Entourage – “Stunted”

E and Sloan: TV's Most Compelling Couple

I used to really like Entourage. There was definitely a time when it was a really entertaining show that was genuinely pretty funny. But it gradually started going downhill after it’s fourth season, when Medellen bombed at Cannes. Here was a great opportunity for the show to knock Vince down and triumphantly build him back up. Instead, we spent a whole year of Vince wanting to be a big star again that ended with him going home to New York before getting a call from Martin Scorsese, where he calls and says, “Hey Vince, deus ex machina!” All of last season felt like a slog, and the story devolved into Drama whines, Turtle dates a hot actress, Vince smiles and has sex with every woman in LA, Ari calls Lloyd gay, and Eric inexplicably proposes to Sloan. So basically what I’m trying to say is if you’re a fan of the show, sorry if my reviews land on the sarcastic side of things.

So “Stunted” starts with Turtle, who’s running a company out of a mansion where hot women drive Mercedes or something. One of them is late and doesn’t have her shirt, so we get our first shot of a girl taking off her clothes this season (spoiler: it will happen frequently). Then there’s Vince, who’s working on some action movie where his stunt double gets set on fire, and the super tough director wants him to do his own stunt. Vince doesn’t like that idea because he’s good looking, but he says he’ll do it because he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s just good looking and can’t act/drive. Since this is Entourage though, Vince won’t deal with this dilemma on his own, passing it off to E, who passes it off to Ari, but only after they have a deep conversation about E getting married and how he isn’t nervous. E was genuinely talking about it too, and Ari was just like, “marriage sucks you short person.” Whateves, Ari is going to fix the problem because he’s the biggest agent in the world now, so naturally, he’ll personally handle everything for Vince.

Back to Turtle, who is having problems with this girl because she keeps getting lost. Fire her Turtle! Oh no, you feel guilty about, so don’t do it! Just talk about it! Oops! She lost the car! Fire her now! Ah, her parents are getting a divorce. Bummer. Now would be a good time to try to kiss her. Brilliant move Turtle. That’s so logical. Now I guess you’ll spend the whole season chasing this girl, with her perpetually frustrating you and you still wanting her. Should be a blast.

And then there’s Drama, who has a holding deal, but no one wants to make a show with him because he’s an egotistical old bad actor. Was that too harsh? Sorry Drama, I didn’t mean it bro. I actually understand your natural instinct to demand that your agent Lloyd (oh yeah, he’s an agent now) put an entire team of agents behind you to get you a job, because your superstar brother couldn’t do it for you, so a bunch of young agents that are hiding from Ari will do the trick.

Speaking of Ari, he wants to negotiate the NFL TV contracts (oooh, topical!) and yell at people because that’s what Ari does. He’s also in trouble with his wife because he can’t make a parent-teacher conference, something I’m relatively certain happens on Entourage every fifth episode. He goes out to the set to tell Vince’s director he can’t do the stunt, because Vinny is really freaking out about. Poor Vinny. Anyway, Ari is all, “Vince can’t do the stunt,” and the director is all, “Oh he’ll do it or I’ll kill you.” Wait, what?

In the end, Vince decides to do the stunt just to prove he’s a tough guy, and the director is such a daredevil, he decides he’s going to ride with Vince. Now, if I remember my Entourage well enough, didn’t Vince have to pass a driving test last season and he kind of sucked at driving? Didn’t someone just say “Oh, you’re Vinny Chase! Here’s your drivers license because you’re a star!” Yet, we’re going to let Vince jump an SUV with the director in it? That makes more than perfect sense. So Vinny makes the jump, but oh no! He can’t stop that crazy thing and he crashes into a barn or something. But he’s fine. He wants to do it again! Vinny Chase is a man!

Oh, and E had lunch with Sloan, just to remind us we need to care about that.  I assure you I otherwise wouldn’t.

So there you have it. Not really that much happened, but there were plenty of opportunities for rap music to play over shots of people getting into nice cars, so it was quality, right? No? Am I being too harsh on Entourage? It’s just that it was good show once that got really boring, and I’m done being nice about it.

Telling comment from my dad, who had never seen the show before: “So did it use to be better than that?”

What do you all think? Angry retorts/jokes welcomed in the comments!