The Jersey Shore Season Two - Love Is A Battlefield

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

The saga of Sammi and Ronnie continues as the strain of Ronnie’s outrageous partying wears on Sammi and the annoyance of Sammi’s constant petting of her polyester hair frustrates Ronnie.  Meanwhile, Snooki and Jenni implement an ingenious (or insane) plan to deal with a devious housemate. 

This week’s episode of ‘Macaroni Rascals’ was frankly, a bit of a snooze.  The slow creaking ascent of the Sammi/Ronnie relationship rollercoaster is taking too long to reach the tipping point.  Send it over the edge already!  Anyway, so what did happen this week?  Well, back home after another epic night out, Snooki decides to call boyfriend Emilio, as they haven’t spoken in two whole days.  However, absence clearly does not make the heart grow fonder for Emilio. He’s still out partying and doesn’t want to be distracted from leering at "half naked girls" and hangs up on Snooki.  An incensed Snooki cries to JWOWW and Sammi, although why she’s acting so slighted I’m not quite sure.  Didn’t she do the dirty on her boyfriend last week with Vinny?  Before Snooki can even finish her tale of woe, Sammi is asking the girls their opinion of her ongoing dramas with Ronnie.  She urges the girls to tell her if there’s anything she should know about her meathead with the wandering eye.  Jenni and Snooki exchange fearful furtive glances but keep quiet.  No one wants to be the bearer of this particular piece of bad news. 

Emilio calls Snooki back at the uncivil hour of 4am to confess that he had sex with another girl.  Snooki’s pouf stands on end like an enraged cat’s fur as she tells him to never call her again and slams down the phone.  Her 42 coats of tear smeared mascara and teased hair make her look like Robert Smith of The Cure.  The resemblance is startling; it’s as if a vengeful make up artist swapped Mr. Smith’s usual chalky foundation for a duskier base.   Emilio tries calling back and playing off the incident as a joke, but Jenni serves it up cold and tells him he’s a “nasty skank” and to never darken their duck phone again.

In a rare group outing, all four girls head out the next day together to decompress from the drama filled night before.  Sammi again confronts the girls and asks them to tell her if they know what Ronnie does when he’s out of her sight.  Angelina doesn’t want to end up as the wounded messenger and wisely denies any knowledge.  Jenni later says that Angelina had a lot of opportunities to tell Sammi the truth but instead sat there like “a scared puppy”.  And what exactly is preventing Jenni from telling Sammi the truth?  Perhaps the weight of her pink basketball hoop earrings are already too great a burden to bear on her shoulders.

Mike makes one of his traditional family Sunday dinners and after the plates are cleared away everyone decides to have a game of secret sexy questions.  The girls decide to dress up for the occasion, wiggling into their tightest corsets and skimpiest skirts, revealing acres of Fanta-tinted flesh.  Poor Angelina slinks out squished into a black compression garment and clearly thinking she’s pretty hot stuff.  Vinny brings her plummeting back to earth by saying that Angelina’s butt skimming dress looks “like a garbage bag”.  Pauly scores the rebound by adding, “she’s wearing her luggage from last year.”  Cruel, but accurate! 

The question bowl is filled with saucy queries that have been written anonymously. The questions are mostly ridiculous things like ‘which two housemates would you have a threesome with?’.  Sammi gets the most disturbing query, ‘who would you let take a dump on your chest?’ which thankfully goes unanswered.  The room goes quiet when one of the questions posed is “have you ever cheated on your girlfriend or boyfriend”.  Who slipped that curly one in there?  Uncomfortable silence follows and Ronnie confesses to cheating in a previous relationship but Sammi senses something afoot.  

The unlikely trio of Angelina, Jenni and Snooki devise a plan to write an anonymous letter to Sammi revealing the truth.  They think it’s a great idea but in reality it is of course a DISTASTROUS plan best left behind in high school.   The pool of suspects for penning such a note is incredibly shallow, a mere 7 possibilities! Sammi would immediately strike the boys off the hit list, they would never rat on their co-conspirator in the I.F.F.  Well, maybe Mike would.  After patting themselves on the back for their ingenuity they leave to go home and Angelina lets rip a toxic fart, unfortunately, Snooki is following close behind.  Wee diminutive Snooki’s mouth is practically level with Angelina’s buttocks so she bears the full brunt of the pungent expulsion and complains that it went “straight in my mouth”, but admits this puts them on a whole new level of friendship.  It’s a level I hope to never achieve with my friends!

The gang get ready for yet another night out and Sammi and Ronnie get into yet another dull fight over Sammi’s insinuation that Ronnie is going hunting for 'grenades'. There’s palpable tension in the house and everyone is walking on eggshells trying not to let word slip of Ronnie’s crimes on the battlefield.  At the club Ronnie tells Sammi that it’s over and they break up once more.  Sammi and the girls leave and Ronnie complains that Sammi just left him behind.  Traditionally, girls don’t tend to stick around after being dumped by their boyfriends.  Sammi has a change of heart and decides she should check on Ronnie before leaving.  As he’s getting in a cab she tries to chase him down but he orders the cab driver to keep going, while an embarrassed Sammi is left standing in the street clutching at the car door.  But it’s not over for our co-dependent couple, (these two are constantly chasing each other!) Ronnie stumbles into the club where the rest of the gang are and mumbles to Sammi “I hate you so much because I love you”.  Sammi puts her pursed lips away when she sees that Ronnie has lost control of his limbs and escorts the babbling mess home, putting him to bed with a puke pan.

Jenni and Snooki head to an Internet café to compose their anonymous letter.  Snooki naively thinks that because they’re using words not usually in their vocabulary, such as ‘breasts’, Sammi won’t guess they are the culprits. They pen an unintentionally hilarious letter detailing Ronnie’s exploits in the world of sea travel, (motorboating) and his practise of “dancing with multiple fat women”.   Will the girls follow through with their plan and deliver the letter?  I smell a showdown stinkier than Angelina’s anal emissions lurking on the horizon!