Jersey Shore: Lord of the Earrings

“You’ve changed, bro.”

Once again, Pauly D had the line of the night with a succinct, throwaway comment. The gravely hilarious way he delivered this line to Vinny — who was acting as if he’d overdosed on douche pills after getting his ears pierced earlier in the episode — made it even funnier. It MUST have been the earrings. They surely had the same corrupting effect The One Ring had in Tolkien's saga.

Yes, fellow “Jersey Shore” watchers. We’re almost at the end of another season. I don’t blame you if you didn’t realize this because the show — and the last two seasons, in particular — has mostly played like a shapeless blob of drinking, fist-pumping and Ronnie and Sammi arguing.

The way we could tell that the season is almost over was because the cast — especially “I Just Want to Make T-Shirts” Deena and Rip Van Situation — couldn’t even muster up the energy to pretend like they cared about their jobs. In fact, The Situation even managed to get (mock) fired by Boss Danny, which is impressive when you consider that the Shore Store job is a total sham.

With the season wrapping up, we got to hang out with a few recurring characters. In addition to Boss Danny, Danielle the Stalker popped up to once again stalk Pauly D’s life. I don’t know about anyone else, but the only thing that could make Danielle’s appearances more enjoyable is if they played that sound you hear in movies whenever the killer pops up in a horror movie. As for characters I hope become recurring…I wouldn’t mind seeing the older “atomic bomb” (wouldn’t she be an H-bomb?) who was fearlessly throwing herself at Vinny and Pauly.

Watching Vinny act like such a drunken putz was especially disappointing because he’d shared a sweet meal with Snooki earlier on. During that meal, Snooki confessionalized that she was falling for Vinny, while Vinny expressed that he too had plenty of love for Snooki.

All this time, my position on the seemingly one-sided back and forth between Vinny and Snooki was simply that he’s just not into her. Now, I’m thinking that he’s possibly into her, but (as he said) he sees her every day and a hookup amongst roommates can be extremely messy. (A painful lesson we’ve learned from You Know Who.) Of course, Vinny might be more willing to acknowledge his feelings for Snooki if she were more traditionally attractive, but right now I’m willing to accept that he genuinely cares for her…

…if only she looked more like the girl Vinny brought home from the club. Unfortunately, he was once again thwarted by a potential sex partner’s relative when her brother showed up and things got irreversibly awkward. Drunk Vinny tried to jokingly drag Snooki into bed, but (in a moment of stunning clarity) she declared that she’s nobody’s last resort. (Never mind that Snooki has seriously done to Vinny — drunkenly tried to hook up with her as a back up plan — what Vinny only jokingly did to Snook.)

After more shenanigans — I LOVED the Super Mario Bros. shout-out after the guys saw Deena’s “Denim, denim, denim” outfit — the show circled back to where it inevitably winds up: Ronnie and Sammi.

Only this time, we got a firm push from The Situation/Instigation/Snitchuation

Sammi and Ronnie seemed to be on their way to getting back together after Sammi apologized for texting Arvin after she went home, and Ronnie accepted. (I’m assuming “Pass the mustard” meant that he accepted the apology.) Unfortunately, Ronnie’s mom (who I’m assuming doesn’t have an awesome mustache like his dad) drunk dialed the house. The phone was passed from Deena (“I LOVE YOU!”) to J-Woww to The Situation, who was more than happy to chat with Ronnie’s mom about politics, how difficult stand-up comedy is, and the Arvin situation.

When Sammi and Ronnie (who appeared to have some solid night vision sex the day before) came back, Sammi was irate with Mike for stirring the pot. Ronnie would’ve been angry too, but he was too busy being “brainwashed” (in J-Woww’s accurate words) by Mike and the guys. At one point, Ronnie actually said that Mike wasn’t trying to instigate drama he was just trying to act like a good friend. (Forehead slap!)

Eventually, The Situation and Sammi got into their own argument (where Mike hilariously told her, “You are the worst argument person ever”…it’s true!) and ended with Mike calling Arvin and asking him if he’d ever hooked up with Sammi.

Ronnie got on the phone, and Arvin admitted that he and Sammi had made out once. This sent Ronnie into a rage and…we’ll see what happens next week in the season finale.

This is obviously a silly show, but the double standard continues to be astounding. I’m no Sammi fan, and lying about her texts to Arvin was wrong, but SENDING the text wasn’t out of bounds at all because they were broken up. On top of that, he apologized. On the other hand, Ronnie has never truly admitted what he did in Miami, and when he “apologizes” it’s in extremely vague terms. Even worse, the sickening rampage he went on a few weeks ago is still pretty inexcusable and doesn’t put Sammi and Ronnie anywhere near “even” as the rest of the guys were claiming.

So what’d you think of this episode? Why was Pauly D to eager to get rid of the girl he brought home? (I didn’t think she was unattractive at all…until she said, “I’d rather f--- Mike anyway.”) Is there a worse possible competitor for a rap battle than Sammi? (As Mike pointed out, she just says the same things over and over again AND she gets insulted really easily.) Finally, will someone please tell The Situation that there’s no such thing as The Law of Intelligence?!