Jersey Shore: Toe to Toe

My biggest (TV-related) regret of the past year was not writing a recap for “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

(I’ll pause 10 minutes so you can laugh at and judge me. You done? Ok, welcome back.)

I obviously watch a LOT of TV. Most of it is good, but some of it is absolute trash. Yet, for one reason or another “Celebrity Apprentice” was one of a handful of shows that me and my girlfriend Erica would ABSOLUTELY have to watch live. (And if we went out on Sunday night and came back at 11, we’d fire up the DVR and watch the two-hour episode before we went to bed.)

This is no small feat for me because, thanks to DVR, I’m becoming more and more notorious for watching shows a few days after they air and churning out ridiculously out of date columns and reviews. (Coming sometime in 2010: my “Avatar” review!)

I’m telling you that to tell you this – “Jersey Shore” is the new “Celebrity Apprentice”!

We know it’s bad for us, but we can’t stop watching – and laughing. I considered starting a “Celebrity Apprentice” recap midway through last season, but I didn’t want to jump in halfway through. “Jersey Shore” is simply too good of an opportunity to miss.

In case you’ve been living under the rock, the show follows seven (good riddance, Angelina!) self-proclaimed guidos and guidettes (the show taught me the latter was a real term) as they live in the Seaside Heights portion of the Jersey Shore.

Since we’re joining this program in progress, I’m going to assume you have some working knowledge about what happened in the first five episodes and jump right into episode 6.

In a desperate bid to give Vinny some semblance of a storyline (that didn’t involve the words “pink” and “eye”), we were left last week with the cliffhanger of Vinny “hooking up” with a cougar-iffic woman who turned out to be Danny the boss’s/landlord’s lady friend. Sure, we’ve seen that Danny can be a bit of a hard-ass (the way he tossed out Angelina), but we’ve also seen that he’s a fair and reasonable guy (Angelina deserved it).

Anyway, I was glad to see this bit of obviously trumped-up drama defused quickly. Danny busted Vinny’s chops and the whole incident was over in a hurry. (I mean it was REALLY over, since we didn’t even glimpse the cougar-iffic woman again). Since this was the first “Vinny-centric” episode (hopefully as “Vinny-centric” as this show will get) we also met what appeared to be every single member of his family. To be honest, my favorite Vinny moment of the night was when he got a look at The Situation’s sister, saw how much they looked alike (it WAS freaky!) and simply said, “I wasn’t into it.” (Another thing Vinny wasn’t into – the “gym, tan, laundry” mantra of his roommates. How did Vinny get on this show?!)

Speaking of The Situation – perhaps the most compelling reality show character I’ve ever seen – it’s becoming abundantly clear that he’s a lover and NOT a fighter.

Now, I usually don’t get too excited about sequels, but when I saw we were in for a follow up to the “Grenade” drama, I was giddy! In case you missed it, I’ll let The Situation explain it: “When you go into battle, you need to have some friends with you, so that just in case a grenade gets thrown at you, one of your buddies takes it first.” Pauly D — who is probably my favorite character, but is DEFINITELY Erica’s favorite — was forced to take the “Grenade” last time, despite the fact that he wasn’t too fond of his date for the evening. (“My girl was f---ing busted!”)

As with most sequels, part two was bigger in scale. I mean, it was LITERALLY bigger. Not only was the girl from the original incident back (and once again preventing Mike from hooking up with the girl he actually wants), but they brought along an even bigger, angrier girl who ended up charging Snooki “like a hippo” and smacking her in the face when Snickers tried to throw them out of the house. (The Situation, of course, had the line of the night when he said the bigger girls must’ve smelled the food coming from the house.)

Of course, the more important issue is that The Situation appears to have partly instigated another issue that escalated into a fight, before curiously staying on the fringes of the action. Of course, his genius is that you can’t really stay mad at him. Shortly after “Grenade 2”, Mike and Snooki were horsing around. Then again, Snooki probably just wants him to keep cooking for her.

The evening’s main storyline, however, was the emotional rollercoaster ride that is the relationship between Ronnie and Sammi Sweetheart. I mean, Jon and Kate think these two should chill out.

After ducking out of yet another group outing early, Sammi became enraged at Ronnie after he made a joke about her gigantic “Flintstone” big toe on their cab ride home. This is as real as reality TV gets. I mean, who hasn’t been here? You’re joking around with a friend or significant other and then one person crosses that (invisible) line and all of a sudden there’s arguing and crying.

At first, I was happy that Ronnie stood up to Sammi (who’s been a MAJOR drama queen the past few weeks), but he eventually caved the way all guys cave. Ronnie ended up apologizing for his completely insignificant insult while Sammi wasn’t shown apologizing for the truly horrible things she said to Ronnie (that he was “f---ing lame” and that he was dead to her).

Still, it was obvious to everybody (especially the ever-perceptive and spiky-haired Pauly D) that Ronnie just wasn’t right. After Snooki confronted the couple about the way they’ve isolated themselves (which they have), they proved her point by bolting yet again. Unfortunately, this time they ran into a world-class instigator who saw the MTV cameras and REALLY wanted to be on TV.

Now, I like Ronnie. I thought he was going to be a one-dimensional ‘roider, but he’s proven surprisingly bright and self-aware. That’s probably the reason why I feel like I’m giving him a bit of a pass on his fight in the boardwalk. Obviously, he shouldn’t have pushed Sammi (even if it was to keep from agitating the instigator), but the guy was just obviously not in the right frame of mind throughout this entire episode yet basically did everything he could to avoid the fight.

Of course, he went home and eventually made up with Sammi. Methinks he’s probably second-guessing himself for breaking his own rule about not falling in love on the Jersey Shore.

So what’d you think of this episode? What is it about Snooki that makes people want to hit her in the face? Has Sammi been a gigantic pain-in-the-ass lately, a victim of reality-show editing or totally cool these past few weeks? What was J-WOWW up to for most of this episode? Finally, will we EVER see The Situation close the deal with any of the girls he brings back to the house?