‘Jersey Shore’ returns with a wave of drama


January 6, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Verne Gay

Newsday

“Jersey Shore” begins its third season at 10 tonight on MTV with a new cast member with impulse-control issues.

Deena Nicole Cortese joins in the premiere, along with her pal Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio, Jenni “JWOWW” Farley, Vinny Guadagnino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola.

The second season, which wrapped in October, saw the gang’s alliances shift and fracture in Florida — largely over a “note” that detailed Ron’s infidelities and made girlfriend Sammi go nuts. (They broke up, but they’re back together.) Also, Angelina Pivarnick got her walking papers.

This season, the crew is back in Seaside Heights, N.J., and back in the house that made them famous.

Cortese is a 23-year-old dental assistant from a small central Jersey town called New Egypt — and all semblance of middle-class normalcy apparently ends right there.

She arrives bombed, brawls with Ronnie, calls Sammi the B-word about 38 times, strips bare naked for Sitch and initiates a full-fledged fist-on-face smackdown between two housemates.

It’s like a full 13-episode season wrapped up in one 40- minute edition.