You’d probably think that, considering this episode of Jersey Shore picked up right where last week‘s left off–actually a few minutes before it ended, which is always annoying, especially after sitting through the “previous on” section–that Sammi’s return would have made things really awkward. There’s definitely lots of awkwardness in the episode, mostly on Ronnie’s part, but it’s not the ultra uncomfortable kind. Heck, there wasn’t even any fighting this time around! From anyone! It’s a friggin’ miracle. Okay, time for the deets, hit the jump if you’re jonesing for Shore shenanigans. Sammi’s return is actually kind of anti-climatic. We saw her come into the house wearing her uniform of black and white, the girls got all excited and swarmed her and Ronnie ran outside. The first thing she said to him was “You look pale,” to which he responds with something like “Because I thought I saw a ghost.” Ronnie tells the camera that he wished she had stayed away longer. In fact, none of the guys seem very excited that Sammi’s back. I think everyone’s worried that the fighting will immediately pick up where it left off, which hasn’t happened as of yet. Meanwhile, Deena created a word “hastatic”–that combines happy and ecstatic (super redundant there chick)–to explain how happy she is for Sammi’s return. Really? Didn’t you tell Ron it was probably best for her to leave and have a big problem with her? Now you’re falling over yourself (almost literally) to welcome her back to the house. Before getting ready to go out that night, the guys make fun of how Sammi used to constantly ask about Ron, what he did and who he might have did it with. Those dudes can be pretty funny given the right material to riff off of. But before they actually head to the club, Snooki sits down with Vinny and tells him she wants to cuddle with him that night. I’m still a little foggy on exactly what was said, but Vinny offers to not bring someone home and I’m pretty sure that Snooki says not to do that. Remember this bit because it’s important later. Anyway, out at the club, Ronnie shows off his weird awkward side as he follows Sammi around like a lost puppy. He even tries to slide his hand into hers, but she puts a stop to that stat. She eventually tells him she needs her space and that he should go have fun. So instead of doing that he stumbles home and lies on the couch in the living room until later when Vinny and Pauly bring back a pair of chicks who were together at the club. Even though the smush room is empty, they decided to hook up in tandem. That still skeeves me out pretty bad. Back at the club, Snooki’s drunkenly telling Sammi that she wants to hook up with Vinny and they decide to head back to the house. When they get there, Snooki’s wondering where Vinny is. Sammi and her wander towards the room, with Sammi in the lead. Ronnie literally picked Snooki up to stop her from going into the room and dragged Sammi out as well (she was right up next to the beds saying something like “Who is that?”). This sets Snooki off and she starts crying and what not. Ronnie tries calming her down, but she’s still calling out “Vinny brought a girl home?!” Sammi decides to give Snooki advice about being single and not needing a man who will make her miserable and straight up calls out Ronnie while doing this. It was weird. JWOWW and Deena are on their way home right now too, but JWOWW needs to make a pit stop to pee between a pair of cars. She splashes some on Deena’s foot. It’s gross. Anyway, Snooki’s crying to the girls as Vinny and Pauly are saying goodbye to their girls and calling them cabs. I can’t tell if they got freaked out by all the commotion in the house (I can’t imagine staying focused after that). Ronnie tells Vinny how broken up Snooki was and Vinny makes the good point that she’s been hooking up with all kinds of dudes too. Getting drunk and crying about a dude she’s not really putting any effort into trying to nail down, is not a good look for Snooki. The next day, the roommate all decide to go bowling, but Snooki doesn’t want to because she still feels crappy. Ronnie drives Mike and Vinny in one car while Deena drives the rest of them. Well, I think it could only be called driving in the most basic sense. It was more like daring every other car and stationary object not to smash into her (I’m of course using “smash” in the traditional sense, not the new Shore definition). At the alley, Sammi tells Vinny Snooki was all broken up and he repeats what he said to Ronnie the night before. Soon enough they head home. JWOWW’s having girl time with Snooki and Deena joins in and says something so funny I had to take a note: Deena says Snooks isn’t the kind of girl who can just hook up with somebody. Really? Because, I’ve got two and a half seasons of television to prove you wrong there Deena. Vinny tries to go in and make up with her, but she tells him to bounce. 

After that, the producers gave ten or more minutes to the clogged toilet. There have been three main recurring stories this season: the Ronnie and Sammi drama, the Snooki/Vinny stuff and this freaking toilet. That really tells you something about the quality of the material this season doesn’t it? Anyway, Snooki’s home when the plumber’s get there (she thinks “the fat one” is cute) and they pull something out of the toilet. At first I thought it was a pair of ladies underwear. Then I thought it was men’s underwear, but it turned out to be a tanktop. See, my confusion stemmed from the fact that the roommates were calling it a BLEEP Tee. Whatever the first word was, it kept getting bleeped out. I didn’t get it until Pauly called it a wife beater, a term I hate, but at least understand. I checked Urban Dictionary for both things I thought they were saying (I’ll give you a hint, their euphemisms for male genitalia) and came up with zilch. Anyway, no one owned up to it, but what happened was that someone tried to flush a shirt and then at least one, maybe more people went to the bathroom on top of it. Yeah, it’s gross.

More interesting that that, though only slightly less disgusting was a prank that Ronnie, Sammi and Snooki played on Mike. That night they decided to be sober and take it easy while the others went out to a club. When the sober trio got back to the house, they decided to prank Mike for sending Snooki and Deena to NYC in the last episode. So, they decided to put grated, sliced and cream cheese in his sheets and under his mattress cover. I was laughing until I saw the cream cheese, then I got kind of grossed out. The missus also had a good point: that’s Ronnie’s room too and cheese will start to stink after a while. Ah well, no one ever said he’s a genius. Back at the club, Mike’s chatting up some girl and by “chatting up” I mean he literally asks to see her ID to make sure she’s 21. He takes her back to the house and one thing leads to another…

Just to rewind a little bit, there’s a few things I want to mention. Roger’s back in town, so JWOWW was pretty excited. I think they got back to the house and got the smoosh room before Pauly came back with the girl he snagged. I thought the log jam (double entendre not intended, but appreciated by yours truly) would cause some drama, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. We cut to Mike talking to the girls. It seems to be a few days later because he refers to hooking up with the girl as happening “a few days ago.” Anyway, he said that he was getting down with her and then started smelling grated cheese. He let her service him and then told her to bounce. The cheese smelling thing is funny, but what’s sad is that Mike doesn’t believe it when JWOWW told him that you can get an STD from oral exchange. To prove herself right–and possibly to show us all that she wasn’t in on the initial cheese joke, which is quite possible as she was probably busy with Roger–JWOWW called the a doctor and got confirmation that you can get herpes from oral sex and that a cheese smell from a young woman could indicate she had a yeast infection. That should certainly get some interesting Google Search Results in the ol’ Stats section of WordPress.

Anyway, the episode ends with Vinny and Snooki talking. She apologizes for being drunk and freaking out on him. He said it’s cool. But hey, on the real, there’s an old saying that I both agree with and hate for being so accurate: “What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals.” I’m thinking that’s what’s going on here. Snooki has some deep feelings for Vinny and he seems to have some for her, but since they’ve never established any parameters to their relationship or ever really worked towards solidifying their relationship, it’s this weird, amorphous thing that lives in their individual heads as different entities. Unless they really sit down and talk things out–which I’m guessing they haven’t done because there was a significant amount of awkwardness and bitterness on Snooki’s part in the few minutes of the aftershow I saw with her and Vinny–it’s always just going to be this awful thing for both of them, but moreso for Snooki. Okay, I’m done analyzing them, but at least I put my almost-minor in psych (would have gotten it if I took one boring ass class I didn’t feel like taking) to some good use.