'Jersey Shore' Recap: The Cabs Are Here for Thee

The cast of MTV's 'Jersey Shore.'

No matter how much we love the boobs, eventually they too must leave us, strapped into bombshell bras and tube tops in clubs and cities we cannot visit, we cannot know, at least until MTV decides how to have a Season Six, what with Snooki getting her spawn on. Is this the end of our love for the foreseeable future? Could any ending ever satisfy the deep existential ache left by that one time Snooki and Deena fell out off that raft? And did Deena ever find out if the hermit crabs were still there? How could she have, when they were never there to begin with?

Ah yes, another Jersey Shore finale has come and gone, much like the changing of the seasons. In fact, future Jersey Shore seasons will be how our children map the progress of the earth around the sun, and by children I mean the sentient weave the nanobots will have instructed to grow out of our tender, auburn skulls. Our living god will be a sassy working girl named Lola, and through her vacant rabbit eye sockets will flow a river of such unfathomable cruelty. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Vinny and Pauly moved all the furniture out onto the patio, and all the patio furniture into the living room! It's a tiki party, y'all! Almost everyone takes the prank with giggly good-nature and hot-tub-water-saturated couch cushions, except the Situation, who sulks and pouts and basically exhibits the symptoms of some profound emotional issue stemming from something much deeper than "Someone moved my half-empty bottles of Axe and dozens of pairs of pajama pants onto the deck." But of course the Situation is pissed, you guys! Would you want someone accidentally finding your murder diaries while trying to play a hilarious prank on you? I didn't think so.

Mike waits until the rain ruins his stuff ("Too bad when it rains in a couple minutes, it'll be ruined," he sighs while doing nothing), then visits his soggy mattress and clothes with an air of yawning despondency most of us reserve for a visit to our mother's grave. "I'm fucking sinking and shit," Mike laments as his mattress sags under him, his voice on the verge of tears. Sometimes you have to keep the inside on the inside and the outside on the outside. You feel me, Mike?

"We should change his name from the Situation to the Bitchuation," Snooki cheerfully points out. How it took this long for them to coin that moniker! How. It. Took. So. Long. Pauly and Vinny eventually help drag Mike's waterlogged belongings inside, probably because they don't want their insides on the outside and their outsides on the inside. You feel me, world?

Speaking of bitchuations and the segues between them, it just so happens that Deena's sister Joanie and Mike's brother Frank are bumping uglies. I do not mean that as a hilarious euphemism for sex. For some reason I assumed Joanie was Deena's younger sister, but fortunately she is actually 500 years old, and hopefully not quite as susceptible to graphic rumors about her sexuality. It's also remarkable that all of the Situation's siblings are like a variation on a theme, the theme being an intricately carved statuette of Popeye whittled out of pine and lacquered to a rich, luxurious finish. As such, it goes without saying that Frank tells Mike that Joanie is a squirter, a piece of information that at least the Situation treats with a sense of reverence as he blabs it to everyone. "This talent is only bestowed on the chosen one," he sighs. "It's like pee and shit!" Snooki squeals, repelled. Snooki . . . Snooki has so little anatomical or biological information, it's horrifying/all ads up.

Speaking of anatomy and transitioning from one paragraph to the next, Vinny tries to have a three-way with two lesbians he meets at the club. And by try, I mean exes Ashley and Jamie are immediately down to fuck him for absolutely no conceivable reason. I guess if years of Girls Gone Wild have taught the world anything (they have taught the world everything), it's that the presence of a video camera can make people forget their orientation for as long as it takes to get airtime. After bro-ing out with Vinny in the grossest way possible ("We're not looking for good girls," Vinny laughs as they try to wrangle him a hottie), the two accompany Vinny home and he does his best to "turn them straight," as Pauly gleefully puts it.

Shockingly, they actually have sex with him. What a twist! Another twist? "One of them looks like Matthew McConaughey," Ronnie exclaims in disbelief. Ronnie had some good ones this season, didn't he? He will be missed. Our grandchildren will bring bouquets of broken reading glasses to his tomb at the Jersey Shore Memorial, located directly under the Washington Monument. And by grandchildren, I of course mean the booty shorts we birthed with our domestic partners, Danny the T-Shirt Shop Guy and JWoww's dad. "They write history books around this shit," Vinny crows about his achievement in a moment of unintentional self-awareness. "It's like you were banging me," Pauly declares in that exact same moment.

Meanwhile, storm's a-brewin'! Deena can feel it coming, deep in her fun bags. When lightning crackles across the Jersey sky, she loses her goddamn mind. "I'm the one who's going to be fricking electrocuted," she frets. "It's that tornado I saw," she panics as the storm rolls in. Deena's butt is so scared, in fact, that it tries to make a run for it out the bottom of her lady diapers. After the lights blink out, Deena scrambles for her car keys, as she plans to . . . what? Drive directly up into the tornado and never stop? You want what you can't have, and I want to see Deena "fricking swinging all over the fricking sky" like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Speaking of storms and just killing it when it comes to segues, Deena is about to fricking swing all over the sky of the Situation's mind over his decision to dare talk about Joanie's . . . liquidity issue. "Even if she does, what business is it to you?" Deena rages, because she is one of the few cast members who is still a human. Watching Mike scramble for an explanation for why Snooki knows the information he told her about Deena's sister is like watching a case study video on the world's most bumbling sociopath. "Who did I speak to? Who did I speak to?" he stammers before claiming Snooki must have overheard him on the phone. To console her, the Situation points out how great squirting is. "When a guy hears that about a girl, it's not a bad thing," Mike declares. "If it was up to me, I'd give Deena a high five!" The fact he has some idea that it's not up to him is the only scrap of hope I still have for this kid. This full-grown adult human being.

After a water balloon fight, which ends with Deena being dunked and closed into the hot tub, it's time for the cast to scatter once again to the corners of the Tri-State Area. Au revoir, everyone! We'll always have that episode where the downstairs toilet broke and then it turns out a tank top was jammed inside. To paraphrase Vinny, I've been at some really low points this summer . . . and then I fucked these lesbians and it was all worth it!

As the cast drifts away one by one, you might be thinking to yourself, "What would even be the purpose of another Jersey Shore season at this point?" This is a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of the show, and perhaps . . . of life itself. "I don't know if it's going to fit," Roger muses while eyeing JWoww's massive amount of luggage. In the words of a great man, that's what she said, bro. That's . . . what she said.

Last episode: Oh My God, the Wilderness

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Oh My God, the Wilderness

Michael 'The Situation' Sorrentino on MTV's 'Jersey Shore.'

Where is the Jersey Devil when you need him? If there was one night where the Pine Barrens should have echoed with the soul-rending screams of the damned, it should have been Wednesday. Whichever Wednesday it was when the gang went camping; I don't know the show's shooting schedule. Before the cast can go frolic in Satan's church, however, our own little Lord of the Flies, the Situation, has to finally reveal to Jionni the sordid truth regarding The Incident Between Snooki and the Situation's Wiener. Mike leads Snooki's timid, hunky mouse out onto the patio, and finally tells him his version of the truth.

"This is my moment!" Mike declares, tragically and accurately. Thank God the Situation was finally able to get all that "guilt" off his "human" "heart," right, guys? Jionni . . . okay, I admit that Jionni acts like a crazy person when Mike tells him what he done did to his girl. Jionni accepts the news gravely . . . then shakes the Situation's hand and says, "Thank you." This is how dictators get their start, you guys: normal people just indulge their insanity rather than call them out on it. First they came for my girlfriend's vagina, and so forth.

Jionni scampers back to the sweet, soggy comfort of Snooki's bed, while Mike, clearly disappointed he didn't get another chance to ram his skull into a concrete wall, tells the rest of the house about his scandalous admission. Here's the thing: in real time, Snooki and Jionni are allegedly pregnant and getting married, a turn of events which kind of undermines any dramatic tension the Situation could have milked out of their gross hook-up. But still? Even on the show? No one actually cares. Mike has to up the ante every time he retells the story just to keep their eyes from wandering. "'I respect you and I agree with you,'" Mike inaccurately reports Jionni saying. "I gave blow-by-blow details," the Situation lies.

Maybe Jionni's reaction was appropriate after all. It's the kind of reaction you'd have when the 911 operator says, "The call is coming from inside the house," or the kid's parents say, "No, we don't have an adult-sized clown doll in our master bedroom. Why do you ask?" You back away slowly, keep your face an emotionless mask, and then run like hell to safety. Oh, and you wash it off. Skrillex, drop the safe-anal Powerpoint presentation!

Snooki's reaction to the Situation's bean-spilling is, of course, a little more direct. Also, we know she totally hooked up with the Situation, right? But we just find him so repellent that the idea of even mentioning his greasy wiener in any scenario makes us deeply resent him? Okay, just wanted to check. "I'm not going to deal with this right now," Snooki sighs when Jionni meekly confronts her about it. "He's just trying to get a rise out of you," she says, before grabbing Jionni's dick. "Did he?"

Now, considering the fact that she's already cheated on Jionni with Vinny and (arguably) Deena, this is pretty much as well as Snooki could play it. Meanwhile, Mike crouches on the stairs like a goblin that brushes his teeth, waiting for Snooki's explosive response, which he eventually draws out of her. "I didn't do anything wrong, Snooki," he says out loud, like the words make some semblance of sense. "You'll thank me at the end of the day." Eventually the two end up in a heated food fight, fistfuls of warm potato salad standing in for betrayal and the sadistic urge.  "Nicole is not having fun," JWoww sighs. "I know it's going to get ugly." She's right, of course; no one needs to see Snooki's weave saturated with that much mustard. "I just thought you were thirsty, Popeye," Snooki snarls as she hurls a gallon of milk. Later she inaccurately claims, "I never cheated on him." Not never, girl, but a solid Popeye zing nonetheless. Then she rolls around in Mike's bed rubbing condiments on his pillowcases. "I won this battle," the Situation declares. Dude, you have ketchup all over your sheets! Your sheets ruined all that perfectly good ketchup!

On to the forest primeval! Just have to stock up on a few things first: marshmallows, ghost stories, drinks, axe murderers . . . Oh, and let us not forget the musical instruments. "Oh, a bonjo!" Snooki suggests. "A bango!" A BONJO! A BANGO! Kermit the Frog is rolling over in his grave, young lady. The gang swiftly sets up camp, the Situation surprising everyone with his ability to do something that isn't born out of malicious glee. "I can't believe he has the brainspan to put up the tent," Ronnie marvels.

Deena has brought her own suitcase full of emotional despair to the forest, a suitcase that immediately opens to reveal so many spiders and so much jealousy.  Also, why is Deena wearing a dress in the woods? It's the woods! While D claims to be upset that she's the only single girl in the house, the crux of the issue seems to be that Snooki is too busy boning Jionni to be Deena's friend anymore. "One meatball stands alone," Deena sobs, hilariously. Snooki is . . . less than sympathetic. "You didn't lose me," she chides. "I'm in love. Don't make me feel guilty." Meanwhile, the sheer amount of vermin-attracting garbage they manage to throw on the ground in one night is truly remarkable.

Hey, do you guys remember when New Jersey burned to the ground? It's only a matter of time before the Situation douses the wilderness with lighter fluid and sets it ablaze. "He's like one of those people," Deena sighs. "A hermaphrodite, or whatever." Well, that's neither here nor there, Deena, now is it? The later it gets, the drunker the Situation gets. The drunker he gets, the more paranoid he gets. The more paranoid he gets, the more dirt appears on the butt of his pristine white sweatpants as he bear-crawls around his tent, as he scurries around the campsite like a deranged ferret.

In the morning, the Situation decides that no one is helping him pack up the site fast enough, and he starts flinging the tents around like a madman. I wish women's periods really did attract bears. I would have attracted bears to the Situation's sleeping bag so fast. 

Back home, Vinny and Pauly stay behind to make sweet, slow love to one another for hours. Not really, but we do get to see them blow up a kiddie pool together, which is almost as good. It's all part of their mind-blowing prank to take everything from inside the house and put it out on the patio, recreating the patio inside with a kiddie pool and AstroTurf. "Teamwork makes the dream work," Pauly declares. Yes, buddy. Yes, it does.

Last episode: What Happened to Smoosh Bed?

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: What Happened to Smoosh Bed?

Jenni 'J-Woww' Farley of MTV's 'Jersey Shore' in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

Love is in the air, as is the bronzer and hairspray they are constantly aspirating, when JWoww decides to celebrate her one-year anniversary with Roger by decorating the Smoosh Room. I always imagined the Smoosh Room to be the place where I will be taken after death as a punishment for my earthly sins, but sure, a romantic evening seems like a reasonable use, too. Jenni and Sammi take a trip to the sex store to stock up on candy dicks, furry handcuffs and a kit to take a mold of your vagina as a fun reminder for your loved one of the vagina they’re about to see in real life anyway. All surfaces sticky! All orifices irritated! Now that’s amore!

This turn of events, however, does not sit well with Vinny and Pauly.  "The smoosh room is supposed to be for single people!" they gripe. Nah, nah, nah, wait a minute, ya’ll. I thought it was only for the sexy people? Ugh, you’re right; that wasn’t funny. I’ll be waiting in the Smoosh Room to receive my eternal punishment. Man, why are there never any sheets on this bed?

Now, in my opinion the distinction between spurting your fluids onto one monstrously taut orange body on the reg versus many seems like a pretty arbitrary delineation. Nonetheless, the gents decide to register their displeasure hauling the soiled mattress out onto the roof. "I just got pregnant," Pauly laughs as he touches years of sex-related filth. "I just got a fuckload of Mike's babies on my chin!," Vinny adds with disgust. "How is that different from any other day?" Pauly retorts. Zing! Man, these guys. I just want them to come move the jism-soaked mattresses around my house so I can enjoy their special brand of homoerotic friendship. "What happened to Smoosh Bed?" Jenni asks upon finding the mattress missing. Good god, it has a name. Its name is Smoosh Bed. I’m beginning to think Hitler was reincarnated as Smoosh Bed. It just adds up, people!

Once she realizes her love cave has been defiled, JWoww makes an eternal vow of revenge. "Whoever did this is going to get it back tenfold," Jenni swears to the gods of her people. When will people realize you just don't piss off a woman with the upper body strength necessary to swing a broadsword? If JWoww had to cut off a breast to shoot an arrow better, she would do it. She would then go out and buy a bigger, nicer boob to replace it, and that is why you do not want to fuck with her when she’s celebrating her long-term relationship.

After JWoww singlehandedly wrestles the soggy mattress back into the room (as opposed to burning it, the only known way to let all the souls it contains escape), Ronnie, Pauly and Vinny all stand in the doorway, squealing like 12-year-old boys over Jenni’s sexy accoutrement. My god, the idea that anyone in that house feels like they can point to something and say "Ew" is such hubris! Such overweening pride! "This is a shore house, not an old-age home," Vinny jokes in complete defiance of every social convention I’ve ever heard about the elderly. Are Jersey olds generally known for cloning their pussies and getting a rash from synthetic rose petals? Luckily, Roger loves it, and he’s the only old man who matters here. "Where’s my Metamucil and fiber bar?" he laughs. Haha, oh Roger! They’re right there, under the candy dicks! Later, Pauly sneers, "What's going to go on upstairs is just gross." The idea that the cast members on this show feel it’s appropriate to say that occasionally, as opposed to constantly? My god, the nerve!

Not that anyone else would have been using the Smoosh Room, anyway. Both Pauly and the Situation managed to strike out with their respective DTFs, sabotaged as they were by the inherent lady-ness of their partners. While Pauly’s dream nerd, Gina, had to bow out due to her pesky menstrual cycle, the Sitch’s girl gets all the way to the men’s pajamas stage of the evening before she demurs, citing her "shyness" (or more likely, "sobriety"). He scoffs, "The Situation doesn't do appointments." Laughs Pauly, "Take your girl and your tampons and go!" Oh, if only there were disembodied self-lubricating holes just constantly available for fucking, unfettered by these complicated bags of meat we call bodies and minds! One day, Science. One day.

Later, the gang’s trip to Karma is besieged by grenades. To whit, we’re treated to a montage of fat female body parts. In all fairness, though, their chances probably weren’t helped by Vinny’s denim plaid shirt. "Your sister was nice enough to loan you her entire outfit?" Pauly inquires. "I loved you on The Dukes of Hazzard," Roger riffs. Ugh, you boys keep me young. "Honestly? We really should turn gay," Vinny jokes after they go home alone. HAHA, what if, you guys? That would just be insane. So, so sexy and insane.

Deena is also bottoming out with erstwhile bed buddy Joey, who has let his inner asshole out. It takes Deena a little while to realize it, though. "I don’t know," she murmurs in a heartbreaking rasp. "I like him." Oh Deena, will your cabs ever be here?

Finally, finally, the Situation’s idiotic plan to tell Jionni about his hook-up with Snooki is about to come to fruition. It’s been about to come to fruition for weeks, so, you know, it’s hard to get worked up over the ravings of a madman. "She tried to play me like a chess piece a few weeks ago against the boys," the Sitch rants to the Unit. None of that . . . actually happened, did it? "It's like you have a pen," he explains. "You have a pitbull and a chicken." Which would explain what happened to the smoosh room mattress.

For all this talk about being "Sitch-tradamus" (which, I have to hand it to him, is a very satisfying play on words), Mike somehow did not foresee that a drunken Unit would get arrested during their walk home. It’s moments like these that I wonder if the police don't have enough power. Why should they have to wait until he’s been drinking to throw the Unit in jail? I really look forward to some Minority Report-type shit up in the near future. That way, as soon as a new Unit slides from his mother’s womb, he can be escorted immediately to prison.

Despite all the kinks in his terrible, nonsensical plan (like Jionni’s family being at Karma for no conceivable reason), the Situation somehow manages to pull Jionni aside to drop the bomb while Snooki frolics in Dreamland, trails of toilet paper dancing beneath her heels. "The probability of this is just insane," the Situation gasps incorrectly at his luck of getting Jionni alone. The episode ends right before The Big Reveal, but if you aren’t sure how this discussion is going to play out next week, just remember this: last night the Situation tipped a delivery boy . . . with a protein pack. Like it was money. That a person might use. Yeah, shit’s gonna get cray.

Last episode: Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets

The cast of MTV's 'Jersey Shore.'

WHY WOULD THEY MIC JIONNI BARFING LIKE THAT?!?! Good holy god. Hearing his drunken retching was like catching a glimpse of that clogged downstairs toilet from last season, but for the ears.

Actually, this whole episode played like an instructional video on how to destroy your intestinal lining. At one point Sammi literally gags at the fumes emanating from Ronnie's rank meat shits. The bathroom door, it does nothing! "He clogs the toilet every summer," the Situation sighs. If wood cannot contain it even in the slightest, Ron's fart gas is going to eventually eat through the whole damn house; someone's going to try and pick up the duck phone and realize it's been dissolved into a duck-shaped mess of slime. At another point, Snooki tries to repress a burping jag in the kitchen, vomiting into the back of her throat and swallowing, vomiting and swallowing. Then everyone goes out and takes shot after shot and eats Ruffles and cured meats and drinks electrolyte-replacing sugar water, forever. No wonder their plumbing is all fucked up. I can feel my esophagus start to dissolve just thinking about it.

In addition to discovering the root of the gang's constant G.I. distress, this was also the episode where I finally turned against Snooki. I know we are so, so, so far along on our journey, but girl is finally letting her ass show. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Because her entire butthole is constantly showing in real life. Maybe I just wasn't ready to accept it before now. Either way, watching Snooki shove Jionni and pout as he hovers at the edge of consciousness tipped the golden scales for me. Kicking the bathroom door as he voided the contents of his stomach, Snooki berates her boyfriend for being too drunk to fuck. Or, you know, be alive. "You suck," she hisses in his comatose ear. We've had a good run, Shnooks. Thank god for Deena and J-Woww. At least I can rely on them.

Speaking of which, after Roger takes a punch to the face from a creep trying to grope J-Woww (a blow which seems as effective as punching the front of a school bus), Jenni and her side of man-beef retire to the house for some sweet, sweet smoosh-rooming. But first! "My girl had to poop," Roger explains. As Jenni changes into her pajamas (checklist: t-shirt, undies, thigh-high torture sex boots), Roger sneaks down to enjoy a few teeny, tiny, puny human chicken salad sandwiches with the housemates. Jenni demands he return to bed, using the persuasive technique of whipping an exercise elastic at his head from the second story balcony. "The guy doesn't really get to hang out," Ronnie sympathizes. Oh, also, he notes, "Viagra takes at least three hours to kick in." On a side note, Ronnie is sort of killing it this season, right? Admits Roger, "I'm actually in love." Ah, Rog, we can't stay mad at you. How you two don't tear the house down with your muscular, Hulked-out lovemaking is beyond me.

The gang then takes to the dock for a little crab fishing, providing an opportunity for a plethora of crab jokes, made all the funnier by the fact that they are all made of crabs. "I never thought I'd be excited about catching crabs," the Situation jokes. Haha, that's not what your lifestyle, personal philosophy and overall demeanor suggest! After watching a grown man rip a fish in half in front of her, J-Woww still inquires as to whether the bait shop sells cappuccino or espresso.

Overall, the trip was a pretty adorable idea; good job, producers! "Get real!," Deena screams at a crab. "Did you know there's a fish called snook?" Snooki inquires. The gang is wholly charming as it yelps and drops fish and dances around squeamishly. Mike, in the words of Vinny, "is spread-eagle in one of his feminine poses," sunning himself, so Vinny flips a crab onto his bare chest. I feel like that moment was probably very fulfilling for people who subscribe to a very, very tiny niche fetish. As such, I chose to be happy for those among us who are masturbating to the .gif right now.

In a stroke of genius, some mastermind sets Snooki and Deena paddling off in an inflatable raft, which they clearly cannot control in anyway. Even struggling to put it in the water knocks Deena off her feet more than once, which is . . . pretty funny. After sliding, screaming, under the dock, Deena frantically tries to clamor onto a dinghy while the rest of the cast shouts warnings about the sharp edges of the boat. "Shark? Shark?" Deena shrieks. Oh god, Deena. I almost wished the water had been teeming with hammerheads, just to make her frantic scrambling less embarrassing. Right when you're pretty sure you're about to watch Snooki and Deena go down with the ship, Snooki flips out off of the raft . . . and stands up, the water only being three fucking feet deep. "It smells like the smoosh room in here," Jenni cracks, as the fragrant, sea-soaked Meatballs clamor into the car. Ugh, why you gotta use up all the good jokes, J-Woww? You know they're all I have!

Back at the house, Snooki and the Situation are buddies again, because someone mixed up their cue cards. They make a friendly wager: whoever gets one point in their ball-toss game has to wear Snooki's rabbit suit to Karma for 15 minutes. Snooki almost immediately loses. Did you know a particularly bad case of crabs can even invade people's eyelids and eyelashes? Yuck! I would rather my eyes be swarmed and devoured by crabs of either variety than smell the inside of that foul lagomorphic suit, which, according to Snooki, is redolent with a heady mix of "alcohol, sweat and jizz." Lola, as the suit has been named, is a working girl with "fake boobs, fake ass, fake vagina." Haha, don't tell Buffalo Bill! I'm kidding, of course. Buffalo Bill makes all his own clothes. As Vinny pervs when he sees Snooki wearing the costume's makeup-stained head, "you should always leave the mask on."

Snooki completes her end of the bargain, and the gang takes turns adding even more alcohol, sweat and jizz to the grimy costume on the dance floor. After the gentlemen acquire women willing to accommodate their greasy wieners for the evening, Snooki and Deena scramble over a chain-link fence to frolic in the surf. "Get real!" Snooki screams at the ocean. The cops show up almost immediately, which is good, as Deena was 97% likely to drown. One officer even shouts, "Nicole! Time's up!" Sadly, Deena's attempt to seduce a police officer is unsuccessful. "I bet in real life, you're a really good time," Deena purrs. "Maybe he can use his handcuffs later." Oh, he will, but probably on some 'roided-out 19-year-old and, again, not in a hot way. For now, Deena's life, her love and her lady is the sea, and even then the sea is kind of going through some things right now and isn't ready for any kind of big commitment. You understand, right? You're a down chick, Deena.

Pauly is still dealing with his "stalker" Vanessa, a girl who comes and stares at him at the t-shirt shop because she is young and he is on TV. Making her seem threatening, or even unusual, in any way seriously requires some Psycho-level editing. J-Woww takes it upon herself to find out what Vanessa is hiding in her bag. The options seem to be a) guns, b) Pauly's hair or, most likely, c) a chainsaw. Oh, are they making those travel-sized chainsaws now? Vanessa claims it's only a blanket, though Pauly shudders, "Maybe that's the blanket you're going to kill me in." Ah, are they making those murder blankets now? We really do live in an amazing age. Vanessa then walks back to the gigantic line of other people who are waiting for a chance to catch a glimpse of Pauly D, because again, he is a famous celebrity and has been for years now.

Toward the end of the episode, Vinny and Snooki hit the boardwalk for a little one-on-one friend time. Snook has nothing but declarations of love for Jionni ( "I'll shoot with a pistol in your fucking eyeball," she warns the Sitch after he jokes about crashing her future hypothetical wedding), but that doesn't mean she and Vinny aren't totally going to intercourse each other. They already have! And Jionni forgave Snooki! Sounds like Lola is going to be extra jizz-soaked tonight!  "Do you want to get ice cream?" Vinny asks her. "What are we, four?" Snooki sneers. Wow, did I just not notice Snooki was the worst? Has she been the worst this whole time? Have I been blinded to the truth just as I would prefer to be blinded by crabs rather than look at Deena's morning-after weave rat-nest ever again? If I thought ice cream was only for kindergartners, I would walk into the waves and let the scavengers break me down for nutrients right now. Something to think about, you guys.

Last episode: Too Many Hot Dogs

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Too Many Hot Dogs

Deena Cortese of MTV's 'Jersey Shore' in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

I . . . I take back all those things I said about Roger. I take back all those terrible things I said about that big bronze mountain of a man, that emotionally mature mass of delts and teeny prickly moustache hairs. Roger is a mensch, as we find out in the first fifteen seconds of this week's episode. "I trust you emphatically," he reassures a silent Jenni on the phone. "I don't understand who fucked you over so bad in the past that you're taking it out on me. I love you." Which is all any of us, even those of us not living on a TV show, can hope for, right? J-Woww eventually agrees that their love is stronger than Roger being an hour late to their date, and they move on. As Deena explains, "Roger is 65 years old, so he's not going to be playing all these baby games." Real. Talk.

To make up for getting drunk and scampering off on the job ("I'll be honest – I forgot we were even at work after a while," Deena admits), the Meatballs decide to bake Danny the King of All the T-Shirts an apology cake. Deena initially suggests buying him a bagel . . . and the rest of the cast swiftly confirms her retardation. "You should have put hot dogs in the cake," Pauly tells them by way of a cooking suggestion, though I personally find it hard to believe there weren't hot dogs in that cake to begin with. I find it hard to believe there aren't hot dogs in everything the cast eats and drinks and wears and brings home to have sex with. Isn't this show made entirely out of rubbery, pink hot dogs? And I'm not being metaphorical?

Of course, after the girls finish cooking and wrap up their girl, we enter The Mystery of Who Ate That Goddamn Cake? The house immediately suspects the Situation, as he is the turgid orange root of all evil. However! Soon it's revealed that it was Pauly who snuck a slice of the surprisingly hot dog-free cake, and everyone has a good laugh! And the Situation silently plots everyone's grisly demise from the seclusion of his own muscle prison.

Vinny and Pauly are particularly cuddly this episode, flirtatiously referring to one another as each other's bitches. "Me and Pauly are going to take this to the next level, forever," Vinny promises. "It is definitely a date," Pauly crows after he buys Vinny lunch. "Hopefully I'll get it in later." Gentlemen! You two are shamelessly appealing to the gay demographic, and it's working perfectly (on me)! Jersey Shore turned into a hardcore gay sex show so gradually, I didn't even notice, is what I will be keying into my holo-port in the year 2025. I'll also be typing it on my keyboard. Badum-ching! Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all millennium! Remember to tip your sub-sentient sex-borg! 

Later, Pauly sneaks a bunch of old, filthy dishes onto Deena's bed in an attempt to ruin her smoosh plans. As if Deena wasn't already sleeping and boning on a gigantic pile of tangled neon weave and crusty teddy bears and filth panties and grimy make-up sponges and Molten Hot Wings Ruffles dust and tear-stained Kleenexes and hopes and dreams and bugs and so, so many bugs already. As if.

Meanwhile, Snooki has somehow withstood the mind-splitting pain of a UTI for several days now, finally breaking down and going to a walk-in clinic. My, how she reads the phrase "rectal bleeding" off the medical check-in sheet with such distain! As if that wasn't a completely plausible scenario! Let's keep it real here, girl. In a sentence I never fathomed I would being writing when I took all those loans out to complete a Masters Degree, I have a few questions about Snooki's admittedly butt-sex-induced UTI. First of all . . . everyone knows you have to wash it off before you switch, right? Am I correct in thinking that's what's going on here? Are there pockets of people who are switching without washing? Or am I totally misreading the situation? I feel like I'm interpreting things correctly, seeing as how Snooki cops to having roughly 10 UTIs in the past year. 10 UTIs! 10 UTIs = 1 Cancer, basically! Kids, if you're reading this: print out this recap, highlight this entire paragraph, and keep it in your purse or wallet for reference: Wash. It. Off. Now I want to be the spokesperson for washing it off, or maybe Skrillex. I want Rolling Stone to be the leading source of Washing It Off propaganda. Here are some slogans for a possible Wash It Off Campaign:

    •    Don't Just Frown – Wipe It Down
•    UTI? Use Two (Condoms) Idiot
•    When In Doubt, Take It Out (And Wash It Off)

But what do I know, guys? So little, so little in this short life of ours. The poor doctor prescribes Snooki some antibiotics that prohibit heavy drinking – i.e., he is basically prescribing her a case of renal failure. To wit: "I drank so much my frigging UTI was drunk," Snooki declares later that evening. But really, I am not giving Snooks and the girls enough credit. They are conscientious enough to grill Deena's date Joey about his sexual practices, fetching him a condom from Pauly's room and educating him about Deena's sexual proclivities. "That's how she finishes off: merp!" Jenni shouts. They care so much, in fact, that Snooki even decides to watch Deena and Joey bone for . . . research purposes. Research on how not to be drunk and horny and bored. I believe she might actually have an NIH grant for that. As Snooki attempts to sneak in and watch them, Jenni respectfully whispers, "Give it five minutes, because it just got awkward." Keeping On Washing in the Free World, ya'll!

As for the Situation, mere hours after he and Paula shared that special moment (i.e. when she smoked a cigarette on the roof while he rubbed his wiener on her butt), he starts scamming on Snooki. "Did you see Varsity Blues?," he slurs. Oh, you mean the first movie you took your grandkids to? I could say that the fact the Situation drunkenly suggests he and Snooki do handcuff-whipped-cream sex to each other, then immediately contacts the Unit to reactivate Operation: Enduring Asshole to destroy Snooki's relationship says it all, but I don't feel that I'd really be adding anything to the dialogue. "I feel bad that every time he's kissing his girl, he's kissing my area," the Situation lies, later declaring, "I will not be made out to be a liar!" The Situation might be a sociopath, a Tiger Milk addict and a liar, but he is not Popeye. He has also never, ever, ever, ever washed it off. Ever. He wouldn't even know how!

Another trip to Karma is in order and, as a present for Roger, J-Woww dresses like how I imagine God would dress if he were real. Her outfit is sort of like the dress that Julia Roberts wears in Pretty Woman, except instead of kowtowing to those snobby Rodeo Drive shop-girl bitches, Vivian just blew them all away with her rocket-launcher nipples. "It's about freaking time," Snooki cheers. "Your ass cheeks are out." Breathes Roger, "I like the outfit, or lack thereof." Unfortunately, wearing a slave cocktail waitress outfit outside the safety of a fifteen-year-old's fantasy dungeon does have its downside. "In case I fight, I need a shirt," Jenni worries. "What if somebody swings?" It's Roger, however, who takes a punch to the face right at the very tail end of the episode. Oh man, have you ever seen a 65-year-old man with excellent communication skills and an Amazonian fembot girlfriend get angry? He will wash this whole world clean . . . starting, of course, with his own majestic wiener.

Last episode: Gloom and Doom

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Gloom and Doom

Jenni 'J-Woww' of MTV's 'Jersey Shore' in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

Roger is dead to me. Let’s just get that out there up top. Just when you start to think two people can see through each other’s tight sausage casing biceps and comically large bazooms to the tiny nugget of true innocent humanity inside, J-Woww and Roger up and have a fight. Trouble has been brewing in paradise for quite some time, it turns out, coming to a head when Roger calls last-minute to say he’ll be late for a date. There is something heart-rending about seeing such an Amazon break down.

J-Woww has long been the show’s voice of reason, our beacon of rationality and, dare I say, our surrogate mother. Oh…no? Just me then? The point is, if Jenni loses faith, the moral center of the show cannot hold. After running into the boys at the gym, Roger puts a nail in his own coffin (Roger Coffins! Now with more shoulder room!) as far as I’m concerned. “I treat my girl like gold,” he crows, before explaining the litany of reasons he shan’t be calling J-Woww to work things out. That would be “kissing her ass.”

Jenni eventually calls and apologizes for being angry, as one does a thousand times during every relationship, but Roger has built up a good head of steam in the meantime. (Roger Coffins! Now available in steam-powered!). "It's always gloom and doom and drama with you," he chides her, complaining, “You just said your piece, and you hung up like a coward.” A coward? Are we talking about the same goddess? Sadly, their fight leaves Jenni devastated. Or mildly peeved. Or completely neutral. Sometimes…it’s kind of hard to tell at a glance. You guys feel me?

Meanwhile, I can only assume the Situation is keeping track of his various hatreds and vengeances with some kind of huge ideogram, drawn using a sort of horrific non-Euclidean geometry such as the world of man has never known. No human soul can look upon it and hope to keep his mind from the ravening void of insanity.  At one point Mike wakes up alone in the house, and the fact that everyone is out somehow proves the existence of a hidden network of duplicity and diabolic treachery all designed to drive him to the edge. Either that, or he cray.

Either way, the Situation chooses to call up the Unit and have him finally tell Snooki’s manfriend Jionni The Truth about That One Gross Night Where They All Smooshed In The Same Room. Luckily the Unit was in Miami and no available to destroy a young woman’s relationship for sport. "Although in the back of my head I have plans of demise, I'll go get a drink with her,” Mike says of Snooki, i.e. the one cast member still willing to talk to him. “I’m keeping my friends close and my enemies closer.” Ah yes, and what happens if you have neither?

On an unrelated note, in a scene that finds Snooki stumbling drunk and alone back to the house, I believe she mumbles the phrase, “Everybody’s dying right now, man.” Right now!  Mike later finds out that Deena’s younger sister Joanie (Who else is the world would still be named Joanie? Flawless.)  is dating the Situation’s younger brother Frank. Oh, and Joanie’s a squirter. And lo, the entire world shall know the contents of your vagina, and the velocity and splash zone there of! Not surprisingly, everyone remains leery of Situation despite his acting “nice,” probably because “nice” translates into “like a reasonable human being for short bursts.” Concludes Deena, "A leopard never sheds it’s stripes.” I need to stop for a moment. My hands are trembling. They somehow know I will never type truer words with them than these.

Later at the club, Vinny meets a young woman by the name of Deanna, a lovely girl he isn’t sure he immediately clicks with. "She's like a 5 or a 6," Vinny explains. "During the weekend, you're looking for a 7 or an 8." Ah yes, it’s like Jesus himself said, “Let go and let God…find you some booty, son. I’ll be up in Heaven, kicking it with all my 10s. BROS BEFORE HOES 4 AFTERLYFE!”

Vinny soon meets the enchanting Nikki, a gorgeous girl who happens to be a lesbian. A lesbian who loves camera time! Vinny is undeterred by Nikki’s self-proclaimed lady love. “I’ve got soft features. I think I'm a good transition for a lesbian girl," Vinny proclaims, at one point declaring, "When you take a lesbian back to the straight team, that is like Christopher Columbus discovering America.”  Nikki walks back to the house with Vinny, and in a feat of daring wingwoman derring-do, Deena manages to finagle the willing Deanna back as well.

Their creepy seductive choreography pays off when Nikki bids them adieu and Vinny picks up when he bleeeeeeeched off with Deanna.  “Nothing extraordinary,” Vinny laughs afterward. “Released some demons. You know." Little known fact: the demons released by said horrific fornicating mingle with Deanna’s old damaged weave and the ghosts of all the hermit crabs as they floated for eternity in the downstairs tub, twitching with sentience even as they wait in their unending slumber. The more you know!

Because your mama demanded more drama, Pauly D also deals with his “stalker,” a sweet, grinning , round-bellied lass by the name of Vanessa, who keeps showing up everywhere to smile intensely at him. Cameras constantly surround the entire cast so it’s not that tricky for her to find them, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.   Vanessa wears a Pauly D hat, a “Cabs Are Here” baby-tee and the naïve grim of a person who has no idea they’re being depicted as a bag of mixed nuts on national television.  "You ever seen Misery?" asked J-Woww. "She's gonna smash your kneecaps." While that would have been one hell of a twist, Vanessa instead finds herself face-to-face with Pauly in persone…only to stare at him, nervous and silent, when given the chance to speak. Vanessa’s a stalker, but she’s a stalker with a heart of gold.  And a sledgehammer of pig iron.

Last episode: Cranberry Juice and False Eyelashes

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Cranberry Juice and False Eyelashes

Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi of MTV's 'Jersey Shore'

I don’t know how Jersey Shore has been on the air this long without someone getting a UTI. I really don’t. Five seasons of synthetic thongs, drunken screwing on bare mattresses, gallons of Bod cologne sprayed directly into each and every urethra and inch-long acrylic tips scrabbling at the body’s most sensitive areas, and only now has Snooki experienced that signature searing pain? I feel like they’ve all been cheating the system somehow. I want to know their secret. Oh, do you think it’s The Secret?

Unfortunately, as Snooki is quick to point out, UTI does not stand for Ultimate Tanning Institute, even though it might as well. After losing control of her bladder on the dance floor (“I fucking peed on myself,” she gasps to a disgusted JWoww. “Dude, I peed everywhere.”), Snooki finds herself in the restroom, dowsing her pee-soaked panties with bathroom cologne. The restroom attendant looks on with a blank expression, as not a day goes by without her being witness to this exact same horrifying scene.

Now, I’m no Dr. Gregory House here, but you know what doesn’t help a UTI, besides everything everyone is doing on this show at all times? Sleeping in your urine-saturated underwear, then waking up and putting on two pairs of underwear sandwiched between a layer of airproof tights.

“I'm a vet tech and I know what I need to do with UTIs,” Snooki insists as the white-hot pain of a urinary tract infection tears through her excretory system. She means "do with booty shorts." Yeah, I can’t tell you the number of times my Basset Hound has come down with a bladder infection from wearing Spandex booty shorts for three days straight. On a side note, I belong in forever jail! “If I piss blood, can we go to the doctor’s tonight?,” Snooki begs Deena, right before they have this exchange in the ladies’ room:

Snooki: I'm not washing my hands.

Deena: Yeah, I don't ever do it.

Dear god, this whole time we thought it was lupus! Haha, just kidding, It never is.

Call me crazy, but last night’s episode was one of my favorites in recent memory. The pleasure I got from it  – and hopefully you did too – came from the knowledge that most, if not all, of the major plot points were real and heartfelt. Did it feel like anything was at stake last week when the gang got yelled at by He Who Shall Not Be Named And Who Also Runs The T-Shirt Shop last week? Not really, because we all know they are petulant adult millionaires.

Did I actually believe Deena electrocuted herself with a flat iron this week and then had a worried conversation with Sammi about whether the electricity would make her brain "go crazy”? Yes, yes I did. Did I think Snooki actually slipped into her bunny costume, only to shove her nails into the Situation’s sleeping mouth and nose, whispering “I pinched your nose and you ate your boogers”? More than anything.

Similarly, earlier this season I could have watched JWoww painstakingly rip Deena’s extensions out one by one and throw them into a running bathtub where they floated like some kind of beautiful cheetah-print man-o-war for hours, because that is what’s real. Later Snooki’s adorable dad comes to visit; having forgotten about his impending arrival and opting to get her hair done instead, Snooki requests that he procure cranberry juice for her . . . and false eyelashes for Jenni. Seriously, give me a downstairs clogged toilet or a UTI or a dad’s eye rolls over romantic drama any day of the week. Not me personally, of course. Ugh. I just jinxed myself, didn’t I?

Speaking of things that are going to give me a UTI . . . of the mind, The Situation is approaching worrisome levels of paranoia. Having been nice for approximately a day after months of scheming and conniving, Mike is tremendously upset when everyone is somewhat suspicious of his new sweet personality. Or as Ronnie put it, “When are you blowing up the house, you fucking terrorist?” Too soon, Ron-Ron – though a valid question.

The gang returns to the house after a day of batting cages and hurt feeling at Jenk’s and the Situation loses it. He rages, he pleads, he tries to win everyone to his side. “I happen to be a very, very, very bold personality,” he explains while pacing the roof.

Meanwhile, the entire time he is talking, the Situation’s dick is just out. The entire time. HIS. DICK. OUT. Well, the neck at least. The Situation raves as his pants sag lower and lower, the blurred out area covering ten times more skin than it needs to in preparation for the worst. Strangers are literally screaming from the monorail that glides past their house, probably helpful suggestions like “HIS. DICK. OUT.” Eventually the Situation pulls up his drawers and apologizes to Ronnie and the boys for his over-the-top reaction to them thinking he’s a crazy person. He snorts in contempt over his previous plots and contrivances . . . then he calls up The Unit to blow up Snooki’s spot with Jionni once and for all.

What is a day without some kind of plot afoot, I guess? Just a day where Snooki pees on the deck. At like 4 o’clock in the afternoon. In front of Sammi. Then throws a pair of shorts over the pudddle so it doesn’t “smell like piss.” Just a day when we all secretly hope it might be lupus.

It has to be at some point, doesn’t it? 

Last Week: GTGet Vinny Back

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: GTGet Vinny Back

Michael 'The Situation' Sorrentino on MTV's 'Jersey Shore.'

Is Danny, the T-shirt shop guy . . . God? Following Vinny's exit from the show to deal with clinical anxiety and the Situation's exit to go cry on the boardwalk for a few hours about how everyone forgot his birthday, Danny descends on the house like a deus ex T-shirt shop and threatens to replace Vinny with a new roommate/t-shirt shop worker.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... wait, what? The thing that Danny seems to be forgetting when he chews out the cast for their general laziness and bad attitude is that he is yelling at a room filled with millionaire TV stars (note: at no point has Danny ever actually forgotten this). Not only is the cast rich, they are all straight-up 30 years old. While most of us would love a TV show in which someone just screams at 30-year-old millionaires for an hour, you'd hope it wouldn't be just for t-shirt-shop-related slights. As for Danny's claim that he needs extra staff now that Vinny has left and everyone else sucks….look, I'm not a small business owner, but I'm pretty sure that seven employees would be plenty to keep open a boardwalk t-shirt shop, especially considering how Danny himself pitches in, he clearly has other employees that do all the actual work and, oh yeah, none of this is real.

Having sprinted off into the midday sun in a fit of surliness, the Situation slinks back to the stench cabin. ("I'm sensitive," he mewls by way of explanation.) Little does the Situation know that the ladies are planning a big, stripper-filled birthday party at Karma. They swing by for a meeting with stripper wrangler the Wizard of Ass, a pure, distilled creep with whom they can discuss their stripper needs. Must be outgoing. A love of wheelchairs a must.

Back at the t-shirt shop, things go terribly, then well, then allegedly terribly again. The more Danny talks, the more he seems to suggest that the entire cast dances and dangles at his whim. If so, could we please add J-Woww's dad as the eighth housemate? You know he's not up to anything much.  JWoww keeps a stone face (a/k/a the only face she has) as Danny admonishes her for tearing down his Help Wanted sign. DANNY, KEEP IT TOGETHER. A few brunette lovelies wander in to inquire about the position, but it's clear that none of them could possibly replace Vinny. Plus, one of them had a Michael Jackson-style fedora, which... come on. Come on.

Meanwhile... those tiny, shimmering orange lights in the darkness, Snooki and Deena, amuse themselves with fake tattoos and beseech Pauly to teach them to walk hard, which is sort of adorable. Also adorable is the Meatball's trip to Party Lane. I could watch Snooki and Deena pretend to bone in matching oversized rabbit heads for all time. Just darling and wee, these two – like two adult-sized toddlers who can legally drink.

With everything in place, the ladies pull off the surprise party without a hitch. "It's pretty hard to surprise me," the Situation exclaims. "I'm pretty paranoid." LOL. For those of you hoping to see Pauly and Mike handcuffed to wheelchairs while sexually aroused, was this ever your episode! Also, please seek counseling immediately to deal with whatever brought you here. The strippers would easily garner five stars on Yelp, and Pauly gets a cake shaped like a pair of lady's bazooms. The Situation gets a butt cake, because poop comes out of butts and, well, you can see the logical progression here.

Later in the episode, we are reminded once again that Deena is an endearingly tragic figure. It's couples night at Bamboo, and Deena managed to wrangle a date with Ronnie's frend, Joey.  "Are you going to be embarrassed if I bring my wings out?" she asks him, gesturing towards her pastel party wings. Why would anyone be embarrassed about that, girl? Why would anyone be embarrassed that you can fly away to a beautiful rainbow fairy world where no one is mean to you and the counters are about six inches lower and every bathtub is overflowing with the most beautiful weave you've ever laid your weary eyes on? Later in the evening, as she and Joey have sex, Deena's alarm clock keeps going off, even after she yanks it out of the wall. Every time she returns to smooshing, the alarm sounds once again. I was hoping Deena would smash it with a hammer, but she'll probably just live with it constantly ringing for the rest of her life. That's the scenario I can see most clearly in my head, anyway.

I would like to speak kind of seriously about what I see as a real missed opportunity this week, which would be the coverage of Sammi's bar fight. According to Sammi, a "swarm of bitches" descended on her like a perfumed cloud of locusts, grabbing her hair. "You don't yank my new weave that I just got," she snarls. Now, I know you can never tell when an all-out, extension-shredding fistfight might break out, but the whole incident was so confusingly shot and edited. For most of the brawl, it looked like Sammi was straight-up wrestling herself on the ground; I'm not entirely sure she wasn't. "It was me against the world," Sammi declares. I will require a crossover Caged episode as restitution. On an unrelated note, we don't get any shots of Ronnie consoling her (or, you know, helping out when she was rolling around on the booze- and glass-covered floor), so I think it's pretty clear at this point that these two are donezo. Let me swing by Lenscrafters and we can give their relationship a 21-eyeglass salute.

Finally, it's been about a week since Vinny left to gain some insight into his troubled mental state, and you know what that means: road trip! The rest of the cast trucks out to Staten Island to remind Vinny of everything he's missing, i.e. everything he purposely tried to escape to feel happy again. The gang surprises him with a t-shirt with various Vinny sayings that I don't recognize, but Vinny, complete with a new gigantic chest tat, wisely turns down their pleas for his return to Seaside by pointing out that he has a lot of personal work he needs to get through first. Just kidding! Reverse road trip! "Everything's like peaches," Snooki says as they race back with their prodigal son. Like Peaches, may they finally manage to fuck the pain away. 

Last Week: A Tragic Situation

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: A Tragic Situation

Pauly D on MTV's 'Jersey Shore.'

Vinny may have moved out of the house at the end of last week's episode, but everyone seems to be handling the news in the calm, mature manner befitting a house full of grown adults. What are you, an idiot? "He was like my soul," Deena sobs in the ladies' restroom next to the toilet paper dispenser, her butt drooping mournfully out of her… dress? Shirt she won out of a gumball machine? Pauly returns to the club after Vinny bids him a stout yet tastefully homoerotic goodbye and informs the rest of the gang of Vinny's departure. I don't know if everyone has just consumed so much alcohol that it inhibited their ability to react to the cue card saying "Act Sad," but none of them have an actual reaction. Well… almost no one. "I'm being selfish," Deena hiccups, toilet paper cleaving to the bottom of her stiletto. "You're being selfish," JWoww confirms. Once back at the house, Deena literally cries on the roof until the sun comes up. Does Deena think that by leaving the house, Vinny died somehow?

The next morning, Snooki and Deena dedicate it Meatball Day in Vinny's honor. Did you guys know that if you wear bathing suit bottoms instead of underwear, you can't be arrested for having your vagina constantly falling out of your skirt? Deena is really scamming the system here. Take that, officers! The ladies shuffle off to a bar to get "wastie pants" in matching Sasquatch boots that I'm starting to believe are actually their feet. Even before they introduced him, I noticed and admired the eye-rolling man who kindly tugged down Deena's dress to re-hide her lady wiener. I just assumed it was some saintly tourist who happened to wander into the bar from heaven, but in fact, it was the girl's new gay friend, who is what this show has been missing this entire time. Deena loves gay guys. "You can get hammered and not worry that you're going to give them a blow job at the end of the night," she raves, which is just so, so true. Am I right, ladies? Am I right, scabies?

Later in the evening, the two dance-battle a troupe of what appears to be talented 12-year-olds. If the dance contest were judged solely on the number of times each team's genitals had to be digitally blurred for television, I think you know which contestants would win. "Jionni's going to kill me," Snooki slurs, not realizing that it will actually be one of her thousands of falls that will take her out. For such a tiny girl, Snooki goes down like a bag of bricks. Those fur boots can't possibly have adequate traction! Also, maybe Jionni would feel more secure in the relationship if her goodbyes did not contain the promise, "I won't cheat on you."

Back at the house, Deena's hair has somehow mutated into a hot, tangled, Beneath the Planet of the Apes mess. Pauly and JWoww patiently groom her as Deena cries for all time. "My identity is just tearing off of me right now," she weeps as JWoww pulls out her extensions and throws them into a full bathtub, a visual image that haunts me still.

You guys remember the Unit, who is the Situation's best friend and an irritating parasite on the mucous membrane of womankind? Well, he is back in action and getting into senseless fights when the gang heads out again the next night. Are they partying in Vinny's honor? Probably – though, again, everyone is suspiciously nonchalant about Vinny being gone. It's almost like it doesn't even matter. It's almost like nothing even matters. (Oh, I see where they're coming from.) Ever the gremlin, the Situation plots once again to get the Unit and Snooki to fight over whether or not she fucked the Situation. Luckily, the Unit gets kicked out for brawling before he can be forced into an altercation. Take heart, Mike. The arc of the "GTTheTruthWillSetYouFree" universe is long, but it bends toward that bathtub full of hair.

Meanwhile, Pauly mourns his dead king Vinny the best way he knows how. "I'm going to smash this tattooed chick in my man Vinny's bed," he enthuses. Later, Pauly excitedly tells Vinny about all the fucking he's done in Vinny's honor. There is just so much to unpack in that conversation. Garbage bag upon garbage bag to unpack. Pauly also happens to be celebrating his 31st birthday, while the Situation turns…. I don't know, 43? 54? 94? God help him when he actually turns 94. They'd better be working new skin technology now, because the Situation is starting to look like an antique leather Popeye doll. When Pauly brings home yet another young sad woman (a Situation cast-off), the crew is aghast when she chooses not to fuck him. "It's his birthday," Sammi gasps. "He needs to get it in on his birthday." SO IT IS WRITTEN, SO IT SHALL BE BAAARF.

The next day (or whenever we next see sunlight in this vague, unknowable timeline), Pauly's family trucks in for the day to celebrate. Do they not know how disgusting this show is? All I'm saying is, you're going to bring both the Aunt Paulas into that den of iniquity? Pauly's mom surprises him with a visit from his barber, which is pretty cute. Pauly's thrilled to be once again fresh to death, although… that hair looks exactly the same, right? Later, they take Pauly out for a family-style meal while the Situation tags along, pouting. "You need a pitchfork and a shovel," one of Pauly's infinite uncles cracks. YOU AND ME BOTH, UNCLE.

But it's when the girls bake Pauly, and only Pauly, a birthday cake that the Situation really gets his brood on. Sure, he might have found a new filthy hippie lady friend in DTF Paula ("She might be dirty and grimy and disgusting, but she's just a nice girl," Sammi muses), but that's not the same as the love of your good friends… whom you've systematically alienated with your increasingly cruel and antagonistic behavior. The Situation's family didn't come to visit, either, ostensibly because they hate him as much as everyone does. Just kidding! It's because the producers didn't call them.

"I must be the devil in this house," Mike grouses. And is. He complains, "It seems like I'm the bad guy a lot of the times." Well, if by "bad guy" you mean someone who intentionally starts fights with his closest companions for no apparent reason… then there is no "if." "No matter how good I am, I'm never seen as the good guy," the Situation grumbles after slamming the sliding glass door in a huff. Can anyone really have such little self-awareness? It's kind of shocking. Eventually, Mike runs off into the streets in a rage, which whips the rest of the house into a whirlwind of ambivalence. Maybe he'll just keep running.

On an unrelated note, you know that bathtub is going to be full of hair for the rest of the season, right?

Last Week: Every Day I'm Sufferin'

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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Every Day I'm Sufferin'

Vinny Guadagnino of MTV's 'Jersey Shore' in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

So, Pauly's face is just a big mass of squamous cell carcinoma at this point, right? "I peeled, then I exfoliated, then I burned the part I exfoliated," he whimpers, the whites of his boiled egg eyes bulging out of his raw, red mug. "I shocked the system, bro." The second degree burn all over Pauly's head causes a problem later when he brings home new smoosh friend Shantel, though not enough of a problem that he doesn't have gross sex with her before immediately calling a cab for her at 4 a.m. While Pauly groans about how long he has to tolerate being around this woman he was just inside, Shantel discreetly slips his diamond and gold chain into her underpants, a drunken move that seems almost fair, seeing as how she is forced to leave the house without her shoes. Without her shoes! I would have strangled Pauly with that chain if I had been made to walk the vomit-covered streets of Seaside barefoot at dawn. Or I would just strangle myself with it, because what would my life have become?

As always, Snooki knows the score. "She probably stuffed it in her asshole," she gently informs Pauly. After he spends his morning peeling and lotioning and soothing and flaking and frantically searching for his necklace, Shantel returns with Pauly's jewelry. Her shoes are somehow still missing, however, which means they almost certainly got blended up in a batch of Ron-Ron juice. Or got flushed down that first floor toilet. Or became a home for the hermit crabs that apparently used to live in Deena's room and now scuttle around inside the walls, waiting for their moment of revenge. Soon, my hermits! Soon will be the time!

Am I alone in thinking that Jionni looks like he should be in the chorus of West Side Story on off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-0ff Broadway? Having been caught in a rainstorm on the way back from the club, Snooki asks the Situation for pajamas…for Jionni to wear? Why? Why would that ever happen? "We share girls – why can't we share underwear?" the Situation snarks before giving Jionni a pack of fresh underpants and clean jammies. That's a burn right there, bro! Okay, so while that seems like a nice gesture, keep in mind that one time the Situation released JWoww's dogs into the house, only to stand at the top of the stairs giggling like a sociopath when the rest of the gang stumbled upon pile after pile of hot, fresh dog shit? Never. Forget. He. Cray. To repay the Situation's kindness, Jionni happily cooks up some midnight eggs and bacon…which the Situation then serves him and Snooki in bed. "I am a master of deception," the Situation gloats. The plan is working perfectly!  Also, what is the plan again, act like an inscrutable weirdo? Oh yeah, you got this, bro.  As if the Situation could ever break up such a rock-solid pair. "I was going to cook you chicken cutlets," Snooki slurred to Jionni earlier while pulling up her dress at the club.

And then there was Vinny. Well, there was also JWoww and Deena, but they got, like, no air time. Put a pair of plastic frames on Vinny, though, and he goes all introspective. And surprisingly, surprisingly hot. Suffering from depression, sleeplessness and anxiety from the moment he returned to the States, Vinny goes so far as to miss his shift at the t-shirt shop one morning. Not Sammi, though. She's right on time. "As long as I'm doing something I like, I'm happy," she chirps while hauling up the shop's metal gate, in that tragically revealing way she has.

Vinny turns to one of his most trusted confidants, Danny, the guy who runs the t-shirt shop who we see sometimes, and discloses his struggle with clinical anxiety since the age of 16. Personally, I can think of about 9,000 other locations that seem like a preferable home for someone suffering from severe anxiety that don't happen to be an airless, filthy bungalow stuffed with howling, emotionally maladroit party people. Guantanamo Bay, for one. Seriously, the amount of lady cologne that Deena doses herself with is enough to short out anybody's lymphatic system.

Vinny continues to bristle and sigh, unmoved by even the most DFL of skanks or bombastic of grenades. While the rest of the gang is dead set on Vinny staying on at the shore house, his palpable despair fills them with insecurity and the need to get mani/pedis. Always the most believable and heartfelt relationship in the house, Pauly and Vinny's friendship plays in here; Pauly stays behind to talk some sense into his roomie while the rest trundle off to the club. I don't know if you noticed, but the episode subtly highlights the layer of faux homoeroticism with which they code their relationship; I can understand how you might have missed it. "There's my boyfriend!" Pauly enthuses when he finds Vinny in his room, later joking with their nail technician, "Can I get Vinny's name on my pinkie?" Haha, male friendships are weird!

Eventually, Vinny calls his sister and asks her to come collect him. It's hard to feel bad for someone who is actually making a really excellent mental health decision, but the glimmer of real friendship through the bromance lends Vinny's silent exit from the house some gravitas. There's a place for him, a place with peace and quiet and open air that doesn't smell like rancid meat farts and desiccated hermit crab parts. "The hardest part is leaving you," Vinny tells Pauly as he goes. Oh, take it to the smoosh room, you two. No, I am not crying! You're the one who's crying, bro!

Last week: 'Jersey Shore' Recap: Hurricane Season

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