We have a new host for the evening: Amy Paffrath, whose questionable (read: a guido-approved draped cotton, python print minidress) fashion sense and tendency to violently accentuate points with head movements is already making me miss Julissa. I never thought I'd want more exposure to Julissa. Don't prove me wrong, Paffrath! She introduces the gang, which is only notable because Snooki almost falls over after being the only one to make a point of standing up during her introduction and because Deena looks like crap. Big hair and blonde highlights do not suit my Meatball.
Paffrath asks how Italy compared to Jersey. Deena says with elegant simplicity, "Ummmm... different." Lots of differences are thrown out there to prove how much lovelier Italy is than Seaside, among them the architecture, the guys, and (from Snooki) the geography. Paffrath asks mockingly, "Snooki, what about the geography was beautiful?" Okay, Paffrath, keep your head jerking to a minimum, and we'll get along just fine. Snooki has to explain that she meant the landscape. Vinny has to explain that geography is physical location, not physical appearance
Paffrath cues a package about how Italy made all the roommates hot messes. Highlights: Snooki working out in a way that Pauly thinks look like she's having sex with herself, the girls getting domestic, the guys losing their game, and The Situation making the decision to suddenly be a ninja (or should I consider it a calling?). Vinny quickly explains away the lack of game: Girls in Italy have morals and self-respect. Paffrath asks, "If you can't pay for cougars, hookers, or trannies, what's left for you?" Everyone in unison: "Pauly." Paffrath deems Sitch "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Situation" and wonders what was up with his sudden martial arts kick (literally). He says he was always on the defense but admits he did make amends with the wall after their run-in.
Already irritated with his roundabout, meaningless elocution, Snooki gets mouthy with Sitch. When he tells her to turn around and zip it, she says, "You don't tell me what to do." He snaps back, "I'm not gonna tell you what to do. You know exactly what to do. I've seen you do it." Oh shit. She calls him disgusting, and he wonders why she's jumping to the trash talk so soon. She calls him a bad friend, and he says, "We didn't even get to the part yet." I would make some sort of sexual metaphor about anticipation, but then I realized that this show is the equivalent of a one-minute man... something Sammi knows a little about. Snooki admits she's irritated that Sitch is seated so close to her, and he drives the innuendos into the ground, saying, "Well you weren't irritated when I was a little closer." Just in case we didn't get his drift the first 50 times. That Sitchy, he is generous of spirit and of insinuation.
Paffrath calls the two of them to the hot seat. Facing more of Snooki's mockery, Sitch suggests that she's behaving like a kindergartner who mistreats her crush. Snooki calls him a douchebag and makes a truly unfortunate word selection when she tells him, "Nobody has ever done me like you did." He can only smirk and say, "That's true..." Paffrath throws to a package about Snooks' and Sitch's tumultuous relationship. There are a few clips where people don't 100% take Snooki's side, so she tells everyone in the house besides Deena to fuck off. JWOWW angrily screams how she chased Jionni through the streets of Florence, but Snooki is on the war path. She calls her roommates fake and says she hates them. Vinny thinks the Snooki doth protest too much. When asked if anyone believes Snooki, Deena and JWOWW both vouch that her story remained consistent about the alleged SitchJob. Not really helping, JWOWW's all, "She banged Vinny on camera, so why would she lie about something that nobody would ever see?" Further not helping, Snooki says the only person she would have hooked up with would have been Pauly. Way to deflect from being a slut by... kind of acting slutty.
Paffrath wonders how Ronnie feels about this whole saga since he was at the center. He has no remorse for ratting Sitch out since that's what Sitch has been doing to him for years now. Moving on, Snooki questions Sitch's motivations in telling Ronnie about his supposed feelings instead of her. Sammi thinks it was totally out of left field, and JWOWW deems his talk of Snooki's alleged sex acts disrespectful. Sammi also thinks his whole ruse about having The Unit call Jionni was out of line. After a lot of screaming between Sitch, Deena, and Sammi, Paffrath asks Snooki what she feels about how things transpired. Snooki says she's over it, and Sitch thinks her indifference signals guilt. So if she gets mad, she's guilty? And if she stops caring, she's guilty? All right. As long as we're clear.
Deena takes the hot seat as is met by a package about her indiscriminate, bicurious quest for love and her pregnancy scare. Deena says after she found out she wasn't pregnant, "I was like, 'Wooooooo! Let's take a friggin' shot!'" Wow, that's everything that's wrong with these people. Paffrath asks, "Deena, if you were pregnant, were you hoping in some way, shape, or form that the baby was Pauly's?" At this, he literally jumps off his seat. Images of Deena collecting Pauly's sperm in his sleep run through my head. Paffrath wonders if Deena feels she failed in her quest for love. Deena insists it wasn't her fault. She does admit, "Listen, I know I'm whacked out" -- cue vigorous nodding from Ronnie -- "I know I'm weird, and [these guys' behavior was] weird to me... This is not okay."
On to Deena's Sapphic moments, including her robbery of one of Sitchy's twins. Deena says she figured Sitch didn't have a chance, so she went for it. Sitch admits he was mad that she busted up his threesome but had to respect that Deena "did her thang." Paffrath says Deena has more game than the guys, and Deena confirms that she suspects she could have gotten that threesome going if she'd pushed for it. Sitch says he strongly doubts that, though I suspect it's because he can't imagine a sexual scenario in which a penis isn't involved or the women having sex aren't filming porn. Deena thinks all girls who are close friends get drunk and make out. Sitch asks, "Do they finger pop each other, too?" Deena snaps, "You know what? She finger popped me, and it was the best thing that fuckin' happened in Italy." Well then.
Paffrath brings Snooki back to discuss her and Deena's blackout hook-up. Snooki and Deena deal with the unbearable weirdness by channeling entirely different personas named Flo (Snooki) and Marge (Deena). Snooki points out her other friends Nancy (JWOWW) and Marie (Sammi). JWOWW cups her face in her hands and mutters, "This is gonna be a long one." Paffrath asks a general question about what makes Team Meatballs tick, and Deena starts nattering something about her (Marge's). Ronnie cuts her off to be like, "Stop being a dumbass and answer the question as yourself." Snooki tells him (or his alter ego Abraham, as it were) to shut up.
As if this interlude had never happened, Deena screams, "Meatball power!" they air kiss, and they're back to Snooki and Deena. Paffrath takes her window of opportunity to roll the Meatball package, which some "clever" writer tried to make literary by leading in with, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... a tale of two Meatballs." Groan. Highlights: They fall... a lot, Deena dances her underwears off then flashes her cuca to il club, they dip in each other's lady ponds, and Snooki explains Meatball Problems as "being short, being drunk, and being a fuckin' moron." The kicker? Snooki realizing, "We shouldn't reproduce." After the package, Deena spells out the technique of peeing in a hot tub (who says Jersey Shore isn't educational?).
Paffrath asks JWOWW a question that really answers itself: "Is taking care of the Meatballs hard work?" JWOWW gives some back-story about Snooki vomiting under a bar and Deena nearly getting into a fight during their Riccione trip. Snooki and Deena channel their inner eight-year-olds as they make the other roommates for being boring and stuck up. When asked about their hook-up, Deena says they've hooked up before. Snooki: "Meatballs, they're allowed to play around in the sauce." I think I just got herpes from that comment. Yuck. The girls declare the trip to Riccione a mission accomplished.
in the hot seat, we have Pauly and Vinny, who indulge the HoYay! as Paffrath cues a package about their l'amore fraterno. Highlights: FPC (Fist pump, push-ups, chapstick), the "She's too young for you" meme, and the night they chose to sleep together instead of with Deena. They say they have no regrets. "Don't let them kid you," says Deena. "I slept in that room. I know what went down." Paffrath asks, "What went down." Too easy! Each guy instinctively points at the other. Ronnie says it was weird, and they tease that he was just jealous. Then follow several minutes of Louie and Tony, who dance with "lips out, eyebrows up." And of course the "she's too young" refrain, which the guys acknowledges goes both ways: "If her age matches the speed limit on the Turnpike, she's too old for you, bro."
Ronnie joins VP upfront. Paffrath asks whether Ronnie considers himself a swacker (swagger jacker) before introducing a clip that proves he is. At the end, Pauly jokes about getting a shirt for the occasion, and when we cut back to the studio, he does indeed have a purple T-shirt that reads "SWAGGER JACKER." I want. Sitch chimes in that they all use each other's lingo (ex. Ron Ron Juice and smush), so it's all good. Paffrath notes the similarity in Ronnie and Pauly's outfits. Of his chain, Ronnie says, "Pauly got me into diamonds." (There was more, but I will stop there.)
Pauly and Vinny head back to the couches so Sammi and Sitchy can join Ronnie in the hot seat. Paffrath doesn't beat around the Sitch. She asks, "How's your neck feeling these days?" Nice. Cut to a tune that goes a little something like "I Fought the Wall and the Wall Won." Neck brace shenanigans ensue. The guys agree they have no regrets, save maybe Sitch's decision to take his insanity out on a defenseless wall. Behind him, the wall pipes up, "It's true! I didn't deserve it. I've been in therapy for months. Thanks a lot for sticking me in a house with these psychos, MTV!" Ronnie acknowledges that Sammi made things worse by hanging around the fight. Sitch admits that they may have exaggerated the drama of his circumstances in his head after he got home from the hospital and says, "There might have been a day that I might have milked it... maybe." All the roommates laugh at what a tool he is generally and how the neck brace only played that fact up.
And now for never-before-seen moments from Italy -- and boy is it riveting! Vinny cuts hair (badly), The Situation wears a mud mask that looks uncomfortably like blackface, and Deena flat-ironed her hair right off.
The kids reaffirm their excitement to resume GTL. They missed tanning the most (except for Vinny, who missed of-age women). They insist that going to Italy made them 100% closer (despite the fact that Sitch threatened to quit the show and Snooki just told all her roommates to fuck off less than an hour ago). And that's it, kids. Another season come and gone in a flash of spray tan, drunken canoodling, and wall-mutilating aggression. Now go rest your livers for a couple of months. Ci vediamo l'anno prossimo!