Entourage used to be funny. At least I thought it did. The show got by for the first few seasons by pandering to every male’s dream life – being rich, famous, and adored by women – but at some point there has to be something beyond that. There isn’t. The show’s shortcomings have always existed it was just easier to ignore them in the beginning while being distracted with swearing, bare breasts, and even the odd joke. Now in its sixth season, the novelty has long since worn off and the show has become a repetitive bore.
Every season essentially boils down to Vince being in a movie and financing his and his friends’ lives of luxury. The climax of each season is whether or not Vince’s movie performs well at the box office.
The problem with the show is that it aims to be funny and lighthearted, but ends up coming off forced and arrogant. The writing feels half-assed. Vince is the least likeable main character of any show I can think of simply because the writers have never bothered to develop him. After six seasons I still don’t know much about him and therefore I don’t care about him. Despite living the fast life of an A-list star, Vince manages to be boring.
Eric, as if participating in some contest of monotonous one-upmanship, is even more boring than Vince. After a couple of seasons Eric acquired a desire to escape Vince’s shadow and made efforts to further his own career as a Hollywood manager, but Eric always ends up back where he started - at Vince’s right hand. The efforts to develop Eric’s character are incredibly uninteresting - oh boy, Eric is managing Bow Wow, I sure hope they both succeed! Eric is at his most annoying when he’s in a relationship. You see Eric isn’t a womanizer like Vince. No, he’s supposed to be the caring, sensitive type only it comes off as neurotic and irritating.
Turtle, the pot-smoking driver manages to remain likable even without much material to work with - Look, Turtle's smoking more weed, get it?!. The first try at developing his character was truly inspired…they made him an aspiring talent manager. Gosh, maybe he and E should go in to business together! He discovered rapper Saigon and then got screwed. That was then end of Turtles career in talent management. Now, after six years, he’s feeling worthless from leeching off Vince for so long and he’s going back to school. But get a load of this: he drives to school in a Ferrari with Vince!
Johnny Drama, despite having the most flawed character, is the most likeable part of the cast. Despite being the antithesis to Vince’s success, Drama is the show’s only source of anything resembling consistent laughs. He and Turtle play well off of each other and Drama’s constant insults toward E and Turtle despite his own shortcomings make him somewhat endearing.
Ari is manic and vulgar. Still. If you’ve only seen the first episode of Entourage you could watch the newest episode this week and have missed nothing in regards to Ari’s character. He owns his own agency now, so I guess that’s something. Even though Ari never changes, his constant slurs and cursing do provide some mild entertainment.
This show could have been so much more. If a single person involved with it could have seen beyond his own self-satisfaction it could have been a classic. Instead it has steadily declined to the point of irrelevance. The show seems to flaunt the lives of excess led by the stars and instead of providing me with an escape into their world it makes me feel angry because those douchebags are living like that and I’m not.
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