Jersey Shore Season Two Episode Three: Creepin'

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

This weeks episode was all about conflict; ongoing romantic conflict between Sammi and Ronnie, conflict between Angelina and everyone else in the house, and conflicts between the boys libidos and their brains - resulting in some unsavory bath time companions for our sexually indiscriminate guidos.

Following on from last week, Angelina continues her stage-five-clinger (in Jersey Shore parlance) behaviour and continues to harass DJ Pauly D, taking him to task for hitting on a girl who purportedly had a boyfriend.  JWOWW is awoken by the commotion and is surprised to find Pauly, ‘the nicest kid in the house’, screeching at Trash Bags to leave him alone in the wake of being repeatedly slapped by her.  In the very next instant she denies ever touching him and Mike and Pauly’s eyes almost explode out of their heads in shock at her denial of something they just witnessed.  

The next day, Angelina is persona non grata in the house and pretends to have no memory of the night before.  She needs to find a new excuse, we didn’t believe it last week from Ronnie and it’s certainly not holding any water this week. She makes a teary apology to Pauly but he tells her she can’t hang out with him anymore.  She asks if she can have a ‘get out of jail free card’ for this transgression but Pauly is having none of it.  I think the guys are probably glad that they have this opportunity to legitimately ditch her.

As obnoxious as Mike can be, he takes pity on Angelina and speaks to the rest of the housemates about giving her another chance.  He encourages the girls to take her under their wing, but of course he has his own ulterior motives.  She is a self-proclaimed penile impediment (a politer way to phrase the more common term for her kind, rhyming with ‘sock knocker’) and the guys don’t want her cramping their style at the clubs.  The girls clearly hate the idea but they know it makes sense.

At the club, Snooki extends the acrylic tipped hand of friendship to Angelina, who finally gives the girls what they want and tells them that yes, she did speak ill of them.  Jenni and Snooki embrace her and welcome her into their fold, but I have a feeling the truce will be short-lived and the polyester weaves will soon be flying.  

Meanwhile Sammi and Ronnie are having fun together until Ronnie gets too wasted, much to Sammi’s disgust.  Ronnie looks like he’s having a high old time, toothily beaming and waving his hands like one of the Village People.  Could his performance be ‘enhanced’?  The housemates allude to Ronnie indulging in something other than just alcohol in veiled references.  Vinny says that Ronnie is “crazy lately when he gets drunk” and the Situation adds ‘I don’t know how drunk he got, or whatever it was, but Ronnie was sloppy as hell’.  

There have been a ton of media reports and about one of the cast members developing a penchant for cocaine and all clues seem to point to Ronnie.  His drunken behaviour this season seems altered from what we remember of Ronnie and his ‘patented moves’ from series one.  A frustrated Sammi skulks off home with the girls while a defiant Ronnie stays on and turns his attentions to any girl that will have him, grinding and making out with a bevy of Miami maidens.  A horrified Snooki approaches Ronnie and says she feels that she needs to tell Sammi about his behaviour.  Ronnie says he “never crossed the line”, yeah, or maybe just snorted it?  When he pushes Snooki aside the guys step in and cart Ronnie off home, where he crawls into Sammi’s bed for a reconciliatory ‘smoosh’.

Snooki calls her boyfriend at 6 in the morning next to a dozing Vinny.  As a drunken and hiccupping Snooki attempts to have a coherent conversation (and fails) with Emilio, Vinny gets more comfortable in her presence.   After she’s finished demolishing the phone table and clumsily hangs up on her boyfriend, Vinny invites her to keep him company in his room, an invitation she readily accepts.  Shortly thereafter Snooki bluntly asks ‘wanna f***” and he robotically responds ‘sure.  The next day Vinny is trying to distance himself from the episode and asks ‘did I do the unthinkable?’  Yes Vinny, you made oompa-loompa porn.  He is trying to paint Snooki as some seductress, but the camera doesn’t lie Vinny, you instigated this one!  Don’t cry for Emilio though, seems like he’s already scooped up Snooki’s rival Angelina. 

The boys love their little acronyms like GTL (that’s Gym, Tan, Laundry for the uninitiated), and this season they’ve added a couple more.  There’s GFF, or ‘Grenade Free Florida’ and IFF, which cryptically means ‘I’m F***** Foundation’.  They have so many codes they could probably hold an entire conversation amongst themselves that would be incomprehensible to anyone listening.  Mike, Vinny and Pauly have also rebranded themselves as ‘MVP’.  Vinny explains that MVP are the “Most Valuable players in MIA supporting the GFF” and tonight MVP want to go creeping.  Angelina tries to get an invitation out of them but the guys are not having it.  The trio decide to sneak out the door when she’s not looking, escaping like naughty boys. When they arrive at the club however, Vinny says it’s filled with grenades.  Mike convinces a flock of ‘zoo animals’ (their words, not mine!) back to the house and the toxic spa pool. Mike splashes his face with the polluted pool liquid and the bacterial stew seems to sober him up fast.   He quickly realizes he’s in a tub full of land mines and that Pauly is “hypnotized by a hyena”.  A breast-augmenting chicken fillet makes a break for escape and cosies up next to Vinny.  It’s oblivious owner shrugs it off but when she realizes that the missile the boys are throwing to each other was recently nestling next to her boob she and her poor lop-sided chest make a hasty exit out of the pool. The boys rapidly disarm their remaining grenades and lob them back out into the street.  

The guys want to go out partying again but Sammi and Ronnie decide to stay in.  When Ronnie hears that Snooki and Jenni are going out he decides to encourage Sammi to go with them so he can party with the guys.  She tells him to do what he wants and like a fool he leaves her so he can go creeping and then can’t understand why she’s mad.  The Situation encourages Ronnie to join them and you can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to stir up trouble between our squabbling lovebirds.  

Ronnie says he loves spending time with Sam but “he’s with his boys” in Miami and wants to hang out with them while they’re together.   He thinks they shouldn’t alienate themselves from the other housemates and they should make the effort to bond with everyone.  His tune has certainly changed since last season; all he wanted to do was go home with Sammi and didn’t seem overly concerned with getting to know everyone else.   Oh what a difference six months and a nostrils worth of illicit substances makes.