She takes the most-appropriately-named walk of shame ever and Mike has to wake up (and remind himself of the lie about his age) alone.  Mike, satisfied with his conquest, hangs out in the open air portion of the house, but he is soon attacked by pigeons.  My guess is that the pigeons see other vermin taking over their space, and they get all territorial.

Ronnie & Snooki decide to face the day by heading to the gym together.  Mrs. DLW and I went to the gym together this morning too.  Wow!  Reality Stars, they’re just like us.  And we walked to it too!  This is crazy!!  Oh, but we didn’t get lost and stop for wine on the way.  Ah well, the coincidences had to end at some point.  We learn from an interview that Snooki can’t read a map because she needs to wear glasses and Ronnie can’t read a map because, well, he’s Ronnie.  This may be Snookie’s “the more you know” moment about illiteracy.  But why does Snooki refuse to wear glasses?  Because, she says, they make her look ugly.  You’ll notice that she didn’t say smart.

At the wine break after what looks to be about two blocks of difficult walking, Snooki wants to have, oh good, another discussion about Ronnie & Sammi’s relationship.  Have you ever had a light switch in your home that seemed to do nothing?  You can’t find the plug or appliance to which it leads and it doesn’t really matter if it’s on or off?  This is the perfect metaphor for Ron & Sam’s relationship.  At any given moment they could be together or broken up, and ultimately it doesn’t make one bit of difference.

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Previously on Jersey Shore: Florence & the Tanning Machine – The gang made their way to Italy and dicked around.  That was about it.  (Please note: I may be using “the gang dicked around Italy” as my previously on every week.  Be prepared.)

This week we begin where we left off, back at the disco and oh good, we get to revisit the grossest kiss ever on TV.  Amidst footage of the mashing, Pauly tells us that he and Deena are good kissers; Pauly can’t be more wrong.   More fun in the disco.  Is Snooki wearing a buf-puf on her head?  Are buf-pufs still a thing?  So many questions. 

But enough disco fun, we’re going to head back home.  On the way, talk of “getting it in” fills the Italian air.  I secretly think this entire show is a secret plan to make Berlusconi look good in comparison.  Once they’re back at the thing I’ve learned is not a villa and is more likely a palazzo,  Mike hits on Snookie with all the charm of an aging date rapist (which, now that I think about it …) and Snookie rebuffs (rebuf-pufs?) him.  This will be a leitmotif in this episode, if “leitmotif” meant a theme you never really revisit, you just brush up against it so often that you get thematic blue balls.

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Previously on this show: Eric & Tami move to Philadelphia, Vince gets his ring, and … oh, right.  I’m recapping this show now.  Apologies.

All right, previously on Jersey Shore, let’s see if I can do this from memory.  Ron & Sammi were either broken up or not broken up, depending on when you were looking at them (they have the Schrodinger’s cat of relationships); JWowwwwwww (that’s enough W’s, right?) had broken up with her current guy, making him her former guy, to go out with her former guy, making him her current guy; The Situation was shown failing so often with women it was like the editors had a vendetta against him; Pauly D yelled the same thing over & over and everyone called it a sense of humor; Snooki probably fell over something and then made a Waaah noise; Deena asked during the credits, “you like the boobs?”; and Vinny continued to be the Vanessa Huxtable of the Jersey Shore, with no clear character traits.

Wow!  What a great memory I have!  All right, who’s ready to go to Italy this year?  Well, too bad, we’re going anyway.

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