October 27, 2008

Entourage Thinks You're An Idiot

As predicted a couple of weeks ago, we've finally gotten our #2 plotline (of the 4 possible Entourage plot structures). This is the narrative turn in which all of Vince's lazy anti-ambition finally pays off and the drama and tension of his possible slide into insignificance evaporates again. We've seen it countless times, and although this season we'd been set up to believe it was actually possible that Vince's career had ended, his career hasn't ended, and it looks like everything's going to keep chugging along, which will make the already green-lit season 6 a lot less interesting, because it will be more of the same, and none of the "Vince sells his remaining possessions, moves to Atlanta, and starts his own real estate company with the guy from Bel Biv DeVoe" stories that could have been.

Except that much like Vampire Bill Compton sleeping naked in a graveyard for no reason, this final extrication of Vince's celebrity from total ruin was completely unearned and half-assed.

As you may remember from last week, Ari was offered the role of studio head, which almost made Vince cry? We have no time to dwell again on how much that didn't make sense. But so this week it was unclear if Ari would take the job or not. And then it looked like he was going to. But he didn't. But he made it so that Dana Gordon got the job instead, and she promises to help Vince out forever and to put him in Smoke Jumpers and the end. Except how does that make any sense? First of all, Ari would never turn down the studio head job. It is the final achievement for the hyper ambition and self-serving maneuvering that he's been doing since the first episode. And if for some reason he did decide not to take the job, I'm sure he couldn't just convince Caleb Nichol to give it to Dana Gordon when they already had their own second-in-line for the job. I have not been to business school, but I know that Scrooge McDuck didn't get that giant swimming pool vault of gold coins by doing favors for the guy who was turning down his lucrative job offer. BUT ALL OF THAT IS NOT EVEN THE WORST PART. The sloppiness of this entire season's contrived insistence on posing false threats and even falser solutions to those threats is not as lame and insulting as this dull, condescending recap of just how two-dimensional and unchanging everyone on this show is:

Wait, which one's the movie star again? This show is like a high school term paper. Explain what you're going to say, say it, and then explain what you just said. I left Drama's last line in about getting a good tug just so that you could feel the full UGH of this episode/show.

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3 Comments

Why is Meadow Soprano giving handjobs to strangers on airplanes? This show is a genius.

Posted by: Scott

at 10/27/08 4:05 PM | Reply
Score = 0

i guess meadow needed the money? very bizarre

i also didn't get why E got in that other agent's face asking for a fight when he offered Vince a TV gig.. i guess getting offered TV roles is insulting and E must throw down.

Posted by: matt at 10/27/08 4:25 PM | Reply
Score = 0