‘Entourage’: Down for the count
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As Vince told a glum and unemployed Drama during this half-hour, the nature of this business called show is a lot of up and down, up and down. One day you’re on top of the world, and then next you’re passed out naked on the side of the pool. And this episode, titled “Hair,” saw most of the “Entourage” boys dwelling in their valleys.
Remember just a few episodes back, when Ari was the king of the world and practically did the “Titanic” pose at the bow of the Miller Gold Agency? Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Big name players Jerry Jones, Jeff Katzenberg and Mike Meldman — all of whom got the boldface treatment when they last were mentioned on the show — were placed on hold and given a backseat to a threat of a lawsuit from ousted agent Lizzie Grant and the vindictive (and loving it) Amanda Daniels. And while Ari at first dismissed the threat as a my-word-against-yours battle, Daniels revealed that she had recorded Ari at his verbal worst to prove it. (Incidentally, how great did Carla Gugino look upon entering those cold TMA halls? With that killer red coat and that tight dress, it was as if Daniels was a black widow personified.) “This is like arms control,” asserted Daniels. “You’re like Iran, and I need to take away your weapons because you’re reckless.”
But with the NFL deal now a little bit more tenuously on the line, Ari can’t afford to court controversy. So this pesky threat to his good name sent the agent into a tizzy.
“I don’t care if Justin Bieber calls and he wants me to negotiate the rights to his virginity, I don’t want to talk to him!” he raged. And while I loved how Lizzie shrewdly made Ari squirm by sending the tapes over to Deadline Hollywood, I wish they hadn’t made this whole thing into a gender issue. Lizzie said she wanted “the women of the world to know” how Ari treated them. Only, for all the copious amounts of abuse that Ari has doled out through the years, I never considered him sexist. In fact, part of Ari’s appeal was that he was an equal-opportunity offender, no? Of all the guys on the show whom you can poke a gender inequality stick at, family man Ari, with the stable marriage and the wife he adored, was one whom I thought posed the least affront to women.
As for Vince — well, on the up side, he received a pretty sweet offer for Air-Walker: $12 million plus back end. Only he’d been drinking for some 16-plus hours straight and mixing some pain meds now and again into the sauce for good measure, so he was bound to come crashing down sooner or later. And it happened to be face down on his pool deck. Naked. And his tequila- and sex-fueled bender was not without its consequences. His loopy meeting with Randall Wallace and Stan Lee caused the studio higher-ups to question the actor’s stability. And the guerrilla marketing video that Turtle uploaded, with Vince with Sasha drunkenly extolling the sexual perks of drinking Avion tequila, was blasted on his Twitter feed, and the news that superhero-to-be Vinnie was dating a porn star had spread faster than the clap at a brothel.
The technically challenged Turtle couldn’t get the right video uploaded properly on Vince’s Twitter feed. Nor could he get his finishing skills uploaded properly on Alex. In what continues to be the most awkward courtship on television, Turtle continued having problems, erm, south of the border with his newest love interest, and he nearly didn’t make his arrival altogether when, to his dismay, he found the landing strip he was trying to touch down upon had been, um, cleared of all of its debris. He said it threw him off his game. A revealing discussion about “manscaping” with the guys led to a painfully awkward lunch between Alex and Turtle, where an inanimate sandwich, fries and iced tea all but stole the scene from the two parties involved.
Amanda Daniels wasn’t the only blast from the “Entourage” past this half-hour: We were also treated to a return of notoriously addled director Billy Walsh (Rhys Coiro). “You’re back and apparently working at the Gap,” appraised Ari on Walsh’s freshly pressed khaki outfit. The mercurial Walsh had foregone the prescription meds, but he did need a quick fix. His drug of choice: E. Turned out the auteur formerly known as “Wally Balls” had gone straight, given up the porn and now has a growing family to feed (“I thought we could live on love, but tiny kids can’t eat love,” the director said soberly). So he’s serious about making a Hollywood comeback. Despite his and E’s rocky history, he was convinced that Eric would be the one who could achieve it. “I’ve got a lot of ideas,” he declared. And his first, about putting Drama in a cartoon, “like ‘The Simpsons,’ only angrier,” is not a bad one at all. Particularly because it spouted from my favorite exchange of the night. “You seem angry, Drama,” observed Walsh. “I’ve always been,” replied Drama. “But now I’m drunk too.”
What do you think? Think E should bury all that bad blood and re-up with Walsh? Does Drama have a face better suited for … cartoons? Would you classify Ari as sexist, or merely an all-around boor? How badly do you want to hear Ari’s rants? Think E and Scotty will make a run for Murray Berenson’s business? Will Vince sober up long enough to hold on to that “Air-Walker” deal? Did the landing strip go out in the mid-’90s?
— Allyssa Lee
Related:
‘Entourage’: No bro left behind
Complete ‘Entourage’ coverage on Show Tracker
Photo credit: Claudette Barius / HBO (2)
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