Entourage Morning After – “Gotcha”

1. The guy ends up really liking the girl who wants nothing to do with him after his lackluster performance.  (ie he’s a minute man.)
2. The girl ends up really liking the guy, who now having made his conquest, wants to move on.
3. They both end up liking each other and they end up forgetting the whole part about going back to being friends and start screwing like drunk monkeys.

I have to admit last week's episode had me worried. I was worried that in the off season, the writers of Entourage had been accidentally exposed to large amounts of Estrogen and 80s ballads.

I was worried that they had all gotten in touch with their sensitive side and had lost the ability to make Ari Gold the complete and total dickhead that we all love and that makes Entourage what it is. Tonight, I am worried no more.

You see, after going all Indiana Jones through a gay club to save Lloyd last week and crying at a screen saver pic of him and Vince last night, Ari finally realized he had a problem. He realized that he had gone softer then Lloyd with a woman. He realized that he needed help.

So tonight's episode got me thinking... How do you think the joint custody works between Sloan and Vince for E's balls?  Do you think they each keep one of his balls or does Sloan get weekend visitation?  Vince and E's entire plot last night revolved around Eric not being able to speak 1 simple adult sentence to his best friend.  All he'd have to say is, "Hey Vince, my incredibly hot girlfriend wants to go away solo this weekend so she can eat fruit salad off my johnson." Done.  Problem solved.  The rest of the episode could have been about Sloan in a hotel room in lingerie and the rest of the boys on Spring Break.  Now that's an episode I want to see.  Instead, Eric decides to construct a fool proof plan of lying to everyone around him and then inviting them all to dinner to discuss his lie.  Was it a white lie?  Yeah.  Hell it was the Bryant Gumbel of lies, but a lie nonetheless.  And it made for a very boring Vince/Eric storyline.

So with Vince busy avoiding Amanda's calls about the Sam Mendez movie and trying to make weekend plans, Turtle and Drama decide to rely on their next best game crutch, their dog Arnold.  The end up at a dog park that looked like what I picture heaven looking like... a grassy field with dozens of hot women walking dogs.  I tivo'd it... not 1 guy extra in the entire scene.  Brilliant!  I half expected the Coors Light train to shoot through the park showering everybody with snow.  But no such luck for Turtle and Drama as their day goes from beer commercial to bad hospital show when Arnold decides to eat the girls' dog. 

And lets give credit where it's due... After some of us doubting Drama's game last week, he comes through with some BS line that gets the third hottest girl from Dawson's Creek and her mute friend back to the pad.  As a side note on this... Does anyone else think the cast of Dawson's Creek will end up all flipping out like the cast of Diff'rent Strokes with Katie Holmes being institutionalized and James Van Der Beek robbing liquor stores?  He'd be arrested within minutes after the liquor store owner described the robber as having the world's largest forehead. 

But I digress... Ari was awesome last night.  He had 3 or 4 great lines that made the episode.  He was a veritable human highlight reel of classic Loyd bashes including... "This is the big one, so go grab your best dress and just know that today your love of cock is a huge asset to this company."  Translation... in an attempt to sign Jay Lester, a gay TV writer with yellow fever played by Will Sasso, Ari has decided to pimp Lloyd out.  Lester finally agrees to sign, but only if Lloyd delivers the papers to the gayest place in the known universe.  (As a note to anyone running the show, you do not need the same slow-mo shots of people dancing on tables if the episode is at a gay club.)  But at the last minute Ari gets a change of heart and races to the man hole to tell Lester to go to hell and rescue Lloyd from life long regret and hemroids. 

Turtle and Drama do finally get out of the vet office purgatory and are about to seal the deal with the girls when one of them gets all dog whisperer on Turtle.  He tries to deal with her giving dog training advice every five seconds during the hookup, but eventually loses his shit and tells her off.  Glad he did.  As much as I wanted to see Busy Phillips in underwear so I could stop staring at her gum line, it wasn't worth it if I had to hear one more line about dog care. 

With E having booted Vince from his lame Napa wine tasting weekend, Vince decides to make E's weekend look like a trip to Wal-mart by one upping him and renting a private jet to take him, Drama, and Turtle to Cabo San Lucas for spring break.   I wish they had done a close up of the look on E's face when they decided to go.  I think his head might have just exploded.  It serves him right for being such a douche all episode. 

-Some Random Thoughts-

Is Lloyd really that much of a prize?  Will Sasso's character offers him a car to sleep with him.  It better not have been anything more than a Kia.

Which of the guys do you think has the most STDs?  You know Vince gets the most girls, but Turtle and Drama have skank factor going for them.  E just has vaginitis. 

Is Emmanuelle Chiriqui (Sloan) the hottest girl currently on TV?  I can't think of any better.

There are two kinds of tv shows that people watch…those that you’re happy when they’re back and you catch them if you have time, and those that you and your friends gather to watch like it was the world’s first fire.  And let’s face it, TV isn’t exactly in its golden age (Two and a Half Men, case closed) so when two shows as good as Sopranos and Entourage come back at once, it’s enough to turn Easter into a cool holiday.  I can just imagine families everywhere last night capping off a day of church and egg finds with an hour and a half of gang slayings and backstabbing.  Now that’s a holiday.  So world, let’s rejoice, for just as Christ did, Entourage has returned.!slice
 
Season 3 part deux starts off with Turtle taking pictures of Drama in front of his new Sunset strip billboard to try and remind the audience that Drama has a B plot this season of his own NBC show.  They probably wouldn’t have bothered reminding us about it at all, but it sets up 3 or 4 really good “Johnny’s career sucks compared to Vince’s” jokes.  I don’t care how famous one of my friends was, if I booked an NBC series and my friends cared as little as E and Turtle do, I think I might stop cooking them omelets every morning.  The guys spend twenty grand on a party every time Vince cuts his toenails, they could’ve at least taken Drama to Chuck E. Cheese or something for booking a primetime series.  It’s not like he’s the replacement host of Talk Soup or something.  But let’s face it, if E and Turtle don’t care that he’s on NBC, then neither do I.  So they do a nice job by keeping the scene short and ended with the inagural hottie extras of the season.  At first I was extremely pleased by the casting, but upon Tivo review, you only see one side of each of the girls’ face.  This reminds me to pass on a little piece of advice I once read on a fortune cookie...only move to LA to become an actress if in fact both sides of your face should be on camera.  One sided extra work is hard to come by and doesn’t pay well.  It was a very strange fortune.
 
But the producers quickly redeemed their asymmetrical casting choices by showing us Vince’s choice for his new agent, a gorgeous brunette named Amanda.  Vince and E have stopped in for a meeting to remind everyone that E is a much faster reader then Vince.  They tell her all the scripts they got yesterday sucked and she immediately pulls out the perfect script that she either retardedly didn’t give to them yesterday or was placed on her desk overnight with good timing from the academy award fairies.  We also learn that it’s Vince’s birthday which means Laker game then ginormous party.  At the game, Ari spots Vince with Amanda sending Ari into a jealous pouty man-crush tirade.

Back at the Entourage mansion the next morning, Drama still cooks breakfast just so he has a skill to fall back on when his show gets cancelled, Vince actually reads the script and likes it, and Ari calls to invite Vince to a birthday dinner which Drama wisely advises them to turn into a coffee.  So after a mid morning game of indoor mansion golf simulation, E and Vince go to meet Ari while Turtle and Drama rent the Exxon Valdeez to throw the Vince’s birthday slash world’s largest booze cruise slash oil spill.  I have to give it up to Turtle, he does find cool ways to blow Vince’s money.

Then comes a groundbreaking moment in Entourage history…In a rawer moment, showing the ugly impoverished underbelly of being best friends with a celebrity, E, Drama, and Turtle have to come to grips with only being able to afford to spend sixty thousand dollars on Vince’s birthday party.  It’s one of those scenes that, you know, really gets you thinking, and it’s just not right.There ought to be a charity for things like this.  The cast could be spokespeople.  “For just the cost of all the food and gas and clothing you buy in a few years, Cameron Diaz could have the kind of Fourth of July bbq that she deserve.  Don’t wait, operators are standing by.”
 
But before I could cry, Vince was already unwrapping his birthday present from Ari.So what do you get for the client/millionaire movie star who has everything?Ari’s choice is a xeroxed copy of the Medellin script that Vince really wanted but didn’t get, all wrapped up in a crappy leather notebook!  Within seconds, E is on his cell phone asking Ari why his present sucked so bad.  Ari tells E that is available again and that Amanda won’t know about it because she sucks at agenting.
 
Meanwhile, Turtle realizes that Vince’s party is costing too much money and decides to get the party sponsored by calling his unusually deep rolodex of instantaneous corporate buyers which includes Sky vodka, Pillsbury, and Minute rice.  All Vince has to do is dress get drunk on Sky vodka while dressed as the dough boy and the party is free!  So the boys roll up to the party in a limo with Valvoleen decals and get out to see the Starbuck’s Pepsi Popeye’s Chicken Supercruiser that he rented.  Looked pretty cool.  On a 1 to 10 jealousy scale, I got up to an 8.5, and it gave HBO the easiest way in the history of tv to get 9 simultaneous product placements.  Next week Vince becomes the new Subway pitch man and uses Head-On for the first time.

The episode climaxes at Vince’s birthday when Ari and Amanda have a cat fight over Vince in front of him and E yells a few things at Ari while standing safely behind Amanda.  Vince and Ari go off to talk where Ari tries to win him back with the suaveness of Ike Turner on Wild Turkey and Vince tells him that for ratings and plot purposes, he won’t be going back to him until the very end of the season. (I might be paraphrasing slightly.)  Ari is sad but acknowledges that its probably for the best, while lamenting at mostly having to do scenes with Loyd for a few weeks.
 
As a boring candle blowing scene winds the episode down, Amanda announces that at presumably midnight or later she got a call from the 24 hour movie casting super store to let her know that Vince has been cast in the Sam Mendez movie without an audition or meeting the director!  Wow, Hollywooding is easy!  But before Vince goes off to have a threesome with Victoria Secret models he tells Amanda to hold off taking the deal for big movie money, just in case medellin really is available.  Amanda looks pissed, E is as confused as ever, and another kick ass season of Entourage is upon us.

Check out Scot’s other non-Pulitzer prize winning writing on scotrichardson.com. You’ll be sorry you did.