‘Jersey Shore’ Recap: Oh My God, the Wilderness
Where is the Jersey Devil when you need him? If there was one night where the Pine Barrens should have echoed with the soul-rending screams of the damned, it should have been Wednesday. Whichever Wednesday it was when the gang went camping; I don’t know the show’s shooting schedule. Before the cast can go frolic in Satan’s church, however, our own little Lord of the Flies, the Situation, has to finally reveal to Jionni the sordid truth regarding The Incident Between Snooki and the Situation’s Wiener. Mike leads Snooki’s timid, hunky mouse out onto the patio, and finally tells him his version of the truth.
“This is my moment!” Mike declares, tragically and accurately. Thank God the Situation was finally able to get all that “guilt” off his “human” “heart,” right, guys? Jionni . . . okay, I admit that Jionni acts like a crazy person when Mike tells him what he done did to his girl. Jionni accepts the news gravely . . . then shakes the Situation’s hand and says, “Thank you.” This is how dictators get their start, you guys: normal people just indulge their insanity rather than call them out on it. First they came for my girlfriend’s vagina, and so forth.
Jionni scampers back to the sweet, soggy comfort of Snooki’s bed, while Mike, clearly disappointed he didn’t get another chance to ram his skull into a concrete wall, tells the rest of the house about his scandalous admission. Here’s the thing: in real time, Snooki and Jionni are allegedly pregnant and getting married, a turn of events which kind of undermines any dramatic tension the Situation could have milked out of their gross hook-up. But still? Even on the show? No one actually cares. Mike has to up the ante every time he retells the story just to keep their eyes from wandering. “‘I respect you and I agree with you,'” Mike inaccurately reports Jionni saying. “I gave blow-by-blow details,” the Situation lies.
Maybe Jionni’s reaction was appropriate after all. It’s the kind of reaction you’d have when the 911 operator says, “The call is coming from inside the house,” or the kid’s parents say, “No, we don’t have an adult-sized clown doll in our master bedroom. Why do you ask?” You back away slowly, keep your face an emotionless mask, and then run like hell to safety. Oh, and you wash it off. Skrillex, drop the safe-anal Powerpoint presentation!
Snooki’s reaction to the Situation’s bean-spilling is, of course, a little more direct. Also, we know she totally hooked up with the Situation, right? But we just find him so repellent that the idea of even mentioning his greasy wiener in any scenario makes us deeply resent him? Okay, just wanted to check. “I’m not going to deal with this right now,” Snooki sighs when Jionni meekly confronts her about it. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you,” she says, before grabbing Jionni’s dick. “Did he?”
Now, considering the fact that she’s already cheated on Jionni with Vinny and (arguably) Deena, this is pretty much as well as Snooki could play it. Meanwhile, Mike crouches on the stairs like a goblin that brushes his teeth, waiting for Snooki’s explosive response, which he eventually draws out of her. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Snooki,” he says out loud, like the words make some semblance of sense. “You’ll thank me at the end of the day.” Eventually the two end up in a heated food fight, fistfuls of warm potato salad standing in for betrayal and the sadistic urge. “Nicole is not having fun,” JWoww sighs. “I know it’s going to get ugly.” She’s right, of course; no one needs to see Snooki’s weave saturated with that much mustard. “I just thought you were thirsty, Popeye,” Snooki snarls as she hurls a gallon of milk. Later she inaccurately claims, “I never cheated on him.” Not never, girl, but a solid Popeye zing nonetheless. Then she rolls around in Mike’s bed rubbing condiments on his pillowcases. “I won this battle,” the Situation declares. Dude, you have ketchup all over your sheets! Your sheets ruined all that perfectly good ketchup!
On to the forest primeval! Just have to stock up on a few things first: marshmallows, ghost stories, drinks, axe murderers . . . Oh, and let us not forget the musical instruments. “Oh, a bonjo!” Snooki suggests. “A bango!” A BONJO! A BANGO! Kermit the Frog is rolling over in his grave, young lady. The gang swiftly sets up camp, the Situation surprising everyone with his ability to do something that isn’t born out of malicious glee. “I can’t believe he has the brainspan to put up the tent,” Ronnie marvels.
Deena has brought her own suitcase full of emotional despair to the forest, a suitcase that immediately opens to reveal so many spiders and so much jealousy. Also, why is Deena wearing a dress in the woods? It’s the woods! While D claims to be upset that she’s the only single girl in the house, the crux of the issue seems to be that Snooki is too busy boning Jionni to be Deena’s friend anymore. “One meatball stands alone,” Deena sobs, hilariously. Snooki is . . . less than sympathetic. “You didn’t lose me,” she chides. “I’m in love. Don’t make me feel guilty.” Meanwhile, the sheer amount of vermin-attracting garbage they manage to throw on the ground in one night is truly remarkable.
Hey, do you guys remember when New Jersey burned to the ground? It’s only a matter of time before the Situation douses the wilderness with lighter fluid and sets it ablaze. “He’s like one of those people,” Deena sighs. “A hermaphrodite, or whatever.” Well, that’s neither here nor there, Deena, now is it? The later it gets, the drunker the Situation gets. The drunker he gets, the more paranoid he gets. The more paranoid he gets, the more dirt appears on the butt of his pristine white sweatpants as he bear-crawls around his tent, as he scurries around the campsite like a deranged ferret.
In the morning, the Situation decides that no one is helping him pack up the site fast enough, and he starts flinging the tents around like a madman. I wish women’s periods really did attract bears. I would have attracted bears to the Situation’s sleeping bag so fast.
Back home, Vinny and Pauly stay behind to make sweet, slow love to one another for hours. Not really, but we do get to see them blow up a kiddie pool together, which is almost as good. It’s all part of their mind-blowing prank to take everything from inside the house and put it out on the patio, recreating the patio inside with a kiddie pool and AstroTurf. “Teamwork makes the dream work,” Pauly declares. Yes, buddy. Yes, it does.
Last episode: What Happened to Smoosh Bed?