ENTOURAGE
Season 5 Episode 2
“Unlike A Virgin”
Written by Doug Ellin
Directed by Mark Mylod


Now this is more like it.
After a passable opener, we get an episode that establishes this season’s narrative thrust: Vince’s comeback.
There’s a great scene in here towards the half-hour’s end, where Vince visits Ari’s office, and realizes that even Ari doesn’t think he’s a good actor (yet), but acknowledges that he can be a big movie star, if he only plays the Hollywood game.
And Vince is ready to play, if only to get another chance to rise above the Medellin fiasco.
And this sudden flip in his mindset puts his decision to so publicly leave a paparazzi-laden event with Justine Chapin on his arm in a very interesting light.


Yes, Leighton Meester—having been saddled with the suffix “of Gossip Girl fame” in the time since she was last on Entourage—is back, in an episode filled to the brim with guest shots, so much so that Meester and legend Tony Bennett actually get lost in the mix.
The other names that make this installment a solid winner include Mark Wahlberg (been awhile since the Pilot), who plays a cool scene on the golf course with Ari, the always sizzling Carla Gugino, and Lukas Haas and Giovanni Ribisi as screenwriter brothers L.B. and Nick, who E is thinking of representing, after having read their script, Nine Brave Souls.


While the rekindled fire under Vinnie’s a$$ is fantastic (he’s actually reading scripts now!), Drama continues to grate, his subplots always resorting to the overplayed “Drama sabotages himself” riff.
Now, his laptop relationship with Jacqueline (cute in the season opener) implodes after he lies to her about his whereabouts, then goes off the deep end when he imagines all sorts of scenarios when she doesn’t answer her phone.
I’m really hoping the show finds something more fresh to do with Drama, because I’d much rather see him just hanging about (as Turtle seems to be doing lately), than running through variations of the same subplot over and over again…
Oh, and where is Mrs. Ari?


(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 5 Episode 1
“Fantasy Island”
Written by Doug Ellin
Directed by Mark Mylod
(WARNING: SPOILERS)


Well, that was okay. Not particularly the opening bang I was hoping for, but not terrible either.
I suppose what annoyed the frak out of me was the apparent irresponsibility of Vince, and in particular, Turtle, as they whiled away their time in Mexico, as Vince licked his wounds from the Medellin disaster, its Cannes screening likened to the Hindenberg by episode guests Roeper and Phillips, even as E and Ari busted their a$$es back in L.A.
Though I guess I should give our boy some slack, given the bomb his vanity project turned out to be…
And though it was nice to see Drama continuing his Jacqueline thing over the laptop, his whole “my right side is my bad side” thing grated.


Meanwhile, yay, Rex Lee is in the main opening credits now! Of course, the same thing happened to Debi Mazar and she subsequently seemed to just fall off the show that season.
Let’s hope Lloyd’s fate is a whole lot sunnier!


Not much else seemed to go on in this one: some sly Hollywood tactics involving a genre project called Danger Beach (“It’s a working title!”) which gets Vince back to L.A. under false pretenses; a slight awkwardness to Vince and E’s friendship in the wake of Medellin.
Far more interesting is the portrait of Vince as La-La Land pariah, untouchable following his fall from grace.
Where to from here, boys?


(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 4 Episode 12
“The Cannes Kids”
Written by Doug Ellin
Directed by Mark Mylod

Whereas Season 2 brought the boys to Sundance, this season’s finale sees them in the heady celluloid market place that is Cannes.
Everyone (particularly E) is staying positive about selling Medellin for some big bucks, while the person most anxious about getting a deal, “sober for one year now despite having all these topless enablers around me” Nicky Rubenstein, is stuck back in the States under house arrest.
When they get to the hotel though, who do they see but Prince Yair, who came this close to producing Medellin back in Season 3’s “The Prince’s Bride.” Yair is no longer married, and wants to get into the film releasing business big time, and he’s willing to make a deal for Medellin, sight-unseen.
Ari doesn’t really like the idea, as this’ll be Yair’s first crack at distributing a film, but Nicky calls Ari and tells him to take the meeting.

At Yair’s yacht, Johnny does the Macarena, and Yair lays out the deal. $35 million, before anyone else sees a single frame of film. $35 million, is of course, the total budget of Medellin, and that would recoup everyone’s money.
E is willing to entertain the notion of taking the deal, but everyone else is leery of Yair, so Ari (aka “Master of the Universe”) stirs up a little wheel-and-deal action.
He drops a word or two in Dana Gordon’s lap. Then, who do the boys run into but Harvey Weingard, who got screwed by them a second time, over Medellin, in this season’s “Malibooty/Sorry, Harvey.”
Harvey’s still pissed off, but when Ari sees Dana watching from a distance, he throws his arms around Harvey, making Dana think Harvey’s the power player angling for Medellin. So Dana bites and sets up a morning meeting, hours before the Medellin premiere.


At the meeting, Dana plunks down $15 million, but that’s way below what Ari’s aiming for. He says $50 million, Dana balks in very colourful language, and is walking away from the table when Vince says, “The offer’s $35 million.” Dana says she isn’t authorized to make that big an offer.
Some wrangling takes place, and Turtle gets a call from Johnny. When Johnny asks how things are going, Turtle says, “Great. It looks like they’re gonna get $50 mil for Medellin.”
As it turns out, Johnny’s back on Yair’s yacht (more on that later), and automatically passes this little nugget onto Yair.
Back at the meeting, Dana can go no higher than $28 mil, so Vince and E agree to put off getting their money back till the film makes a profit, and though Dana still has to make up some of the difference on her end, the deal is struck. As everyone is going off for a drink, Ari gets a call from Nicky. Yair just called him and Nicky sold Medellin for a whopping $75 million. (Nicky’s also about to fall off the wagon in a very big way.)
Now Ari just has to break the news to Dana…

This season winds down at the Medellin premiere, where the audience pretty much gives their thumbs down—and some boos—to the film (just as E feared they would). Dana thanks Ari for not having bought the film, Billy gets vocal, and Yair backs out of the deal, since no papers were signed.
Harvey sidles up to the boys, and agrees to buy the film, since he actually agrees with E that there’s something in Medellin.
Of course, he agrees to buy Medellin for $1. (As Ari points out after they take the deal, Harvey did wonders for Shakespeare In Love when he took his scissors to it…)


Meanwhile, it’s actually the episode’s Johnny Drama subplot that leads up to the episode’s final scene.
It turns out that Drama’s a big thing in France because of Viking Quest, and he meets Jacqueline (Julia Levy-Boeken) on Yair’s yacht. Jacqueline (along with the rest of her family) is a huge Viking Quest fan, and she’s so ready to get into bed with Drama.
When they get back to the hotel though, the room Drama’s given (after a mix up with his reservation) is far too small for his taste and doesn’t align with the ideal image in his head of his bedroom encounter with Jacqueline. So he goes off to complain, leaving her in the room to wait for his return.
And in true Johnny Drama fashion, gets kicked out of the hotel.
He subsequently tries to hook up with Jacqueline again, but can’t seem to find her. He eventually returns to Yair’s yacht, but she’s not there either. Drama ends up spending the night at the yacht, which is why he’s there when Turtle makes that ill-advised comment about Medellin’s going price.
It’s at the red carpet of the Medellin premiere that Jacqueline shouts at Drama from the crowd, and he takes her up in his arms and whisks her off to the beach. Drama misses the premiere, but ends up having long, hot sex with Jacqueline on the beach, which is where the paparazzi and passersby are rushing off when Vince and the boys exit the premiere with the $1 Medellin booty.
They flock to the beach as well, where they cheer Johnny on, and we close on another season of Entourage.

Parting shot: Season 5 is tentatively scheduled to air in mid-2008, provided the WGA strike ends soon. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 4 Episode 11
“No Cannes Do”
Written by Doug Ellin and Rob Weiss
Directed by Dan Attias

Vince and the boys are set to leave for the Medellin premiere at Cannes, when a red level terror alert delays their flight by three hours. With time to kill, Billy asks for a meeting with Anna, whom he wants in Silo. E reluctantly sets it up and the meet goes down.
At the meeting, Anna is clearly seeking help from E as to whether she should take the project, but E doesn’t give her any indication either way.
Meanwhile, LAX gets shut down completely and the boys have no way to get to Cannes. So Ari gets Lloyd to scramble, and they find that the last private flight getting out has been chartered by Sydney Pollack.
Ari gets in touch with Pollack (who turns out to have been Ari’s client once, before Pollack fired him) and manages to wrangle 5 seats to Cannes.

Following the meeting with Anna, Billy is now even more convinced he wants her in Silo, and is willing to re-write a part to fit her in. And because Billy wants her in, Vince wants her in too. But E doesn’t really believe in the script, so he’s caught in the middle: he’s supposed to convince one client to say “Yes” to a project he’s not 100% behind because his other client (and best friend) wants him to.
E then gets a call from Anna, and since they aren’t leaving for Cannes just yet, goes on over to see her.
After having read the script, Anna doesn’t get it, and wants E’s honest opinion as to whether she should do Silo or not. At first, E convinces her that she should do it. But during their toast to celebrate Anna’s new film project, honesty comes into play, and E admits to his crush on Anna, and Anna admits she thought he was cute too.
With all that honesty out there, E ‘fesses up and admits he doesn’t like Silo.
Cut away in what turns out to be a sadly truncated subplot. (E tells the boys later on that Anna fired him.)

Getting to the Van Nuys airport, it turns out that Ari miscounted the number of heads. It looks like Turtle is about to forego Cannes, when Vince says it’s everybody or nobody, and they’ll just have to find another way to get to Cannes.
Fortuitously, Kanye West shows up, and Turtle knows him. Seems Kanye is headed out on his own 727, and when Vince and the boys ask him if they can make a stop at Cannes, Kanye says “Yes.”


During all the “will they get to Cannes or won’t they” drama, Ari is caught between Mrs. Ari (who’s annoyed at Ari because he just can’t come out and say that he doesn’t really want her to come along on this boys’ field trip) and Lloyd (who’s annoyed at Ari because he promised that if Mrs. Ari wouldn’t go to Cannes, that he’d take Lloyd; when the Pollack head count goes into effect though, Lloyd is the first to get deep sixed).
So Mrs. Ari goes on some vendetta shopping and Lloyd takes Tom on a cruise, and both wife and assistant still love Ari before he wings his way off to Cannes.

So this one’s a great episode, despite having Anna Faris say “Bye-bye” in a very “blink of an eye” way. She was a lot of fun and I’m sort’a bummed to see her go after just 3 episodes. But hey, at least she was here.

(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)