Still struggling to cope with the loss of The Sopranos till next year? Well fuhgettaboutit! The benevolent folks at HBO know all too well the dangers of depression caused by Rapid Onset Sopranos Hiatus (ROSH) and mercifully brought us Season Three of Entourage as our week-after pill. And after almost three full months spent in Joysey, where–on The Sopranos–the sky would only light up when there was gunfire, we welcome the retreat to hang out with the boys in sunny California… Oh, and Ari (Jeremy Piven), too.
As last season came to a close, there was a storm rolling in as Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) threatened to sabotage his entire, well, entourage over a girl–albeit Mandy Moore. He was set to bolt from James Cameron’s Aquaman after experiencing rejection from the opposite sex for purportedly the first time. The domino effect was just a matter of time: Eric (Kevin Connolly) almost had to get a real agent job; Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) almost had to resort to managing emerging rapper Saigon full time; Johnny ‘Drama’ (Kevin Dillon) almost had to stop freeloading off his younger bro; and Ari almost lost his golden-paycheck client. But, at last, nobody walks off a Cameron flick, and Vince wound up finishing what he started.
Which brings us to Season Three. Aquaman has since wrapped and the entire episode centers on the film’s glitzy premiere. With Mandy Moore out of the picture, Vince and his handlers can’t think of arm candy tasty enough to stroll the red carpet with the star, so he picks his mother (veteran actress Mercedes Ruehl), previously estranged from viewers, as his date, a move met with approval by Vince’s publicist, Shauna (Debi Mazar). But there’s a hitch: she doesn’t do traveling. Ari’s also going through his own hitch–since he started his own fledgling company, he and ‘Mrs. Ari’ (Perrey Reeves) have been forced to curb their spending to merely a Hollywood-upper-middle class level, as opposed to the extravagances afforded to, and by, his A-list client roster. And his new office in West Hollywood–well, let’s just say the elevator doesn’t even work… Not good!
This most enjoyable season opener exposes the sheer beauty, truth and genius behind Entourage, a fictional account of Hollywood that is still more accurate than the tabloids: only in sunny Utopia, California, can these minor “hitches” comprise a near crisis. The show’s superb writers gladly acknowledge that this irony is not real life yet real people living it, and they kindly share their insider laughs with us.
But aside from the voyeuristic glimpse of Tinseltown, there’s an actual story about a movie star that’s still to unfold in this 20-episode third season–along with roughly a cameo per week. This week’s cameo, involving a motor-mouthed James Woods trying to snatch premiere tickets from Drama, was the show’s best since Bob Saget graced the screen last season with a prostitute on each arm and a bong placed up to his lips. With so many disparate elements adding to the appeal, it’s no wonder that the “male’s Sex and the City” stigma is disintegrating. Because it might just be that this is the first bi-gender show, one that doesn’t involve any concessions between spouses or couples. In fact, rumors are swirling that even the manliest of men watch Entourage not as their “guilty pleasure,” but rather as an excuse to “hug it out” post-show.
BOTTOM LINE: The perfect table setter. Entourage’s real-world ascent has always mimicked the rise of Vincent Chase’s star. We’ll have to see just how well Aquaman is received, but if the season premiere is any indication, it looks like Vince is poised to explode any episode now.
