Anyone who thought that Vince’s thrill-seeking would eventually catch up to him was right, although not in the way most people probably expected. It seems that the back injury he sustained on the Nick Cassavetes movie has resulted in a pretty serious addiction to Vicodin, which has in turn resulted in Vince doing cocaine at one of his infamous look-at-all-the-naked-women parties. Of course, when Vince gets up for his meeting with Randall Wallace the next morning, he’s a complete wreck, and whether it’s from the coke the night before, the coffee he chugged before he left, or just plain nerves, he’s jittery all throughout the meeting. That sets off warning bells in Wallace’s head, and now the studio isn’t sure if they want to work with him on the upcoming “Airwalker” movie. Vince tells Eric that he didn’t do any coke, but of course he’s lying, and Billy Walsh knows it.
I’m not sure how long Billy is going to wait to speak up, but if he truly is Vince’s friend, he would have said something by now. Maybe he was scared because Scotty Lavin (who also partook in the snorting festivities) was in the same room, but that’s no reason to wuss out like that. Still, just like last week’s subplot involving Turtle and Alex’s shaved bush, I simply don’t buy Vincent Chase as a cokehead. Maybe the writers think they need to drag his character through a drug addiction (and eventual drug rehab program) before he can finally win an Oscar in the much rumored “Entourage” movie (honestly, where else can it go?), but despite Vince’s shortcomings as a responsible adult, he just never struck me as the kind of guy who would experiment with drugs. Blame the porn star girlfriend or just lazy writing.
Speaking of Billy, it looks like he’s going to be hanging around for these last few episodes, and for once, I don’t mind. Though he was obviously more entertaining as a self-destructive prima donna, it’s nice to see him acting like a regular dude for once. Unfortunately, that also means that we have to endure this stupid storyline about him creating an animated series for Drama. Now, I’m no Hollywood agent, but how in the world could anyone think that “Johnny’s Bananas” – a cartoon about a “high-strung simian trying to make it in the human world” – is a good premise for a TV show? I always thought Eric had good taste, but if he’s truly intrigued by the idea of Drama voicing a cartoon gorilla, then well, I clearly didn’t know him as well as I thought. Then again, this was the second time in the same episode where one of the leads did something completely out of character, so maybe it can just be chalked up to lazy writing.
Turtle’s tequila storyline was actually much improved this week thanks to some brief cameos by Mark Wahlberg and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, but since nothing of real significance actually happened, let’s just skip Turtle this week and move on to the highlight of the episode: Ari. It’s been quite a rollercoaster for everyone’s favorite super agent these past few weeks, but just when it looked like Deadline Hollywood was going to run a potentially career-killing piece on him, nothing happened. Instead, Ari learns from an inside source at DH (Carrie Fisher in a surprisingly small role) that Lizzie has left Amanda’s agency after only a day on the job, and when he visits her to find out what happened, Lizzie apologizes for threatening to sue him, claiming it was all Amanda’s idea.
Ari is more than happy to settle their dispute by doing whatever he can to help her out, and when she suggests that he get her a studio job, Ari pays a visit to Dana Gordon to ask for a favor in securing Lizzie an interview. In return, Dana wants Ari to convince Lenny Kravitz to take a role in the new Russell Crowe movie, but even though he fails to deliver, Lizzie still holds up her end of the deal by giving Ari the tapes. Unfortunately for Ari, that didn’t stop someone else from leaking the information to Deadline Hollywood anyway, and before he knows it, news of Ari’s questionable treatment of his staff spreads across Hollywood. Jerry Jones is one of the first to call, confirming that the NFL deal is off, and we don’t even know what his wife had to say. Still, you’d think that she knows Ari well enough to know that while he can be crude and crass at times, he’s still a really good man when it counts. Whether his clients and co-workers feel the same way, however, remains to be seen.
