HBO's Entourage

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I actually liked Ari's story best for the finale.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

It was no competition considering how horrible the other ones were.

 

[DACrowe]

I have to say that was a pretty weak finale, IMO. The first two episodes of Season 8 were strong, but then it quickly descended into a "will E and Sloan get back together or not?" yawn-fest, as this was the third time they've pulled this and we all knew the answer. Vince's whirlwind romance literally came out of left field in the last episode and the only business discussed all season were the B-stories starring Drama and Turtle....that should scare you.

The one storyline I found really intriguing all season (besides Drama's "strike" problems with Dyson) was Ari's crumbling marriage. They did a great job to show the falling into divorce and I really liked Ari with Dana. Turning them into a power couple could have been very interesting. I know we all wanted to see Ari get his family back because he honestly loved them, but Mrs. Ari's straw-breaking-back reason for leaving him (a publicity scandal that humiliated him broke on deadline.com) felt so contrived and really made her out to be the bad guy this season when their could have been a multitude of different reasons that she'd come out justified. Instead, it felt like she was putting Ari through hell for such a shallow reason that I didn't really want to see him win her back. And how did he do it? By giving up the career and empire he built?

Ari having an epiphany and choosing his (whole!) family over his career is one thing, but making it an expensive gesture to his uncompromising wife just felt....hallow. It only worked simply because Jeremy Piven is amazing in that role and sold it very well. That and the opera scene in the office was hilarious. The only really funny thing the whole finale.

....And did I mention Vince's out-of-left-field marriage to Alice Eve who was written to be a brilliant, career-oriented intellectual journalist? Ugh.

Thanks Entourage for five great seasons with 1-5. 6-8? Well they were at least entertaining, but that was a whimper of a finale.

 

[DACrowe]

The finale was pretty bad, but then again, that was expected. This show should have ended in season 5 with Vince's failing career and heading back to Queens. That was the natural conclusion. At the end of the day, this show is called ENTOURAGE. The show is ultimately about friendship and not Hollywood. The show ending with Vince having his friends by his side was the perfect way to go out. Seasons 6 thru 8 were a waste of our time.

As for the ratings bump that Doug Ellin brags about... that's because the show went into syndication and found a new audience. Look at Curb Your Enthusiasm. It also got a ratings bump after syndication. But the new viewership doesn't guarantee that they enjoyed the new seasons.

You see the show has always been about Hollywood to me. It is about a very cynical and superficial business that the show is a product of and it simultaneously gleefully satirizes and mocks. That's why it struck such a chord early on in the industry. Sure, it was about wish fullfillment for friends everywhere. But for all the bros who ate it up in the fraternity houses, it also was an industry darling because of its brilliant naval gazing. Hence all those Emmys and Golden Globes in its first four seasons.

The show was always too light to end with Vince and the boys back in Queens, burned by the system. I think Season 6-8 should have been about Vince's career coming back and him getting some kind of award recognition (a spoofing of the Oscar or--even better--the Golden Globe process would have been fun). Meanwhile Vince grows up from his kind of selfish obliviousness while the boys all kind of grow out of it.

They did have the boys grow out of all living on Vince's coattails....kind of. At least E did. But, it quit being about the movie industry and became about their women relationships. Instead of being a satire of the industry, it became another dramedy that happened to be set in Hollywood. Some of it was fine. The Vince does drugs in season 7 worked for me. Even Eric's (frustrating) chase of Sloan in season 6 worked well enough (though repeating it all over again in season 8 seems so pointless when they could have focused on developing the boys' relationships and maybe given Vince an actual movie to work on).

And as I said, the Ari subplot was both the best and worst part of the final season. It was great because of Piven and bad because of the writing. The show was meant to be about childhood male friends living out a fantasy in a dark, sarcastic and somewhat mean-spirited view of Hollywood. The show did lose track of that after season 5. On that, I agree.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Yeah, 6-8 were underwhelming. No wonder HBO stops most their shows after 4-5 seasons (Curb Your Enthusiasm is the one other rare example, which is the opposite of Entourage, which is still good.)

It's like after season 5, they were like, "Screw what made Entourage great. Let's just make up melodramtic plots"

And DACrowe, I completely agree about Ari. His wife was a b***h, and it felt like character derailment because she knew he was like that. Also, the scandal wasn't even mentioned this season. It all of a sudden became "I'm leaving you because you don't have time for me". But Piven made it work, and it felt heartfelt and sincere.

Vince getting married out of nowhere, while not really out of character (he's always been a bit impulsive), was underwhelming. I think it actually could have work well with more development (And if we saw the actual date).

E's been pissing me off all season with Sloan crap. They've been making a big deal about that for such a long time and it made E look like such a *****.

Drama's storyline was great, though sadly it was over before the finale. Turtle's was okay.

I honestly would've preferred Ari with Dana. They seemed to have a hell of a lot more chemistry than Ari and his wife.

With all of that said, I'd still watch the movie, sadly.

 

[The Riddler]

this show has been downhill the past 2 seasons.

glad it's over, before it got any worse.

nice ass on ari's wife though.

 

[Gto250]

Well, no surprises there, i had little hope for a huge finale, and as expected it didn't happen.

I saw the marriage thing coming from miles away, and it felt so out of place, since the blonde was supposed to be a girl with a brain...(well maybe she is after all, actor, big money, divorce settlement...)

At that point i didn't care anymore for the E/ Sloan plot, that hing got old a long time ago

Then poor Ari, went from best character to top 3 most annoying, too much melt down over that wife who really doesn't deserve it.
I had a little hope when i got with Dana; but obviously this had so great potential that the writers got scared it could make the show good again.

It's so sad, I've always assumed entourage was more targeted for a male audience, and still it was like watching the season finale of one tree hill or whatever teen girl drama show.

The after credits scene was

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

The after credits scene is supposedly a setup for an Entourage movie.

 

[TheAQU4M4N]

The after credits scene is supposedly a setup for an Entourage movie.

It was definitely a perfect setup for a possible movie.

 

[DACrowe]

If the movie stars Ari. The boys are off frolicking in Paris happily ever after.

I'll watch the movie just because I used to love Entourage. But that was a weak finale, in my opinion.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

The show was always too light to end with Vince and the boys back in Queens, burned by the system.

It made perfect sense to me. Vince has never been portrayed as a serious actor. He's very much a happy-go-lucky guy who enjoys the Hollywood lifestyle. To see him crash and burn, then get a reality check was the perfect way to end the series. When he gets that phone call from Martin Scorsese, that should have been his opportunity to get his life on the right track.

What made seasons 6 thru 8 so stupid was that it ignored seasons 3 thru 5. Vince faced many industry roadblocks during that time. He had to turn down Aquaman II, which angered many. He had to figure out a way to make Medellin, prevent a trainwreck during post-production, and survive the film's backlash and damage to his career.

So, to see him become so wreckless and carefree in seasons 6 to 8 made no sense to me. He reached the bottom in season 5 when he found himself back in Queen. That should have been his wake-up call. Not some random drug addiction.

 

[DACrowe]

It made sense to me. He never grew up. The box he was in at the end of Season 5 was mostly of his own making--to make Medellin with Haggis, which still fell through, he burned an important bridge with Warner's to the ground. He then against his better judgement got an inexperienced egotist waiting to crash and burn named Billy Walsh to direct it, entirely in Spanish no less, before burning a bridge with another agency and pulling out of that period piece. Smoke Jumpers wasn't his fault, but still. He then blamed it all on E who kept telling him when he was making bad career moves and fired his ass, rather than accepting responsibility. Once Scorsese comes out of nowhere and saves him he goes and buys Eric back and thinks that nothing bad happened.

His wake-up call was in Season 7 when he became a drug addict and started dating a porn star to fill his existential angst. I think his turnaround to sober adult in Season 8 was the only time it became a bit too much of a shock in how quickly he grew up.

Again though, the show is both a satire of Hollywood and a celebration of it. The show ending with Vince and the boys unemployed in Queens would have just been too dark for such a light show.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

The box he was in at the end of Season 5 was mostly of his own making--to make Medellin with Haggis, which still fell through, he burned an important bridge with Warner's to the ground. He then against his better judgement got an inexperienced egotist waiting to crash and burn named Billy Walsh to direct it, entirely in Spanish no less, before burning a bridge with another agency and pulling out of that period piece. Smoke Jumpers wasn't his fault, but still.

Yeah, but he had the right intention all along. Keep in mind, this was the first time Vince tried to expand his horizon. In seasons 1 & 2, he was just a party-boy soaking up the Hollywood lifestyle. Medellin was his attempt to take some risks and be more than just a "celebrity." Although there was hints of that when he did Queens Blvd. Things didn't go as planned, but a lot of that was because the industry can be tough. Billy Walsh was a loonatic. Eric was doing business behind his back. Ari was more interested in keeping his star-power alive than feeding his "artistic needs." Vince never got the full support he needed for Medellin to work. That's why the phone call from Martin Scorsese was so important. It was his chance to work with a brilliant filmmaker who called the shots. It was his opportunity to transition from a celebrity into a serious actor.

He then blamed it all on E who kept telling him when he was making bad career moves and fired his ass, rather than accepting responsibility.

Eric is the most important character on Entourage. He's the one the audience can relate to. Vince was already a rising star when the show debut. Ari was already a ruthless agent. Eric is the only character we saw climb the ladder of the industry. So, while it sucked that Vince treated him like crap, that's something most people in his position have to deal with. The show was giving us two different perspectives at the same time.

 

[DACrowe]

Eric I thought became really unlikable in Season 8....interestingly only after he completely became his own man outside of Vince's shadow. (I don't think the two are really related).

But yes for much of the show E despite being a bit too whiney at times, was the one audience members related to. Him or Turtle, but nobody wants to be Turtle. Anyway, E getting fired though was not because he deserved it. Vince had burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood--I almost forgot the indie company that was distributing Queens Blvd. and Harvey Weinstein as well--and Eric was telling him again and again that these were bad decisions. Then when the bad decisions came home to roost in Season 5, he fired E. This revealed more about how shallow and irresponsible Vinnie was than relating to E. Their firing of Ari, even though we all love Ari as viewers, in Season 3 or 4 was at least justified because he cost them the Ramones movie. This was just Vince lashing out. I don't think he learned much of anything by the end of that season or almost the whole show. He just came out of rehab in Season 8 like an adult finally. Which is kind of silly when it had only been three months since he had hit personal rock bottom at the finale from last year.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

Eric was telling him again and again that these were bad decisions. Then when the bad decisions came home to roost in Season 5, he fired E.

But that goes along with the show's running commentary on Hollywood. The egotistical star is never gonna blame himself. While it's fascinating to watch Vince crash and burn, the audience is more emotionally connected to Eric. Seeing him get treated like crap after all his hard work is more relatable than a party-boy getting a reality check.

 

[Mister J]

I didn't much care for the finale either. It's as if they didn't know the end of the series was approaching; reminded me of one of those shows on the cancellation bubble that gets late word of the axe and hurriedly rushes together a "...happily ever after" ending to close things out.

Vince's marriage is ridiculous on about 12 levels (even for TV), I've been way sick of the E/Sloan seesaw (although I must say, My God! Emmanuelle looked beyond hot in these last two eps) and the quick resolution of the Ari/Mrs. Ari story undercuts about 85% of the drama they forcibly attempted to make us believe was there. The only real saving grace that I found there was that Piven came through like a champ (as always).

I just can't understand why everything came across so rushed. It's like the only episodes that really mattered were the last two. A lot of actual development on arcs they just superficially hit on (Ari/Dana, Vince/Sophia, Ari strengthening his family bond, etc.) was skipped in favor of... I don't really know; inconsequential filler through eps 2-6. The only stories that don't elicit a WTF from are Drama's and Turtle's... and this is all coming from someone who, like most, knew we were pretty much going to get a feelgood ending for everyone.

Whatever, it was a good run; earlier slate of seasons rather than later.

 

[DIRECTOR]

I think the series finale was the worst finale i have ever seen. At least the Soprano's ending was epic in a sense and sooooooo gangster.

this finale was Barney. You got the hero of the show, Vince, meet a woman who is suppose to be sophisticated and smart, date 24 hours, and are getting married. She from being a smart challenging lady to a blonde bimbo in a few minutes.

 

[#1Batmanfan]

this season just felt weird, and the finale was absolutely horrible

 

[TheVileOne]

Wait, Eric and Sloan broke up again . . . why?!

 

[MadVillainy]

What's the deal with the movie.
I mean I really just wanna see the movie made so they can hopefully repair the damage done by the finale

 

[batdude]

I saw on on another site they are still writing it.

 

[NewYorkSpider]

Entourage movie finally gets greenlit.

 

[TheAQU4M4N]

Entourage movie finally gets greenlit.

I really hope they learned from the series, and focus on Vince rather than only Eric.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

i didn't really like the last season, so hopefully the movie makes up for how the show ended

 

[Mister J]

Not really looking forward to the movie. I'm surprised they're actually going through with it. Hopefully, it's able to hit on the earlier goodness, as opposed to what the series spiraled into.

I can't imagine the central plotline.