Addicted to Love

You guys – Jersey Shore’s getting totally real.

I first started watching for the obvious reasons: the hype, the voyeurism, the crazy. But recently, 5 or so episodes into JS’s third season, I’ve noticed something surprising in Ronnie and Sammi - they are most realistically fucked up couple on television.

Think about it. Just on last night’s episode, the couple tried to get past last week’s drama by going out for a night at Karma with the gang. Cut to Ronnie puking in his bed while Sammi, so grossed out by vomit that she has to plug her ears, holds a bag under his face. The next morning, Ronnie wakes up with a hangover so bad that his ass bleeds. Seriously. So Sammi, out of love and concern, accompanies him to the proctologist, giggling with him when he emerges and tells her (in a classic JS no duh moment) that he should take it easy on the boozin’. The truce, of course, only lasts half an episode, and by the end, they’re screaming at each other for no discernable reason and Sammi resumes the game of chicken, challenging Ronnie to end it. These two are so horribly codependent that they pull out the breakup trump card every chance they get, as if to prove to themselves that they are totally capable of surviving without each other (bleeding butt notwithstanding).

Here’s the thing. Ronnie and Sammi are entertaining but they’re also stuck in a cycle of mutual abuse that is playing out in the public eye. These two are so destructive that the rest of the cast, no wilting violets themselves, shudder when they hear the fighting coming from upstairs, like kids bracing themselves for another one of their parents’ blowouts. Ron and Sam aren’t mugging for the cameras, nor are they falling into roles crafted for them by MTV’s producers. For a while, JS tried to position Sammi as the villain, but it’s difficult to paint Ronnie as the victim when he’s cheating on Sam and then crawling into her bed, or he’s laughing maniacally and tossing all of her clothes onto the floor.

Neither one of these people is right or wrong, which is why I believe Ron and Sam are one of the most complex couples on TV.  I know – calling anything on the Jersey Shore complex is like claiming to have learned about the nation’s economic crisis from Star magazine. But the fact that JS has lasted three strong seasons without really mixing up the formula suggests that there’s something more than Gym-Tan-Laundry that viewers find appealing. To me, it’s that flicker of the real – the genuine friendships between Snooki and Jwoww; the hysterical camaraderie among Situation, Pauly D and Vinny; Mike’s recurring winks to the camera that imply he’s completely in on the joke, that he’s smart enough to know that “The Situation” is a brand and he’s laughing all the way to the bank.

Everyone has known a Ronnie and Sammi, or has been a Ronnie or a Sammi, or has wondered what it would be like to be in a relationship so dramatic – often misread as passionate – that their selves hit together till they shatter. Ronnie and Sammi really love each other. I have no doubt. They love each other, but it’s toxic love, and they need distance, and probably therapy, to get their lives back on track. They’re not doing this on purpose and they are certainly not happy. But they get so high off the honeymoon periods that they can’t see the Bermuda Triangle’s hastening approach.

I can’t think of another couple on TV – scripted or otherwise – that depict the cycle of abuse with such nuance. Writers and editors often can’t help favor one partner over the other; I’m reminded of Carrie & Big during SATC’s television arc, and how Big, despite Carrie’s craziness, always came off as the jerk. On the other hand, Ron & Sam are the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf of the Jersey Shore: they love each other so much it hurts.