S8E2: Entourage is really doing whatever the hell it wants in these last few episodes. It’s even given up on giving context to its numerous name-drops and celeb cameos. The one thing it seems to be getting right on its way out is taking the focus away from Vince. He’s always been the glue of the group, but in a sticky, musty Elmer’s glue sort of way. You’re glad he’s there, but you don’t want to deal with him any more than you have to. Luckily, this episode we spent just a few minutes focusing on what a terrible writer Vince is (you spell “faithful” with “f-o-l” right?) but for the most part, we got to focus on just about everyone besides the star du jour.
“This shirt is mad hetero.” –Drama
The gang’s house burning down is clearly just an excuse for some cross-promotion with the classic Hollywood hotel, The Roosevelt, where the boys are now living in the interim. And we all “ooh” and “ahh” and book tickets to Los Angeles so we can live in such lavish digs for a few days too. After all, we can only live vicariously through this show for a few more episodes.
Anyway, Johnny’s finishing up recording with Andrew Dice Clay for their new animated series Johnny’s Bananas, a.k.a. Family Guy with apes, and as testing approaches Clay asks E to be his agent and can’t seem to stop hanging around with the Vincent Chase crew telling sob stories about his crappy apartment and smelly cat. E’s busy dealing with Sloane, so Scott takes over and gives Clay a deal without even thinking about it. Testing comes back and the show does really well and we finally get a reason for Clay hanging around like a social (episode, spotlight, television) leech this whole time: he wants to convince Drama to walk because the show isn’t paying them enough money. Can’t we just not blow up Drama’s spot for once? Nope, that’s not how this show works.
Granted, Drama does have Vince and Billy Walsh’s TV movie coming up, though Vince can’t spell, the script kind of “sucks” as Billy gently puts it (see: totally blows) and Billy’s talking about how he’s going to form the dog’s personality in the script. These are not good signs unless your goal is to be the WGN Sunday afternoon movie. Someone needs to stop these folks from telling Drama he could be up for two Emmys with these projects, or we might start thinking the characters on this show are delusional. (Too late.)
Turtle’s having issues with his girlfriend, the Avion girl. He can’t get ahold of her and being that he’s the new Turtle, he’s ready to dump her instead of waiting around for her to call. Okay, well, he waits a little. He’s still Turtle, after all.
“Fuck you.” –Sloane
E starts out the episode with that lovely message in a voicemail from Sloane, so he goes over to her house to get his stuff, assuming that’s what the voicemail is about. It turns out when he was yelling at her “full” answering machine during Vince’s party, he somehow, magically left a two-second “fuck you” message for Sloane. They clear this up and say they’re sorry by having sex, because that always fixes everything. Of course, because it always has to be difficult with these two, Sloane immediately leaves afterward, but later calls and says she’s sorry and that she’s moving to New York. And there’s the conflict we all knew had to happen. I know they have to drag out the Sloane and E thing since it’s the last season, but didn’t we just do this last season…and the season before that…and the season before that?
“He’s a redheaded fire crotch. He’s a mistake.” -Ari
Finally, Ari finds out his wife has been going to Flay’s — a restaurant she hates — and he knows it’s because of this mystery person she’s dating. At first, Ari thinks it’s a waiter, so he name drops every AMC show he can think of and makes sure Lloyd screws up the guy’s Mad Men audition. Only it turns out that Mrs. Ari isn’t dating the waiter, she’s dating Flay…Bobby Flay. This all fine and dandy, except it’s ridiculous and Bobby Flay is MARRIED to the blonde woman from Law and Order: SVU. I get that they play with reality because Vince isn’t actually a star and Ari isn’t actually an agent, but don’t you think they could have found someone who’s actually single to date Mrs. Ari? I guess Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes just isn’t as glamorous as the Boy Meets Grill guy. And with this the show just jumped out of the very, very wide plausibility net I’ve allowed it to exist in for so many years. There really is no ceiling on celebrity cameos and it’s pretty obnoxious, but then again it’s the boys’ last hurrah so we’ll just have to roll our eyes and take it.
What did you think of the Bobby Flay twist and Andrew Dice Clay hanging around the whole time? Is there such a thing as too many celebs on Entourage?
