Entourage needs to break up the bromance with tragedy

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This article was published 30/06/2010 (5924 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Vincent Chase must die.

Harsh, perhaps, but there it is, the only thing that could rouse Entourage from its comfortable, poolside loll and onto the necessary task of bringing its story in for an eventual landing.

Kill Vince! Car crash, drugs, something. James Dean, Heath Ledger — Hollywood will show you how.

Even the makers of Entourage (which airs Sundays on HBO Canada; check listings for times) seem to sense this on some level, and presented it as a tantalizing notion in the seventh season’s opening episode. Vince (played vacuously as ever by Adrian Grenier) was pressured by an action-film director (Nick Cassavetes, as himself) to perform a dangerous driving stunt on camera.

But Vince’s protective, codependent entourage — including fretful manager Eric Murphy (Kevin Connelly) and flammable uber-agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) — works to prevent it.

"What’s the worst that could happen?" Vince asked, suiting up.

"Vic Morrow got his head chopped off by a helicopter," offered Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon).

"Brandon Lee got shot with squibs," chimed in Turtle (Jerry Ferrara, easily Entourage‘s most-improved character over the years).

"Wow, you all think I’m such a (bros-only word for wimp)," Vince observed.

Actually, I think Entourage is conceived, written and performed by whole bunch of (bros-only word for wimps), who are too afraid to make a real TV show (yeah, I said it), and instead will always settle for making the world’s longest documentary adaptation of Entertainment Tonight. For years, Entourage has lazily kept its characters on a leash, favouring atmosphere over story progression. Tune in now and it still feels like 2005.

Which is why loyal viewers should double-dog dare creator Doug Ellin to remove Vince from the picture entirely — tragically — so that we can see what happens to the entourage then. Take us on an uncharted journey into Hollywood grief rituals, with the Forest Lawn funeral and estate squabbles and everything. Show us how each of these men face life After Vince.

This, of course, will never happen. For all its egomania, ill will and backstabbing trash talk, Entourage set out to be about only two things: sunshiney Los Angeles optimism and brotherly love.

The show triumphs by demythologizing the other side of the velvet rope. Rooted in the real-life experiences of executive producer and movie star Mark Wahlberg and his relatives, agent and close friends, Entourage has been a sarcastic release valve for the ways in which the texty-tawdry celebresphere — one of America’s last remaining exports — has suffocated popular culture. It smartly co-opts a parade of actual boldface names to play themselves in humanizing and sometimes humiliating glimpses of Hollywood verité.

It has also achieved something that feels laudably true — anthropological even — about a kind of monied, famous West L.A. lifestyle that everyone knows exists but that has eluded even the best movies and TV shows that aimed to portray the Industry.

But Entourage is not a documentary. Nor is it a smartphone or vodka commercial — even though the past couple of seasons have been so timid plotwise that the show started to feel like hip advertisements for things that do exist (gadgets, clothes, cars, real estate, style) and movies that don’t (a Pablo Escobar biopic, a James Cameron Aquaman, a Martin Scorsese update of The Great Gatsby).

For all its manic frivolity and pitch-perfect Tinseltown verisimilitude, Entourage has squandered almost all of its narrative opportunities, season in and season out. Last season was a chore to watch, and the first four episodes of this season don’t promise much that’s new.

Entourage is chronically allergic to momentum. It is change-phobic. Every setback endured by Vince and his entourage (box-office bombs; girl trouble) is smoothed over by the arrival of six-figure paychecks and the bromantic ideal. It’s pretty to look at, but stagnant all the same.

So, bring on some hairpin Mulholland curves. Or a sudden loss of cabin pressure on some studio’s Gulfstream IV jet. Or the inescapable undertow of the Malibu surf.

There are so many ways to let Vince go. But for the good of the entourage, go, he must.

 

— The Washington Post