Media Maven Musings

So the buzz on last night’s psychedelic ep of Entourage has been pretty noisy.  People either loved it or they hated it, and the predominant feeling, unfortunately, is the latter.  The critics just ain’t down with shroomin in the desert.  Personally, I thought last night’s episode was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. Here’s why:

1. Breaking the monotony — How many shows have you seen where the main characters up and leave their normal lives to go do shrooms in the desert with Eric Roberts?  When was the last time our boys had a fun adventure like this, “Vegas, Baby, Vegas?”  I was starting to get bored with meetings, phone calls, and lunches at Urth Cafe (ok, so they still ate at Urth Cafe this week.  I’ve been and guys, it’s just not that good.) So I appreciated that the writers had the balls to say, “Screw it– let’s be crazy for an episode.”  Would you rather have watched more of the same, or take a one episode break from the LA scene?

2. Ari/Lloyd — These guys haven’t really gotten much burn at all yet this season as a duo.  Last season, people were hailing these two as THE comedic duo on television.  This year, they’ve hardly been in the episodes by themselves, let alone together.  It’s a simple formula: Ari + Lloyd = comedy.  I think we got too much solo Lloyd (was the whole party at Ari’s house/Ari’s wife storyline funny at all?  No.  It was just to give Ari something about which to be paranoid.  Not a single laugh from anything involving Lloyd alone or Perry Reeves alone).  But put them together on the fun, with Ari tripping balls and Lloyd talking like Confucius, and I’m a happy camper.  (My favorite line had something to do with filling Lloyd’s ass with cement.  Ridiculous.)

3. The boys tripping — All 4 of our guys were really funny in their own unique ways during their drug trip.  I would’ve liked more of a point of view from Drama, but I thought E, Vince and Turtle were all great.  I loved E’s silence and I loved his explanation even more (“His mouth doesn’t work”).  Turtle was funny in his quest for Arnold and a purpose, and I enjoyed seeing how all the guys really take their cues from Vince.  It was also sweet to hear Vince say that so much of why he wants to do Smoke Jumpers is because its E’s project.  The bond between those two is really getting a lot of screentime so far this year.

4. Eric Roberts — He’s no Gary Busey, but he’s still a funny/weird old guy to choose for this role.  I’m guessing they asked Nick Nolte first, but he was busy being arrested.

Ok, so we had a fun, exploratory episode that wasn’t like any other ep of this show before.  But, is this as good as we’re going to get this year?  We’re 5 episodes into the season, and I’m starting to get worried.  There are still no stakes, and no personal tensions or drama.  Vince has decided he wants to do Smoke Jumpers no matter what– let’s get going on this already then!  Hopefully, next week we’ll see Vince and Ari start pouring it on in their attempts to win over studio head Alan Gray, and maybe Turtle will start looking for a job too?  But what about E and Drama? 

Think about it– other than Vince’s career, does anyone have anything at risk right now?  Everyone is comfortable, and in the tv world, comfortable = boring.  It’s time to get the ball rolling on some serious drama, and fast.  This is HBO– there are only 12 episodes a season; next week is the halfway point.  Has anything actually happened?  Medellin bombed, Vince came back…and that’s it.  If they wanted to, they could’ve gotten us to this point in 2-3 episodes, not 5.  This is starting to feel a bit Weeds Season 3 to me– we’re spending so much of the season getting rolling that before we know it, the season will be over and nothing will have happened.

Here’s my suggestion– we need to get some solid, serialized B story arcs going here.  Where’s our Sloan/Billy Walsh/Amanda/Martin Landau/Dom character who comes in and makes things trickier for the boys?  Right now, we’re working on one solitary storyline (Vince landing a gig) that hasn’t really gone anywhere.  We need a love interest, some competition, something that affects our guys on a personal level, not just a career one.  Not only are personal plots more interesting in general, but the boys have always put life and love first, career second.  So why are we only dealing with the career?

Time is running out.  We’re already halfway through.  It’s now or never boys.  And unless things start to change immediately, as in next week, I’m afraid it’s going to be too little, too late.

Grade: C+