Much like a vampire, a dirty little hamster must be formally invited into your shore house before she can enter. But once she has crossed that threshold, you may very well be doomed to spend an eternity together. Nicole cowers behind a plate as Jenni breaks the news that, while they’re all open to getting to know Angelina better in the future, they’re ready for her to leave. Tomorrow. Please. In a truly staggering twist, Angelina is fine with this. There’s even talk of exchanging phone numbers. In celebration, everyone proceeds to go out, hard. “We like you now, idiot!” Snooki shouts at her prodigal roommate while taking a momentary break from grinding on her. But nothing gold, or tan, can stay.
On the taxi ride from the club, Angelina admits to farting, then to sharting. Actually, hold on: “Not just a shart,” she reports, inspecting her underwear, as well as the seat below her. “I shit my pants.” This, as Deena puts it, “literal shitshow” actually stuns the women into silence for a few seconds, before they cackle and shriek and gag, along with their driver, who I guarantee you is not going to get a big enough tip. There could be no tip big enough — at least no tip that you could conceivably withdraw in a single desperate ATM transaction.
Back home, and faced with the judgment of the boys, Angelina’s story shifts like she’s the main character in a prestige-y, three-episodes-too-long true-crime docuseries. Now she clarifies that she did not shit her pants. “It was like a period shit,” she explains. I will try to be as clinical as possible here: Does this mean — if you’re thinking you might not want to read the rest of the sentence, trust your instincts, shut down your computer, go for a walk — she had a gnarly, hormone-influenced bowel movement, or that, in passing gas, she unexpectedly, energetically expelled some menstrual blood? I’m just asking questions, out of genuine medical curiosity.
They say that a person who represents themselves in court has a fool for a client, and also, sometimes, that that person is Ted Bundy. Nevertheless, Angelina is determined to prove her innocence, offering to show anyone and everyone the underwear in question, which she tugs down her thighs. The men scatter; Ronnie takes shelter behind an overturned armchair. The evidence is submitted to the two-woman crime lab that is Nicole and Deena, who seemingly absolve her of any fecal wrongdoing, but it remains unclear exactly what transpired in Angelina’s panties.
“Girl, you could’ve ended on a high note,” Jenni chastises Angelina, but I submit that this scene does Jersey Shore proud. Haters will say it’s disgusting, but True Fans will agree that bodily fluids have always been the lifeblood (and lifesweat, and lifepuke, and lifesemen) of this series — with bodily adjacent fluids, like hair gel and self-tanner and vodka, making a strong second-place showing.
A brief intermission: Nicole takes a fully dressed nap, glass of wine in her hand, on her bed. She wakes up with a start and begins to immediately, aggressively vogue, chanting, “Fuck it up, fuck it up, fuck it up.” And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
As she begins to sober up, Angelina begins to feel embarrassed — she doesn’t want to leave under such figuratively and literally shitty circumstances. But despite being sleep-dancing-level drunk, Nicole manages to comfort her: Everybody farts! By morning, Angelina is in much better spirits. In an emotional confessional, she describes what relief she feels at having finally made amends. The boys send her off by wrapping her nice luggage in trash bags (with a couple of bonus toilet paper rolls, in case the cab ride to the airport proves eventful), and even rolling out a trash-bag black carpet. Angelina cracks up. In the fondest way possible: Um, good-bye!
To unwind and regroup, the remaining roommates decide they need a #vacationfromtheirvacation (#wanderlust #travelgram #digitalnomad) and head to the beautiful blue waters of Bimini for a day. As the gang feeds stingrays, drinks dranks, and snorkels (Discussion question for the class: What sex act would the euphemism “snorkel” most likely have described if heard on the original Jersey Shore?), Vinny’s mother Paola calls up the house, growing increasingly perturbed every time the duck phone goes unanswered. Uncle Nino (Uncle Nino!) suggests the two of them fly down to Miami to surprise the kids. He packs a teeny Speedo; she packs a suitcase full of home-cooked food.
His pals enjoy cavorting in the waves, but Mike’s preferred resort activity is room service: He orders a shrimp cocktail, chicken fingers, and a bacon cheeseburger deluxe, all for himself. As Big Daddy Sitch enumerates his daily desires for breakfast and mid-morning breakfast lunch and mid-day lunch and dinner (and a snack, and a midnight snack), I marvel at the once-unthinkable truth that Michael Sorrentino has become the cast member I most relate to in the Year of Our Shore 2018. But Mike’s Über-meal backfires when a stomachache slows him down while getting ready for dinner, to the chagrin of his roommates (particularly Jenni), who’ve been waiting on him for at least 45 minutes. In the interest of “tough love” — and also, one assumes, being very hangry — they nearly leave without him, but he catches up with them just as the hotel shuttle is pulling away. He and Jenni then calmly discuss why they are irritated with one another, and I’m sorry, but everything about this story line pales in comparison to the poop-heavy first half of the episode, even as Mike emits a truly disgusting fart of his own on the shuttle ride home. At least we have this to look forward to: He plans on proposing when Lauren comes to visit in a few days!
Waiting for them back in Miami are Nino and Paola, who’ve made themselves at home. Vinny’s mother is making dinner in the kitchen; Nino lounges by the pool. Smoking a cigar and drinking wine, he hits on the Sammequin. I don’t have the slightest idea of what he’s saying, except that he tells the sex doll she looks like Jackie O. and that he refers to the “smush room” as the “squishy room.” Angelina doesn’t know what she’s missing.
