Everything must eventually end and—like sucking the lemon, disposing the condom, or unclogging the toilet—the final transmission of Jersey Shore was the final gesture of the greatest sociological experiment of our time.

The ending was peaceful, but our guidos were left in turmoil. Like clouds rolling in across the ocean, everyone could sense the end was coming, and it was freaking them all out, but none more than the two dogs, Lean Cuisine and Juice Box. They'd been turned into merry pranksters by the guidos' household god, the Duck Phone, and their task was to find creative ways to make the guidos' lives miserable. But, in a strange case of Stockholm Syndrome, they were also influenced by the scatological ways of their captors. After intense exposure to the clan, the only thing they could think of to play tricks on the guidos was to shit on the floor. Everywhere and anywhere, Juice Box and Lean Cuisine would set down one of their steaming logs. Strangely, though, this did not upset their jailers. Rather, it delighted them and they cheered for these furry creatures and shouted at them to do it again. Do it bigger, do it stinkier, just don't touch them with their buttholes after it was done. This is how they rescued Lean Cuisine and Juice Box from the dark side, by winning them back with their love for shit and all represents.

Speaking of dark sides, we don't want to be in the dark when guidos communicate, so let's take a look at their language.

  • Play One Out: To trick someone by lying and therefore ruin their reputation. Since the truth for the guido is always shaky, everyone in every altercation can be accused of playing each other out in various and assorted combinations.
  • Princess Diana: An insult for a guido male who is acting too uppity or fussy. It is not insulting because it makes the target seem feminine or demanding, but because it makes them look like a rich person. There is nothing a guido hates more than a rich person.
  • Whiskey Dick: Usually this refers to a man's inability to get an erection when inebriated. However, because of a genetic mutation of the guidos' sex organs, this is not the case. As Snooki explains, a guido can still bring his member to attention even when in the blindest of drunks, but the alcohol kills much of the sensation down below, so he is able to operate sexually for hours on end. This is ideal for the sexually voracious guidette, and may be a possible reason why they are always more inclined to have sex with a drunk man than with a sober one.

Speaking of guidos in peril, Sammi was in quite a pickle when this transmission began. She was in the second phase of an argument with Ronnie and The Situation about her intentions with Arvin, a friend of The Situation's who showed up at Karma supposedly at Sammi's behest. Ronnie wants to know just what Sammi's history with Arvin is, so he has The Situation call him up and get to the bottom of it. Sammi storms into the house and gets on the phone with Arvin.

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Arvin claims that he and Sammi made out in the past, Sammi says this is not true. Sammi accuses Arvin of playing her out, he accuses her of playing him out, Ronnie accuses Sammi of playing him out and of playing Arvin out, the Duck Phone accuses Juice Box and Lean Cuisine of playing him out and his eyes flash red with rage because, once again, one of the guidos is screaming through him.

In this scenario only Sammi or Arvin can be right, so one of them is lying. But the real question is, what does Ronnie care? What's the big deal if Sammi made out with some guy by Jen's car two years ago in New Jersey, a little drunk on Zima (do they still make that) and giddy with the attention of a hot guy? This was before Sammi even met Ronnie! Why does it matter if she still talks to this guy, especially if she's talking to him when they were broken up and Ronnie had cheated on her in front of everyone who is studying this experiment? Why does it even matter?

It only matters because Sammi lied about it. Yes, she even admits that in the past she and Arvin made out. Everyone knows it's not the behavior that's the worst thing, it's the cover up. If she had just said, "Arvin and I made out in the past, but now he's a friend," or "We were broken up, of course I called another guy to hang out. It is well within my rights to move on after our wreck of a relationship was through." Then she would have been fine. Actually, in this whole scenario, Sammi didn't do anything wrong but lie (and why she lied when she did nothing wrong, I don't know) but eventually she cops to it, and then makes everything worse.

Man, everyone is going to be in a really bad mood when they go to Bossman Danny's party. He's having a little shindig for everyone who worked at the Shore Store—well, we should say everyone who was employed at the Shore Store because, as Ronnie made evident on his last day, not everyone who is employed there actually works—and they all get to bring three guests. DJ Paulie Delegate brings two of his friends from Providence, Deena brings her friend Lisa from New York, Snooki curiously does not invite her friend Ryder, Vinny asks Uncle Nino to come down from Staten Island to entertain the troops. Danielle, the Agent of Mossad, is uninvited but peering over the railing where the party is being held, trying to kidnap DJ Paulie (Sitting) Duck one last time, until she sees how fucking huge his friends from Providence are, and she backs off.

JWOWW, strangely enough, asks her dad to come. JWOWW's dad is like a combination of Julian Assange and Matthew Lesko, that crazy guy who does infomercials in a coat with question marks all over it and tells you how to get free money from the government. He is not at all what you would expect JWOWW's dad to look like. Because the Mayor of Seaside Heights is invited to every party within the city limits (this is an actual, legal ordinance), Roger the Mayor of Seaside Heights is there. JWOWW introduces him to her dad and it's a little awkward. Then they bring out the pinata. No one can hit it, until it's JWOWW's turn at bat. She puts on the blindfold and says, "You give up your candy, you get your ass beat. You give up your candy, you get your ass beat. You give up your candy, you get your ass beat." And the pinata just explodes on its own. JWOWW breathes on her nails and polishes them on her shoulder.

The real drama at the party unfolded when Deena was interrupted from giving Uncle Nino a lap dance on the dance floor (she's always had a thing for older guys) when she finds out that Vinny is trying to get with her friend Lisa.

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When Deena sees what's going on, she goes in an intercepts and lets her friend Lisa know that it's not cool to hook up with Vinny, mostly because Vinny and Snooki have their weird thing going on, and it would just make everything awkward in the house. That is not an unreasonable request. And there are several comely young ladies and gentlemen there for Vinny and Lisa to choose that wouldn't create all sorts of unrest in the Broken Toilet Palace the guidos call a beach house.

But no, Vinny gets all upset and calls Deena a cock block. Later, after they go out the club, Vinny brings it up again, and is calling Deena a cock block and she gets upset about it. Even worse, he pulls out the harshest of all guido insults and calls her "Angelina." Bringing up the black specter of the creature known as Trash Bags is so vile, that just hearing her name causes a brown sludge to pour out of the guidos' ears. It is a name that should not ever be spoken, but it is this harsh indictment that Vinny reigns down on Deena. Deena honestly did nothing wrong. As her friends, both Lisa and Vinny should respect her wishes that they not hook up. That's what friends do for each other, especially if it's going to spare a whole boatload of hurt feelings.

However, the tag of "cock block" really upsets Deena. This just, again, exposes the fucked up double standard the guidos have about hooking up. For Vinny a girl is fine to hang out with until the moment she gets in the way of his hooking up or makes a modest request of him not to fuck whatever the hell he wants. Then she's just some shrieking nuisance to get rid of. And Deena shouldn't get upset about being a cock block. Well, she should if she was actually behaving like Trash Bags and ruining the guidos' game with girls as sport. No, she's trying to spare Snooki's feelings, spare Lisa's feelings, and generally save the day with a modest proposal (that for a change has nothing to do with eating babies). But being labeled as someone that gets between a man and his valuable pussy is the worst thing that can be said of a girl. That's just some fucked up shit.

But just as Vinny is treating girls like objects to either be slammed or scorned, Roger, the Mayor of Seaside Heights, is treating Jenni like a princess.

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I really like Mayor Roger. He's kind of hunky (in that guido way) and so nice and sweet to JWOWW. I mean, look at how cute he is, asking if they're going to be exclusive and get together and be "boyfriend girlfriend." It's all so eight grade it makes me want to cry tears of joy, like when I finally got that Saved by the Bell Trapper Keeper I had saved up all my paper route money to buy.

In her mind, JWOWW is thinking that she's now the first lady of Seaside Heights. That means she's going to have to come out with a CD of acoustic French guitar music and hyphenate her last name and wear really smart Chanel outfits to meetings with world dignitaries just like her idol Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. You wouldn't know it by the way she dresses, but JWOWW has a shrine to CBS and cuts out all of her pictures from magazines and pastes them on her wall. Finally, oh finally, she's a politician's wife.

When she announces the news to the girls, the ooh and coo, like JWOWW is about to get married. Snooki, in fact, asks if she can go to the wedding. It's all so incredibly cute and young and adorable. I think Mayor Roger is good for JWOWW. After all, she hasn't beaten anyone up since they got together. Maybe he's the calming influence she needs. Or maybe she's just much more docile when she's getting her bell rung on a regular basis.

Speaking of ringing bells, Snooki also takes home a guy from the club and takes him directly to the smush room, she does not pass go, she does not collect $200. While the man, someone named Nick who we vaguely remember from before but he isn't super hot Nick who is friends with Mayor Roger, certainly got it in, he was not prepared for the ruckus that would ensue.

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Yes, Sammi and Ronnie have another fight. This footage is hilarious because it shows the reactions of everyone in the house including Mayor Roger, who just sits there in the dark waiting for it to be over, and Nick, who has no clue what's going on. Deena also has a gentleman friend over, and his reaction, seen at the end of this clip, pretty much sums up just how everyone in America feels.

The fight itself is another one of Sammi and Ronnie's completely incomprehensible conflagrations. What are they even fighting about? Who knows! Who cares? What I do know is Ronnie keeps taking this, "I've never been anything but nice to you" tack with Sammi and that is a bigger heap of dung than any of the excrement that Juice Box or Lean Cuisine has deposited on the rug. Yeah, Sammi, he's been nothing but nice to you, oh, except for when he cheated, when he lied, when he called you names, when he cussed you out, when he threatened to beat you up, when he broke all of your stuff, when he threw your bed out the window, when he tossed you around on that bed before throwing it out the window. Except for all those times, he has been nothing but nice to you.

Sammi is no peach either. Remember when she punched him in the face! But still, neither of them are innocent in this, and this is not the time for remembering. It's time to just "neutral it" and call an end to the whole thing.

That's what happens the next day, when they discuss where their relationship stands. Sammi still seems like she kind of wants to get back together (ew) but Ronnie says he "needs his space." When Sammi asks if it's over, he says yes. Wow, that is a huge step. We've gone from "done" to "over." I wonder if a new word for how they leave it means it's done for good. (PS—It's not.)

With that, it's time for everyone to pack their bags and head home.

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The last day at the beach is like the day just before school starts. You're filled with the concurrent dread of the end of a way of life you'd grown accustomed to—the waking up late and The Price Is Right reruns—and knowing that the life just on the horizon—classes, books, teachers' dirty looks—is not nearly as fun as the one you just had and still completely uncertain. It's a feeling that makes the legs tingle with immobility, the heart rise with longing, and the gut churn with anxiety. But no one can stop the passage of time and the seasonal shifts in our behavior. Like the guido, we must migrate toward our inevitable destiny.

Sammi, of course, is the first to go. She gets into her car, sad and scared to be alone. She doesn't know what it's like to not be in the passenger seat, to have someone to fight and squabble with to pass away the time. She squints her eyes against the setting sun, too lazy to reach for the visor. She doesn't know where she's going. Even with her glasses on, she can't see. The end of the road is bright, and that's just what scares her. She wants back into the familiar darkness, the pit of her bed, under the covers, under the mattress if she could. She can't see what's coming, and she doesn't even know which road will get her home.

The Situation shuffles off to his gig on Dancing with the Stars and Vinny chugs off, forgetting about his feelings for Snooki until they see each other again. He's still on the hunt, and there's nothing tying him back.

DJ Paulie Departure gets into his car and head off for Rhode Island, an island that isn't an island at all. That still confuses him. But he has sunshine in his heart, that DJ Paulie Disposition, and he's not going to let goodbyes get him down. He's a hello kind of guy, waiting until the reunion for his exuberance to burst again. And right behind him is a black van with a star of David hanging from the rear view and a very angry woman behind the wheel. Danielle, Agent of Mossad, tightens her grasp on the wheel and floors the pedal, getting even closer to her prey, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake.

JWOWW says goodbye to Snooki, but they'll be moving in together soon. Right now JWOWW is happy, the violent part of her retired to some deep dark recess as her body is taken over by the butterflies of new love. She feels the late summer sun battering her arm as it stretches out from the window. She stretches her palm out flat and tests her strength as its pushed by the wind. She's ready to go home again and clean up the wreck of her past so she move toward her future...but she's going to stop by City Hall on her way out of town. She has an appointment with Mayor Roger.

Finally, it's Snooki and Deena, packing up and kicking their suitcases down the stairs. It's always a caper with these two. Nothing can be simple, but nothing is boring either. They're going back home together and their minds can't focus on anything past the next rest stop, where they will stop and cause a scene and pee in the parking lot and walk off with some Popeye's without paying—just totally forgetting about paying. Deena will probably climb into that game where a claw tries to pick up stuffed animals and when Snooki can't get her out, she'll cry "Whaaa," but get bored and just leave Deena there for some family to eventually win for 50 cents and take home.

Then the house is empty. The coastal breeze bores through the windows and the screen doors, picking up a stench and carrying it into the town. There's nothing left—well, no people at least. There is plenty left behind: a stained rug ruined by Lean Cuisine, the toilets still half clogged, the paperwork from Snooki's bail bondsman crumpled and forgotten under a bed, a pair of blood-stained panties that no one has ever claimed. There is food left in the refrigerator and fake eyelashes—coated in Sammi's copious tears—stuck to the sink. There is the picture of of captain made out of yarn hanging on the wall, surveying the damage of another summer. The wreckage of all these events, both tiny and momentous, perpetrated by a bunch of ruffians. And, of course, there is the Duck Phone. Forsaken yet again, left alone to his own fiendish plots and petty misdirections. He once had a house full of worshipers, but now he has nothing. Just the flotsam and jetsam of another season, the scars of living life too hard, and the constant roar of the waves slapping against the shore. Over and over, it beats, as the air gets its first bit of chill. Wave crashing after wave, the up and down of the swell blurring into a sort of dull roar. And over it, softly, you can hear what sounds like a quack—no, a series of quacks. Yes, a series of quacks that sounds like crying.