Sammi Sweetheart Showed Up On 'Jersey Shore Family Vacation,' But Not How We Expected

MTV's Jersey Shore reunion series is finally here, and it felt just like old times... except for one thing. All of the original cast made their way to Miami for Jersey Shore Family Vacation except for Sammi Sweetheart, who opted to skip the get-together. Sammi may not have been there physically, but she was basically the only thing that the reunited cast talked about all throughout the premiere. And in a pretty creepy twist, Sammi Sweetheart did show up on Jersey Shore Family Vacation, just not in a way that anyone would have expected.

Sammi Sweetheart's absence was the conversation topic of choice all throughout the Jersey Shore Family Vacation premiere on Thursday night. Despite the fact that she wasn't even there, Sammi caused all the biggest fights of the reunion and also the most memorable (and downright creepiest) moment. When he heard that Sammi was not going to join the rest of her Jersey Shore family down in Miami, DJ Pauly D lugged a life-size doll dressed up like Sammi all the way from Las Vegas to surprise his housemates. Yeah, it was... definitely a choice. It might have helped if he didn't bring in the Sammi doll in what looked like a body bag.

To make things even more bizarre, the doll was equipped with a voice box that mimicked all of Sammi's best Jersey Shore lines, meaning that it basically just wailed "Raahhhnnn stahhhpp" constantly.

As you might expect, the Sammi doll was met with mixed reactions. Sam's on-again-off-again ex (and the reason she probably said no to joining the reunion series) Ronnie actually loved the doll — maybe a little too much? And even Sammi's friend JWoww thought the doll was warranted, saying that Sammi deserves a bit of teasing for turning down the reunion:

I love her to death but, like, if you choose not to come on vacation with us, we are going to roast you. Hard.

On the opposite side of the fence was Deena, who has made it very clear that she will not be putting up with any negative talk about Sammi this entire season. And thus, we get our first fight of the new series: Deena voices her distaste for the life-size doll dressed up like her best friend that everyone in the room is mocking (pretty understandable, in my opinion), but Ronnie is quick to defend the joke and gets in Deena's face about trying to start drama (oh, the irony).

The initial fight feels like foreshadowing for the rest of the season. Most of the cast members actually seem to really get along and love each other now that they've gotten older and known one another for years, but the one heated relationship that stands out is between Deena and Ronnie. The two-episode Jersey Shore Family Vacation premiere sees the two yelling at one another multiple times, and gets into a bunch of reasons why they don't get along: Deena is upset that Ronnie never called her when her dad died, and she is also Sammi's best friend, which further both sours her perception of Ronnie and Ronnie's perception of her.

Thankfully, Snooki and Deena do decide to get rid of the Sammi doll, but the meatballs don't exactly go about sending Sam off in the best way. They decided to hurl the doll in their pool, but when the doll just starts floating around in the water face-down, they realize that it actually really looks like there is a dead body in their back yard. That poor Sammi doll went through so much on Jersey Shore Family Vacation — I kind of don't blame Sammi for wanting to stay home!