Normally, there are two things an actor fears more than anything else: unemployment and bad reviews, especially when the latter leads to the former. In addition, negative criticism can be most harmful if the targeted thespian is a newcomer, because he will most likely have a rough time getting his career back on track. It was therefore quite hard to avoid that one of the first episodes of Entourage be centered around this kind of incident.
The whole tragedy is kick-started by a review in Variety that carpet-bombs Head On and reduces Vince to a "fly-by-night pretty boy". While Drama works on his acting class and the others cope with the bad news, Eric goes to discuss the story with Ari. On the plus side, he gets to meet Ari's new assistant Emily (Samaire Armstrong). On the minus side, he gets lectured for worrying Vince and is subsequently asked to distract the poor boy, before receiving Ari's ace "let's hug it out, b*tch!" treatment. E complies, accepting his friend's foolish decision to buy a new Rolls and agreeing to accompany him to a party hosted by Jessica Alba (a genuinely hot cameo). As it turns out, that's what everyone needed, particularly Vince who gets to make out with a virginal pop singer.
Being a comedy series, there is no doubt the potentially upsetting premise leads to a sort of happy ending (though later seasons have become bolder in that sense): what really matters is what happens in between, more specifically those little moments that help establishing the characters - E is a truly concerned friend, Vince is far from the "shallow sex symbol" type, Drama is an adorable loser and Turtle... well, he's just Turtle. And what about Ari? Oh, man, his charm is summed up in one sentence: Let's hug it out!
