September 15, 2008

Entourage: It's Time To Sink Vincent Chase To The Bottom Of Whoops Ocean

Last night's episode of Entourage was full of cameos. Tony Bennett! Mark Wahlberg! Leighton Meester! But none of that was important. Mark Wahlberg was phoning it in and his scene barely even made sense! Tony Bennett's delivery is stiffer than Sammy Davis Jr.! Leighton Meester? What was important was a scene near the end in which Vinny Chase goes to Ari's office and decides that he's ready to let down his aloof guard, his nonchalance nonpareil. What was important was that this moment in which Vinny Chase's character has a dramatic reversal, and in which the plot arc of the rest of the season is carefully laid out as Vinny Chase's "comeback" story, was actually just the final nail in the coffin of proof that we need to sink Vincent Chase to the bottom of Whoops Ocean and call it a day.

It really begins with the line "To be honest, Ari, not great. I haven't said that very many times in my life." Ugh. TAKE IT EASY, HOLLYWOOD WRITERS. We already know that Vinny is an easy-going bro who's got all the luck in the world, but everybody hurts, you guys. Admittedly, it's a benignly ridiculous line in a show built on aggressively ridiculous dialogue, but NO.

The rest of the scene is equally damning. We have already seen this seasonal plotline. Vinny almost breaks up the Entourage! Vinny keeps the Entourage together! Vinny almost loses Aquaman! Vinny gets Aquaman back! And while I'm certainly not the first person to point out that Entourage is treading lukewarm water, I feel that the blogerati have been quiet in calling for regime change. We can all agree that this show is pleasant to watch. It's the definition of eye candy. If you look up "eye candy" in the dictionary it's a picture of Ari Gold pacing in his office, shouting obscenities into his speakerphone while through the window you can just see Turtle trying to get laid in the back of a Hummer parked outside of a Maserati dealership. But maybe it's time for new leadership. If a show is more dependent on throwing Colin Farrell and Brittney Spears under the bus for entertainment than exploring the increasingly dull lives of its characters, it is time to start writing some Sea-Doo accidents into the script.

Posted by Gabe at 11:30 AM in Soap Operas
Tags: Adrian Grenier | Entourage | Jeremy Piven | Whoops Ocean