“Yo, seriously, it’s like she’s on a whole other level with pickles.” – Jwoww
It’s morning at the Shore House, and Jenni wakes up to “discover” that she had hooked up with Pauly D the previous night (video footage from “The Tanned Triangle” confirms this). As Jenni has a boyfriend back home at this early point in Jersey Shore’s run, she’s less than thrilled about it.
“JWoww’s playing it off like she didn’t really kiss me. She knows very well what she did, I know she was coherent. She just doesn’t want to feel like a trash bag because she has a boyfriend and she kissed me with the tongue,” is Pauly’s assessment of what went down.
The perfect storm of a trio is scheduled to work a shift at the Shore Store: Sammi, Ronnie, and Mike The Situation. In the second half of “The Tanned Triangle,” Sammi officially leaps from flirty will they/won’t they with Mike, to full on deep and immediate couple-hood and amour fou with Ronnie.
Mike tries to brush things off with an argument of “she chose me first,” and “I can have pretty much anyone I want down here,” but it certainly smacks of thou doth protest-eth too much, if you can dig.
Sammi calls Mike “a typical guido” to his face in a not nice way, which is really ironic because the entire house seems to subscribe to the oath of attempting to be the most guido and guidette they can possibly be.
Back at the house, the crew discovers that Snooki loves her pickles, which seems to greatly amuse Pauly. These are my favorite moments from Jersey Shore, looking back – it’s really fun to watch this cast learning about each other and generally goofing around. “Yo, seriously, it’s like she’s on a whole other level with pickles,” Jenni agrees.
After teasing her some more, Vinny chimes in with, “I like Snooki, she’s funny.”
All of the seeds of trouble and tension are there between Ronnie and Sammi on hand and Ronnie and Mike on the other. We see both angles at play when Ronnie confides in Jenni that Sammi is already insecure about Ronnie’s feelings for her, while Ronnie is “a little pissed off” at Mike for seemingly stirring the pot* with regard to the new relationship.
* And as we’ll see over time, Mike The Situation absolutely knows how to stir up some Situations in his Situation Kitchen.
Jenni’s “back home” boyfriend Tommy shows up for a planned visit to the Shore House, and JWoww is reconciled that she needs to admit to her “mistake” in hooking up with Pauly. “You miss me?” Tommy asks, roses in hand, upon his arrival. During his stay, they get along well – Jenni even says she didn’t realize how much she was into him until he visited – though they have an ominous conversation in which he tells her that if she ever cheated on him, he’s Audi 5000.
Pauly meets Tommy, and his assessment is that he seems like a nice guy but “he’s kind of a sucker, if you ask me,” for allowing Jenni to behave the way he has. This isn’t really fair, of course, as Tommy isn’t even aware at this point about what Jenni has been up to in his absence… even though it’s been a pretty brief time, so it seems.
It also seems to be Visitors Day, as Angelina’s friends, Elena and Alana (quite alliterative!), also appear. Angelina calls her boyfriend, Mike (Not The Situation), and invites him to meet everyone at Headliners after work. We’ve seen Angelina and Mike on the phone a few times, and the only read on him is that he always seems extraordinarily annoyed. No word on whether he’s like that all the time, or just when speaking with Angelina.
The entire crew plus friends heads out to Headliners, and when Angelina finally bumps into Mike, he cryptically says to her, “I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about this.” Meanwhile, Snooki bumps into her guy friend, who happens to be yet another Mike. No wonder why The Situation branded himself with a distinctive nickname. Snooki and (this) Mike have hooked up in the past, so she’s excited to finally have someone to snog with, as the Brits would say.
It’s at this point that a pretty shocking fact is dropped on us that I had zero memory of: apparently Angelina’s (Not The Situation) Mike was married and going through a divorce at that point in time. This both explains a lot in terms of (this) Mike’s behavior but also (further) calls into question a bunch of things about Angelina’s behavior, such as slut shaming women who she decided were “whores” simply for hooking up on the Shore House roof.
Angelina eventually gets bummed out and returns to the Shore House with her friends. She’s withdrawn and over her relationship, it seems, and even refuses to talk to him when he calls later. Sitch chimes in here, telling the camera that Angelina is a “drama queen” who “wants the attention, needs to the attention.”
The entire house seems to be aligning as anti-Angelina by this point, with Ronnie declaring that her boyfriend is a “douchebag,” and the others going around whispering about his pending divorce. Meanwhile, it’s time for a shift down at the Shore Store, with Vinny and Angelina slated to pair up. However, Vinny ends up heading out for his walking commute alone.
Back at the house, Angelina says she just doesn’t feel like working, and also seems to be trying to cough herself into being sick. Meanwhile Samson, a Shore Store manager, quickly calls Danny to tell him that Angelina’s a no show. Eventually, Anglina shows up… but says she’s too sick to work. They get into a whole discussion/argument about how she should have found someone to cover her shift. The obvious question here: wouldn’t it have been a lot easier to just work and get paid during that time?
But that’s just one blogger talking here.
Things get pretty funny when Angelina tells Samson that she’s having “trouble with her boyfriend” and then asks, “Are you getting it?” And Samson replies: “I am getting it.”
As in, he’s getting it and not having it, and giving it back.
“I don’t have to do what I don’t want to do, that’s it,” Angelina tells the camera. That must be nice, you can feel most of America groan in reaction to this.
The funniest part: Angelina coughs a few times to herself as she walks out of the store. “I can’t take this anymore,” she adds.
Then Danny rolls down to the Shore House on his bicycle.
Note to everyone here: if your boss has a) the ability to roll down to your place of residence on a bike b) walk into your place of residence without knocking c) it’s probably not a good idea to be FAKE SICK and not show up for your shift. That’s just good sense, people.
Danny seems like a genuinely good dude who likely has to put up with a lot of shenanigans from young employees. But he’s pissed off here, and he has every right to be. Even so, he politely fires her, noting that “for you to stay in this house, you have to work.”
No free rides… not even on the Jersey Shore.
After Danny leaves, Angelina once again fake coughs to herself, perhaps this time as an attempt to comfort herself.
Angelina packs and by the next scene, she’s saying her goodbyes to the crew, who are in the middle of eating. Everyone is polite-ish in that way you do where you feel like you should say something in such a situation, save for the actual Situation, who calls her “a little bitch” after she plucks a gray hair out of his head.
Pauly D sums up the Angelina Era* best when he says: “It’s almost like goodbye, good riddance.”
* Or at least the FIRST Angelina Era! Angelina Pivarnick made it just about exactly 2.5 episodes until she flamed out in her first hack at the Jersey Shore.
Then the roommates bust out what’s perhaps sparkling wine of some kind and does a little toast in honor of Angelina’s departure.
Later that night, Jenni finally calls Tommy and tells him that “she heard a mistake at the club,” and he hangs up on her. She tells the house what went down, and then talks about how if it’s over between her and Tommy, there’s a “problem” brewing as she’s been “Susie f—ing Homemaker over here.”
Cheating with Pauly D aside, one would assume.
Now it’s yet another night of going out on the Jersey Shore, and we get the first appearance of Ryder, Snooki’s friend. The two are “party girls, who like to go out and dance,” Snooki says. We see them dancing it up at a mostly empty bar as some older guys look on, and this is absolutely Meatballs being Meatballs before the term is coined.
Ronnie and Sammi head out for a date playing miniature golf and go kart riding, and it’s both nice to see the two of them cute together and slightly cringe inducing, knowing how much chaos and drama is awaiting these two kids’ future together.
“I’m just really into Ron right now,” Sammi says.
Meanwhile, Mike takes solace by worming his way into hanging out with Snooki and Ryder in the hot tub, with Vinny and Pauly joining the festivities as well. Mike gets a bottle of champagne, and when Ryder tries to open the wrapping with her teeth, Mike grabs the bottle away, saying, “It’s not good to bite,” with a smirk.
Literally two seconds later, Snooki and Ryder start making out passionately, and by passionately, I mean drunk-showy-passionately. “The guys like that,” Snooki tells the camera.
Snooks then makes out with Mike a bit as well, and in a sense the hot tub antics are a replay from “A New Family,” which got our girl “on the outcast” with the rest of the house. But it seems the roommates, now sans Angelina, are a little more familiar – in some cases very familiar – with each other by now.
And then all of the sudden we’re back at Karma, and it’s another night of “bumping and grinding” action. Single Jenni (maybe) is showing off her stuff on the dance floor, as “no one has seen” what she’s capable of. Ronnie even shows off his “creepy patent move.”
Sammi very quickly spies Ronnie “dancing with another girl,” and gets jealous. Therefore, she gives her phone number to the guy, a cop, she’s talking to at that moment. And Ronnie sees that happen, and of course he’s not happy.
I feel like the above paragraph should be read in Henry Hill’s (or Ray Liotta’s, if you like) voice from Goodfellas. If that helps enhance your enjoyment of this re-watch piece, please indulge yourself.
Anyway, Ronnie then storms out of Karma and back to the house. He passes out on his bed without his shirt on. Jenni then leaves the club as well to check on Ron to see how he’s doing.
When Sammi hears that “Ron and Jenni left together,” now she’s really steaming. In fact she says, “I’m gonna knock a bitch up.”
This thing is turning into a violent episode of Three’s Company at this point.
Jersey Shore re-watch Duck Phone Quack Rating for “Good Riddance”
With each episode for the Jersey Shore re-watch, I’m going to rate it on a scale of one to five duck phone quacks, with one meaning kind of boring and forgettable, and five meaning super insane or otherwise crazy memorable.
This was a pretty action-packed episode, but the headline is that Angelina bailed out of the Shore House in this one. For that reason alone, I’m slapping four duck phone quacks on this one, and feel pretty good about it.
About the Jersey Shore re-watch
I’m a massive Jersey Shore fan, as can be seen by its inclusion on Pop Thruster’s Best 100 TV Shows Ever list. Therefore, I thought it would be fun to revisit the entire series, one episode at a time, and report my findings along route (maybe when I’m done, I’ll attempt to do the Jersey Turnpike? Might be bad for my back, but I’ll give it a shot!).
Important note: As a Long Island, New York native (homeland of JWoww!), I’ve long believed that Long Island and Jersey have a cultural kinship. I knew people in high school who were perhaps not as charismatic as the Jersey Shore cast, but certainly shared some of the same traits and overall vibe. I mention this because I truly believe that Jersey Shore is a show that can often be laughed *at* and *with* at the same time, and it’s one of the reasons that makes it a special reality TV show.
Some stats and info about Jersey Shore, “Good Riddance”
TV SHOW – Jersey Shore
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 3
AIRED ON – December 10th, 2009
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – MTV
HULU DESCRIPTION – The love triangle gets even more intense when Ronnie catches Sammi giving her number to another guy. And a housemate chooses to leave the Shore for good.
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries, Trashtastic TV, Comedy
CREATED BY – Anthony Beltempo, SallyAnn Salsano
CAST – Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio,Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Ronnie Magro, Vinny Guadagnino, Deena Nicole Cortese, Angelina Pivarnick