By Buzz Byrne

Now that MEDELLIN is in at the Cannes Film Festival, things are heating up for Vince and Eric. While Eric is still worried about the next job — the next paying job — Vince exudes his usual confidence that something will come along. Drama is obsessed with obtaining a trucker hat so he will look young on the set of his TV show, and Ari is seizing on the buzz generated by the leaked trailer of MEDELLIN on YouTube. Three story lines; two that dovetail nicely, and one, Drama’s, that delivers an actual belly laugh. This was a very good episode.
 
The trucker hat can only be bought at a medical marijuana center; to enter the center, Drama needs a medical marijuana card. He somehow winds up in the offices of a hippie doctor who is practically giving the cards away. The doctor is played by the brilliant and underappreciated Bob Balaban. When Turtle suggests he fake nerve damage for the doc, Drama dismisses it with, “I’m too physically fit to have nerve damage. Look at these pipes!” When Turtle asks, “What are you gonna do?” Drama says, “Rely on my improv skills.” It is the perfect setup, and the punch line is up to the task.
 
MEDELLIN director Billy Walsh is convinced Eric is the one who leaked the trailer, and the two finally come to blows. I’ve been dying for Billy to get his lights put out in one manner or another for some time. He is grating, he is insulting and his character is built on the worst stereotype of his generation: all stylistic bombast with zero substance. But, he might be growing me … finally.
 
Ari has arranged a big interview with iconic film critic Elvis Mitchell. Vince, Eric and Billy have to be there. Billy and Eric barely hold it together as Elvis eats it up. The thing that holds Eric at bay is the fact that once MEDELLIN is done with and opened and closed, he’ll never have to deal with Billy again.
 
Meanwhile, Ari is lining up Vince for his next dream project, LOST IN THE CLOUDS, a true-life story Eric brought to Ari’s attention a couple years back. Curtis Hanson is on board to direct, but unfortunately, Heath Ledger is being offered the starring role. Lloyd and Ari sabotage away and before you can say, “I can’t quit you,” Heath is on to another project. Unfortunately, so is Curtis Hanson. What to do with a movie Vince wants but has no director? Welcome back, Billy. Where you been?
 
I like Billy when he’s nuts — not when he just calls Eric “Suit.” Billy isn’t a beatnik or a hippie, so the counterculture nonsense is about as genuine as Drama’s trucker hat. I hope they let him go off the deep end, especially when it gets revealed — and this is just my hypothesis — that Vince was the one who leaked the trailer. And, I hope they let Eric take a decent poke or two at him. He’s been asking for it for awhile now.