Last week I waxed poetic about how Jersey Shore had reached its dreaded saturation point in the reality television universe and that the show’s guilty pleasure factor had run as dry as the infamous Seaside Heights house itself. This week, however, in spite of myself and my better judgement, I actually enjoyed an episode of Jersey Shore more than I had in quite some time.
Blame it on the sheer ridiculousness of any and all of Ron’s musings (“It’s very rare in this world that a girl can protect a guy from a fight”); blame it on the return of tag team (albeit now invalid) duo of Snooki and J-WOWW; blame it on the a-a-a-a-alcohol. God knows Deena did.
Actually, don’t blame it on anything, credit it all to the show returning to its proper and absolutely necessary running time of one hour. That and the fact that this was a relatively drama-free episode. I know, but what is a reality show without forced, manipulated drama? In the case of the running-on-fumes Jersey Shore, pretty damn refreshing, actually.
J-WOWW technically had drama after her physical altercation in a club left her with a fractured ankle, but we all know how this fairytale winds up. Ronnie and Sammi were not only still on the show, but their biggest “fight” during last episode, the delightfully titled “Merp Walk”, was a mild coming to terms about how men are from Mars and women are from Venus. The more you know. The only real “drama” of last night’s episode came when Deena, like her Jersey Shore brethren before her, got arrested for being drunk in public.
Of course, this little gem of a reality TV moment, much like Snooki’s pregnancy, was all public knowledge well before this completely unnecessary season even aired. So the lack of surprise was completely gone, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a hilarious bit of schadenfreude to enjoy on a Thursday night. Hey, even Deena’s pals had to admit to us that the whole incident was ““f**king hysterical”.
Deena’s drunken plea to the arresting officers of “Why am I in trouble? I don’t want to be in trouble!” was up there with the rest of the night’s best one-liners, such as J-WOWW’s self diagnosis of “I think I broke my a**hole” and Vinnie’s adept assessment on behalf of everyone regarding The Situation’s new lady friend Paula: “I feel sorry for that girl.” There wasn’t even an irritating Pauly D-patented catch phrase in sight, just some wonderfully stupid Ronnie zingers (he suggested J-WOWW attended “Bitching University” and earned a “Bitchachelors Degree”, presumably for Bitchology) and some good ol’ Snooki flashed hoo-ha theories (“If it does slip out i mean, sh** does happen.”)
But I think what really made this episode not tolerable, but actively enjoyable, was that for the first time in a long time these seemed like fun people to be around again. Sure, there was drunk and disorderly conduct, but there was no mean-spirited calling of strangers “grenades” or tense, ugly backstabbing within the group. They were, seemingly, peaceful and fun to watch again. Then again, if a “peaceful” week on Jersey Shore includes an arrest, maybe this show hasn’t changed so much after all.
[Photo credit: MTV]
More:
Jersey Shore Star J-WOWW: “Deena’s Arrest is F**king Hsyterical
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