Like most true-blue Entourage fans, I was not too thrilled with the direction the show took the four boys from Queens - and super-agent Ari Gold - this season. We liked the days when Vince was a happy-go-lucky movie star who was, you know, neither addicted to cocaine nor in love with a porn star. We liked when Turtle and Drama were inseparable, when neither had anything going on for themselves and both spent their days constantly bantering back and forth. Or when Ari was the king, when he couldn't be bested or beaten by anyone, when he walked through the halls of his newly-conquered talent agency armed with a paintball gun and an arsenal of obscenities. And Eric, Vince's manager and childhood friend better known as E? Well, E shacked up with Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui), meaning he can no longer roll the town with Vince.
This season betrayed what the entire show has been about - the entourage. It split up Vince's crew and gave each member a purpose and trajectory of their own. Suffice to say, I had expected that this season's finale would redeem itself and bring them back together. Boy, was I wrong. Despite my disappointment with the new season's group dynamic, I would be lying if I said I haven't been glued to the TV every Sunday night to see how far creator and executive producer Doug Ellin is willing to let Vince fall. For this season's finale, he didn't pull any punches. Literally.
Featuring a fist-fight between Vince and Eminem, a Tony Montana-style Ziploc of cocaine, and a swing-and-a-miss that would make Bob Saget shake his head, Vince is left at the end of the episode with a battered rep, a beaten mug and the very real possibility of jail time. Super-agent Ari is hardly better off with the hint of an impending divorce on his hands. The big question on my mind after the jarring cliff-hanger was: Where will they go from here? With rumors of an Entourage movie in the works, what better place to kick off the action than from rock bottom? And even if a movie may be asking for too much, HBO had better craft a more satisfying resolution after an ending that left the audience waiting with baited breath for a resolution that never came - unless the channel executives want a riot on their hands.
Overall, this episode was definitely a summation of this unexpectedly awkward season: heavy in plot, lacking in character and a complete divergence from the established pattern of past seasons. I can't say I hated it, but compared to past finales, this one was a bit of a downer. It was only a half-hour long and came and went with only a few laugh-out-loud moments. Ari and Drama, who can usually be counted upon for at least a few hilarious one-liners, were in poor form and by no fault of the actors. Whatever you might have expected from this season finale, appropriately titled "Lose Yourself," you can be sure that these are no longer the good 'ole days of Entourage, which were characterized by light-hearted fun and an escapist spirit.
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