Entourage Season Six Finale...Actually Not So Bad

I mean this in the least offensive and most complimentary way possible. The Entourage season six finale was just gay enough to be perfect. I've long ago dismissed this show as one of the worst ever, so I do not hold it to normal standards.

Last season was one of the worst I've ever watched of any show. Let's be real here. Even with an improved season six, the show settled into a format of seven or eight spec script standalone episodes (the shroom trip at Joshua Tree episode that all you fucking miscreants loved, I hate you), a prem and finale, then one or two actual long term plot oriented episodes (probably written by Weiss and/or Ellin themselves) sprinkled in here and there when Plepler had boxing to draw attention to.



(See the original poster, and then the New York city subway version of it)

I was editing a documentary with Jack Bryan and I remember every Sunday we took a little guilty pleasure break for an hour where we'd watch the show, pause and rewind the bad parts and just tear it apart, laughing hysterically. This season was more uneven, in a good way I mean. There were of course the horrendous episodes (i.e. the entire plot line of the break-in, Drama kissing actresses, Turtle sucking up to Tom Brady). However, there was also the one twenty some odd minutes of television that ranked in the as-good-as-it-gets pantheon, the one with Aaron Sorkin.

This season by no means brought the show back to the A+ in excitement and just good enough characters and plot of season two. It's nowhere near the event of the week that it used to be, when I remember going to viewing parties and just talking about it all the time. I felt really, really, really, really... cool a few years ago when I went out with one of Vince's girls from the show. Now, I'd feel ashamed of the same thing. Well, she was actually a nightmare, I should've known then that the show was doomed. So no, it's not back to the plateau it once reached when James Cameron was first instilling the formula that would become so familiar. But it's definitely back to mediocrity. I mean that in a very complimentary way. That's all we look for in television really. The show was always fun and exciting to the idiot viewer and the drunk intelligent viewer alike. All we ask with the plot holes and the convenient coincidences is that they treat us with some respect, or at least couple them with clever bits (Ari coming into the TMA offices with the paintball gun).

This episode is one of the first ever to not fit into the College Humor spoof archetype. Even with its extended running time, there weren't really any plotlines introduced out of nowhere just to be resolved somewhere between three and 21 minutes later. It was the first finale in the show's history to not just be a wrap-up of the conflicts of the season, and actually be about moving the characters and story somewhere new (and I don't just mean to another movie--Scorsese--or E getting a new job--remember the finale that had him quit and come back within five minutes of the episode).

This episode was all about the gayness that is Entourage. It was the most sentimental I've seen the show in a long time, and this is a show that loves its sentimentality (remember the abortion/episode where Ari almost left the agency and Vince for the studio job?). This time the sentimentality really worked for me though, especially when they played Phoenix's "Lisztomania" at the end when E and Sloane show up to see Drama and Vince off at the airport.

The difference between this sentimentality and previous sentimentality on the show? Two things.

 

First, I think this is what the characters would do.

Vince does nothing. Adrian Grenier has been outed as a trisomy-21 candidate and thus relegated to solely a device character, with no real plotlines of his own in a few years. They know he sucks, so they no longer give him a way to embarrass them. For proof, rewatch the scenes with Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. Adrian Grenier is supposed to be as big of a movie star as those guys??? HA!

Turtle's character arc is his growing up finally. It's been pounded into our skulls for a few years now, and after the failed experiment, in real life, narrative and in the diegetic show, of him managing Saigon, they're starting to flesh it out with the Jamie Lynn-Sigler arc.

True, she referred tonight to how hard he's worked to pull his life together, as they often do, however, that has only been represented by him having a steady girlfriend and dressing differently. Hey, it's on average a 22 minute show I think, so there isn't time for them to actually show him getting his life together, let's not put too much pressure on them. We'll just take that as given and move forward. So yes, despite this being the cliché, it's the way to go with his character. Send him to New Zealand and leave it open-ended. He made the move emotionally and took the step physically. This leaves them with many options come next season. I didn't get why the flight attendants were so hot though, I kept waiting for something to happen there.

Drama is finally taking a stand. He's been the cult favorite character for a while. There are two reasons for that. One, it's a clever one dimensional character that we know is out there (literally Kevin Dillon) but haven't really seen dramatized (ha. ha.) before. Two, he gives a performance that, albeit one note, you can never get tired of we can watch for at least two and a half seasons before getting bored with. Finally, he's growing up too though. Yes, it's contrived as hell. But it's been a long time coming and it's what he would be doing in real life. He's a little interesting again. He's not just getting gigs because of Vince, which was funny for a year or two. It would have been more interesting had he actually retired, but this show is about excitement, not truth. He's standing up for himself in mature ways now at least.

Ari was a set piece this year, as he has been for a while. He's unrelated to the show, has no character arc anymore, and is only on there now because people like Jeremy Piven cursing, and maybe to keep experimenting with that wig. He seems to be one of the worst actual people who happen to act out there (the whole "Speed the Plow" incident), and the one time I hung out with him, it was pretty similar to what this story relates.

There was that great moment in this episode though that was actually about character and not plot. Buying the agency is not going to change anything plot wise, it was just an exorcism of demons for Ari. And he did what we knew he'd do, what he always does...at first. Walked out on Terence when he tried to get Ari to work under the old name. But then the sentimentality/gayness kicked in. And like I said before, I loved it (yes, I loved the gayness, that's what I said). Mal came back and apologized to Ari. Manned up and shared with his former friend and protégé. It was a Fatherly moment, and again, albeit incredibly contrived, was as good as you get on television that isn't on FX, HBO pre-Sopranos ending, David Lynch related, etc. Even though after that we all knew the Lloyd moment was coming, I loved that gayness too. I cried a little. No joke. It was a smiling cry though. Real cute. This was all actually something that pays off watching the show for six miserable-cut-your-inner-thigh-on-bathroom-breaks-during-gym-class-tempt-fate-by-going-to-bad-neighborhoods-and-saying-racist-stuff-press-real-hard-on-your-eyeballs seasons of purgatory. This moment does not really work if you don't know the show.

I can really say that it's one of the first times where you need to know the show to feel the pathos of his moment. Please don't misunderstand my usage of the word pathos as making this into anything it's not. No. It's still fucking Entourage. This moment was about characters changing. Terence lifted a weight from Ari. They even did the due diligence of setting it up further with the therapy scene, in case we didn't remember the feelings Ari has. His turning the other cheek on Lloyd was not just a season arc ending moment, but it was an entire show arc ending moment for Ari. This was Ari's become a man moment. I don't know what else there is to do with Ari at this point, for they even made a literal Napoleon reference in this episode, so now that he's gotten over the Napoleon complex, I think he moves to Adrian Grenier supporting mode as well. I hope so.

Before I touch on E, let's backtrack. They said in all the press stuff that this season was about change. It was about the guys on their own. I take this now to mean that they wanted to provide an excuse to make the show about everyone but Vince, since he sucks. However, they made good on it in this last episode.

The second thing that makes the sentimentality of this finale better than that of the rest of the show is that it was actually about change. This should have happened in season three, or latest four. Everyone (except Vince, unless you count being less important as major change) is actually doing something new. Their characters are progressing along a through-line that moves for the first time in the show's history really. This show has been so scared of change because its such a popcorn show. When you have a show that's all about being fun and exciting without making anyone think, the LAST thing you want to do is change ANYTHING. They have to now or else the show will just fizzle with even the die hard fans (Joey Porsche).

E has been the main character since the beginning, but with Vince getting less playing time than Joba will in the playoffs, he's really been the show's focus for the last few years. He's the only one who consistently changes. It sucks that Kevin Connolly is so, so, so, so, so bad, because this could be a classic role otherwise.

I'll be honest. I did not see this proposal thing coming somehow. The entire season did lead up to it. It did it subtly in ways that weren't skillful or artistic in their nuance, but just subtle out of being thin since they had to drag it out until the finale. Even so, looking back, it's all there. I really like this. I like that it pays off Emanuelle Chriqui giving one of the better perfs on the show. I do not like the complete lack of chemistry between she and Connolly, but I put those qualms to rest years ago.

More than any of the other characters' plotlines, this actually presents a major change to the group dynamic. Turtle is probably going to be single, since they obviously couldn't have locked down Jamie Lynn for yet another year, but he'll still pine for her. No matter what, he's going to be more mature and INDEPENDENT, because that's our payoff. Drama is still going to be loyal to baby bro, but he's going to have his own show and by the time Vince returns from Italy, Drama will be the man about town more than ever before...more INDEPENDENT. Sloane's not going to let E hang with them as much, and he probably won't even want to. E is the most INDEPENDENT of anyone in the ENTOURAGE. This, more than anyone else, will leave Vince quite alone.

See where I'm going here. Better, see where I think they're going here. The Entourage is crumbling, and what are they to do. This is the new conflict, and the rubble that the next season will be built on. It should have happened years ago, but whatever. It's funny that nobody ever told them people who make this show that the most interesting thing you can do with a show called Entourage is BREAK UP THE MOTHERFUCKING ENTOURAGE!!!

There is the potential for some actual truth in narrative, drama and character here. This can get good if they have the balls to actually make the show a little less about the glitz and glamour and bro garbage and darker than it's been. They're where they should have been years ago, and that gap has cost them all credibility and any chance of going down as a great show. Still, there's potential to a return to form, and if this finale is any indication, I have high hopes and better yet expect it next season. For the first time in years, I'll be watching next season with actual interest, not just because of my obsessive completist nature when it comes to these things.