This season of Jersey Shore has been all about gender solidarity. In the first season the ladies and the gentlemen flirted, feuded and generally mixed things up.
This season, however, the house has split across gender lines. Part of this is attributable to Vinnie’s new attitude. Vinnie is nothing if not savvy and opportunistic so he must have realized that DJ Pauly D and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino (and on the female side, Snooki and JWow) were getting the lion’s share of the media attention while he was becoming known as the silent one, the George Harrison of the house as it were.
I imagine every single cast member of Jersey Shore spent their break listening to countless oily managers and agents telling them that they were the real stars of the show and were in a perfect place to exploit their ubiquitous brands with personal appearances, clothing lines and other assorted nonsense while they were still hot and the world was still semi-inexplicably fascinated by them.
With that in mind, Vinnie seems to have decided to form a strategic alliance with DJ Pauly D and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino to become MVP, a stupid acronym that, alas, will probably make all three members a fuckton of money.
Not surprisingly, everyone seems out to coin the next stupid catchphrase. Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino seems to be speaking in nothing but acronyms these days. The hunt for the next GTL is on.
Vinnie also appears to have gotten a particularly hideous tattoo that officially marks his turn to the dark side.
With Vinnie and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino no longer in conflict, the drama has revolved almost exclusively around Ronnie and Sammi, with the rest of the cast serving as embarrassed onlookers/collateral damage. We all know Ronnie is a huge, steroid-addled douchebag who goes around motorboating Jell-O shot girls and making out with skanks two at a time while Sammi “Sweetheart” sits at home looking concerned and wearing her smart-person glasses. Well, we almost all know the truth about Ronnie.
Sammi, however, has been in denial and it’s been sad and weirdly poignant seeing her wrestle with her feelings towards Ronnie. It’s also proven unexpectedly humanizing; it’s hard not to feel for her as Ronnie runs roughshod over her emotions and treats her like shit, only to turn all soft and vulnerable when he’s horny and lonely and decides he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Or, to borrow the terminology of Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, he wanted to have his cookie and eat it too. Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino then helpfully explained that by cookie he meant women and that he was getting cookies, and by cookies he, again, it should be noted, meant women and not actual baked goods.
Ronnie, meanwhile, felt that Sammi was beating a dead horse and that if a horse is dead you probably shouldn’t beat on it anymore on account of it being dead and all (I for one was surprised to learn that Ronnie doesn't have at least a single post-graduate degree). I hope this season climaxes with an epic metaphor explain-off between Ronnie and Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino.
Instead we spent the whole episode wondering if, and how, Ronnie and Sammi would finally do us all a favor and break the fuck up. Christ, Snooki already showed how it was done when she dumped her boyfriend Emilio (who, amazingly, makes Ronnie look like boyfriend of the year by comparison) for not even pretending he wasn’t fucking around.
Yes, it was a whole lot of foreplay and no orgasm; in true third-grade Jersey Shore fashion the girls spent much of the episode contemplating whether or not to write an anonymous letter to Sammi outlining Ronnie’s various transgression, from motorboating cocktail waitresses to defacing Jewish cemeteries (what, he didn’t deface Jewish cemeteries? My mind wandered a little there) except they never actually gave her it. We’ll have to wait until next week to find out what happened.
On a more disappointing note, we learned almost nothing about the gelato trade. This wouldn’t be so bad if Johnny Yanks and J420 had been on hand to put it all into perspective for us but they were M.I.A. For shame, Jersey Shore. For shame.
Stray Observations—
—Have any of you been in a situation where one of your friends is clearly dating an asshole who is cheating on them and wrestled with whether or not to tell the wronged party? If so, did you tell them?