The Many Ways In Which The Jersey Shore Reunion Sucked

Last night’s reunion was disappointing in many ways—the canned laughter, the lack of meaty questions, the focus on Sammi and Ron’s tired bullshit—but perhaps the biggest offense was that it was simply boring.

1.) The cast’s admitted (and accepted) sexual double standards was not addressed, but celebrated.
Instead of delving into (in my opinion) the most interesting issue that popped up on the show—how Angelina was vilified for her alleged promiscuity, while the male roommates congratulated themselves on their own multiple hookups—host Julissa Bermudez completely dropped the ball. Her jovial and bubbly discussion of “DTF” with The Situation, Vinny, and Pauly endorsed, rather than questioned, the guys’ cognitive dissonance when it comes to berating “easy” women yet also preying on them. What’s more annoying is that she didn’t take the men to task for labeling some of the women they met as “grenades” or “zoo creatures”—terms that are supposedly used to describe their looks, but are clearly masking the guys’ own sexual insecurities when they were being rejected.

2.) Julissa’s incompetence as a host.
Aside from the issues mentioned above, Julissa was one of the shittiest interviewers in the history of basic cable reality show reunion history, which is saying something, since the bar for such a task is not set particularly high given that the subject matter is so inherently lowbrow. It was like she never even watched the series, and was merely given crib notes on some highlights. She didn’t really call anybody out on questionable behavior, she completely ignored the biggest fight from the season, and she seemed to embrace the more problematic aspects of the show, like the roommates’ overt sexism. But beyond that, she also could barely introduce clips. I realize that some—if not all—of her dialogue was scripted here, but Judge Judy would be livid over her use of “learn” instead of “teach.”

3.) Sammi and Ronnie’s banal relationship crap managed to be the only semi-interesting segment.
Ugh. Enough already with them.

4.) The Situation came off as the most intelligent person on the stage.
And that’s quite a feat, considering the excerpts from his forthcoming book.

5.) The show completely lacked drama.
This is because Angelina did not make an appearance. She was not there to defend herself or address any of the issues or tension that she has with the cast. Interestingly, earlier this week, when on The Wendy Williams Show, Angelina said that she did attend the reunion, although she refused to appear on stage with the cast, but said that she would be featured on the special, in her own separate segment. She was obviously edited it out.