Plot

The roommates struggle to adjust to life at the Shore without Vinny, while Mike confronts his own internal demons. But it's also Pauly's birthday and he gets the best present of his life!

The gang is at the club when sad news breaks: Vinny has left the Shore. Deena immediately begins to cry. It's kind of sweet, but JWoww rightly points out that Deena tends to overreact from time to time. "Hearing that Vinny stubbed his toe, she might have cried," JWoww tells the camera. JWoww then helps drunk Deena pull down her super-tight dress that has somehow migrated up toward her waist. The Situation, meanwhile, compares picking up the ladies to shopping at a store. Pauly also nabs a lady and everybody rolls back to the house.

Deena walks into Vinny's bedroom -- empty of his stuff -- and begins to cry all over again. The Situation, meanwhile, speaks Italian to his lady -- mostly curse words and rude names for body parts judging by the BLEEPS. They then head to the smush room. CUT to Vinny, who returns home to mom because he wanted to get away from it all (except for the cameras apparently).

The next morning, The Situation and Vinny call their temporary ladies a cab -- and then announce that it's time to celebrate their birthdays. For Deena and Snooki, it's simply time to celebrate. "Today should be a perfect meatball day," Snooki explains. "Let's just get wastypants." Cue a MONTAGE of Deena and Snooki doing a whole bunch of shots and the latter exposing her lady parts to various strangers at the bar. It's not yet happy hour and Snooki is already struggling to stay upright. Somehow, the meatballs make it back to the house, where Deena discovers that her extensions are hopelessly tangled. Pauly succeeds in a pulling a few out before the gang gets ready to head to Karma.

At Karma, The Situation discovers The Unit, who witnessed The Situation hooking up with Snooki. This makes Snooki, who is at the club with Jionni, very nervous. Pauly, in the meantime, meets a nice young lady with lots of body art. She is clearly DTF. "I'm going to smash this tattoo chick in my man Vinny's bed in honor of my man Vinny for leaving the house," Pauly tells the camera before exiting the club with his special gal. Gross. Later, an enormous fight breaks out that, rather shockingly, doesn't involve our favorite Shore denizens.

The next morning, The Situation, JWoww, and Ronnie head to work, where the gang is severely hungover. Ronnie notices that The Situation and JWoww aren't doing any work -- and never really do. Not exactly a shocking plot twist. After work, Ronnie calls Vinny just to say hello. Pauly then takes the phone and explains that he smashed a girl with tattoos in Vinny's honor. Vinny is indeed honored. And though Vinny says his mood is improving, the gang is still quite sad to be without him. Of course, there's one cure for sadness: clubbing.

So Pauly and The Situation celebrate their birthdays at a bar. The Situation runs into a Bosnian woman who he met earlier at the T-shirt store. He also runs into pretty Paula -- and decides to introduce the Bosnian girl to Pauly as some sort of oddball birthday present. Gross. Sure enough, the Bosnian girl follows Pauly home. Paula then follows The Situation home. But at 4 a.m., the Bosnian girl decides that she isn't DTF, so Pauly calls her a cab. Sweetheart opines that she seemed like a nice girl. "That's why she doesn't belong here," Ronnie says. Sweetheart also likes Paula. "She might be dirty and grimy and disgusting, but she's just a nice girl," Sweetheart tells the camera.

Suddenly, there is a knock on the door. It's the Bosnian girl! She has returned ... and is looking for The Situation! "Really? DTF for Mike?" asks an incredulous Sweetheart. "That's just absurd." So The Situation explains to the Bosnian girl that he isn't going to leave Paula. "There is room for Paula in this heart of mine," The Situation confesses to the camera. It's almost sweet. Almost. The next morning, Pauly is surprised to find his entire family waiting outside -- along with his barber! That's right: Pauly's mom brought along Pauly's hometown barber for a birthday cut. Pauly is THRILLED.

Meanwhile, Deena and Snooki are planning their own surprise party for the boys. "We're going to need two strippers," Deena says. CUT to the restaurant, where Pauly enjoys a meal with his family, Ronnie, and The Situation. The Situation, however, is upset. He misses his own family, or is wishing he had a loving family. It's unclear. "I feel like I have nobody," The Situation tells the camera. He is so sad that he excuses himself from the table.

It gets worse. The boys return home to find that the ladies have made a cake for Pauly. The Situation is hurt that no one has acknowledge his special day. "Obviously Mike knows that we all like Pauly better than him," Snooki tells the camera. "That's what you get for being a %$#@!#." The Situation then storms outside. "It actually hurts me to think that people don't care," he says. "I'm always going to be seen as somebody that's going to be bad." The Situation feels quite sorry for himself and decides to go for a walk.