Jersey Shore: Ciao for Now

The last episode of any chapter of Jersey Shore, the greatest sociological experiment of our time, is always a little bit sad. It's so hard to see these guys go, but this time, it was all a bit strange as we looked toward the future and tried to make reparations for the past.

Yes, The Situation is positioning himself strangely as the crew leaves their spiritual homeland of Italy and heads toward their native hunting (and mating) grounds in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. OH MY GOD! What was that? Holy shit. I thought I just saw some strange shape flash across my retina. It's like for a second, the screen went red and there was the cut out of a person on the screen. SHIT! Oh god, it just happened again. What the hell is going on? Is this some alien invader? I'm starting to get....AH!!! It happened again and this time it looked that? Beavis? Does he need TP for his bunghole? Why does he keep randomly appearing on my TV screen during Jersey Shore? Am I having an epileptic fit? Is this a torture imposed by the Duck Phone?

OK, let's get to the vocabulary already.

  • Scoot: To say that you are going to leave some place when you actually have no intention of leaving that place. It is the threat to leave in order to make other people move to accommodate you and convince you to stay. The only thing grosser than this passive aggressive bullshit is when a dog scoots its ass across the carpet to scratch it.
  • I'm on Break: A meta-ironic statement made by the guido when he is at his job. Because he never does any actual real work while he is there, he constantly says that he is on break. It is meant to be a joke, but it is also accurate, so the comedy is in the fact that it is meant to be ironic but is in fact true. We never knew such literary depths could be applied to their jokes.
  • Full: One of the wonderfully named clubs of Italy. While you would think it would be good to make people think that a club is full, there is such a thing as too full, like when a basement is packed with the sweat and heat of a thousand American college students doing a semester abroad in Italy. That is too full, like the way you feel when you leave Cheesecake Factory.
  • Forrest Gump: This is a clinical condition that has two distinct sets of characteristics, either because the person has walked so much that he feels like his legs are crippled, like the character in the movie, or he is so tired that he feels like an idiot, like the people who gave this movie an Oscar.

Now that we have looked at......AH!!! Stop it Butthead. That's not funny anymore.

The greatest conflict from the episode, of course, came from The Situation. Oh, how do you solve a problem like The Situation. If only we could kick him out of this experiment, get him a job working as the governess to a bunch of rich kids, have him make curtains out of the drapes for them to wear, and then avoid the Nazis. Actually, I would watch that show. It's like Mr. Situdere.

Anyway, Sitch isn't feeling the love from any of the roommates because he has been diagnosed with a severe case of dickishness. Everyone is sick of him starting drama and being a dick and they kind of wish he would leave. When he tells everyone that he's thinking about skipping out of the summer in Jersey, he expects them to all be like, "No! Stay! We'll miss you too much!" But no one does. They're all like, "Whatever, he's lying. He signed a contract and got $1.3 million just like the rest of us. He's not going anywhere."

When everyone doesn't try to convince them to stay, he apologizes to everyone, which they don't believe, and then is like, "I'm going to come to Jersey," and everyone looks at him with that smile that's meant to convey that they're happy, but really conveys, "Yeah, I fucking knew it all along, you fucking dick." You know that snide smile. Actually, that's what we should call it: a "snile".

This is boring, but since the Italy edition of the experiment and the Jersey edition were filmed in such close proximity, the scientists behind this already know what to foreshadow for next season. Get ready for lots and lots of Situation drama. Man, can we trade this in for Sammi and Ronnie breaking up all over again?

Speaking of Sammi and Ronnie, here is a little insight into their sex life. It only takes them five minutes to effectively "smush." We assume this means it takes only 5 minutes before RAHHHNNIIEEE OH RAHHHHNNNIIIIEEEEEE gets off. I bet this has something to do with the compounds that he takes to make his muscles so big. It's like his masculinity is hyper sensitive because of all the excess male hormones in his body or something.

But, as DJ Paulie Detective says, this is probably why Sammi is so upset all the time. She's mad that she's not getting the loving she needs. If that's true, why does she hold on to Ronnie so tightly? Doesn't she need someone with a bit more girth and stamina to keep her happy? Probably. Go out and get it, girl. Or just spend a night in Deena's bed. I bet she has what you need.

Speaking of Deena, she and Snooki had what Oprah would refer to as a "lightbulb moment" or what Lacan would refer to as the "mirror stage." When at Toice (pronounced "twice," which is the number of times that Deena has purchased a Melissa Ferrick CD) they run into a girl who is drunk and obnoxious and dancing crazily on her own. It is the first time that Snooki and Deena have seen someone behaving like they behave when they're drunk, and they are horrified.

Yes, it's like they suddenly achieve a sort of subjectivity about how they live their lives and are perceived by the outer world and they find themselves suddenly lacking. They don't see a girl who is fun and crazy and just wants to have a good time, they see a sad lonely soul flailing for attention in the club. They do not want to be her. We believe this is going to be a seminal event in their psychological evolution.

To make matters worse, she is grinding on Deena's clutch. Snooki picks it up off the banquet and wipes any residual pink eye cooties (remember when Vinny got pink eye from a fat lady's vagina?!) back on the the girl's clothing. She gives Deena back her bag and she put it put to her nose and took a big deep whiff of it, hoping that some of the scent might still be lingering on the imitation leather. Snooki caught her and screamed, "AHHHH What are you doing?"

There was a very touching ritual that the guidos took part in at the scene of their "employment." Sure, they did no work, but they were a constant source of entertainment and irritation for Marco and the rest of the crew at the pizzeria. Marco told them that the old Italian tradition when leaving your hometown is to leave a piece of your laundry on the clothes line to remind people that you've left and to remind them that you're coming back. It's like when a girl leaves her thong on your nightstand so that you'll sniff it over and over for a few days and then she'll have an excuse to come back.

Deena, of course, got this literal translation and brings one of her thongs. The other guidettes are defined by their breasts, so JWOWW brings one of her patented T-shirts with breathing holes cut in them so that her boobs can get fresh air (if they don't she'll die a physical death). Snooki brought, of course, one of her animal print bras. All the way across the Atlantic, Jionni was heard screaming, "How could you do this to me? How can I sleep at night knowing that my girlfriend's underpants are hanging up in a restaurant in Italy? I'm so embarrassed. God, Beavis, leave me alone!"

The boys all brought one of their T-shirts, but not Vinny. No. He brought something far more valuable: a pair of his boxer shorts. While he might have said people eating below would be disgusted by Deena's thong, he knew his undergarments would have the opposite effect. He didn't bother to put these through the laundry before bringing them to the shop, so those boxers had rubbed up against his enormous and magical penis. After the guidos left, the shop was thronged by women. They kept wandering in, not sure of what lured them there, but knowing that they had to get some pizza and stay hanging around as long as possible. It was like Penelope's suitors in the Odyssey. Or a pack of cats knowing that there is female in heat inside the house, just walking around the porch twirling their tails and looking for the slightest opportunity to pounce. Yes, all the women were hungry and slightly agitated and it was a boon to business. On that day, Vinny gave Marco the greatest gift of all.

And, as always, the guidos have to say goodbye for the season. As hard as it was to move into their digs in Florence, they found an easy way to move out, lining the stairs with their mattresses and riding them out, along with their luggage. The guidos have a long and proud tradition of riding mattresses down the stairs. Because they weren't allowed to go sledding as children (their skimpy clothing is not sufficient to guard against the cold) they learned to sled inside usually on a mattress going down the stairs.

As we all know, a guido's bed is also a window into their soul and symbol for their self. They line these beds up on the stairs and ride them out figuratively, as well. They have all been changed by Florence, and just as they're leaving these beds behind, they're also leaving pieces of themselves. This will forever be the place that Snooki and Jionni searched through the streets for each other, where JWOWW and Deena soiled their feet on the cobblestones, where Ronnie and Sammi reached some sort of detente, where Situation and Busted Brittani did whatever it was they did in the dirty confines of the smush room, and where DJ Paulie Departed and Vinny finally embraced under the moon and stars.

Yes, they will have this place forever, and nothing will ever be the same. As they all boarded the bus to go to the airport, Vinny asked the driver to take them by the DaVinci steps again, where they had visited yesterday. They all scampered out of the car and ran toward the railing, looking out over the city as the sun was setting. That amber glow was crowding around them all, pushing down on the houses that sprawled below them like so many fallen drunks. They looked out over the domes and roofs, over the cobblestones that had sounded with so many of their clatters. Deena swore she could see their house from there, and their little courtyard where they had all smoked so many cigarettes and whose walls echoed their laugh back at them, like they were in a cave of their own protection. But it wasn't their house. Deena was mistaken. They were all mistaken. They couldn't see anything, as the sun got to that point where it was cut off at the horizon and it was launching its rays right into everyone's eyes, like it was throwing a tantrum because it didn't want to leave. Snooki put her sunglasses on the chain attached bounced down around her breasts and she saw a plane taking off from the airport and gliding like a shadowcaster into the darkening sky. "That's going to be us!" she shouted with excitement, so glad to be going back to everything familiar, to her man and her father and the bars she's been thrown out of a million times. Back to fried pickles and the T-shirt shop and the guile of Danielle, Agent of Mossad. Back to the cooing rumble of their household god, The Duck Phone. Back to the Jersey Shore. JWOWW looked up and said, "That's already is us. We're already gone." And it was the wisest thing to ever be said on that spot.