Tonight’s the night, folks, in which Snooki, The Situation, Vinny, Angelina, D.J. Pauly D, JWOWW, and those crazy lovebirds Sammi and Ronnie return for a second season of creeping, grinding, fist-pumping, and narrowly avoiding grenades. What craziness will this season bring us? How has the cast grown in the past year? And will The Situation ever stop referring to himself in the third person (no)? Because there’s really no way to know, and we love nothing more than thinking about Jersey Shore every minute of every day, we’ve compiled our fantasy of how each of the characters will fare this season. And, because we know these people too well, we have also included our resigned predictions for what likely will happen. Click through to find out.
What we want to happen: Angelina returns from her early season-one exit a changed woman. She’s taken a master mixology course in order to back up her famously dubious claim, “I’m a bartender. I do, like, great things.” She spends the rest of the season quietly working her cocktail shaker, adding elderflower to Ron-Ron Juice, and perfecting her smoky mezcal margarita (which replaces shots of vodka as the household’s favorite drink). She and Stacie the Bartender from The Hills go on to open a little cocktail den on the Lower East Side and eventually overtake Sasha Petraske as the city’s leading fancy drink makers. No one ever laughs at her again.
What will likely happen: Since we already know that she doesn’t return for season three, we can only assume that Angelina comes back as the same person she always was. She’ll start unnecessary drama with the other girls, have an inflated sense of her own greatness, and go on about how hot her butt is. A fact which, rightly, JWOWW will continue to dispute.
What we want to happen: Over the winter, Pauly will have reunited with the stalker-ish Israeli and become very interested in Judaism. During season two, he’s goes through the conversion process — taking lessons from a local Miami rabbi, attending Friday-night services; he even decides to keep a kosher house. This ends up causing a summerlong rift between him and Mike, who insists that Pauly attends family dinner night. It’s a sad story, but one that ends with uplift: After Pauly D decides he wants an adult Bar Mitzvah, Mike finally gets over his anger and attends. Mazel Tov to them both.
What will likely happen: Pauly D will continue to search for a non-grenade girlfriend, to no avail. But he’s pretty much fine with that, because it means hooking up with lots and lots of girls, even more girls than his best friend Mike. After a brief fling with Angelina, Pauly D decides that his real love is music, and he spends the rest of the season happily spinning and fist-pumping.
What we want to happen: JWOWW, a burgeoning fashion designer, decides that instead of selling T-shirts again, she’s going to set up a pop-up shop in South Beach, filled with her bedazzled bras and holey minidresses. It’s such an ironic success that she gets tapped to create a similar line for Barneys and leaves the season early in order to keep up with the demands of sending samples to fashion magazines for various “Jersey Chic” spreads. JWOWW eventually becomes besties with Donatella Versace and they end up sharing both clothes and, unsurprisingly, men.
What will happen: JWOWW talks now and then, shouts all the time, and fights almost constantly. She and Snooki prowl around for juiceheads, and she ends up meeting a dude named Tony who loves her style, aggressive nature, and, most important, her breasts.
What we want to happen: During the hiatus, Ronnie will have had a horrible accident in which his ‘roid rage literally caused his eyeballs to pop out of his massive head. This caused Ronnie to think long and hard about his gym-loving, fight-happy lifestyle, and he took an Eat, Pray, Love–like journey across the tri-state area in order to find himself. He returns a Buddhist, takes up pacifism as a political and personal cause, and goes off all protein-supplements in order to attain a hipster-y physique. In fact, Ronnie becomes a hipster, slinking around the house in skinny jeans and Converse, and renounces Sammi for a girl named Alex who plays drums in a band called Chronic Monkeys.
What will likely happen: As we can see from the previews, Ronnie is bigger than ever. He’ll go crazy with the ladies at first, then skulk around the house when he realizes he’s still in love with Sammi. Eventually, he’ll sweep her off her feet while grinding with her at a club, then he’ll punch someone in the face who looks at her the wrong way. Ah, true love.
What we want to happen: Sammi watched a season-long Jersey Shore marathon one Sunday, and couldn’t help but think to herself, God, I’m SO annoying. And so she went on a quest to fix herself, seeking advice from therapists (both the regular and speech kind), and emerged as a self-aware, preachy young lady who lectures the other girls on their choice of guys, their drinking habits, and their revealing clothes. Actually, she’s still annoying, but at least she’s stopped saying “Rooooonnnnie” over and over. And over.
What will happen: Living in a house with her ex, “Rooooonnnnie,” is too much for Sammi to handle. She quickly finds a new boyfriend, “Dooooonnnnie,” and drags him around in order to annoy Ronnie to the point of murderous rage. After getting Ronnie to finally admit that she’s the one, Sammi decides that she’s just not as into him as she thought, and so breaks up with him again, starting the whole, God-forsaken cycle over. Every time she comes onscreen, we will be forced to press the mute button so as not to go clinically insane.
What we want to happen: Snooki says what she wants, eats what she wants, kisses whom she wants, and drinks what she wants. She makes us laugh with her endearing self-absorption and spends the season in Miami prancing around, spewing nonsense, and doing amazingly hilarious backflips.
What will likely happen: Pretty much that. Yay, Snooki!
What we want to happen: The Sitch got fat over the winter. It seems impossible, but the pressures of being his awesome self grew to be too much, and he turned to food in order to quiet his many anxieties. At the beginning of the season, we’re treated to the most amazing workout montage in the history of workout montages. Snooki jumps rope with him; Ronnie counts his sit-ups; Vinny teaches him the importance of portion size; Angelina jogs down the beach with him. As a final push, The Biggest Loser’s Jillian Michaels arrives to train him for a marathon, which he ends up running (and winning!) in the season finale.
What will likely happen: Mike spends the season acting like a diva — he’s so full of himself, in fact, that he turns off all the other cast members, forcing them, in a move reminiscent of The Real World season three, to actually kick him out of the house. Devastated, Mike spends the rest of the time living outside the house in a tent, with not nearly enough access to laundry machines, begging to be let back in. And for this, MTV happily pays him $30,000 per episode.
What we want to happen: Vinny, who took the LSAT this year, uses this season to prove the brilliance of his legal mind. He’ll defend Ronnie when he gets thrown into jail (again), he’ll take up on Mike’s behalf after someone infringes on his copyright (by attempting to market an actual “Situation Grenade”), and he’ll draft up the pre-nup when Snooki and a random gorilla impulsively decide to elope in Atlantic City. With these accomplishments in his pocket, Vinny will finally have the bravery needed in order to learn how to do his own laundry and cook his own food, much to the outrage of his sweet little mother.
What will likely happen: Vinny will continue to win our hearts with his endearing smile and face-swallowing sunglasses. He’ll be the Lothario of the house this year, on account of his being normal looking and saner than the other guys. He’ll eventually steal everyone’s girlfriends for himself. Go Vinny, go Vinny, go, go, go Vinny!
