In an interview, Jon explains that Beth isn't having very good luck with the acting thing, and that he thinks it's hurting her self-esteem.
Beth voice-overs that everyone in Los Angeles is "something else than what they're doing." For example, she says she enjoys production work, but she "likes acting, too." And it's true. Using myself as an example; I enjoy being unemployed, but I really like getting a paycheck, too.
Beth explains in a sit-down that she had to get head shots. She then explains the purpose of head shots in, like, a forty-five-minute monologue, which also touches on the futility of life and the transience of the human soul. Basically, you need head shots so that casting agents know what you look like.
Bunim/Murray go all Fashion Emergency on us, as Beth goes to get beautified for her photo shoot. Where's Leon Hall? Leon is like my older, supportive gay boyfriend, who goes shoe shopping with me and helps me clean out my closet and then takes me out for a drink at The Ivy, where we snicker about how awful Kate Hudson looked at the Oscars. Apparently, Leon wanted nothing to do with Beth, because she gets cut and colored all by her lonesome. I say a quick but fervent prayer to the Patron Saint of Aestheticians regarding Beth's unruly brows, but I am not heard.
Beth takes her entire wardrobe to the photo shoot, where a girl who looks just like Jennie Garth does her makeup and fluffs her bangs. Beth decides to wear a navy blue polka-dotted sleeveless top with a massive white collar, shorts, and pearls for the shoot. She looks like Ethel Kennedy on a bender. The photographer places her on a stool and starts murmuring lines he learned from watching Star 80 on USA: "Open up, baby, that's nice." We see a proof of one of the shots, and it's actually kind of cute; Beth is looking over her shoulder. Coyly, of course. But it's not awful. The photographer tells her that she can have the pictures Wednesday. Beth bats her lashes. The photographer tells her she's "a doll," and hugs her. Whatever.
Back at the "excellent at your craft" conversation (sidebar -- if you're one of those people who refer to your "craft" in everyday conversation, knock it off, like, right now), Beth rests her chin on her hands and demurely complains that there's a ton of pressure on women in Los Angeles (especially in the entertainment industry) to look perfect and polished, and, for once I agree with her. If you weigh more than 120 pounds in Los Angeles, you're a total freaking heifer. If your pants size is in the double digits, you're stoned in the streets, and Lara Flynn Boyle comes to your house and sticks her fingers down your throat three times a day until you get in line. The conversation drifts to plastic surgery, and Tami admits that she used to want to get liposuction. Beth and Jon just look at her like that's normal. People. Tami so does not need liposuction.