Jersey Shore recap: Le Notti Bianche

Readers, I want to run a thought experiment here. Debase yourself mentally for a few impure moments, and allow yourself to walk a mile in The Situation’s shoes. Let’s say you wake up on a humid Florentine afternoon, your breath smelling of expensive cigarettes and rank tequila, your head feeling a few miles removed from the rest of your body. You’ve been sleeping on a couch in the foyer. A flock of pigeons has taken up residence a few feet from your head, perhaps attracted by the pure-grade Emirates diesel you put in your hair, so it shines like black cordite.

It takes a long time to walk from your bed to the toilet, from the bidet to the shower, back to the toilet for a manful regurge, then over to the hot tub for a morning soak. Let’s theorize that that whole process takes you the better part of two hours. In that time, you feel less like a human being and more like a dragon, sliming around on your pile of gold coins searching for a hobbit to munch on. Eventually, the hot tub jetstream makes you feel almost yourself. You throw on some Abercrombie & Fitch. At that exact moment, a blonde woman appears at your doorway. Her body double lurks behind her. Speaking in unison, they screech, “You said you’d be ready in an hour!”

This is precisely the situation that faced Maestro Sitch during last night’s episode. Now, we all know that twins are a blessing sent to Earth from our overlords on the planet Saturn. That’s even more true when the twins represent a walking, talking angel/whore metaphor. Last night, one twin (whom I will henceforth refer to as “Tweedledee”) made much of the fact that she was a virgin; the other twin (whom I will in turn henceforth refer to as “Tweedle-Poor-Life-Decisions”) has so little self-esteem, she convinces herself that she is attracted to a 45-year-old man who dresses like the high school kid everyone had to pretend to like because his absent parents had a well-stocked liquor cabinet. David Lynch could not have possibly dreamed up the TweedleTwins who invaded Jersey Shore. “If I pull your hair,” asked The Situation, “will she feel it?”

There are two key things to notice about the TweedleTwins. First, they clearly wanted very badly to be a part of Jersey Shore. Second, they are essentially the only people — besides waiters and gym managers — that the Shore cast has interacted with in any meaningful way in the first three episodes of the Great Florence Experiment. In a sense, this season is turning out to be the polar opposite of the majestic season-2 trip to Miami. That season was all about what the Joker would refer to as “Aggressive Expansion” — the Shore cast had just became famous, everyone wanted a piece of them, and they wanted a piece of everyone else. Now, they are in a country where they don’t speak the language, where all roads lead to nowhere. They are trapped in a world they never made. No wonder Deena started making out with the virgin chick.

NEXT: “A Full-Blown Lesbi-honest experience.”

Dr. Sitch had a fever. The only prescription was a threesome. Now, a threesome is a rather difficult needle to thread. There are numerous moguls to navigate around. It requires someone who knows how to slalom. Fortunately, The Situation is a Slalom King, and somehow, he came daringly close to closing the deal. His cohort, Dr. Shnookums, explained to the TweedleTwins that Dr. Sitch was a very careful physician. But then along came dastardly Deena, who staged an elaborate robbery. She pulled a Carmen Sandiego. She snagged the blonde gal who Mike hadn’t defamed yet. “You’re a blast in a glass, just like me!” she screamed. Then they kissed. Eagle-eyed viewers will note that Deena used the same open-mouthed tongue-smooch on Tweedledee that she used on Pauly a couple episodes back.

For her, it was all just play. “I don’t think I’d ever date a girl, because I really, really love penis,” Deena explained. But Dr. Sitch’s mad plans for a threesome had been derailed. “I almost had a ménage a twin. Now my whole menagerie, it went awry,” explained Mr. Circumstance. My heart is cheered by the vision of millions of teenaged Jersey Shore fans running to their computer after Sitch said that to Google “menagerie definition.” Who says this show isn’t educational?

Mike took his twin home and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. Specifically, he whispered: “Just lay in my bed. Lay. In. My. Bed.” Incredibly, Sitch didn’t offer her a pair of sweatpants, or a late-night breakfast. Clearly, the man was off his game. Meanwhile, Deena carried her twin over the threshold onto her bed. They both had to use the ladies’ room. Deena strolled out, and bingo bango bongo, Tweedledee wound up on top of Vinny. This led to one of the great exchanges in reality TV history:

Deena: “Hey, that girl was in my bed!”

Vinny: “She wants to cuddle with me.”

Deena: “She just jumps from bed to bed!”

Tweedledee: “Why are you talking about me in the third person? Why are they using night-vision cameras when all the lights are on? Why am I — an apparently sentient human female who is supposedly a virgin — hopping back and forth between an Oompa-Loompa and a dude with facial hair that makes the Potato Famine look like a bumper crop?”

Ronnie: “Burp!”

Then came my favorite cut ever. Tweedledee was back in Deena’s bed, and she actually said, “I’m back in this situation.” Cut to: THE SITUATION, talking to Shnookums about how much he wuvs her, but he respects her, or something. Burp!

Anyhow, the important thing is that Deena realized that she didn’t love kissing Tweedledee as much as she loved the male member, so she released her twin into the loving embrace of darling Vin-Vin. (Vinny, you will note, managed to successfully flirt his way into a make-out sesh by resting awkwardly on his bed with a sour expression on his face.) Meanwhile, The Situation ended the episode in the smush room with Tweedle-Poor-Life-Decision, who took off her bra and presumably made a poor life decision. “Well,” she probably thought to herself, “At least there’s no way this show will be watched by more people than the population of Austria.”

NEXT: Merrie Melodies

–Snooki said, “For me, wine in Italy is like a cup of coffee for normal people.” That’s exactly what I tell my coworkers when I line up three martinis on my desk around 3 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. Boy, I love coffee!

–Snooki has taken to wearing a headband. It makes her look like a vicar from some lost world where America never evolved beyond the motion picture Xanadu. Can a woman be a vicar?

–Evidence that this episode was filmed roughly 20 turns of the pop culture wheel ago: Every cast member thought it was hilarious to yell “Twinning!” in imitation of Charlie Sheen.

–Ronnie and Sammi reconciled, but before we get into that, I want to note that they reconciled on apparently the same restaurant rooftop where the gang shared a hearty dinner a couple episodes ago — you know, the place with the view of “The Vatican.” Both times we’ve visited this place, there haven’t been any other customers. I submit to you that this so-called “restaurant” does not actually exist.

–That being said, I can kind of believe that Ronnie has actually deluded himself into getting back together with Sam. Or not deluded himself. Listen kids: Love is a strange thing. It’s even stranger when you fall in love in front of a camera crew, and then have every wonderful and miserable part of your relationship captured by the zeitgeist. I suspect that Ronnie and Sammi know that they will never quite be able to explain their experience on Jersey Shore to anyone else, which is why they huddle together, protecting each other from the rain.

–Vinny and Pauly invented my new favorite song:

“Conservative Ronnie!

He’s a Wonderful Guy!

Conservative Sammi!

She’s a Wonderful Girl!”

–Moments after he rejoined Sam in holy relationship-hood, Ron-Ron revealed the terrible truth about Mike’s hook-up with Shnookums. He revealed this in full view of Jenni, who went and told Snooki: “He gave…de-tails.” Snooki claimed that she had never hooked up with Mike, hadn’t even seen Mike in months. Sitch: “We hooked up. Two months ago.” Snooki: “You’re a psycho! Nothing happened!”

–Poor Ronnie summed up the scene perfectly: “You don’t know who to believe.” Indeed. On one hand, you’ve got Snooki, who has every reason to lie about hooking up with Sitch: She has a boyfriend, she doesn’t want any drama, and it could do severe damage to the Shnookums Brand if she is associated with sweatpants-wearing multimillionaires. On the other hand, you’ve got The Situation, the incarnation of the trickster god Loki in this lifetime, who will say anything to cause drama and may very well be an undiagnosed sociopath. I’m inclined to assume the worst, and by “the worst,” I mean: Snooki and Sitch are actually a pair of Russian spies, raised in the gulag and trained by evil Germans pretending to be Russians to be a new race of ultra-people, slowly spreading their doctrine of free love and Marxism by way of the unsuspecting saps at MTV. Either that, or they’re two rich drunk idiots who smushed on a Saturday. Occam’s Razor would indicate the latter, but I don’t believe in razors.

Fellow viewers, chicks made out and spit got swapped. What did you think? Tell me your thoughts on Twitter. I have to retire to my hot tub.