TVSquad

"Blue Balls Lagoon" is all about fantasies. Johnny Drama gets to work with the "first girl he ever seriously jerked off to"; E gets to tell off Ari and learns that people are starting to notice him; Vince gets back together with Mandy; Turtle... well Turtle doesn't really do much, but chances are that's his dream anyway; heck even Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island is there.

We open with Drama putting some extreme effort into his rehearsal, he's just read the script and found out that him and Brooke Shields are going to be sharing a "touching moment" in their MOW (Movie Of the Week). If only he'd read just a little bit more and touched a little bit less... Just like Satan tempting Jesus in the desert, Terrence (Ari's overbearing boss/partner) throws gift after gift at Vince. From living the high life skeet shooting at his estate to presenting his restaurant for a private party for Mandy's birthday (who Vince is desperately trying to find an extravagant present for), Terrence is slowly creeping his way into the back of the guys' minds as the man that can get "it" done. So when Shauna and Ari have to hold Vince to task about breaking up Mandy's engagement and all the ensuing bad publicity (they don't want Vince to turn inot "Angelina" as they put it and sink Aquaman... get it? sink Aquaman? alright not funny, back to your regularly scheduled review), Eric gets in every dig he can about how good Terrence would be treating them. Vince shows an unseen side to himself when he notices the painting hanging on Ari's wall, which just happens to be by Mandy's favorite artist, Robert Niche. After Ari refuses to sell it to Vince, Eric reminds him that Terrence probably would have just given it to him by this point, and Vince has his extravagant present.

Vince takes all the guys out to lunch and lets them know at the very last second that Mandy will be joining them. While Turtle and Drama are annoyed, Eric is more pissed than anything else.  They literally just left a meeting where Vince was warned not to go out with Mandy in public, and he turns around and invites her out to lunch. After Eric does some smooth damage control during lunch, he tells Vince that he's acting a little unstable in the car ride back. "I'm in love" Vince tells E and with those 3 little words, we see just how big the cracks in Vince's armor have become. He flips out and tells Eric that he's "uninvited" to Mandy's party. We catch up with Drama and Turtle at the read-through of Drama's MOW. He's smoothly trying to work a kiss into his scene with Brooke, "you know more loving than lusting", when he finds out that he'll be playing her brother. Whoops. Drama always seems to get stuck in the "brother" role...

Eric finds out that Ari is notorious for hanging fake art in his office out on a date with Sloane, Terrence's daughter (this still makes me uneasy, and it may just be Emmanuelle Chiriqi's vapid acting, but i get the feeling that she's playing Eric on behalf of her father). And althougth Eric is still not talking to Vince, he steals Mandy's painting and takes it to Ari's and blackmails him into producing the original work of art.

In a hilarious scene we get to watch Ari rush to his own home, switch the painting that Eric brought him with the one that is hanging over his own mantle all while his wife asks what he's doing with her anniversary present.

Before we head to the restaurant for Mandy's birthday party, we find Drama filming his tender hug with Brooke Shields. Suddenly she wrestles from his embrace with a disgusted look on her face before storming up to the director. "He. Is. Hard." she grimaces. And with those 3 little words, Drama's career is back on pause. At Terrence's restaurant the gang is sampling some wine, consoling Drama and wondering where Eric is.  He shows up with Mandy's painting much to Vince's relief and they make up.  The episode ends with a toast to family and everyone getting along and enjoying eachother's company, but with eonly 3 episodes left, I can't help but think that this feeling isn't going to last, things are just too good and you know: "It's always brightest...."

On a side note, Mark Wahlberg had a hell of a weekend. His movie opened at #1 to a big box office, and his Emmy nominated show continues to grow and draw you (and apparently a couple of your friends) in just a little bit more every week.  Not bad for the former leader of "The Funky Bunch".  Good Vibrations man, Good Vibrations.

Quotes of the week:

"Lloyd, you were an art history major at Sarah-Lawrence College right?" "Yes I was" "Good, then you know how to take this down off the wall"
"When he goes out, I want you and the retards to go with him"
"It's Niche"
"We look at it as if we were dating for 5 years with a 4 1/2 year break."

Next Week:
The bottom drops out?  Where are Vince and Mandy?

By the way I'd like to thank everyone for reading the review, hope you enjoyed it, and I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Ryan Budke. Be on the lookout for additional reviews this week as HBO reruns the past 3 episodes over the weekend and we'll also take a look at some DVD-esque features shown on Time Warner's inDemand service. Later.