In what has to be the most wonderful public service message in history, Snooki chats with a horrifically dressed MTV host and agrees that violence against women is wrong. “Fists are for pumping, not for hitting.” Things already look good.
The Snooki punch opens the episode. We watch Mr. Awesome get arrested again and see the male cast members walking around like caged animals, particularly Vinny. In all fairness, Ronnie probably looks more like a caged animal, but Vinny’s demeanor is noticeably different than usual. This is good to see, mainly because the last episode would have caused one to believe that Vinny had fallen down a well or something, but here he is, kicking shutters.
In the bathroom, Sammi and JWoww tend to Snooki, and we get a close up of Snooki’s freakish nails. I know she’s hurt and all, but I have never seen such an incredible ratio of distal edge to pink nail. They’re like 95% white with a little pink band. Anyway, Snooki has a cut in her mouth, but fortunately no other injury. Vinny aptly states: “That kid is never going to be able to walk this Earth again because he’s known as punching a girl in the face.” I’m pretty sure Vinny means to say that Mr. Awesome will be known FOR punching a girl in the face, but I like this idea. ‘Here comes Punching-a-Girl-in-the-Face,’ one might say. Since this guy is a high school gym teacher, his students should call him “Mr. Punching-a-Girl-in-the-Face” from this day forward.
Mike the Situation does the only sensitive thing he can in this scenario- he aggressively applies his slimeball game to a girl who’s actively trying to enter her home. Ronnie’s thoughts: “Schnickahs [Snooki] is crying and the Situation is creeping.” Ronnie not only demonstrates his mastery of parallel structure but also picks the perfect gerund verb for The Situation’s current action. Like a mold colony in a humid environment, he is creeping.
After a great showing on the previous episode, The Situation’s stock begins to plummet. Apparently, he actually did buy some shots for Mr. Awesome and his cronies, and, when one analyzes the tape, The Situation is more like The Idleness during the moments ramping up to and following the Snooki punch, despite being the closest member to the action.
Ronnie goes into Snooki’s room to have a chat with her. Snooki is still shaken, but eats this attention up, and demands that Ronnie tell her in more detail about how everyone loves her. In comes The Situation, who feigns some kind of empathy, but would obviously rather be chatting up some floozy. Ronnie vents about this to Sammi Sweetheart, and she manages to keep the Incredible Hulk in check.
Ronnie’s family shows up and immediately establishes themselves as being tremendously impatient. Ronnie wants Sammi to come out with them, but she’s getting ready. Ronnie’s mom, in particular laments the wait, pointing out that she: “…should be getting my tan on right now.” There is a brief montage of their grumpiness and them meeting the other cast members. All the cast members talk about how great Team Ronnie is, but this goodness must have occurred off-camera, because we viewers only get to see them make deadened comments about how much they hate waiting for things. The one exception is Ronnie’s mother reacting to the news of the Snooki punch: “Oh, hell no, and you guys didn’t like, bash him?” Nothing is so heart-rending as a mother’s disappointment for her son not becoming violent in a situation meriting such action.
We see Team Ronnie on the pier, playing games, winning various stuffed prizes. My girlfriend also noticed that for a split second, we find out that Sammi’s shorts are a bit…invasive. “Cam-toe!” she declares.
JWoww seems to have taken Snooki under her wing, and by “wing” I mean “enormous fake breast.” Anyway, JWoww appears to be pretty tall anyway, but around Snooki, she looks like a svelte giant. I don’t know if this is why JWoww likes to spend lots of quality Snooki time on camera, but it can’t hurt. Also, JWoww only seems to buy clothing that looks like it has been attacked by a tiger.
Pauly D calls club Karma to ask if he can DJ there. “I’m doing them a favor, I bring a sick mix,” says Pauly D. He then fixes his most lascivious smirk and talks about how girls love a DJ. I seriously worry about contracting diseases from Pauly D’s facial expressions.
The Situation cooks a steak and lobster dinner and discusses himself in third-person a lot. He also hoists himself up on the cross to discuss how much work he’s doing. They all sit down and say grace, and Vinny is thankful for Snooki being okay, though he calls her “Snickers.” This episode alone has yielded “Nicole” “Snookers” “Snooks” “Snickers” “Sneakers” and “Snookens” from what I can recall. What I cannot recall is anyone calling her “Snooki.” What kind of nickname brings this out in people? I can think of no parallel circumstances.
The Situation refuses to clean up his plate, seemingly in protest to no one erecting a statue in appreciation of his cooking prowess. While not there yet, The Situation is fast approaching Angelina status in his ability to irk his housemates. Sammi and he get into an argument over this singular dirty dish, and Mike gets all kinds of high and mighty about it and sentences Sammi Sweetheart to an unfathomably bleak existence.
His words:
“I’m not touching one dish, because I cooked a crazy meal, and she’s got the nerve to tell me to clean my plate. You know what? You are excluded from dinner then. From now on, you’re excluded from surf and turf night, you excluded from ravioli night, you excluded from chicken cutlet night.”
I thought you had to murder someone to get excluded from chicken cutlet night, but the die hath been cast, and Sammi Sweetheart will probably spend the rest of her life reproaching herself for asking a d-bag to clean up a plate. Life changes this quickly people.
Ronnie’s description of The Situation: “…a stubborn little bitch.”
The following day the anti-Situation feelings increase as Ronnie and JWoww discuss the house’s new pariah.
The gang gets on a boat and heads out to F-cove, an area that features an economy driven entirely by people yelling “Wooooo.” Don’t ask me how it works. Anyway, Pauly D laments Ronnie’s completely ridiculous desire to stay with Sammi Sweetheart and not flaunt about. Pauly D does however point out that his hair is wind-proof, waterproof, motorcycle-proof, and possibly bulletproof, but he’s not willing to try that. I was hoping someone else would win the Pauly D Award this week, but really, even though I’m the judge and it’s totally arbitrary, Pauly D has perennially deserved his eponymous honor, and this week is no exception.
Back in Seaside, The Situation describes how for every ten numbers he gets, maybe only four pick up. We then see a torturous montage of The Situation calling women and proposing (in so many words) that they take a nice trip down his pants. Eventually, he gets a hold of one woman and she agrees to come over, and to bring two other women to the house.
The women come over, and they’re all pretty attractive (especially in comparison to last episode). Also, they don’t immediately jump in the Jacuzzi, don’t begin sloppily and arbitrarily tongue-kissing strangers, and generally seem normal. In their asides, Pauly D and The Situation both point out that these girls aren’t like their normal skank brigade. “They want to hook up, but it will take a couple times, they’re not like whores.” Pauly D pronounces. I’ll ask you one thing, how bad would you feel if you were one of the previous groups of girls? Not only were you treated like bargain-counter meat on national television, but now those very same dudes are shown treating different women with a modicum of respect. Even when The Situation begins his high-inflection whispering to attempt to make out with one of the girls at the end, his hands aren’t leaving grease-prints all over her jeans. Classy.
At the club, a girl begins yelling at the group. Before going into the action, I feel the need to describe what JWoww is wearing. Her top is basically a shiny leopard print bustier with pink fringe (implants sitting a good six inches apart), and her jeans are mind-blowingly complicated. I remember buying a pair of distressed Diesels in 1999 and being positive that I was way ahead of the curve. Well, I must be behind it now, because JWoww’s jeans do not look distressed so much as assaulted and possibly molested. They look like a whole bunch of knives got into a bleach and glitter fight. Anyway, JWoww is getting into it with this girl, and this girl says “What about your fat friend?” regarding Snooki. JWoww springs into action, splashing the assailant with her drink before throwing copious haymakers and definitely winning the fight.
In addition, JWoww provides some really decent revisionist history by saying the girl called “us” fat, regarding both her and Snooki. This is genuinely sweet of JWoww, and Snooki, while not approving over violence against herself, is more than enthusiastic about it happening to other people. JWoww and Snooki spend about forty minutes going over the details of the fight in a completely absurd fashion. Snooki provides her own amazingly incorrect insight, saying that she was trying to get into the fight, but wasn’t able to. Hmmm.
JWoww receives blue roses from her man, and the male cast members comment on this being the move of a nervous cuckold. "I would have sent her a picture of my dick and a packet of bubble gum with a card that says 'chew on this.'" Ronnie muses.
Pauly D sets up his DJ stuff and spins at Karma. There are about seven people there. Ronnie does his dance. We’ve seen it before, but Ronnie’s dance is amazing, he’s way-off rhythmically and seems to desperately be trying to tear his ACL. Sammi decides she wants to leave early (even though we know Pauly D is only on for an hour) and while Ronnie feels they should stay to support their housemate, he agrees and they leave, presumably to smush.
The last segment is the Vinny show. He meets an older lady and chats her up and they begin making out. Nothing big, right? Maybe a little Oedipal, but whatever. Not so fast, internal voice I created! Vinny is hooking up with their landlord’s girl. Woww. They make out on the hood of a car, just craziness. Anyway, we’re left to wonder what will happen. The teaser for next week suggests Vinny may be evicted, and shows Ronnie finally conceding to ‘roid rage. The hits just keep on coming.
Star Rising Award: Vinny, let’s hope we get to see more shenanigans.
Star Falling Award: The Situation, it looks like Pauly D is his only remaining ally, and that’s because Mike is basically his personal shopper for ladies.
Time Importance Award: Ronnie’s mom, she is well aware how long everything takes and is none too pleased about it.
Proportion Distortion Award: Seeing JWoww and Snooki standing next to one another, Snooki is reportedly 4’9” and this makes JWoww look seven feet tall.
Pauly D Award: Pauly D
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
Recap 12/17
Episode Recap (12/17) The anthropology edition.
We are immediately greeted with a montage of Sammi and Ronnie’s romance from it’s blissful four-hour apex to its untimely demise. A good tip for those of you with significant others, being closer to another member of the opposite sex will end any relationship. It’s kind of like one of those nature shows where proximity indicates which animal ends up with which clan and mate, only more primitive. Ronnie returns to the house, too angry to wear a shirt. JWoww shows an iota of human compassion and returns after Ronnie to talk to this now emo behemoth, her resolve as solid and unmoving as her implants.
Back at the club, Sammi discusses things with Vinnie, who shows his naivety by indicating that the unrest may be due to her giving out her number in the field of view of her simian lover. Sammi makes the salient point that Ronnie never proclaimed: “You’re my girl.” This makes sense, as very few things are established without declarative and possessive statements. Had Neil Armstrong simply said: “This is my moon” we wouldn’t have had nearly as many laser space battles. Anyway, the game of telephone at the ironically named Club Karma continues, and now of course the ironically named Sammi Sweetheart hears that JWoww went home with Ronnie. Since JWoww is female, and platonic relationships are found only in science fiction novels, Sammi begins her sassy-assed strut back to the house to “knock a bitch up.” I think she intends to impregnate JWoww.
Sammi accuses JWoww of absurdity and once this is dismissed, Sammi and Ronnie point out how disgusting they now find the other. This leads to one of the worst arguments ever. Not in the sense that the fight is that heated, but they mangle vowels and idioms in an unforgivable fashion, and by the end it's basically a war of grumpy syllables. That Bloodhound Gang song that suggests that folks do it like they do on the Discovery Channel really seems to have been taken to heart, as grunting and nudging win over both logic and illogical accusations, and Sammi and Ronnie retreat to each other’s arms.
Now that the romance portion is out of the way, we get to learn more about the mating habits of Mike The Situation. He and Pauly D pick up a couple of fours from the club, and begin convincing them delicately to get in to the Jacuzzi. When a young lady points out that she does not have anything to wear in the water, Mike responds with “I feel ya on that but [mumbling] Jacuzzi, yeah, Jacuzzi.” When a young woman plainly states: “I am not going in the Jacuzzi” Mike informs her that she indeed is going in. Pauly D is curiously silent and probably thinking about house music. This turns out to be an effective strategy, and the ladies join the guys in their underwear. Pauly D’s after the fact analysis: “They were acting kinda stupid, but we just made the best out of the situation.” The Situation himself adds: “I’m hooking up with my girl, Pauly’s hooking up with his girl, and we’re gonna have sex. That’s the situation.”
One clumsy mating ritual montage later we find out that Pauly D’s partner cannot consummate the evening due to her menses, and meanwhile Mike searches in vain for a condom. This proves to be problematic, as the menstrual member of the party insists on the exit of both members, and presumably the rest of the night was Pauly and Mike talking about the gym and tanning.
Sammi and Ronnie continue being annoying as Sammi points out she’s still mad, though her reasoning seems to stem from the fact that she’s angry today because something having to do with Ronnie made her angry yesterday. Ronnie repeats a whole bunch of positive three word sentences and Sammi makes things bad by thinking about the likelihood of things being bad. Fireworks light up the sky and Ronnie tells Sammi that she’s something special. In response, Sammi inflects the word “Ronnie” in a fashion suggesting he is a dog who just urinated on the carpet. The fireworks are also prophetic, as the two head back to the house and make their way to the bedroom. MTV classes things up by showing the proverbial night-vision undulating comforter and splicing in some firework footage, meaning that both members are going to feel as though their genitalia are combusting.
Ronnie’s exact admission is “We smushed.”
Yes. Smushed.
Smushed???
Isn’t that verb reserved for when someone accidentally sits on a cupcake? However, I guess that’s his romantic euphemism. He pounds out random women, but he only smushes those he has feelings for.
The next segment is dudes being dudes. Tanning, getting a haircut, going to the gym, you know, guy stuff.
Snooki duck-phones her mom and we find out that Mrs. Snooki will be visiting. Snooki says “I love that girl, she’s my best friend” regarding her mother. It’s nice to see that Snooki’s decided that her entire world revolves around her mother, because that’s both healthy and not going to ever get weird.
The gang dances at Karma and the girls seems to have an informal contest about who is going to show their thong to the camera the most blatantly. Snooki wins this in a walk. Meanwhile, JWoww is back to grinding on Pauly, despite making the decision to stick with her boyfriend earlier. House music is playing. (This is very important later, remember that the crotch-assaulting dance moves performed by JWoww were set to house music.)
Pauly D explains to us the elaborate process of “beating up the beat.” This starts by pounding the ground and ends with what looks like a Tae-Bo class. While academics were going to Indonesia and observing the Gamelan, and painstakingly analyzing its ritual elements, they could have just been at club Karma and would have discovered a more complex and primal ceremony initiated by shaman Pauly D. This gets everyone worked up and it’s time to find mates for the evening. The Situation, who is definitely the alpha in his and Pauly D’s arrangement, finds a couple of girls and uses the word Jacuzzi a lot. Again, the tactic works. However, there are two other girls in a convertible that catch the pair’s eye. What follows is classic French farce. The convertible girls come over, the other girls show up, the Situation and Pauly D trade the convertible girls for the others, Pauly D gets stuck with what The Situation calls “a grenade” and after some Jacuzzi technical difficulties, and Pauly D’s exasperated early exit, The Grenade cock blocks The Situation in grand fashion, basically demanding her friend come out from under the covers.
Snooki gets lost on her way back home from the club she always goes to, and spends the night on the beach with a guy whose name she doesn’t know. While this may seem romantic, the fact that there was no smushing makes the night “wasted” in Snooki’s mind.
The morning tells us there was some reconnaissance last night. Snooki’s dude turns out to be a friend of JWoww’s boyfriend, and reported that JWoww was grinding on Pauly D’s junk. JWoww is both upset and confused. “It was house music,” she proclaims. Snooki agrees that the near-insertion occurring on the dance floor was benign. JWoww calls her boy back and points out that they were dancing to house music. This gives us yet another oniony layer of JWoww’s psyche: house music performs the same miracle that allowed Jesus to be conceived without sin, and anything done in its bass-thumping name is simply answering to a higher force. After the phone argument escalates, Snooki takes the duck from JWoww and insists “It wasn’t like R&B or anything like that, it was all house music, nothing you should worry about.” This will heretofore be known as The House Music Defense, and may come up later. Anyway, the conversation ends poorly and it looks like we may get to see single JWoww after all.
Snooki’s mom shows up and they do boring things together.
Next comes the scene. We all know what “the scene” is. While it was shown on multiple teasers, it was blacked out on the show tonight. I’m not going to go into it too much or go into a verbose explication of what made it wrong or shocking, I’ll just say the following:
There are a lot of ‘Worst ever’ anti-superlatives thrown around in this blog. That said, there are few people in this world that can compete with the horrible human being that punched our Snooki. The teasers made it seem like Snooki was being obnoxious and bellicose, but she was actually defending dutifully purchased shots against opportunists, and this is an undeniably noble cause. Dude who did that will be considered an oozing stain on humanity for his miserable lifetime in New Jersey and abroad, and rightfully so. Enough will be said about this incident, and obviously as much as we all feed off television drama, this is not something that could ever be considered positive. I think MTV handled this well.
Now to the Awards.
Most Invisible: Vinnie- he must have had 2 minutes of screen time total, it was unclear whether he or Angelina left last week.
Best Comeback: Mike The Situation- after a lackluster showing last week, he showed his unreal ability at being the most prototypical Freudian “guy” possible.
Most Romantic: Ronnie- he smushed a lot of hearts this week.
Most Philosophical- JWoww, for the House Music Defense.
Pauly D Award: Pauly D.
We are immediately greeted with a montage of Sammi and Ronnie’s romance from it’s blissful four-hour apex to its untimely demise. A good tip for those of you with significant others, being closer to another member of the opposite sex will end any relationship. It’s kind of like one of those nature shows where proximity indicates which animal ends up with which clan and mate, only more primitive. Ronnie returns to the house, too angry to wear a shirt. JWoww shows an iota of human compassion and returns after Ronnie to talk to this now emo behemoth, her resolve as solid and unmoving as her implants.
Back at the club, Sammi discusses things with Vinnie, who shows his naivety by indicating that the unrest may be due to her giving out her number in the field of view of her simian lover. Sammi makes the salient point that Ronnie never proclaimed: “You’re my girl.” This makes sense, as very few things are established without declarative and possessive statements. Had Neil Armstrong simply said: “This is my moon” we wouldn’t have had nearly as many laser space battles. Anyway, the game of telephone at the ironically named Club Karma continues, and now of course the ironically named Sammi Sweetheart hears that JWoww went home with Ronnie. Since JWoww is female, and platonic relationships are found only in science fiction novels, Sammi begins her sassy-assed strut back to the house to “knock a bitch up.” I think she intends to impregnate JWoww.
Sammi accuses JWoww of absurdity and once this is dismissed, Sammi and Ronnie point out how disgusting they now find the other. This leads to one of the worst arguments ever. Not in the sense that the fight is that heated, but they mangle vowels and idioms in an unforgivable fashion, and by the end it's basically a war of grumpy syllables. That Bloodhound Gang song that suggests that folks do it like they do on the Discovery Channel really seems to have been taken to heart, as grunting and nudging win over both logic and illogical accusations, and Sammi and Ronnie retreat to each other’s arms.
Now that the romance portion is out of the way, we get to learn more about the mating habits of Mike The Situation. He and Pauly D pick up a couple of fours from the club, and begin convincing them delicately to get in to the Jacuzzi. When a young lady points out that she does not have anything to wear in the water, Mike responds with “I feel ya on that but [mumbling] Jacuzzi, yeah, Jacuzzi.” When a young woman plainly states: “I am not going in the Jacuzzi” Mike informs her that she indeed is going in. Pauly D is curiously silent and probably thinking about house music. This turns out to be an effective strategy, and the ladies join the guys in their underwear. Pauly D’s after the fact analysis: “They were acting kinda stupid, but we just made the best out of the situation.” The Situation himself adds: “I’m hooking up with my girl, Pauly’s hooking up with his girl, and we’re gonna have sex. That’s the situation.”
One clumsy mating ritual montage later we find out that Pauly D’s partner cannot consummate the evening due to her menses, and meanwhile Mike searches in vain for a condom. This proves to be problematic, as the menstrual member of the party insists on the exit of both members, and presumably the rest of the night was Pauly and Mike talking about the gym and tanning.
Sammi and Ronnie continue being annoying as Sammi points out she’s still mad, though her reasoning seems to stem from the fact that she’s angry today because something having to do with Ronnie made her angry yesterday. Ronnie repeats a whole bunch of positive three word sentences and Sammi makes things bad by thinking about the likelihood of things being bad. Fireworks light up the sky and Ronnie tells Sammi that she’s something special. In response, Sammi inflects the word “Ronnie” in a fashion suggesting he is a dog who just urinated on the carpet. The fireworks are also prophetic, as the two head back to the house and make their way to the bedroom. MTV classes things up by showing the proverbial night-vision undulating comforter and splicing in some firework footage, meaning that both members are going to feel as though their genitalia are combusting.
Ronnie’s exact admission is “We smushed.”
Yes. Smushed.
Smushed???
Isn’t that verb reserved for when someone accidentally sits on a cupcake? However, I guess that’s his romantic euphemism. He pounds out random women, but he only smushes those he has feelings for.
The next segment is dudes being dudes. Tanning, getting a haircut, going to the gym, you know, guy stuff.
Snooki duck-phones her mom and we find out that Mrs. Snooki will be visiting. Snooki says “I love that girl, she’s my best friend” regarding her mother. It’s nice to see that Snooki’s decided that her entire world revolves around her mother, because that’s both healthy and not going to ever get weird.
The gang dances at Karma and the girls seems to have an informal contest about who is going to show their thong to the camera the most blatantly. Snooki wins this in a walk. Meanwhile, JWoww is back to grinding on Pauly, despite making the decision to stick with her boyfriend earlier. House music is playing. (This is very important later, remember that the crotch-assaulting dance moves performed by JWoww were set to house music.)
Pauly D explains to us the elaborate process of “beating up the beat.” This starts by pounding the ground and ends with what looks like a Tae-Bo class. While academics were going to Indonesia and observing the Gamelan, and painstakingly analyzing its ritual elements, they could have just been at club Karma and would have discovered a more complex and primal ceremony initiated by shaman Pauly D. This gets everyone worked up and it’s time to find mates for the evening. The Situation, who is definitely the alpha in his and Pauly D’s arrangement, finds a couple of girls and uses the word Jacuzzi a lot. Again, the tactic works. However, there are two other girls in a convertible that catch the pair’s eye. What follows is classic French farce. The convertible girls come over, the other girls show up, the Situation and Pauly D trade the convertible girls for the others, Pauly D gets stuck with what The Situation calls “a grenade” and after some Jacuzzi technical difficulties, and Pauly D’s exasperated early exit, The Grenade cock blocks The Situation in grand fashion, basically demanding her friend come out from under the covers.
Snooki gets lost on her way back home from the club she always goes to, and spends the night on the beach with a guy whose name she doesn’t know. While this may seem romantic, the fact that there was no smushing makes the night “wasted” in Snooki’s mind.
The morning tells us there was some reconnaissance last night. Snooki’s dude turns out to be a friend of JWoww’s boyfriend, and reported that JWoww was grinding on Pauly D’s junk. JWoww is both upset and confused. “It was house music,” she proclaims. Snooki agrees that the near-insertion occurring on the dance floor was benign. JWoww calls her boy back and points out that they were dancing to house music. This gives us yet another oniony layer of JWoww’s psyche: house music performs the same miracle that allowed Jesus to be conceived without sin, and anything done in its bass-thumping name is simply answering to a higher force. After the phone argument escalates, Snooki takes the duck from JWoww and insists “It wasn’t like R&B or anything like that, it was all house music, nothing you should worry about.” This will heretofore be known as The House Music Defense, and may come up later. Anyway, the conversation ends poorly and it looks like we may get to see single JWoww after all.
Snooki’s mom shows up and they do boring things together.
Next comes the scene. We all know what “the scene” is. While it was shown on multiple teasers, it was blacked out on the show tonight. I’m not going to go into it too much or go into a verbose explication of what made it wrong or shocking, I’ll just say the following:
There are a lot of ‘Worst ever’ anti-superlatives thrown around in this blog. That said, there are few people in this world that can compete with the horrible human being that punched our Snooki. The teasers made it seem like Snooki was being obnoxious and bellicose, but she was actually defending dutifully purchased shots against opportunists, and this is an undeniably noble cause. Dude who did that will be considered an oozing stain on humanity for his miserable lifetime in New Jersey and abroad, and rightfully so. Enough will be said about this incident, and obviously as much as we all feed off television drama, this is not something that could ever be considered positive. I think MTV handled this well.
Now to the Awards.
Most Invisible: Vinnie- he must have had 2 minutes of screen time total, it was unclear whether he or Angelina left last week.
Best Comeback: Mike The Situation- after a lackluster showing last week, he showed his unreal ability at being the most prototypical Freudian “guy” possible.
Most Romantic: Ronnie- he smushed a lot of hearts this week.
Most Philosophical- JWoww, for the House Music Defense.
Pauly D Award: Pauly D.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Episode 2!
So now begins my promise to recap each Jersey Shore episode. Game on! (Episode 2)
The magic begins with a montage of the events from the premiere, and the new episode begins right when the last one ended. The morning after the most recent club trip sheds more light on various existential tools used by the Seaside 8. JWoww and Angelina both try to question the validity of hook-ups that were 100% documented in JWoww’s case, and implied in Angelina’s. JWoww’s argument is kind of interesting because I think she wants to believe it- in her mind she is actually a respectable girl, and going to the club and hooking up with dudes shouldn’t even be thought of outside the action itself. Volumes of psychological texts could be written on JWoww’s desire to be moral and promiscuous simultaneously. Angelina, on the other hand, is a horrible excuse for a human being, so my guess is that she denies it because doing so upsets other people.
The most interesting morning is Mike The Situation’s. His bravado seems to increase exponentially in his testimonial asides, but he is so obviously hurt by Sammi Sweetheart that the whole thing becomes Greek tragedy. He wants to point out a million times how she wanted him first, and that he could have any girl he wants. I suspect that were Mike The Situation driven to suicide, he would be sure to point out his note that the act was in no way due to heartbreak, as women will likely still line up to look at and worship his corpse-abs. Speaking of which, his funeral would not only be open coffin, but would have to be shirtless, or his hands should at least be positioned in the act of lifting up his shirt. Let’s take this moment to read excerpts from some other folks’ theoretical suicide notes:
Ronnie: I’m off to pound out some angels.
Angelina: This is completely your fault, mom and dad. This is also the fault of…
Snooki: I should have never agreed to settle down with a flabby, pale Irish cop in upstate New York, everyone needs to follow their dreams.
Pauly D: Well, my hair didn’t come out perfect yesterday, so this seems like the only thing to do.
Anyway, Mike and Sammi work together at the store and Mike behaves like a wounded adolescent, all while continually trying to win Sammi back in the most annoying way possible. I can only assume that what was left on the cutting room floor was a lot of the following
Mike: [lifts up his shirt in Sammi’s direction] Oh Yeahhhhhh!
Sammi: Great, Mike.
[thirty second pause with abs exposed]
Mike: So, we together now?
The merciful editor takes us away from this awkwardness, and immediately focuses on Snooki’s majestic, 360 degree muffin-top. Snooki, wearing a trucker hat with “Pornstar in Training” on it, begins to suck on a pickle in front of Pauly D and Vinnie. As he does in most situations, Pauly D looks like he’s sneakily watching his friend’s mom undress, the shifty eyes and shit-eating grin in full effect.
We then get to see Ronnie and Sammi in relationship mode. It has been about two or three days, so they probably represent one of the longest pairings in the zip code. JWoww is also revealed as Ronnie’s confidante, but their conversation is pretty boring.
JWoww is an interesting choice for a romance guru, as her boyfriend is about to visit, and she doesn’t know how to break her Pauly D dalliances to this guy who she’s been with for the staggering duration of three months. The boyfriend, Tommy, who could be recreated in a lab by using various pieces of the cast members, enters the house and immediately slouches on the couch as Pauly D goes back to smirking.
Angelina’s friends show up and want to party. Already things look bad for the night, because anytime people want to have any kind of fun Angelina’s brain flips the kill-switch. Angelina’s boyfriend is supposed to come out, too, making the likelihood of dramatics about 700%. Cut to obvious club montage. Angelina immediately gets weird with her boyfriend, and her friends are looking bummed.
Snooki, looking oranger than ever, finds some dude she knows and plainly states that her plan is to “get her fix.” For those of you who did not go to Ivy League schools, she means “have meaningless sexual intercourse.”
Cut back to Angelina’s boyfriend unmistakably dumping her. The voice over is Angelina saying: “I think I just broke up with my boyfriend.” No, Angelina, your boyfriend broke up with you. It’s happened to all of us. Deal with it. Anyway, this leads to the friends who wanted to party revealing that Angelina’s (ex-) boyfriend is married as they try to hide their disappointment. Snooki, of all people, has shockingly lucid points on the subject. Angelina makes it back to the house, and the duck phone begins quacking. This begins a remarkably tedious series of Angelina’s ex attempting to contact her and Angelina getting as dramatic as possible. Everyone is annoyed.
Tommy’s pillow talk with JWoww is pretty romantic, as he clutches her in his meat-vice grip and says that if she ever does anything with another guy, it’s over. JWoww shows a pretty decent amount of backbone and tries to get to the bottom of this statement, but doesn’t reveal anything yet.
The next morning sees Angelina being up and seemingly waiting for the crowd of adoring fans to fawn over her. When this doesn’t happen, she decides that the only way to get any sort of reaction is to not go into work, and sit making a forced “sad face.” Vinnie, the boy scout of the house, does go in to work.
Angelina is so desperate for some sort of reaction that she decides to start coughing, and makes the vocal decision not to work in hopes that her parishioners will fan her with fig leaves. In a stunning turn, she abdicates her frowny throne and goes in to tell the management she’s sick or something at the store. When she greets the manager, he gives her the standard company line, and is more than reasonable. Angelina, who had plenty of opportunities to either call the store or ask one of her housemates to sub, explains as follows: “When you’re sick, you know…you know.” And then asks her manager to “be realistic” when he makes the audacious point that she should have the phone number for her place of employment. The best part is, the manager is trying to let her off the hook, and she just keeps on exacerbating the issue, eventually pulling rank with “Are you getting it? ...You’re not getting it.” I can only assume that Angelina’s parents reward her with fine baked goods and scented oils when she makes vague excuse-pejoratives because she seems shocked when this does not make everyone bow down at her feet. She then explains that it was “Common courtesy for me to even walk over there.” This points to a clear issue: common courtesy is basically what is decent to do in a given situation, and Angelina is acting as though expressing this is akin to donating a kidney.
The boss/landlord shows up, pissed. Angelina acts like the most ungrateful brat alive, and basically stonewalls him. He offers her every opportunity to make amends, but she won’t give an inch. He leaves and says: “What an asshole. This is fucking ridiculous.” Let’s think for a second. This guy, who lives and works on the Jersey shore and owns a t-shirt store that sells items embossed with the words “Milf Hunter” is exasperated with someone for being rude. Congratulations, Angelina, you deserve the Nobel Prize for Social Retardation. After sighing a few times, she packs up and acts like this was an ordeal she survived. The rest of the group is more than a little apathetic. Angelina points out Mike’s gray hair on her way out, and waits for the roommate tears to begin, they don’t, and she leaves.
The vigil for Angelina lasts four seconds. JWoww decides to inform Tommy that she slipped up, and Tommy hangs up on her. The vigil for JWoww’s relationship lasts about 5 seconds. JWoww informs us that if she is single, things are going to go crazy, because she has been a self-described “nun” thus far. Nuns do tend to make out with unemployed Djs and admire penile piercings, so this is a pretty good analogy. Then, JWoww informs us that we will get to see her “dirty, filthy slut side.” Woww. Just woww.
Snooki brings out her moderately attractive friend, Ryder, and they decide to dance like lunatics in a nearly empty bar. Mike decides to immediately hit on said friend on their return. More Ronnie and Sammi time. They minigolf and hold hands. It seems like everyone is at a middle school level of emotional development.
No episode would be complete without hot tub time. Snooki immediately begins making out with her friend, and dishing some transcendent asides.
Snooki’s thoughts on the make out: “I was feeling like making out with someone, so I made out with Ryder, because all the guys like that.”
Snooki’s thoughts on Mike the Situation: “Mike can be a nice guy, like he shows off his good side and shows off his jerk-off side, and that’s what I like- a good guy and a jerk-off.”
Snooki then makes out with Mike the Situation. Woww. Snooki also aggressively instructs Mike to have anal sex with her, and says in an aside that she would not be opposed to doing something similar with Mike were the opportunity to arrive.
Snooki’s thoughts on sex with Mike the Situation: “If one thing leads to another, I’m not going to tell him to get off.”
Back to Sammi and Ronnie time. They both are struck by the gravity of a 72-hour romance.
Mike The Situation asks Pauly D to get the barbecue started. I have a feeling that asking Pauly D to do anything outside of “spin house music” or “prematurely ejaculate” is a stretch, but this proves to be nearly fatal. Pauly D puts charcoal in a gas grill and hilarity (also known as fire) ensues. There are a couple of issues. First of all, what kind of Wile E. Coyote wannabe puts charcoal next to a gas grill unless he or she wants to blow up idiots? Second of all, how did Mike the Situation not notice the charcoal when lighting the grill? Anyway, Pauly D uses the fire extinguisher in a totally erotic fashion to ironically cool things down.
Now to the big finale- we’ve been being bored stiff by the stunted musings of two people having reached sexual maturity and being surprised that they can actually spend enjoyable time that isn’t pounding one another out. But now, Ronnie and Sammi go to a club, and predictably decide within two minutes that the other is cheating, even though Ronnie was about four feet away from the girl he was dancing with. Neither attempts to resolve anything, they instead jump to conclusions, and Ronnie sulks his way home. Since he exchanged one word with JWoww, Sammi Sweatheart concludes the pair are lovers and the argument rages as the credits roll.
Awards:
Most Decent Human Being: JWoww
Worst Human Being: Angelina, in a landslide
Star Rising: Snooki
Star Falling: Mike The Situation
Pauly D Award: Pauly D
Bombshell Factoid: Mike The Situation is 26. At this rate, he will look 75 in two years.
Phew. Anyway, the next time sets us up for what should be a roller coaster episode, including Snooki getting punched. Stay tuned!
The magic begins with a montage of the events from the premiere, and the new episode begins right when the last one ended. The morning after the most recent club trip sheds more light on various existential tools used by the Seaside 8. JWoww and Angelina both try to question the validity of hook-ups that were 100% documented in JWoww’s case, and implied in Angelina’s. JWoww’s argument is kind of interesting because I think she wants to believe it- in her mind she is actually a respectable girl, and going to the club and hooking up with dudes shouldn’t even be thought of outside the action itself. Volumes of psychological texts could be written on JWoww’s desire to be moral and promiscuous simultaneously. Angelina, on the other hand, is a horrible excuse for a human being, so my guess is that she denies it because doing so upsets other people.
The most interesting morning is Mike The Situation’s. His bravado seems to increase exponentially in his testimonial asides, but he is so obviously hurt by Sammi Sweetheart that the whole thing becomes Greek tragedy. He wants to point out a million times how she wanted him first, and that he could have any girl he wants. I suspect that were Mike The Situation driven to suicide, he would be sure to point out his note that the act was in no way due to heartbreak, as women will likely still line up to look at and worship his corpse-abs. Speaking of which, his funeral would not only be open coffin, but would have to be shirtless, or his hands should at least be positioned in the act of lifting up his shirt. Let’s take this moment to read excerpts from some other folks’ theoretical suicide notes:
Ronnie: I’m off to pound out some angels.
Angelina: This is completely your fault, mom and dad. This is also the fault of…
Snooki: I should have never agreed to settle down with a flabby, pale Irish cop in upstate New York, everyone needs to follow their dreams.
Pauly D: Well, my hair didn’t come out perfect yesterday, so this seems like the only thing to do.
Anyway, Mike and Sammi work together at the store and Mike behaves like a wounded adolescent, all while continually trying to win Sammi back in the most annoying way possible. I can only assume that what was left on the cutting room floor was a lot of the following
Mike: [lifts up his shirt in Sammi’s direction] Oh Yeahhhhhh!
Sammi: Great, Mike.
[thirty second pause with abs exposed]
Mike: So, we together now?
The merciful editor takes us away from this awkwardness, and immediately focuses on Snooki’s majestic, 360 degree muffin-top. Snooki, wearing a trucker hat with “Pornstar in Training” on it, begins to suck on a pickle in front of Pauly D and Vinnie. As he does in most situations, Pauly D looks like he’s sneakily watching his friend’s mom undress, the shifty eyes and shit-eating grin in full effect.
We then get to see Ronnie and Sammi in relationship mode. It has been about two or three days, so they probably represent one of the longest pairings in the zip code. JWoww is also revealed as Ronnie’s confidante, but their conversation is pretty boring.
JWoww is an interesting choice for a romance guru, as her boyfriend is about to visit, and she doesn’t know how to break her Pauly D dalliances to this guy who she’s been with for the staggering duration of three months. The boyfriend, Tommy, who could be recreated in a lab by using various pieces of the cast members, enters the house and immediately slouches on the couch as Pauly D goes back to smirking.
Angelina’s friends show up and want to party. Already things look bad for the night, because anytime people want to have any kind of fun Angelina’s brain flips the kill-switch. Angelina’s boyfriend is supposed to come out, too, making the likelihood of dramatics about 700%. Cut to obvious club montage. Angelina immediately gets weird with her boyfriend, and her friends are looking bummed.
Snooki, looking oranger than ever, finds some dude she knows and plainly states that her plan is to “get her fix.” For those of you who did not go to Ivy League schools, she means “have meaningless sexual intercourse.”
Cut back to Angelina’s boyfriend unmistakably dumping her. The voice over is Angelina saying: “I think I just broke up with my boyfriend.” No, Angelina, your boyfriend broke up with you. It’s happened to all of us. Deal with it. Anyway, this leads to the friends who wanted to party revealing that Angelina’s (ex-) boyfriend is married as they try to hide their disappointment. Snooki, of all people, has shockingly lucid points on the subject. Angelina makes it back to the house, and the duck phone begins quacking. This begins a remarkably tedious series of Angelina’s ex attempting to contact her and Angelina getting as dramatic as possible. Everyone is annoyed.
Tommy’s pillow talk with JWoww is pretty romantic, as he clutches her in his meat-vice grip and says that if she ever does anything with another guy, it’s over. JWoww shows a pretty decent amount of backbone and tries to get to the bottom of this statement, but doesn’t reveal anything yet.
The next morning sees Angelina being up and seemingly waiting for the crowd of adoring fans to fawn over her. When this doesn’t happen, she decides that the only way to get any sort of reaction is to not go into work, and sit making a forced “sad face.” Vinnie, the boy scout of the house, does go in to work.
Angelina is so desperate for some sort of reaction that she decides to start coughing, and makes the vocal decision not to work in hopes that her parishioners will fan her with fig leaves. In a stunning turn, she abdicates her frowny throne and goes in to tell the management she’s sick or something at the store. When she greets the manager, he gives her the standard company line, and is more than reasonable. Angelina, who had plenty of opportunities to either call the store or ask one of her housemates to sub, explains as follows: “When you’re sick, you know…you know.” And then asks her manager to “be realistic” when he makes the audacious point that she should have the phone number for her place of employment. The best part is, the manager is trying to let her off the hook, and she just keeps on exacerbating the issue, eventually pulling rank with “Are you getting it? ...You’re not getting it.” I can only assume that Angelina’s parents reward her with fine baked goods and scented oils when she makes vague excuse-pejoratives because she seems shocked when this does not make everyone bow down at her feet. She then explains that it was “Common courtesy for me to even walk over there.” This points to a clear issue: common courtesy is basically what is decent to do in a given situation, and Angelina is acting as though expressing this is akin to donating a kidney.
The boss/landlord shows up, pissed. Angelina acts like the most ungrateful brat alive, and basically stonewalls him. He offers her every opportunity to make amends, but she won’t give an inch. He leaves and says: “What an asshole. This is fucking ridiculous.” Let’s think for a second. This guy, who lives and works on the Jersey shore and owns a t-shirt store that sells items embossed with the words “Milf Hunter” is exasperated with someone for being rude. Congratulations, Angelina, you deserve the Nobel Prize for Social Retardation. After sighing a few times, she packs up and acts like this was an ordeal she survived. The rest of the group is more than a little apathetic. Angelina points out Mike’s gray hair on her way out, and waits for the roommate tears to begin, they don’t, and she leaves.
The vigil for Angelina lasts four seconds. JWoww decides to inform Tommy that she slipped up, and Tommy hangs up on her. The vigil for JWoww’s relationship lasts about 5 seconds. JWoww informs us that if she is single, things are going to go crazy, because she has been a self-described “nun” thus far. Nuns do tend to make out with unemployed Djs and admire penile piercings, so this is a pretty good analogy. Then, JWoww informs us that we will get to see her “dirty, filthy slut side.” Woww. Just woww.
Snooki brings out her moderately attractive friend, Ryder, and they decide to dance like lunatics in a nearly empty bar. Mike decides to immediately hit on said friend on their return. More Ronnie and Sammi time. They minigolf and hold hands. It seems like everyone is at a middle school level of emotional development.
No episode would be complete without hot tub time. Snooki immediately begins making out with her friend, and dishing some transcendent asides.
Snooki’s thoughts on the make out: “I was feeling like making out with someone, so I made out with Ryder, because all the guys like that.”
Snooki’s thoughts on Mike the Situation: “Mike can be a nice guy, like he shows off his good side and shows off his jerk-off side, and that’s what I like- a good guy and a jerk-off.”
Snooki then makes out with Mike the Situation. Woww. Snooki also aggressively instructs Mike to have anal sex with her, and says in an aside that she would not be opposed to doing something similar with Mike were the opportunity to arrive.
Snooki’s thoughts on sex with Mike the Situation: “If one thing leads to another, I’m not going to tell him to get off.”
Back to Sammi and Ronnie time. They both are struck by the gravity of a 72-hour romance.
Mike The Situation asks Pauly D to get the barbecue started. I have a feeling that asking Pauly D to do anything outside of “spin house music” or “prematurely ejaculate” is a stretch, but this proves to be nearly fatal. Pauly D puts charcoal in a gas grill and hilarity (also known as fire) ensues. There are a couple of issues. First of all, what kind of Wile E. Coyote wannabe puts charcoal next to a gas grill unless he or she wants to blow up idiots? Second of all, how did Mike the Situation not notice the charcoal when lighting the grill? Anyway, Pauly D uses the fire extinguisher in a totally erotic fashion to ironically cool things down.
Now to the big finale- we’ve been being bored stiff by the stunted musings of two people having reached sexual maturity and being surprised that they can actually spend enjoyable time that isn’t pounding one another out. But now, Ronnie and Sammi go to a club, and predictably decide within two minutes that the other is cheating, even though Ronnie was about four feet away from the girl he was dancing with. Neither attempts to resolve anything, they instead jump to conclusions, and Ronnie sulks his way home. Since he exchanged one word with JWoww, Sammi Sweatheart concludes the pair are lovers and the argument rages as the credits roll.
Awards:
Most Decent Human Being: JWoww
Worst Human Being: Angelina, in a landslide
Star Rising: Snooki
Star Falling: Mike The Situation
Pauly D Award: Pauly D
Bombshell Factoid: Mike The Situation is 26. At this rate, he will look 75 in two years.
Phew. Anyway, the next time sets us up for what should be a roller coaster episode, including Snooki getting punched. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
An Ode to the Loathesome
In the late 1980s, MTV put a few people together and filmed them. This was prior to the "original" New York Real World, and the few clips I've seen are commensurate with anything MTV of the era: ridiculous outfits (in hindsight), amateur production, but the same je ne sais que that still makes MTV intriguing: the fact that you haven't necessarily seen anything that looks like this or anything that approaches the subject in this fashion. Anyone who has made numerous movies with friends probably has footage of a similar interest to this original reality living show- slightly off scenes that smack of potential or brilliance and elate the participants but leave the overall audience apathetic.
So while you and your buddies have either moved on to the pragmatic or continue to fuss over attempts at transcendence (I am guilty of column B), MTV has continued to tap this keg of mediocrity, hitting the occasional home run (Real World Hawaii and San Diego were pretty amazing in my book), and more often than not, giving you something that you kind of want to care about, but need a co-conspirator friend or significant other or an elaborate bet to continue experiencing any sort of excitement.
Next comes Jersey Shore. Holy tap-dancing zombie Pope balls. Let's take a quick recap.
Pauly D greets us, helmetless on a crotch rocket (if you don't count his blowout hairstyle as a helmet), and informs us that when Guidos stop, the chrome keeps spinning. He doesn't let us into the integral secret of whether his motorcycle rim spun due to him paying for a specific rim that performs said task, or whether this was a result of his Italian heritage. His ethnic pride runs deep, he says that it represents "...family, friends, tanning, gel, everything." The quoted portion is an exact quote, and each point was punctuated with him clapping his hands. Pauly D also likes to point out that he is "Your girl's favorite DJ" and that he does not intend to take other people's girlfriends but it happens nonetheless. We now should feel sorry for the tortured poet's soul of Pauly D. As he intends to make women [climax] in their pants on the dance floor, his sexual attractiveness is something of a burden, though he does not wish to diminish his star. He owns a tanning bed and requires nearly half an hour to do his hair, but he assures us it comes out perfect each time.
The counter on my DVR has reached one minute. One. And I haven't included anything about Pauly D's tattoos or room decor, both of which have been featured prominently in the montage to this point. The remainder of the show features amazing nicknames, hook ups, name calling, perpetual drunkedness, duck phone ineptitude, the worst boob job in America, genital piercing, infidelity, more infidelity, denial and acceptance of infidelity, a health code violation in the form of a hot tub, the most ridiculous attempt to pull rank in history (Angelina's point about working at a t-shirt store), heartbreak, a grunt-laden gym montage, and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
I previously referred to two Real World seasons as home runs. In that context, Jersey Shore would be a batted ball that not only scores the player at home and those on base, but also murders the opposing team and league and automatically results in a pennant and title by default.
In the last week I have attempted to spread Jersey Shore to my friends in the way the participants of the aforementioned attempted to spread whatever strain of designer STD they were carrying to whomever would play the role of "receptacle." And I'm not entirely sure if I'm basically carrying out my own version of "The Ring" or spreading happiness to the people I care most about. But cheers to you: Pauly D, Vinnie, Ronnie, J-Woww, Mike the Situation, Sammi Sweetheart, Angelina, and the Duck Phone-challenged Snooki. I am forever in your debt, and will begin doing episodic recaps after I recover from the premiere.
So while you and your buddies have either moved on to the pragmatic or continue to fuss over attempts at transcendence (I am guilty of column B), MTV has continued to tap this keg of mediocrity, hitting the occasional home run (Real World Hawaii and San Diego were pretty amazing in my book), and more often than not, giving you something that you kind of want to care about, but need a co-conspirator friend or significant other or an elaborate bet to continue experiencing any sort of excitement.
Next comes Jersey Shore. Holy tap-dancing zombie Pope balls. Let's take a quick recap.
Pauly D greets us, helmetless on a crotch rocket (if you don't count his blowout hairstyle as a helmet), and informs us that when Guidos stop, the chrome keeps spinning. He doesn't let us into the integral secret of whether his motorcycle rim spun due to him paying for a specific rim that performs said task, or whether this was a result of his Italian heritage. His ethnic pride runs deep, he says that it represents "...family, friends, tanning, gel, everything." The quoted portion is an exact quote, and each point was punctuated with him clapping his hands. Pauly D also likes to point out that he is "Your girl's favorite DJ" and that he does not intend to take other people's girlfriends but it happens nonetheless. We now should feel sorry for the tortured poet's soul of Pauly D. As he intends to make women [climax] in their pants on the dance floor, his sexual attractiveness is something of a burden, though he does not wish to diminish his star. He owns a tanning bed and requires nearly half an hour to do his hair, but he assures us it comes out perfect each time.
The counter on my DVR has reached one minute. One. And I haven't included anything about Pauly D's tattoos or room decor, both of which have been featured prominently in the montage to this point. The remainder of the show features amazing nicknames, hook ups, name calling, perpetual drunkedness, duck phone ineptitude, the worst boob job in America, genital piercing, infidelity, more infidelity, denial and acceptance of infidelity, a health code violation in the form of a hot tub, the most ridiculous attempt to pull rank in history (Angelina's point about working at a t-shirt store), heartbreak, a grunt-laden gym montage, and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
I previously referred to two Real World seasons as home runs. In that context, Jersey Shore would be a batted ball that not only scores the player at home and those on base, but also murders the opposing team and league and automatically results in a pennant and title by default.
In the last week I have attempted to spread Jersey Shore to my friends in the way the participants of the aforementioned attempted to spread whatever strain of designer STD they were carrying to whomever would play the role of "receptacle." And I'm not entirely sure if I'm basically carrying out my own version of "The Ring" or spreading happiness to the people I care most about. But cheers to you: Pauly D, Vinnie, Ronnie, J-Woww, Mike the Situation, Sammi Sweetheart, Angelina, and the Duck Phone-challenged Snooki. I am forever in your debt, and will begin doing episodic recaps after I recover from the premiere.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)