“If this relationship continues, I will kill myself.” —Pauly D
If even Pauly D and Vinny, the Statler and Waldorf of Jersey Shore, can’t mine enjoyment in the latest Sammi-Ronnie screech-fest to ring throughout the wood-paneled halls of the Shore House, how are we expected to tolerate it? We all saw it coming, of course: Ronnie professing his love, Sammi’s acceptance that he’s totally changed in two weeks, their shared belief that penguins are mammals. These two are like magnets (with the emotional and mental capacity to match) that happen to explode on impact. All it took was a nudge from Mike to get them clawing at each other once more.
And nudge he did. And why wouldn’t he? It’s become very apparent that if Mike doesn’t outright hate his roommates, at the very least he enjoys watching them suffer, all with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Witness his “Master Plan,” in which he lets Jenni’s normally well-behaved dogs (whom he calls Lean Cuisine and Juice Box, and if those aren’t actually their names, I’ll be very disappointed) out of their pen, feeds them garbage, pizza, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff, and giggles maniacally as they poop all over the floor and his roommates’ belongings. You know, the way a human being does. Why Deena didn’t call him out on this after smelling his cologne on the dogs, I have no idea.
Not that it would have resulted in much. Mike has an uncanny ability to deflect blame, as we saw with him shaking the SamRon Molotov cocktail and then backing away as they exploded at each other. Granted, Sammi is most likely not as innocent as she proclaims—though the boys’ insistence that girls can’t have male friends is probably skewing what could have been a relatively benign post-breakup, ego-boosting semi-flirtation. But despite Mike’s insistence that he was just trying to get the other housemates’ opinions so he wouldn’t look “shady,” the glee he derived from spreading the news of Sammi texting with his friend Arvin (Arvin? Arvin.) radiated out of every one of his obsessively cleansed and exfoliated pores.
Mike wasn’t the only one stirring shit in tonight’s episode, though. Vinny and Ronnie managed to get a rise out of the usually sane Jenni by teasing her that her new beau Roger was “doing the dip” on her when she pulled up next to his car. One unanswered phone call later, Jenni was “done” with Roger and Vinny and Ronnie were mocking her for overreacting. Ah, but Ronnie and Vinny are not as adept at shit-stirring as Mike, nor is Jenni as immature and pigheaded as Sammi, and by the end of the night, she apologized, Roger accepted, and everyone in the house thought to themselves, “Oh, so that’s what an adult relationship looks like.” (FYI: JWoww, ever the serial monogamist, is still with Roger.)
It’s not all lies and mistrust on tonight’s episode, though: Pauly went to Staten Island (it’s actually an island!) for dinner with Vinny’s family; Snooki got it in with DJ Pauly Doppleganger after he put a Band-Aid on her boo-boo; Vinny decided to get a spray tan since he was all showered and exfoliated (thanks, shower caddy!); there was a water-balloon fight that forced everyone to put on trash bags (somewhere, Angelina sheds a tear for her ruined luggage). Frankly, these diversions are seeming more forced and mundane with each passing week—or as Jenni would say, “same shit, different toilet.” I’m sure next season’s Italy excursion will result in lots of intellectually enriching cultural experiences and eye-opening emotional realizations—or at least some amusing cross-cultural awkwardness—but as this season grinds to a close, the cast has gotten complacent, predictable, and, perhaps worst of all, savvy. They know how and when to start drama, when to throw in buzzwords like “GTL” and “gorillas,” and when to do something “fun and spontaneous.” Granted, sometimes actual fun and spontaneous things happen during these interludes, such as Deena taking a digger on the water-splattered kitchen floor; but generally, the only thing that runs on its own steam on Jersey Shore is the never-ending SamRon drama, which, as we’ve established, makes us and Pauly D want to kill ourselves.
Stray observations
- My cholesterol shot up just looking at Vinny’s family’s dinner.
- “Don’t touch me; I’m tan.”
- “Where were you?” “Committing suicide.”
- Fact: The gorilla juiceheads at Jenks are full-on Monets.
- The whole “what are we going to do tonight” routine is starting to get ridiculous. You’re going to Karma, like every night. It’s like Pinky And The Brain, but with more cranberry-vodkas.
- Arvin???