We begin with a yoga class. Great, this should be full of clever funny jokes about L.A. that we've all seen done a million times. Can't fucking wait. It's not that I don't think the show has nothing interesting or funny or original to say about L.A. so much as I know that it will refuse to do so. Jokes you've already heard eight times are always safer. And isn't that the point of HBO? We pan across Drama on an elliptical, Eric on an elliptical, and Turtle who is of course not exercising because he's fat and gross and that's funny. He is playing with a gadget, like a Blackberry Palm Bluetooth kind of thing that was obsolete before this script was written, and complaining that Vince said "she" was only staying a couple nights of nights, and "a couple is two." Drama interjects some unrelated and timeless comedy: "Except in fucking Utah." (Certain unofficial bastard sects of) Mormons! Are! Polygamists! Funny! Cut to Vince rolling up his mat -- like a total douche bag, it's a great comedy shot -- and Turtle's like, this is sad. Drama bitches about how "she thinks she's his fucking trainer." Turtle immediately bites back with an "um, so do you." Drama pays the price, ultimately, for this scene, when he jumps down from the treadmill all, "What the fuck did I get certified for then?" Eric tells him to relax, and Turtle gets up in E's grill that "It's all a big joke to Eric because he's been spending the night off-campus at Emily's." Oh, okay. Fifteen questions flood my brain and we're five seconds in. "'Off-campus'?" and "What day is this? When was the last episode in relation to this one?" are the main ones. Drama goes all, you guys are going to get girlfriends and fuck things up -- just like Vince did with Eric last week -- and Eric says, "Quiet, here they come." And honestly? I am not joking. I thought he meant the girlfriends? Like they were being delivered. That's how shitty this show is, like I lose my own ability to reason as a result of watching it.
Drama asks Vince and the Unnamed She, disgustedly and with an unhgh sound at the beginning, how their yoga went. They loved it and they are so in love and it's stupid. Drama asks if Vince is ready for an actual workout and Vince says, very hilariously, "No weights. I just had a mean stretch." They turn to walk off and Kevin Dillon -- the guy that weighs about seventeen pounds? -- stretches his matchstick arms to the sky and yells, "You gotta lift weights if you wanna put on size, man!" My italics, no need to say why. Actually, though, it's funny. Fiona tries to bug, all bulk is so '90s, Johnny! It's all about flexibility, don't you think? but more like the script says, "She says something dumb that a real man would never say." In addition to totally contradicting what he just said and asking him to agree to its opposite, like some kind of retard, she's also got right here a bad voice, bad line reading, bad everything, bad Vince arms around her neck from behind in that hot strangly boyfriend way I hate. Weird how much I'll grow to like this character in the , uh, twenty-six minutes. Turtle and Drama agree that they don't trust new-agey bullshit "even if it is attached to an ass like that."
Eric: "Not trying to be an asshole, or anything? But do we know each other?" The naked dude gets all aggressive and breathy and he's all, "You kidding me?" And this is Josh Weinstein, with Triad (apparently an agenting concern), and they met at "the fight." Very butch for a man with his wanger hanging out for no reason, Josh. He also says it in this way that isn't so much hurt as it is threatening. "All right, Josh, do me a favor. Put a towel on or something. Cover up." Valid. Josh's response? Not so much. "Not a locker room guy? No problem." Problem? Well, concern. Well, it's more of a follow-up question, really. What exactly is a "locker room" guy? I might need to know this at some point so I can avoid these "locker room guys." "So listen, Eric," he continues, this Josh Weinstein with the eye contact and the slowly-clothed nudity, "I didn't want to interrupt Vince's workout, but I got a great piece of material..." Oh, uh huh? Actually, I think I'm getting it. I think I've been approached by "locker room" guys before. It's why I carry pepper spray with me everywhere, even into the shower. No means no. "Could you do me a favor?" he continues. Oh yeah? Okay, is this what happens when you spend too long in the HoYay thread? I just checked in to see what HoYay people thought about Angel and Spike, I swear! I didn't even read that many posts (beyond the mandatory fifteen pages or fifteen days whatever is shorter, of course), but is it possible I somehow started thinking like a hammer and now everything looks like a nail? Am I seeing a vase where really there's just two faces? Or is this sexual intimidation? Because if so? He's brilliant. I can see Ari doing something like this. Come to think of it, he has. I picture Naked Josh all, "Let's hug it out, bitch," and giggle nervously. Locker rooms creep me out because of IT. And high school. Anyway, he's all about his great piece of material and can Vince maybe "take a look?" Is this becoming a hostile lockering environment? It is for me anyway. I just found a pubic hair on my Powerade.
Josh nakedly and slowly clothing himself-ly says that the script is all kinds of words and so great and gritty as shit and then Naked Josh does Eric the "favor" of a tiny little handjob when he applauds Eric's take on turning down Matterhorn in the first episode. The more clothes Josh puts on, the more attractive he becomes. Even, like, his watch makes him better-looking. I'm going to be on and on about this in therapy one day. I've got what they call a phobia, I think. "I bet Ari pushed hard for that one." Yeah, maybe it's just me. "You know he doesn't read, right?" There's this weird intonation at the end when he says the script "takes place in your old neighborhood. Queens, right?" And the "right?" slides so far up the staff that...oh damn. Now I'm doing it. Gay really is a virus and I caught it after 26 years of denial and compromise and unhappiness. Anyway, his voice squeaks so high up that only a Pekingese dog could hear it. Eric is charmed by this, and the darling grin that goes along with it. Josh feels Eric smile even though he's turned around -- such is the power of the lips -- and he does a minimalist hell yeah arm movement like when you're in the Army and they're telling you "Go! Kill!" like you're pulling an imaginary honking cord in an eighteen-wheeler. I think I like this kid. He's probably going to end up some weird mix of Billy Chenowith and Ari Gold, but whatever.
Some girl comes up to Drama, who's holding the biggest fucking canister of power-up ripped-fuel protein steroid powder I've ever seen. He's all, "Hi there, sweetheart," because he obviously has experience trolling for babes at gyms, vitamin shows, and World's Strongest Man contests, and she's like, "Oh sorry, I thought you were someone else," and it's another blow to Drama, blah blah blah, and then she runs away. How very "first or second episode" of you, Entourage. Turtle's fighting with some chick that works there and she's basically telling him to fuck off because he was supposed to get her some weed two days ago. She has a weird accent like maybe she's Australian or had a stroke or something. Then he tells her that -- work with me here -- THE WHOLE TOWN IS DRY (meaning Los Angeles, see?) and there is NO POT IN THIS WORLD. She goes back to reading her magazine -- well, actually, looking at the pictures. All of a sudden she goes from Madonna-British to Ginger Spice-British as she all but licks a picture of...UGGS. I almost cry for this fucking show every week, I really do. Because I think you can get Uggs at Walgreens now? But anyway he's all, you know Turtle can hook you up, baby so Turtle calls Shauna to get the Uggs hookup for free and she's all, "Of course, because those haven't been cool for a year," and he's impressed and asks if she has a weed guy because THERE'S JUST NO POT ANYWHERE IN THE CITY OR THE WORLD. And I'm like, dude? It's Debi Mazar. She's got a guy that'll replace your blood with cherry 7-Up and make it look like an accident. There's a very "woke up in a tub of ice with a Post-it saying call 911" vibe about Debi sometimes.
Fiona comes out on the balcony where Eric is reading the weird naked script. As Biz Markie once asked, "Have you ever met a girl?" Well, I have, and let me tell you: they're just a little bit retarded. Every one of them. Well, not Debi Mazar, but she's kind of a guy. She's kind of the Betty Page lunchbox purse pinup version of Paula Poundstone. They paint her picture on the side of planes because she scares the enemy. And, of course, she's also the Key. Girls, though, they love for you to look at their naked asses, and even more so if you ask to see their naked asses after just having met them. Really they'd prefer to walk around naked, to be honest, and they're all size DD and have no sense of modesty whatsoever and the devil is in them, see? Eric and Fiona make small talk about how Eric's job is pointless, but so is she so she thinks it's cool. She's like the anti-Kristen. Heh. She too would like to shop and sit in golf carts for her whole job. "So did you go to school for that?" No. "I love to read. I read all the Harry Potter books, and I don't know, if you need a second opinion, don't hesitate." It's kind of more awesome that she actually means this. I mean, in terms of respect for people, and feminism and all that stuff we don't really understand yet, she's worse than the cast of Amish in the City, but in terms of a well-done joke, outside this show's blatant anti-woman context, it's cool. And you know what? Larry Sanders and Curb Your Larry David are both inveterate woman-hater shows about inveterate woman-haters. Even Carmela's an asshole in a particularly feminine way about two thirds of the time, and Carnivale and Deadwood apparently have whores for the most part. Well, to be fair, Carnivale also has comatose freak women and bearded women and Clea Duvall. And I know what you're thinking: Sex and the City, but honestly those aren't women so much as magic fantasy superhero woman costumes put on stereotypical squealing gay men to make them look like beautiful ladies (wearing hideous clothing). So it's across the board woman hating, then, for HBO. For every Iron-Jawed Angel, there's a husband-hating Hilary Whatever itching to bust out her fake dick to some anachronistic Lauryn Hill tunes. Anyway, so then Fiona drops her robe and jiggles into the pool and Eric is...intrigued. Second ass of the whole show, huh? Thank Christ this chick came out of nowhere to make Eric stop thinking about Josh Weinstein's taste in scripts.
Inside, Turtle is hounding Vince about his belief that Fiona is stealing food. It's charmingly and amusingly weird, like I thought it would be. Come to think of it, Drama "did have an ivy meatloaf vanish," whatever that means. Let's ask Keckler because I don't cook and she does, quite well. Turtle calls her a klepto and says, "First it's the food, then it's the plasma." Which takes awhile to make sense, in my head. Now, I would have said "flat screen," because apparently I want my audience to think even less than this shit show, but the first image that popped into my mind wasn't a TV, it was Kerry Weaver holding a bag of something gross. Okay, actually it was me, paying my rent. Ha! Vince comes clean that she threw the stolen food away. Why? She's vegan, she's "into a cruelty-free lifestyle." And all I can think about again is Ariel from Amish in the City and how badly I want someone to fuck her up, because most of my friends are vegetarian and I was for a long time but that Michael Moore kind of "this protest is all about me" bullshit is so not my scene and I hate -- hated, even when I was a vegetarian, for years and years, until I discovered Atkins! -- that demonstrative ego crap. Non-smokers like that piss me off too. It should be about the music, not you. "It's 'cruel' to throw away a $65 steak from Morton's," whines Turtle, and Drama laughs, and I laugh, but when Drama laughs it has a scary edgy little rage face at the end of it, because he loves the food, and it's all he contributes to the group. I think he just might kill Fiona, guys.
But honestly, suspension of disbelief takes another hit because nobody, not even dickless wonder Vince, would let that happen in his house. Except, um, he is. So that's fifteen logical inconsistencies in the first ten lines of dialogue of this scene. Yikes. Vince asks them to keep the meat "out of her eyeline" while's she around. Drama yells that "she's already got him wearing cloth shoes" as if it's a euphemism for "shooting heroin in his eyeballs," but actually, says Vince kind of condescendingly, they're the slippers Turtle stole from the Four Seasons Maui during a hijink we'll hopefully never see. I smell a "joke" coming, of the egaruotnE retro-engineered kind. "Those are the slippers? Where's the robe?" Enter Eric. "Fiona just dropped the robe at the pool and had nothing on underneath." Turtle's all, "She's naked at the pool?" and Vince is all, "And you were looking at her I suppose?" like you care, you're like the maiden aunt of Eric's stern matriarch. Eric's like, Dude? She's NAKED AT THE POOL! "How'd she look?" asks somebody. Turtle: "Good enough to eat, I bet?" We're still in this preposterous scene, so there must be a "Joke" #2. Drama's all, "Too bad Vince can't eat animal products anymore, huh?" Jesus, but that's stale and generic and crap. So of course they all fake-laugh, because that's what girls are. Animal products.
Turtle is going to the pool to see some of those lovely animal products. Vince minds? But not really. More than anything, he would like some pot, so did Turtle call Black Hack Tino? Yeah, he's got nothing. BECAUSE THERE'S NO POT IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. This is the "only one bathroom" of this episode and they just keep sandpapering the scab every five seconds. Drama says that Fiona has been in the house for three days and that Vince is bending the rules (three is more than two except in fucking Utah). Vince is like, "I made the rules." Okay, you actually at some point said only three days for a girl? Eric wants to change the subject in case there's a clause about not sleeping "off-campus" that he didn't know about, but Drama says it's a "lifestyle issue" because: "Did you see the picture of the swami in the bathroom?" THE ONE BATHROOM WHICH SHE DECORATED IN THE LAST THREE DAYS? WHERE THERE IS ALSO NO POT? Vince laughs that it's her "guru" and Drama simply does not like the way "he looks at me when I'm pissing." Eric tells Vince how awesome the script is, but Fiona's naked voice drifts out of nowhere like "Vince! I need you!" and Vince's all, "All she wants to do is fuck," and he runs off and for some reason Drama and Eric start crying like babies. Where's Turtle? At the pool with Fiona who can be all over the house at once? Lots of Fionas. You are in the Fiutrix. If only she could be the bathroom and multiply herself. But really? I think maybe girls on this show kind of are, like, the bathroom. Only there's way more of them.
Naked Fiona and Vince are naked and doing stupid face tantra sit there naked not touching sex. It's distracting because there's break-beat sitar music and one thousand candles and I didn't really ever want to see Vince's pubic hair ever and she has terrible posture for a supposed yoga person and I just found Vince's pubic hair in my Red Bull. Eric yells through the door about did you read that script and Vince doesn't have time for tantra or a woman's needs, so they fuck.
Then there are motorcycles, because if this show is making me homophobic? Imagine what it's doing to Joe Q. Public. Shauna hands over the Uggs and Turtle asks if they're authentic because it's so timely and amazing and Drama Queer-Eyes randomly about how you can tell and it's dumb and Paris Hilton did this on TRL a few weeks ago, only not with Uggs, because that was her grandmother on TRL back when it was just a radio show. Turtle is sent to sassy blonde assistant of Shauna to thank her, and he tells Kristy (because TV 101? Always name your characters identical things, like Kristy, Kristen, Chris, Chrissie and Christopher. That way nobody gets confused) that he'd like to give her a full body massage and she says she'd prefer a stun gun and really? Do you have to have both Turtle and Eric crushing on the assistant of the actual people? Like I bet week Marvin the business manager has an elderly assistant named Irma or Edna that's perfect for Drama and they are in love out of nowhere. Eric comes down and gives Shauna hell about how he didn't authorize this publicity stunt with the motorcycles and she's his publicist, not you! Dick! And she called back after he told her that and Turtle told her it was okay and that he talked to Vince, and she says that that's all she cares about, what Vince wants, "so don't fuck with me like you're fucking with Ari, Eric." End of discussion, and I love Eric, but she's right, and it's pretty awesome. Shauna rules, and it makes me think about a lot of things, like how maybe this show's more complicated the longer it goes on because Eric was all saintly and shit and now every episode takes him down one more peg to the point where one day he'll realize what a joke he is to them. And then I realize it's still a shitty show so this is probably an accident on Marky Mark's part. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Fiona and Vince show up and Fiona is just dripping about the script, it made her cry, and Eric is now officially having like the worst day ever. Then! So is Shauna, who Vince tells he is suddenly not doing the motorcycle shoot because Fiona doesn't like the image it represents and Shauna is like, you know you're majorly fucking with my life here, with all these people and photographers and free motorcycles and I'm your fucking publicist and she's right. It's environmental in nature, the problem of Fiona with the motorcycle, and Shauna points out that Fiona doesn't seem to mind riding around in Vince's Hummer but -- since Shauna knows Turtle was lying, as noted on the forums -- doesn't also mention the Uggs, which were ostensibly for Fiona also. It's a battle of the Hey It's That Girl Who Appeared Out Of Nowhere And Became Central To The Show. Drama, sitting on the bike (admittedly, as if he were born there, which with their mom he might have been), offers his own image in recompense, and Shauna's like, "What am I supposed to do with your fucking picture?" and then tells Turtle to give her back the Uggs. Turtle says she'll have to pry them from his cold dead hands, and I cross my fingers, and she practically hands Vince her purse so she can actually kill Turtle, but that damned dog from the first episode appears from nowhere and now it's a three-way grudge match of Appeared Out Of Nowhere and Arnold the dog wins, but we don't, because Turtle didn't die. She almost starts crying. Aww. She should kill them all in their sleep. She wouldn't be wrong.
Turtle and Drama jostle each other a little bit over by the pool table and there's a dumb joke about how Turtle didn't "call a bank shot" and how he "needs to project more" and Turtle refers to Drama's voice coach whatever whatever and Vince appears, having read the script. Eric's all, "How many pages?" And Vince says he read all of it. "How did it end?" And Vince has no affect as he asks, "What are you, an asshole?" And I'm like, sadly? Today, he is, for some reason. Eric gets all explainy and points out what everybody already noticed, that Vince ignored the script until Fiona liked it. He doesn't point out the other obvious thing, which is that this is all very stupid. "Call Ari and find out why he doesn't know about it," says Vince, and I'm so sure he didn't, Vince. I bet there's a good reason. I bet there are Greeks inside of that script. Turtle and Drama pants around and it's not even that funny at all so we won't talk about it.
At Ari's office, lovely Emily is all, "You left your wallet at my house." Did I? Fuck you, fuck this show. Anything but the wallet I would believe, but if a person can't find his or her wallet, that's it for him or her until he or she finds his or her wallet again. It's worse than losing your keys. Is this whole fucking thing written by scurvy-ridden albinos kept in an attic by the estate of V.C. Andrews? Live a little. Kristen's soul and big honking brain take over Emily's lovely body and she's all, "Is that your way of saying you want to come back?" You mean like he has been for weeks? Whatever. But Eric is used to girls and their smarts and their explaining himself to himself so he's all absent-minded and "Heh, sort of. Yeah. Anyway, we read this script that we love." I think one of the writers may have had a girlfriend like this who went all Psych 101 on his ass, and he knew she was smart so now he thinks that smart girls are like that, and so the two girls that Eric (who we're pretending is the smart one) dates have to do this in every episode. Emily schedules a lunch date with Ari, bumping Anthony Le-POG-lia, who I guess is the Drama to better-known Anthony LaPaglia, but since this show never uses directors, it's not Emily's fault. Though someone should tell her she's saying it wrong because he might get mad time he calls Ari. Turtle and Drama watch him on the phone and call him a pussy and a faggot for some reason and then they make out with each other.
At some horrible vegan restaurant it's Eric, Vince, Ari -- and Fiona, of course. Ari agonizes over the horrible vegan menu and then chooses the "faux mung-bean meatloaf." Which is what exactly? Is it made from faux mung-beans? Is there some kind of free-trade mung bean abuse going on that I don't know about? But anyway I guess everybody else ordered while we were watching Turtle and Drama make out because the waitress takes off and then Ari starts yelling about "what the fuck are we doing here I'm on Atkins I need protein before I go to Tae-Bo and buy a pashmina and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album Fever To Tell which just came out today and I was thinking maybe I'd check out these boys in Coldplay because I hear they're good." Fiona tells him there is protein in mung beans, and he clarifies that he wants Man Protein. Did some Muslim terrorists drop a gay bomb on Los Angeles? I'm serious this time. Not some joke about my hilarious internalized homophobia. I feel like I'm getting gaslighted. Forced to clarify once again, Ari says he wants protein "from the flesh of slaughtered animals," and he means Eric, specifically slaughtered Eric. Only sometimes when he's talking to the lips, it seems like he wants any old kind of man protein from Eric. But I'm sure that's the lips' fault. Fiona asks Ari if he's ever seen "a video of a slaughterhouse" because vegans throw great parties and Vince goes fnur fnur fnur "meat is murder" and it reminds me of this time in college when my girl Alison was hanging out with her father's colleagues in Britain and she was like, "But so does Morrissey know? Like, does he get the joke? Because I love him and his music but I wonder if he knows that it's also funny?" And they were like, "Whatever do you mean, Yankee Girl?" And she was like, "Well, like Meat is Murder. I mean, 'savor the flavor...of murder'? Does he get that that's..." And the Brits were like, "Yes, he is quite political," and she decided to just drop it.
Ari and Eric team up in a manly Atkins-ketosis way to yell at Vince for having Fiona read the script for Queens Boulevard. Just for the record, the movies of Vince are called Head On and Queens Boulevard. I think HBO is having a laugh at our expense, that's what I think. Ari says it's fine as long as Fiona doesn't mind that the script isn't "printed on recycled paper." Heh, I guess, but weakly and under my breath. Ari turns the hate to Eric and asks if the big words were so overwhelming that he had to pass it on to this girl. Vince laughs as Ari and Eric argue over who did and did not know about the script. Fiona shuffles Vince away from this negative energy to bitch him out in private, or in front of his fans, or whatever. Ari tells Eric that the first rule of being a manager is to "control the star's fucking girlfriend." Because "Yoko Ono? Is macro-psychotic." And that's the still the best line of this whole series so far. Meanwhile Fiona is telling Vince that Ari is bad news, a karmic disaster -- not as funny, so you lose, Fiona -- so she's going to wait outside. He kisses her and says five minutes -- even though they just ordered, whatever whatever, doesn't matter, this show is dumb. Some little tiny girls take a picture with him.
Ari tells Eric that Scott Wick is his best friend, idiot, and "Who's Scott Wick, asshole?" and he's the producer of the movie, you dumb fuck, and this should be pretty easy, don't you think, douchebag? and, "No, Eric, because what you don't know you little garlic-knot making motherfucker is that Wick hates Vince." See: they say a sentence? And then append an insult. Screenwriting is so fun and easy and you can do it in your own home. The energy here, though, is all escalating and awesome and it's great so I don't mind. Ari is all, I hope you enjoy breaking that to him, and Eric smiles and calls across the restaurant to Vince, "Hey Vince, the producer of the movie thinks you suck." And Vince grins and goes back to taking pictures with the little girls and it's hilarious.
Turtle and Drama were tied to a bike rack or something outside, or whatever, it's weird, and Fiona asks if she can hang out with them outside on the street while the actual people have a meeting inside. So fucking sad. Drama and Fiona are awesome as he offers her vegan self a bite of his street-vendor burger and even though it's rude they both know it's funny and she smiles at him endearingly. It's good. Turtle is on the phone arguing about something he already knows is true, the fact that we're all going to pretend that THERE'S NO POT ON THE ENTIRE WEST COAST. And it's funny because people keep saying this so unbelievingly no matter how many times it's explained, because it's just that unbelievable, that even the show doesn't believe it. Now that is a bad script. (Parenthetically speaking, I'm going to feel like a total tard when I find out that this actually happened two years ago and Shannen Doherty put her face through a concrete restaurant as a result.) Invisible Black Hack Tino is sending a recon team up to Humboldt County -- which is I guess in space now? Because there's NO POT ON THE WEST COAST is what I heard. Fiona tells the boys she's "got a sherpa" that grows all-natural marijuana with no herbicides or pesticides, blah blah blah. I love it when people say that, like how American Spirits will totally give you cancer because they're totally carcinogenic but there's less tar. As a smoker? I am not looking for the health benefits of cigarettes. I just want to look cool and smell great and have fun with the group indoors at restaurants and New York City bars. Drama's all, "Yeah, like we're going all the way to Everest to score weed from your sherpa." Wait, isn't Mount Everest on the West Coast? I heard there was NO POT. "Come on, guys, he doesn't live in Everest anymore," my italics again, and again, it's adorable but why talk about it? "He lives in Bel Air." Turtle takes this in and then says, "What the fuck's a sherpa?"
A goat? Is a sherpa a goat? Watch Zoolander, you classless piece of trash. We pull up to this huge folly of a house and there are goats in the yard. Goats! Always funny! Eyeballs sideways! Pot is so funny! And goats! "Even the carpet's made of hemp, it's cool," says Fiona. I like that she has a personality, even though I would fucking hate this girl in real life. But it's really a huge step, for this show, to have this girl with an independent existence of any kind whatsoever. I'm starting to like her and I'm not sure it's just on principle. The actor is a cutie too, she's funny. She has good comedic timing, especially with the bad dialogue she has to navigate. They all go into this huge weed garden with big bootie hos growing weed like some weird episode of Star Trek. Up walks fucking Val Kilmer, who you would find hard to recognize at first. I still wish this were David Duchovny because he's likeable. Val's got a lot of hair happening, like a big old hippie bullshit sherpa, and he hugs and oozes all over Fiona and calls her some bullshit "channeled name" and I pray to God and little tiny elves that this is not the rest of this episode with pot humor and funny high people and Val Kilmer, who I kind of hate anyway, with the elbow and the teeth and the sleaze, but I already have this feeling it is going to be. I don't judge, but I know that when you're not high, nothing about high people is funny. To me, anyway. Val calls Fiona an ancient wisdom giver and then sniffs her ancient armpit giver and then recognizes Drama as an ancient Viking Quest giver and Drama has to tell him it got cancelled seven years ago and then I think Dillon's trying to be "sad" but it looks like he's about to kiss Val Kilmer. Gay bomb, I'm telling you. It's a scorcher! Val's bummed out by this news, but I'm just happy for the VQ shout-out. He's got a lot of tics, Val Kilmer. Acting-wise, I mean. Turtle and Drama snap off a few leaves of pot and put them in their pockets.
Val takes a five-minute-long toke off a hookah while he plays with Fiona's feet. It's boring like you think. They're in this harem room place with a million pillows and candles, of course. Val Kilmer has strange old man thighs, I can see them clearly through his sherpa costume. Eric sucks tinily on the hookah and everybody watches how much Val can suck. It's a lot. There's some stupid fucking high pot talk about dimensions we can't even see and stuff like that and they think he's so tough and awesome? Except Turtle, who's awesome, because he's like, "That's so cool, but can I have some pot, though? Thanks." And then there's more pot talk -- rhyming now! -- that you don't even need to know about. Just make up whatever. Imagine if there was a TV show and all these assholes did pot and weren't even that smart to begin with. What you're thinking? Is automatically better than this scene. They laugh at Val Kilmer making an ass of himself.
Not the sherpa. Val Kilmer.
Eric's phone rings, and I think maybe Marky Mark is confused because this scene is now from Boogie Nights. Marky? That never happened, it was just a movie. Your penis is just fine the way it is. Val Kilmer screams his weird old man ass off and pulls a gun on Eric and out of nowhere this Rasta dude with a red-yellow-and-green crocheted hat jumps out of some box labeled "retarded stereotypes" and there are guns everywhere and everyone's kind of startled and scared. Then Val backs down and sends the other dude back in the RS box, and he's all, "It's cool, it's just a cell phone." Like what the fuck did he think it was? Seriously. Some kind of beeping bomb in Eric's pants that shoots out search warrants and tiny cops that get big when you put them in water? They laugh forever. Adrenaline. And pot.
On the phone is Ari, of course, and he has the tanning booth things over his eyes so it's twice as funny when he says, "Call me Helen Keller because I'm a fucking miracle worker," which is almost literate, almost correct, almost worth getting paid as a writer and contributing member of society. Call me "Annie Sullivan" I guess, because I'm a fucking bitter writer who also happens to be blind and deaf. Anyway, Ari set up dinner with Scott Wick, his best friend and the producer of Queens Boulevard. "And tell Vince to wear something tight," he says, because Scott Wick is -- the inference is, I guess, that even though Scott Wick lives in L.A.? He also sort of lives on Queens Boulevard, if you get my meaning. So he should fit right in with this crowd. What I UTTERLY LOVE about this is that Ari and Wick are "best friends." And he's still like, "My best friend Scott Wick is a flaming homo," which is either totally surprising or not at all, considering Ari's sexual baggage, because I can see him being all, "I'm not out to prove anything. My best friend is Scott Wick!" And anyway, not only that, but he's like, "Here's how you defeat his queer powers and make him bow down to your will!" Ari Gold, ladies and gentleman. World's Worst Best Friend. Because this will not end well. I guess if Scott Wick disappeared for no reason like Chipette did, it would be okay. But I think the writers like the character too much -- I know I did, in the end -- so he'll probably end up dead by his own hand or something stupid. Then we go back to the episode and everything that already happened? Happens again. Vince's like, fuck that movie I don't want to work with Scott Wick that doesn't like me -- just like he did to Shauna! And Eric says there are no other good scripts so he needs to do this and Vince ignores him -- just like he did to Eric before! And Fiona tells Vince that to know him is to love him, and convinces him with a word or two to go through with the meeting -- just like she did before! And Eric gets pissed -- again! Fuck this fucking show.
At the restaurant Eric connects the dots for Vince, who is not wearing anything remotely tight except his smile as Eric bitches about the controlling of Vince by Fiona and asks where Vince's balls are. "I love her and I want to marry her," Vince says. Eric freaks. Vince laughs and says Fiona's going to India for four months at the end of the week so it's fine. The Home of School and Light and Women Characters That Were Too Interesting or Funny, I think. Scott Wick now fags up, all pissy gaybo wolverine dude, and says let's make this snappy, and then at the table they bring the caviar, and Wick says, "Mmm, beluga," and Vince says excuse me? because he's never had caviar or something stupid and caviar reminds Wick of "a cold winter night in Novgorod" and Eric asks where that is, because he's never heard of Russia or caviar or anything ever or something stupid. And Vince goes BOOM and totally pulls it out. He leans across to Scott Wick and gives him a little taste of the charm about how Eric didn't know that because he dropped out of college and looks deeply into his eyes and looks down at his menu again because he's been doing this to lonely old men since he was in the third grade and that was how he paid for his acting lessons. I made that up but that's totally the face he's making, like, I got this Wick prick in the bag and he doesn't even know it yet and I personally...Vince might be my hero. Eric tries and asks about Wick's dad. Like that's not going to be a hot potato. Wick pere was an American diplomat (this is probably a big funny in-joke about some gay producer or something but I hate this show so we don't care). "That's nice. My father was a douche bag," Vince says from beneath his eyelashes, which bat coquettishly, and then the wind from them caresses Wick's tired old man face. Eric is like playing out his central issue because he's trying to be all slick about how he's getting the New York Strip because he grew up in New York, just like in the movie script? But we're playing a whole other game here. Of which Vince is suddenly the Bobby Fischer.
"The story is about a boy in New York, from the neighborhood," says Scott Wick, but it's too late, he's in the Vince parlor of spidery sex, and Wick says further that Vince just doesn't "feel like" these things, even though he is those things. He's just Vince-Lo from the Block. My favorite part of that song is when she's all how being legit, for her? "Is like breathing." Eric asks Wick where Vince "feels" like he's from and the whole time Vince's eyes are locked on Wick and it's awesome because he's all, "Wouldn't you like to know where I feel like," and Wick's awesome because he looks directly at Vince and says, "I don't know. The Appalachians?" It's pretty funny. Vince gives one good eye-stroke, then looks down, smoothes his right eyebrow with a middle finger, and refuses to look up as he talks. This is totally Vince's best scene ever. Adrian Grenier, I'm sorry I called you "lifelike." This rules. "With all due respect, I grew up a block [HA! See! To him it's like breathing!] from where this script takes place, in a shitty little apartment with five brothers and sisters and a psychotically drunk father. I am this part."
But so watch this part, because the thing he says is, "This isn't going anywhere, is it, Scottie?" And they look all smolderingly at each other and Wick's like, "Not really," so Vince decides to order an extra rib eye steak to go. Wow. Between taking this guy for a couple hundred dollars' worth of doggie bag items and throwing him the finger, he's either asking to get stabbed with a steak knife or really going balls-out to make this old man love him forever. I can't tell, and neither can Wick, and it's so, so awesome. Wick's like, the fuck you are. "Are you high?" Aye, there's the rub. That Entourage rub. I know it well. But soft, it doesn't suck just yet. "Actually, I am. Is that a problem?" And I can't tell what he's even going for here, but it's sexy as hell, the way he says it; it's totally fuck-you and aggro with the strength of five Aris. I have rediscovered the love of Adrian that made me sit through Drive Me Crazy in the theatre the last night of its run. And now you know my worst secret ever.
"Where'd you get it?" asks Wick, and FUCKING FUCK because they start talking about blah blah blah hash-cakes and Eric's still so far behind that they're lapping him at this point and flirting outrageously at the same time but I'm still disappointed because they won, not with words and smarts, but with pot. And a little bit of ass. But mostly pot, because again? THERE'S NO POT ANYWHERE IN TIME OR SPACE. But Vince is still my total hero. Unless (and this isn't out of the question for this awful show) the gay eye sex is just patter and the real brilliance of Vince's performance is about the pot all along and acting weird enough that Wick would ask the stock "Are you high?" that is always so hilarious and then he could say yes I am is that a problem and then there would be egaruotnE and pot and the script. Either way, I'm pleased with this scene. Immensely. This and the Ari/Sarah Silverman scene I can't seem to shut up about. "What are we talking about here? Are we talking about the script, or about pot?" asks Eric, all scandalized and shit, and Wick -- lost to anything but Vince's eyes, and the eyes of one Mary Jane Weedster -- giggles girlishly, "Maybe both, E. Maybe both." And then his eyes and Vince's eyes jump out of their heads on the table and start doing stuff I've only ever seen on scrambled cable late at night.
Cut to the car -- which in some shots is full of smoke, and in others is not. Sigh. Eric, finally catching on, tries to also catch up by hitting on Wick, but he's terrible at it. Lots of wiggling and winking and grossness. "Why do you have to be such a hard-ass all the time?" Wick giggles and they both grin, and it's so great because they're totally acting the part of the Miutrix here, the two of them, all, "You're so pretty and popular and commanding," and I like to think that the Miutrix is mercenary like that. Like, beyond needing fifty dollars for the powder room so they can buy more tits and more coke and more tits. Wick's such a "hard-ass" (which by the way? Totally not true, he's a pussycat and Vince had him by the balls before they even got their drinks and we all know it and honestly I really do think Scott Wick is going to kill himself at some point) because "it's just fucking fun." Shut up, Entourage. Better lines. Better dialogue. Better words of talking. PLEASE. But they both laugh like girly retards anyway. A cop car pulls up flashing so you might miss Scott's second best line, which is "You think I'm a hard-ass?" which he says in a nearly-HBO, subtle undertone. They all start lighting cigarettes and whatever bullshit you do in this situation and Scott Wick lisps out every curse word he knows and I'm kind of starting to like Scott Wick. Actually, at this point are there any characters I still don't like? At least a little? That's progress, I guess. For this show it is. Scott is not only on probation, we learn, but also in N.A. Maybe it's the whole suicide thing I invented way back before, but I find the probation dialogue very foreshadowy because he says about 18 ways that the charges were nothing and stupid and not true, but he doesn't at all say what they were, so maybe he'll try to stalk and kill Vince at some point in addition to killing himself. Man, I miss Melrose Place more than I even knew. Which, speaking of? You better fucking shape up, North Shore. I can't wait forever. Anyway, Vince eye-cheats on Wick with the cop and the cop likes the trailer for the new film, and Vince smiles but I would have been like, "That came out last episode, bitch! Get your ass to the theatre!"
Later, back at the gym from the beginning of the episode I think, Eric's all, they didn't bust us for anything, they asked for Vince's autograph and Fiona's all let's toast and there's wheatgrass so I, you know...I admit, I threw up a little. And not just because the song from that Raveonettes song of the K-Mart commercial where the stars of the WB wear K-Mart clothes and look 100 times better than on their shows. I hate wheatgrass. It combines the worst qualities of both wheat and grass. Eric's all, "What is this, is it wheat? Or grass?" and I can't figure out if it's the same joke -- in which case I might kill myself -- or just a signpost saying, "Cute cultural reference as to the hip L.A. scene" (circa 1991, yes, but you know, it's an Entourage thing). Eric and Drama seem genuinely sad that Fiona's leaving. Not half as sad as I am. She's pretty and funny and not remote-control like the other women on the show. Drama says he wouldn't want her to disappoint "Rammed Ass," and she corrects him, "Ram Dass," her guru, and that's going on the gay list, pal. They laugh and shoot. They all have the same disgusted reaction I do.
Eric's phone rings and Ari's all, "I don't know who blew who, but Wick's got a crush on Vince, he wants him to star in his vanity project." It's all very Bret Easton Ellis because these could be metaphors or not, and I'm not sure what actually happened, and I bet Vince isn't either. Because he is a drug addict. Ari's all, "Prepare to enter the poorhouse, you little bitch," because it's an indie film so...whatever. That's what you do after you make a big explosion movie, you let Lars Von Trier fuck you in the ass on a black set full of fake buildings, so you can keep your cred. Either way Ari will benefit in both the long term and the...you know what? I'm not Vince Chase's manager, agent, or publicist. I don't have to give a fuck. Just keep the constant gay stuff at its current level, because that is funny as hell. Eric breaks the news and Vince's all, "You think I'm Queens enough?" and I'm still so confused -- I don't know if he's making a joke about Wick's crush or about the Appalachian "true stuff seems fake" stuff and is that the same thing because the L Word comment at the beginning confused me, and I don't know if you're playing gay or pretending to be gay or if that means you're actually gay or the opposite of gay or not-not gay or not-not-not gay or if another actor comes on this show and plays gay as a gay not-himself character or plays himself only gay or not-gay if he is gay if that means you're gay or maybe it means you're Tom Cruise or what but if this shit goes all p--t-m----n I'm going to laugh until I die. Then they shoot more wheatgrass. Whatever. Gross.
week: Drama wants a job. Acting. This should be gross. Ari yells at people. Josh Weinstein is Ari's old assistant. AWESOME. Gary fucking Busey shows up to ruin everything I ever built my life on.