I'm on a mini-vacation to meet my new nephew, but if I have the time over the next few days, I'm going to punch out short reviews of shows I had watched in advance (plus "Sopranos," which I'm putting the trip on hold to watch for the sake of the weekly Rewind column). So that means no to "Amazing Race" or "Heroes" or "Idol" or "Gilmore Girls," but hopefully yes to reviewing "HIMYM" and "Veronica Mars," "The Shield" and, right now, "Entourage." Spoilers ho...Of the five episodes HBO sent out for review, this was by far the highlight, because it does what "Entourage" does best: put Ari in a situation where he has to make a deal under impossible circumstances. Usually, those circumstances involve Vince being a flake, but the twist here of forcing him to operate on the holiest of high holy days without his car, his phones or any food in his belly -- and with Adam Goldberg, possibly the only age-equivalent actor in Hollywood as capable of explosive, neurotic rage, riding shotgun -- made this one of my favorite of this type of "Entourage" episodes ever. (Best line: Goldberg's, "Hey, my life is falling apart! I haven't eaten in 10 hours!" -- which of course means he was eating somewhere in the middle of the 24 hour-plus fast.)
That said, I'm assuming Amanda's gone now, and if so, the whole storyline feels like a waste of Carla Gugino. I'm glad Amanda got to leave with her dignity and a bit of the moral high ground by showing just how full of crap Vince was at the end, but I'm sure next week history will be rewritten to make all of this her fault, just like Vince's career troubles in the first half of this season was blamed on Ari, when Vince was 90% responsible. This show goes out of its way to never make Vince look bad for very long, and I imagine that'll happen here, too.
Still, Ari's back in the picture and going nuts, and that's always fun. What did everybody else think?
Did anybody notice that they used some people who have shown up on 'Curb your enthusiasm'? There was Goldberg's mom who appeared as a grieving widow in CYE, and Mrs. Ari's uncle plays Larry's dad in CYE. Larry David has also appeared on the show so I'm thinking there's a definite connection (apart from both shows being on HBO). The real-life agent Ari is based on (Ari Emanuel) is Larry David's agent I think.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line (from Drama, who else): "She'd go to the Gaza Strip in a yarmulke for Vince."
I hope Carla Gugino stays on for a little while longer...it is kind of a lame way to write her character off.
Finally an episode where first where the plot actually advanced. All of the past episodes have seemed like they were just spinning their wheels until Ari and Vince reunited.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I really enjoyed last week's episode too, but it was more character driven than plot driven.
Oh, and I hope that Amanda was truly a stop-gap character, kinda like Dom, Saigon, or Billy Walsh. In other words a character that is critical for a few episodes but isn't important enough to become a mainstay.
And speaking of mainstays, where the heck is Shauna?
This reminds me yet again why I f--king love the show. Best line (once again by Drama, who is quickly turning into the most quotable guy on television)...
ReplyDelete"She'd go to the Gaza Strip in a yamaka for Vince."
Yeah, I've been meaning to ask this since last summer but I forget it every single time. What's the point in signing Debi Mazar as a regular? IIRC she's been in only one season 3 episode, which less than pretty much every guest star of the show. It's less than James Cameron's episodes! Hey, let's put him on the regulars, too! (LOL)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, great episode. Finally!
Seriously, that was a good episode only because it came after last week's episode, which I thought was about the low point of the series. Like, why did they even bother recapping it at the beginning of this episode? Nothing happened. I could not care less about Ari's friend from college and his hot wife.
ReplyDeleteI was happy to see a little bit of plot advancement, but it only came because we lost Amanda the agent. We weren't even given a real Ari/Vince reunion. Clearly that's what they'll spend the next episode doing!
And still Vince is spending money and not working. I enjoy this fantasy show in general, but I reached my limit with the overwhelming lack of plot about five episodes back.
It did have Adam Goldberg though. That does count for a lot in my book. I love Adam Goldberg, especially when he's ragey, whiny, and neurotic.
I really enjoyed this episode. The only thing that bothered me is that the boys were at the Del Mar Racetrack on Yom Kippur, which is impossible. The races are over for the year around Labor Day...Yom Kippur is late Sept/early October. I know that's quite a nitpick, but it did distract me for a while.
ReplyDeleteThe "I haven't eaten in 10 hours" line slayed me, but left my gentile co-viewer in the dark.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think, bacon and eggs for breakfast?
I'm guessing the writers got sick of hearing people say that they like the Turtle/Drama storylines better than the Vince/E storylines, so they reacted by giving Drama the dullest, most implausible storyline ever.
ReplyDeleteJeremy Piven just carries this show. He's fantastic yet again.
Shauna: Well, she was pregnant (in real life as well) so that took her out of the show a bit, but my girlfriend was watching Ugly Betty recently, and when walking past I think I saw her doing something on there. So it's not that she's somehow incapacitated and unable to work.
ReplyDeleteMy guess: Debi Mazer gets taken off the opening credits next season, with Lloyd getting put in the limelight instead. Then again, they could do a two-for-one billboard and have Ari's wife there as well.
But yeah, good riddance. She was too cliche for my liking (I know it's weird to say that, as the whole show is built on cliches, but being that she was also well known before Entourage, it made it feel all that more not true to life (like Private Practice)).
As a big fan of the late Bruno Kirby, it was a little sad for me to watch this episode, as the character of Nick Rubinstein is the son of Bruno's character (who had the Shrek doll stolen by Dom).
ReplyDeleteSending Phil off to the jungles of Colombia made me wonder if they're going to kill off his character down there to explain why we don't see him again on the show.....