‘Entourage’ recap: We are the women who love Vincent Chase

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As HBO’s ‘Entourage’ heads into its final episode, the show’s producers seem to be doing their best to throw as many loose threads out there as possible that will need to be tied up next Sunday.

There’s Vince getting all of his old conquests to testify to his sweetness on a video in the hopes of wooing the Vanity Fair writer who thinks he is a shallow womanizer. Turtle is scrambling to find money to open a Don Peppe’s restaurant in Los Angeles. Drama is trying to salvage his movie of the week about trapped miners. Eric is pining for his ex-girlfriend Sloan while sleeping with her stepmother and Ari has a perfectly good second wife in the wings in Dana Gordon, but he wants the first Mrs. Ari back.

For Vince, who’s not used to having women say no to him, wooing Sophia has turned into a full-time job and he’s recruited his posse to help him with his mission. It’s not exactly clear why he is so smitten with her unless it’s just her British accent that has his heart racing. Not only do they help him with his video project, Turtle and Drama sing Vince’s praises to the skeptical Sophia and she finally surrenders and agrees to meet him for drinks.

Since this is ‘Entourage’ and not some serious show, I’m not going to get caught up in the whole ‘but didn’t she just do a piece on Vince and his post-rehab life and now she’s having drinks with a substance abuser’ contradiction because frankly I never bought Vince as an addict or an alcoholic. He’s not tortured or self-loathing enough for that.

When they’re not helping Vince, they’re accepting his help. Because of Drama’s decision to join Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay and walk off the set of the animated show ‘Johnny’s Bananas,’ his movie about miners is in limbo. Ari and Vince make it their mission to get the movie made. Everyone loves the script. The problem is no one loves Drama in it. A donation by Vince of $100,000 to the favorite charity of a resistant producer is all it takes to lock Drama into the part.

Turtle, who’s been resisting Vince’s offer to help his efforts to bring the Queens restaurant Don Peppe’s to Hollywood, is also up against a wall. The DeLucas, owners of the original Don Peppe’s, have their hearts set on a location that is a little bit out of Turtle’s budget. He goes back to all his athlete pals -- obligatory cameos from Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Amare Stoudemire and Michael Strahan -- with no luck. He becomes even more despondent when he learns that Avion Tequila has gone public and he missed a golden opportunity by pulling his and Vince’s shares out of the company.

But not only is Vince a whiz with the ladies, he’s a smart investor too. Turns out he never sold his shares and in fact bought Turtle’s too. Now Turtle has $4 million to open his own restaurant. Watching this, I couldn’t help but think of the Wizard of Oz with Vince handing out a TV movie gig to Drama and a new career to Turtle just like the man behind the curtain.

Alas, one thing Vince can’t do is make the women Ari and Eric want back want them. Ari is still bedding down with Dana Gordon but finally tells her that while he loves her, he loves his wife more.

Eric is also sleeping with one woman while chasing another. In his case it’s complicated because the woman he’s sleeping with, actress Melinda Clarke, is his ex-fiancée Sloan’s former stepmother. Sloan meanwhile is being seen around town with Johnny Galecki. When Eric gets a call from Turtle that Sloan and Galecki are at the Farmers Market, he races there with Melinda to confront them.

There were many absurd things about this scene, not the least of which was Eric bringing Melinda with him to confront Sloan. But as over-the-top as that was, more outrageous were the old lady jokes thrown at Melinda. In reality, she is five years older than Eric and eight years older than Sloan and as she’s playing herself, there is no reason for Sloan to act like she’s 60 when she is in her early 40s.

Eric’s Farmers Market attack blows up in his face, so he confronts Sloan at her house. There she lets him know that even if she wanted him back, her family hates him and that’s more important to her. She then drops a bomb on Eric that would seem to potentially make him a member of the family.

Tune into next week’s finale and watch Vince wave his magic wand and give Eric a brain and Ari a heart.

-- Joe Flint