So I took it too far and got slapped by my fellow recapper, the gorgeous and talented Pamie. Right in the face. Officially, I will never mention the awful "Superhero" song again. I've learned my lesson. Not a lot happened in this episode -- I mean, it's notable even for this show -- so I don't think this is going to be a very long recap.
Eric wakes up to Ari yelling at him on the phone to wake the fuck up, it's game day. Which is better than my day today, because I woke up to a phone call that Julia Child finally died. Ari tells him the movie has already opened on the East Coast, and calls him "Cunty." The phone rings immediately after Eric hangs up, so of course it's not Ari, so of course Eric answers the phone rudely, so of course it's Emily. She's driving toward the house with one bathroom right now. Eric runs around and gargles and dresses himself, kind of, and it's kind of like everything in this episode is not actually happening, but what was supposed to happen. There's no spark. It's like an Aaron Sorkin show without the Sorkin Factor: just some stuff that happened. Like a story you'd tell someone in your entourage: "Then Eric jumps out of bed and gargles."
Emily drives up, and because she's quite a hipster, for living five months ago, she's listening to Franz Ferdinand. Emily tells Eric that Ari is really freaking about the movie, and he always does this when his clients have big releases. She's brought a box of fan mail. Her job is mostly boxes, it seems. Small girl for a job that's 90 percent carrying boxes of crap. There's some lame small talk about how Eric called the psychic hotline and found out that Vince's moons are all aligned, so he's not worried, and when she asks about his own moons, he says he was too cheap to ask. No, Emily. The truth is that Eric doesn't have any moons. Actually, the real truth is that Vince doesn't have any moons, so Eric gave him his own moons and everybody just pretends that they're Vince's moons but if Eric weren't there, Vince would be moonless. It's a metaphor. Anyway, they giggle. Did they always have this total lack of chemistry?
Does the entourage have any plans for tonight? Eric explains that Vince doesn't want to make a big deal, which Emily finds pleasantly surprising, because most of Ari's clients do crazy stuff, which we mostly don't hear about. One guy, though, bought three million dollars worth of tickets to his own movie so that it would open at #1. She won't tell him who, but she can say that the actor in question was in Ocean's Eleven. Bernie Mac? I think it's George Clooney, because that seems like a very Clooney thing to do. I'm sure there's a joke here that I'm not cool enough for. Eric is, though, and he figures it out. A light bulb goes off over his head, illuminating a big sign that says, "Hollywood Insider Joke-Getter." She wishes him luck and leaves. At the last second she asks him out for dinner that night. Which is dumb, because you know how Vince is, and how Hollywood stars supposedly are, so you know that he's going to need Eric by his side. But whatever. She looks really cute in this scene, and her hair's not yet pissed off at her like it will be later. Eric turns off the light bulb -- no more thinking! -- and asks if she came all the way out there just for that. She points out that she could have just sent a messenger with the box. But then what would she be doing all day?
All is still quiet on the kitchen front. The only problem is that Vince and Turtle are awake and kind of tooling around in there, which is surprising considering that Eric woke up moments ago and is the only partial adult in the whole household. Well, if Turtle got up first I don't imagine he'd do much to let the others stay in bed. He's kind of needy. And rude. And inconsiderate. But it still doesn't make sense. Eric's all smiley, and since they've never seen this before, they ask what's up. He's a little cryptic -- see, even he knows the whole date for tonight is bad. None of them can work the coffee maker except Drama, who is...indisposed. Turtle posits that he must have "ordered in late" last night, because Drama and his date kept Turtle awake until like four and it "sounded like two baboons fucking." Which it at least half was. Vince starts yelling about how Drama needs to get up because he's getting hungry.
The boys go through the fan mail, and Turtle opens a request for a signed picture that included $1 for the return postage. Which he pockets, and then tells Vince's appalled look that he'll send the picture. up is this naked picture of a girl with a huge ass. She's crazy with the Vince fandom, all "I believe we were together in a past life," and Turtle says they should hook up because it's destiny because of her ass. Turtle is really growing on me. Dammit. Eric says that it is a bad call to hook up with crazy Naked Ass Girl, and says maybe she could catch a ride with "that Kevorkian guy in Michigan that wants Vince to kill him." Add an orgy in the pool house and that's totally a Dennis Cooper road-trip novel. Vince files the Ass Girl in his "Just In Case" file.
The Incredible She-Hulk enters the kitchen, followed closely by Drama. They're both wearing workout gear -- because they have sexual problems, I imagine. This whole episode, Dillon turns up the Tool Quotient like a thousand percent, and he walks around like he has many muscles. Has he always done this? I'll have to watch Drama more closely from now on. Sucks to be me. Drama offers his Manly Lady Love a creatine shake, but she begs off because she's in a hurry and she has some Clif bars in the car. He begs her grossly to show the boys her biceps before she leaves. She does, and they're all kind of weirded out by this. There's lots of pseudo-appreciative yelling. He then actually calls them pythons and he's totally gross and weird and acting like a body builder. Drama walks her out, and the boys stand there, in awe, and then bolt to check out the goodbye scene. Drama kisses Tonya (that's the scary lady) goodbye, and then she pretends to sock him in the stomach, and it's all sexy and whatever. This reminds me of those fetish stories you hear sometimes about guys who are into stories about women rapidly expanding or like gay dudes with lizard heads or whatever. He smiles happily and turns around, and then fakely jumps when he sees the boys watching. This is all very stupid and would make more sense in a sorority house or, like, on Charmed. They all run away, back to the kitchen where everything happens. At once. Drama explains that he met her at the Vitamin Expo (the what now?) and it's pretty sad and cool because he REALLY wants Vince to say she's hot. I hate Drama but I love the way they're doing this character. Vince casts around for something appropriately non-committal and says she has a pretty face. And she does. Drama says she was the ride of his life and then goes all bodybuilder again and grunts, "Held onto those lats, surrendered all control." Ugh. Turtle sputters, "If I was holding onto those lats? I'd think I was fucking Evander Holyfield." I laugh and they all laugh and Drama says he's not cooking for them and runs off like a little baby who needs his diaper changed and has been very very bad and has to smell Mistress's feet. Turtle goes after him all barrel of monkeys with the arms in the air.
In some diner I hope we never see again -- although I like to imagine that they're there because Drama refused to cook and so they had no way of feeding themselves -- Turtle talks about the order of the theatres they will be going to for opening night. Vince doesn't want to go to any of the showings because he doesn't want to watch himself. Drama: "I love watching myself." Eric: "Too bad the audience doesn't." Drama wants Vince to see the movie with a live crowd. Turtle is especially excited about the midnight show at the Westwood Mann, because it's all hot L.A. ass, and Eric drops the whole Emily/date bomb. He says he didn't know they were going out, and Vince -- who said they weren't, multiple times -- gets incredibly bitchy. This is new, this whole dependence on Eric. Well, I mean, it's totally not, but it's a new way of presenting it. Turtle's awesome because when Eric says that it's no big deal, his eyes get big and round and he says, pointing at Drama, "He's fucking a guy, you're getting asked out like a little bitch..." and so everything is a big deal. And thanks for the recap, freak.
Vince says he hasn't been on a real date since high school. Uh, nobody has. Dates don't exist anymore. Unless they do and I'm not aware of it. If people are still going out on dates, or it's come back into vogue and I didn't know about it, I'm going to be pissed. Drama gives this bad dumb speech about how L.A. lives between 2 and 5 AM and it goes on and on and I'm all, "This attack by a mountain lion takes place between 2 AM and 5 AM" and I even do the weird misplaced emphasis on the second AM, just like the pros. Turtle says it's better to date online because they come to the door horny and you don't have to pay any money for them to eat or anything. Awesome. Eric says that Turtle never got any girls off the internet. Um, burn? Vince randomly and bitchily inserts himself and the whole rest of the group into Eric's date. Whoa. Did Islamic militants hit Hollywood with a gay bomb or something? Stop being so territorial. Man, if Kristen were here she'd diagnose your ass so fast. Turtle agrees with this, so that they can help insure that "E" doesn't get stuck with another lemon. "It'll be like prom!" he screams. I want to see this prom they're always talking about. "So I guess you won't have a date then." But he did! Remember? With the $40 hooker that declined his mom's credit ca...oh. You forgot. You totally made the same joke in two different episodes and didn't know you did it, and they contradicted each other. Marky Mark? Should I blame you for all this? Can your muscled shoulders carry that much blame? Turtle starts yelling about this mysterious other prom that we've not heard about. "I told you ten thousand fucking times, all right? She had food poisoning!" and runs off after them and out of the scene. I hate this show, dude.
At the Power 106 radio interview that Vince is doing for movie day, there's a lot of hip hop playing. Big Boy (Special Guest Star Big Boy, actually -- maybe he'll buy the apartment complex and sleep with everybody and save this show, like Heather Locklear?) welcomes us back and names all the people in the studio with them. It takes a long, long time, because there are fifty people and they all have microphones even though they don't say anything of import. It's like every person that Big Boy ever met. His entourage is sixty times bigger than Vince's. Special Guest Star Big Boy asks if Vince has any opening night rituals like putting dirt on his face (whuh?) or sacrificing a goldfish. Vince replies that he's not superstitious, he just hangs off Eric's body like some kind of sock puppet whenever things get rough. One of the entire nation of people in SGSBB's studio says he heard Mel Gibson carried a giant cross up Temecula Canyon before Passion opened, and Vince is all, must've worked. Mel Gibson is so fucking insane. Why didn't we know that? How come nobody ever pointed out that he was crazy? You'd never know. Outside, where Vince's own entourage is watching, Shauna murmurs, "Vince would have made a gorgeous Jesus." I think about it, and yeah. That would have been awesome. Vince talks to SGSBB about how they're all accompanying Eric on his date, and then blows his spot about the breakup with Kristen, and Eric knocks on the glass to flip him off, and Shauna tells him to stop, not to "fuck with his rhythm," and she's right, except that how could anyone care about this? Eric starts complaining about how it's his personal life, and Shauna points out that nobody cares about Eric's personal life. Not even Eric.
They ask about Vince's date for tonight, and he says he doesn't have one, and they start talking about how they will set him up and talking over each other and he looks speculatively at the girl in the corner who keeps repeating everything everybody says and they are like, you can't have Liz, but we'll have people call in. I like Liz even though she doesn't say anything cool here. Also? Gross. Again with the calling in to win a date with Vince Chase. Outside, Turtle asks this random blonde girl, who is apparently Shauna's assistant, what she's doing tonight. "She'd never go out with you," scoffs Shauna. "What, she can't speak for herself?" The assistant looks at Shauna, who's awesome: "You can speak." She turns to Turtle -- who suddenly looks very wholesome and hopeful -- and says, "I'd never go out with you, Turtle." It's kind of dumb. Everyone watches Drama steal the batteries from a Power 106 TV remote and everyone's disgusted.
You'll never believe it but we've got Justine Chapin on the phone, says SGSBB. "White person in the hood!" screams one of the many people living in the studio. So dumb. Eric randomly murmurs to himself, in a nod to continuity or something, she's not a virgin. This must be setting up a joke of some kind. A humor bomb that will detonate when we find out she's not a virgin, perhaps? Cut to the outside of the "Pure Tour" bus, which is cheap and ragged-looking, like some HBO intern showed up with a pink highlighter and some cereal boxes and had to use ingenuity. Justine offers to go with Vince on his date with Eric tonight, saying that he "looked hot on the billboard." By the way? He totally turned her down, the last time they were together. But the whole time in this episode, nobody says, "Why is that non-virgin calling radio stations trying to hook up with you? You told her you wouldn't fuck her. End of story." Vince asks if Britney will sing to him, and SGSBB points out that that's about the best he can hope for. The thousand people whoop and holler incomprehensibly. I would not listen to this crap on the radio. It sounds like homeroom. But Britney agrees with SGSBB that she's a pure virgin, through and through. To protect her image, I guess, but we know the truth. Vince says some gay shit about how he's looking for someone to cuddle with, and the Dog Pound goes all CUDDLE CUDDLE CUDDLE and this is about the most irritating group of people, like, ever. Shauna realizes from this that he's totally going to sleep with Britney, and grabs her phone to call "Cindy Adams." On the Pure bus, all of Britney's buddies are cheering her on sweetly. I could not care about this couple if they were my own parents and I had to force them to marry by playing "Johnny B. Goode."
Turtle feeds the dog from the first episode and calls some girl Honey on the phone, hastening to point out that Vince will be present on the date he's asking her on. Sad. She tells him that she moved, and he immediately asks the whereabouts of her cute roommate. Heh. Doesn't skip a beat, just moves down the list. That girl is married. Kind of desperately, he tells the girl to wish her ex-roommate luck and sickly tells the girl he'll look her up if he's ever in Oregon. Turtle, don't do it. His gaze falls on the Ass Girl and he shows the picture to Arnold the Dog. You are making a terrible mistake, Turtle! Well done!
In the one bathroom in all of California, Drama puts the stolen batteries in his electric shaver and yells at She-Hulk on the phone. It's astoundingly unrealistic and retarded, but he's yelling, "I know you like my hair natural! But I'm going to put a little product in it, okay? Don't be so controlling." This would just never, ever happen. The entire joke is just him saying "product," and I know that because he does it in every episode. So stupid. He then sticks the electric shaver down his shorts. Whatever. It pulls a hair and he yells. I might go back to hating Drama.
Eric walks through his pool house -- also using an electric shaver, but it's a different one -- and sits down at his computer. There's a "camera" made of a toilet paper roll screwed to the top of it and Ari's video self suddenly swoops up onto the screen and they start talking, and I become psychic because what's going to happen is that Eric and Emily are going to be doing it and Ari is going to see it and go nuts. This show is sucky and I suck too for knowing what will happen because that means I have the suck in me. Ari looks good on the internet. This morning, he tells us, he used this new technology to have video sex with an Ecuadorian girl. Eric hopes aloud that she was at least 18. "She had big teeth and a sarong. That's all I remember, baby." Eric is told that the matinees were less than stellar. But it's okay, because it's a date movie, and because "this Pixar squirrel is killing us," because all the "hot mommies that want to fuck Vince are taking their kids to see the squirrel!" There's a squirrel in Ice Age, but it doesn't talk and that movie wasn't made by Pixar anyhow. Ari wants to meet up with them tonight and Eric's all, "We're staying in." Then why are you so dressed up? "I hate that you can see me." Ari's all, "I love that I can see you. Show me a little nipple!" Hee. I love that I can see you and that sometime soon I'm going to watch you doing it with my assistant and then go nuts, as Jacob's psychic powers suggested. Eric totally denies Ari the nipple, and Ari's video face goes away.
Kristen calls, and I cross my fingers that she won't say any claptrap. Her friend heard about Eric's dating situation -- "Since when do your friends listen to rap music?" asks the curiously out-of-touch Eric -- and she opines that taking a first date out with the guys is...she trails off. "Okay, I guess you don't want this one to work out either." Oh, dammit. There you go. You had to do it. They talk about how she might still like him and they also had sex but it was breakup sex and shut up about breakup sex anyway, show and it's poorly written and her character has no real mind or motivations here but I'm too pissed to care or listen. "What, do you want me to keep chasing you around?" asks Eric. Um, yes? Obviously? Are we going to have to get another character to comment on the commentator? "Maybe I don't know what I want," says Kristen. And if anybody ever says that, it's because they don't actually have thoughts in their head so they're borrowing them from TV. My GOD Kristen has some huge fucking lips in this scene. Those are new. She looks like a duck-billed platypus on a diet of Botox. "Maybe you should figure it out and call me," Eric says, and a little Pop-Up Video thing goes "bloop" because he's trying to push her one way or the other so that he won't have to feel guilty about his feelings for Emily. That's a lot more efficient than having this Kristen tell us that. Just print it directly on the screen like in Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story.
As he says goodbye to Kristen, a white limousine pulls up. Gross. Eric is grossed out too. Vince is playing some video game and thinks the limo thing is funny and gross. Eric tells Vince that he is cock-blocking him so bad, and he knows it. Vince gets worried that Eric will think he likes Emily, but Eric says that the deal is that Vince doesn't like it when Eric gets a girl and Vince gets "stuck with the two retards all the time." Vince tells him snottily that Vince is going to get a girl and leave Eric with the two retards -- and we'll see how Eric likes it. What the hell? I don't get it. Since when does Vince have trouble getting girls? Their relationship is so poorly written in some ways. They just change entire parts around in every episode. Vince reminds Eric that he just broke up with Kristen, and advises him to "fuck around a little bit." Eric starts talking about he likes Emily but it's just a date, and blah blah blah and Vince gets bored because it's not about him and so he asks if Ari called about the numbers and Eric lies and says it's all okay.
Turtle runs in and takes a picture of them for no reason we know about. He asks if Eric is still trying to get out of Date Night, and Eric asks if Turtle even has a date. Of course he does, he says, and "we have to pick her up from the Burbank airport in one hour." Eric scoffs like a Tom Hanks character reading a Neil Simon line, "What is she, your Russian mail-order bride?" Turtle's all, "No, dick -- she's a hottie from Flagstaff." He blows off the rest of their questions and leaves. Drama walks in, still all weird and bodybuilder-y, and says that Tonya the She-Man wants to know where they're going tonight for dinner so that she can dress accordingly. Eric tells him Dolce, and asks if Turtle confirmed. Turtle has made some changes to the agenda, which he tells us about while smoking a bong. "No, Vince and me decided. We don't want to watch Demi cutting Ashton's steak all night into little tiny pieces." Heh. Indeed. So no Dolce. Instead, Turtle has reserved a couple of lanes at Lucky Strike. "Bowling?" asks Eric. Word. "I'll get my ball," says Drama. God.
Drama chamoises his ball in that hanging sling thing like in The Big Lebowski. Tonya's making him look bad by being such a great bowler, he tells her, and she grabs his face possessively and kisses him aggressively and slaps his ass masculinely. He's a little bit into it. Eric is mortified by his horrible friends, as he should be, but Emily tells him she's having a great time and she talks mean about Kristen, who hated stuff like this, but at least she doesn't presume to fill us in on Kristen's mental problems. Vince is all, "Eric! You're not paying enough attention to me!" I mean, that's what he actually says. Justine's like, "Leave him alone," but just because she's jealous that Vince is paying attention to Eric. It's all very sordid. Tonya asks Turtle how he met his date, who we see now for the first time and she's a little bit Tilly, if you know what I mean. There's a Tillyness. He says he met her on jdate.com and they point out the huge crucifix she's wearing and he says she's Reformed and changes the subject. It's very funny and well done and fast. She gets up to bowl and her dress is purple and her face is crazy. The dress is really weird because it's like one dress-shaped piece of space age polymer without seams, and it's bright purple. It's like something they would wear in space. Or on Dharma & Greg. "Hey Vince, watch me," she breathes, and when she bends over to bowl, she isn't wearing underwear. What's awesome is that all four guys recognize her by her ass from the Naked Ass Girl picture, but the show doesn't have to tell you that. It just happens naturally and smartly. Eric grabs Turtle and yells at him because Ass Girl is "psycho" and Turtle calls it an "unfair label." Eric stresses out about the movie and Turtle says it's going to be huge and that "Joanne" said it was destined to be a classic and Eric says, "Joanne is destined to be in an insane asylum." It's funny. He tells Turtle to keep her under control.
At dinner, Tonya tells Drama that he eats like a little bird, and she goes tweet tweet and he's not half as embarrassed as he should be. Joanne is all, "Hey Vince, I saw your movie today." He asks what she thought and she totally loved it and Eric asks if the theatre was crowded? Not really, she says, but she was first in line at the first show, at like 10:30 A.M., and then she went back to see it again immediately afterward. The scene takes a steep plunge in tone here, and it's very effective and skillfully done, because there's suddenly a lot of pathetic in this scene, instead of just being funny and wacky. It works. Eric is like, Jesus, and looks at Turtle, who suddenly figures out the whole thing about how she's into Vince and not him at all and that's how it always is and plus she's crazy and he really screwed up here. What with all the slutty ass-kissing, Justine gets a little possessive of Vince, and Joanne totally turns on her. "So, Justine. If you lose your virginity, doesn't the whole 'Pure Tour' thing become, like, a sham?" She tells her that Turtle told her that the guys in the entourage don't even believe she's a virgin anyway. Yikes! Eric calls for the check. Thanks, Eric.
Panjabi MC is playing as the limo drives by a movie theatre. Drama sticks his head out of the window and asks the people in line if "you cats" are going to see Head On. No, the huge line is for, of course, the Pixar squirrel thing. Turtle pops out of the sunroof of the limo and yells, "Fuck that movie! I saw it this morning. The mother squirrel dies in the end. See Head On!" It's funny. They all laugh and drive away, and the people are somewhat dismayed but not in an obvious, over the top way like you'd assume. They don't all groan in unison and get in their cars to head home after having the movie ruined and wind up having fender benders in the street and shaking their fists like a cartoon. Which is what I assumed would happen . Drama whines about the unfair advantage of cartoons because "they get to draw everything." Vince doesn't really care about it. Eric lies and says he's not worried either and suggests they go to Prey. Which is a much less confusing line with closed-captions on.
They get out of the limo -- Drama and She-Hulk, then Turtle and Joanne, and then Vince and Justine, and finally Emily and Eric. Ari calls Eric with the numbers. "Where are you, at Prey? Sounds like Prey." Well, they're playing Panjabi MC, so really it sounds like they're at my fifth birthday party from when that song was cool. But also, it's retarded that he would know that unless that's like the only song they ever play at that club, which would be annoying. Eric can barely hear him, and then they get cut off before they can discuss the numbers. Ari tells the lady he is with that he needs to go to Prey. Mrs. Ari is all "this is our night" and very much putting down the smack. She asks for the keys, and he screams at her about how "there's a cab stand at fucking Yucca" and she says give me the fucking keys and he, like, does. And then he asks if she'll drop him off. I don't want to see Piven humbled, ever, but I do enjoy it a little, if it's Ari.
Now everybody at Prey is dancing to "Toxic." Okay? Although maybe it's okay because of the reference to virgin pop stars who are lying about it, and that was Britney's last song you would hear at a club. Drama dancing? Not under discussion. Eric still can't get any bars on his phone and he's wigging out because he wants to talk to Ari. Emily wants him to cool it, and Vince says that he likes Emily. Turtle nuzzles Joanne and she slaps him. Vince likes Emily's "nice, positive attitude." Because, as it turns out, I fucking hate Justine Chapin, she's all, "What about myyy attitude?" and he tells her she has "the best attitude" and kisses her. I hate them more together than I do individually. They are worse than the sum of their parts. Joanne calls her a slut and runs off, and Turtle goes after her. It's awesome because he gets about a quarter-inch into his whole "if he doesn't see how special you are" routine and she's all, nice try, Tortoise. Then she spots Jason Bateman -- or crazily hallucinates him -- and runs off, and for some reason this bothers Turtle. Some girl approaches Drama about seeing him in the movie and Tonya eats the girl in two bites, barking, "Take a hike, honey!" And Drama's like, you can't act like that, and it's very sad because it's not that Tonya is being disrespectful, it's that this never happens to him, ever. "Don't be a faggot, Johnny," she spits. Whoa. "Don't call me a faggot!" he says, kind of dangerously. When the woman you're dating to prove you're not gay, who totally looks like a man and treats you like her bitch, calls you a faggot? That's gotta be rough. She's all, "What are you going to do, get tough?" No, of course not. He looks terribly wounded and almost cries, for real, as he slinks off for a beer.
Vince and Justine are making out. Eric and Emily are...watching them. Huh. At least Emily has the grace or the class or whatever to look bored. Not Eric, so much. He's just kinda watching. Their lame small talk is even lamer than usual, since they aren't concentrating on each other but on the real-world equivalent of, like, Jake Gyllenhaal and Christina Aguilera making out three feet from their faces. What a weird fucking combo I just made up. Sorry. Now I'm distracted and a little disturbed. Anyway, it's boring. On the other couch, Justine reminds Vince that she wants him to be her first, but he's going to have to work for it. Vince has a stupid face for a stupid punchline about how he got into this business so he doesn't have to work. She has a weird laugh, like an Igor kind of laugh. Heeehngh! Heeehngh! She's all, "You're not ready for this, are you?" I am tonight! he says, and it's funny. "Well, I'm not. At least you're honest and gorgeous." She leans down and says something but I don't understand what she means: "Just so you know, tonight I would have given you the best head you ever had." Is that to make him feel bad for not "working for it"? Because he's turned her down like six times? Whatever. Maybe I get it. So he stares into space and she leaves, and takes all her blowjobs with her. Ari checks her out as they pass each other in the hall of Prey, but they don't say anything to each other or signal that they recognize each other and you fucking know what? He is her goddamned agent.
"Who's got the number one movie in the country, motherfucker?" Really? Ari clarifies: "Number one live-action film in the country." $18.6M is how much the movie made tonight. They freak out like that's so great and so much money. Ari goes a little nuts upon seeing Emily with them, and Eric covers by saying that she is just having beers with her friends. Ari puts his arm around Vince and is like, "You fucking my assistant? Because the last thing I would want to do is fire one of your fuck buddies." Vince demurs. Ari starts yelling about how there's "No tequila? Tara Reid steal it?" and everybody in my house laughs so hard I miss the five minutes of the show. Ari runs off to get tequila, and Eric and Vince crush each other in a warm yet manly embrace. The camera angles here are so wrong, because when Eric starts standing up from the booth, he's rising from the right, and the cut to him hugging Vince, he's coming in from the left. And I actually made a joke about that last week because I thought not even this awful show would break that rule, which is like the number one rule that you hear on the first day of every film class. You never show more than a 180-degree angle on screen. Movies were invented on a Wednesday, and this rule was invented that Thursday. Anyway, they hug. Emily's all, NOW can you relax? He can. Which is great, except now she can't, because Ari is here, and he walks her out. God, I really hope they smoke some cigarettes and say nothing.
He knows it wasn't a great first date, he starts, but she says that it was, and kisses him. She reminds him to keep mum about the whole dating Ari's assistant thing and she kisses him again, and this time I'm sure. Eric cannot kiss for shit. His mouth does not open at all. She gets into the limo and asks stupidly, "Is this crazy?" He plays along with this bullshit, and he's all, "Maybe a little bit, yeah." Then they earn my hate back for this whole show when she smiles and says, "Good." Jesus Christ. This is worse than...why not just have her make some balloon animals and then throw a water balloon at him and giggle and lose her mind in Season Five along with every other woman in Washington? Should be romantic. Isn't.
Ari grabs Vince and starts yelling about his project and asks if he's interesting in doing Hindenburg and of course it's "Titanic on a blimp" and I am sick again of this show and last week was crueller yet for being okay because it makes this hurt more. Drama appears, and Turtle's like, "Where's Tonya?" And Drama's still okay by me because he says dismissively, "Doing pushups in the men's bathroom for all I know." Heh. "Where's the exhibitionist?" Turtle says that Joanne is "out there cutting it up with Teen Wolf." Which just came out last year, I guess, in your universe? Why miss the chance to shout out to Arrested Development whenever you can? Drama's like "Michael J. Fox is here?" and Turtle's like, in this very funny voice that makes me smile just thinking about it, "No. The guy from the sequel."
Vince drinks to spending tonight with his best friends in the world. "And Ari," says Drama. Heh. "And Ari." They yell and shoot the tequila and some random Miutrix wanders up and tells Vince that they go to the same gym. So apparently now they will fuck. He runs off with her. I gotta go to the gym more often. Turtle is jealous of Vince's lady action. Ari asks Eric if he thinks his assistant is hot. Eric says that he does, because he's a darling honest guy. "I'm thinking about hitting that," says Ari. He knows. How does he know? Oh wait, maybe it's because he totally saw them flirting at the office the day they met and it was embarrassing and innocent and sweet and there was a box of scripts and she gave it to him because her job is mostly boxes? With a freakily self-satisfied look on his face, Ari turns away and shoots another tequila. Eric looks away, all sad. Quick and pointless shot of some randoms dancing. The Black-Eyed Peas start over the credits, to complete my defeat by this show, and horrible Fergie. Rapping. God.
week: Somebody's dating a vegan, and Turtle accuses her of "stealing food." That actually sounds kind of amusingly weird. Oh, Vince reads a script! And has an opinion! Turtle thinks Drama should play Vince's father in a movie sometime. Ouch. Somebody mentions Viking Quest again, which is awesome. They can't find any pot, so the vegan girl offers to lead them to her sherpa. She's a meta-sherpa. The meta-sherpa vegan girl calls Ari a karmic disaster. Ari calls Yoko Ono a "macro-psychotic." And that? Is funny.