Jersey Shore’s back, but really, did it ever leave? Has Snooki’s weight loss or Mike’s general dickishness been out of the news for one hot second? And, really, has anything changed between now and (ugh) 2009 when the show premiered? It’s the same shit, different year for this crew and while that can be comforting sometimes, it’s can also get just a little boring.
Look, The A.V. Club has been a big proponent of legitimate Jersey Shore recaps from week one. We take Ron and Sam’s fights seriously. We put actual thought into who’s better: Vinny or Sam. We even spoke at a motherfucking academic conference on a motherfucking fancy university campus all about Jersey Shore. We’re fans of the show and we’re fans of taking shit that other people might call stupid totally seriously. But we just can’t do it any more with Jersey Shore.
Truth be told, after the academic conference, we came out of there with a ton of ideas. “Let’s talk about socioeconomic class and the Shore Store!” “Let’s talk about how Jersey Shore’s affected the reality TV marketplace as a whole.” “Let’s talk about the culture of celebrity in our society today.” It all sounds interesting, but when we actually sat down to watch tonight’s show and it was just about whether Snooki shtupped Mike and some guy named The Unit saw, lofty goals kind of go to shit. Over a 44 minute show, probably a minute was occupied solely with Mike spraying himself with some substance, be it hair spray or Axe. Pauly had a “tanning emergency.” Even the episode’s biggest drama—Vinny missing his mommy after being gone, what, six weeks maybe—looks to play out in a pretty boring fashion.
We were reminded, of course, that Jersey Shore’s a family and these are, surely, the best times of the cast’s lives. That’s absolutely true, but for us, it’s time to mix things up. Rest assured that Nathan Rabin, Genevieve Koski, and I will all still watch Jersey Shore religiously, but we might not do it every Thursday night at 9pm CST, commercials and all, so we can spend some time critically analyzing it afterwards. Instead, we’ll probably watch it hung over on the couch on Saturday morning, and we’re fine with that. After all, isn’t that what Snooki would want us to do?
Stray observations:
• Every glimpse of JWoww’s dad is like seeing a magical unicorn in the wild. How did she come from him? Can you even imagine what her mom looked like?
• The kissing, the kissing. Why is the drunk making out on camera always so horrible and gross? Or is that what everyone looks like making out, but there aren’t cameras on us at all times?
• The stuff the dudes were saying about Ryder (“Everybody rode her like a bus route”) was really horrible. They all deserve a big kick in the nuts, preferably from their moms and sisters.
• Did the Italian gym not have free weights? No barbells either?
• Absolutely my favorite discovery from the premiere and Danny was showing the gang their work schedule. If you pause it at just the right point you’ll see that none of them work Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Vinny and Sammi have the arduous task of working 10 a.m. — 2 p.m. on Thursday. Ronnie works nine to noon that same day. The rest of the schedule was covered up, but all things considered, how much can they actually work? Nine hours a week each? 12, maybe?