Ok, clearly HBO is having a hard time understanding the concept of seasons.  During last night's season finale of Entourage season 3 Part deux, HBO announced that the show would be on hiatus... for 2 weeks.  Then, June 17th, HBO is launching Season 4 Part Alpha 1.  They will then fragment that season into several smaller seasons so that the story has that right mix of choppy and incoherent.  What are you doing HBO?  If I were a writer on the show I would make sure to buy HBO a desk calandar for Christmas.  Sure, traditionally shows are supposed to take a break between seasons for vacation and to shoot the next season, but why break when why there are 2 or 3 perfectly good episodes lying around to start a season with.  That way season 4 will surely get fragmented into tiny little pieces of seasons.  Brilliant!  Screw it, HBO, let's just get on the quarters system permantently.     

So the guys (except for Turtle) find themselves about to roll the dice on the biggest gambles of their lives...  E and Vince have invested every cent they have into buying the script for "Meddilin" and Drama invested more then every cent he had buying a million and a half dollar condo after only one episode of his show is successful.  I'm convinced that HBO should have a "Johnny Drama Moment of the Day" segment after shows where they recap the most retarded decision Drama made over the half hour.   This weeks clip would just be him saying "One point Five Million!" 

So E and Vince find out that Nicky Rubenstein wants to finance "Medellin" for the guys.  And in classic "we only have a half hour to tell a story and no budget to recast a part" economics, they jump to take his generous offer of 25 million dollars without even taking any other meetings.  Meetings are for pussies, let's just take this offer of 40% of the studio budget and get on to the conflict that's sure to ensues over running out of money.  Wow, you guys sure are good producers.  "Hey Eric, have you ever produced a movie before?"  Eric: "No, but I'm sure we can do it well for less then half of what those crazy movie studio people estimated!  They're crazy and should really should stick to just making movies, ya know what I mean?  Leave this producing thing to us experts."  "Uh, Eric, how are we going to make that happen?"  Eric - "Well, let me just look in my big producer rolodex... and uh... well, uh, good!  I know one director.  I think he's the perfect guy for the job.  Let's call him.  And I think he's currently directing midget porn, so we can probably even get him on the cheap!"   I must now interupt this article to say congratulations to Entourage for being the first show to successfully integrate a midget porn star into a plot.  Well done Entourage, well done. 

So they argue for about 40 seconds about twenty five million versus thirty million, and finally Nicky Rubenstein decides to cut the check for an extra five million dollars like he was picking up a round of drinks.  He signs a check for a cool 30 mil and and gives them a peace out as he heads out to meet his girl before the appetizers hit.  I loved that moment.  It forever sealed Nicky Rubenstein's character as a total douche.  He was willing to cut a check for enough money to topple a few dictators, but didn't have the time or patience to stick around and shake Billy Walsh's hand.  You know this situation and the politics of it are going to get really messy, really soon.

And so, ladies and gents, we are wrapped for season 3 of Entourage.  We had a breakup of Ari and Vince that lasted about as long as I'd last with Sloane, (thank you HBO for giving us a few scenes with her.  E do not dump her!  DO NOT DO IT!!!) we saw the rise and fall of Amanda, met Nicky Rubenstein, saw Drama's show premiered as a hit (Victory!), watched Vince and E go balls out to sell the house, and buy Medellin, they got financing for it, and as we leave them (for 2 whole weeks) they are off to Colombia to make their first movie. It'll be fun.

As always, some random thoughts...

-Let's have Entourage entirely be in Spanish next season.  Billy Walsh is a great character and a giant moron.   

-E, DO NOT dump Sloane! 

-Pablo Escobar is a ridiculous name. 

-Do Drama and Turtle not know how to read?  Oh, this is a CONDO.  FOR SALE?   Oh, so this isn't the two bedroom we saw on Craigslist?  My bad.  THe kicker is he still bought it.

-From the previews, it looks like Vince is out of money.  But they have a check for 30 milion in his wallet and he's the lead in the film!... You think he could get an advance, or a loan or something.  Why is this an issue?.  (and I'm not even an accountant.  Although I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.)

-Click HERE to watch my online animated series.

So I have to admit, this episode was a letdown.  It was classic HBO programming of having a great episode followed but a mediocre unimportant one.  The biggest change in all of their lives was announced with a sold sign on their house in the first six seconds of the episode.  From there, the episode might as well have been about a trip to home depot, because absolutely nothing freaking happened!  It looks like Vince and E still don't have the money they need to make Medellin (I'll get to why later,)  Drama is going to be an extra in Rush Hour 3, and Turtle had a bizarre day date.  That's it?  That's all we get?  Why didn't they just make the episode about them getting burgers at the mall?  Someone needs to tell HBO that we don't watch the show to have the guys have a more boring day then I did.  And if you missed this episode, don't worry, you are now officially caught up.

So the episode starts with Drama hanging upside down in his bathroom like a vampire.  I wasn't sure Drama's heart would survive hearing good news upside down, but apparently it did and Lloyd told him that he was being offered a part in Rush Hour 3 based on Brett Ratner having seen the pilot for 5 Towns.  I don't know why Drama didn't know this must have been a mistake from the begining.  In the back of his mind, he must have known that no one would have seen his monologue from the pilot and thought that he could act.  But Drama still goes to the set and brags to his cast mates, played by the worst bunch of extras ever cast.  Seriously, did they have the d team director on this scene?  Did he tell all of the actors to laugh ridiculously at everything Drama says and then look directly into the camera with a confused looks. 

After the director of 5 Towns buys Drama an entire sheet cake as a unnecessary congratulations for having a meeting, we are finally mercifully taken away to see E, Vince, and Ari going to meet a ridiculous Eastern European couple who wants to fund Medellin.  The couple is like a more real life version of the SNL sketch The Nunis.  They're that crazy foreign type that's loaded and probably wears gas masks during sex.  And while both Ari and the husband claim that the wife used to be a foreign soap star, she looks more like she used to run an orphanage in some Eastern Block communist country.  So they sit and eat lobster, discuss Sylvester Stalone's career, and rip on Eric while the wife eye fucks Vince.  Producing is fun!  Then sometime after lunch, the wife calls Vince and tells him that the sixty million is no problem, but that she needs to meet him alone at a hotel immediately to discuss the puddle that is currently forming under her.  But Vince brings Eric along to the hotel as he's not in the mood for gas mask sex, and this makes her have a fit and she leaves pissed off.  

Look, I get it.  Vince gets crazy offers for sex that us normal people don't get, but this one was just weird.  Some billionaire offering sixty million dollars to bang his freaky, looks like a handbag wife.  This show is supposed to be a fantasy, not some bizarre dream that you have after eating too much cheese.  Anyway, if you watched the previews, you'll see that they are still looking for money, so Vince must have said no to being the Alex Rodrigez of whores and not taken the 60 mil to visit Southern Croatia if you know what I mean.  Which means that this entire plot line was a dead end and left a weird Eastern European taste in my mouth.

We are now forced to cut back to Drama's plot where we find out that Brett Ratner's assistant can't read and that Drama wasn't the person he wanted for the part.  After being informed of the mistake, Johnny refuse to leave what is the first great gratuitous hot girls everywhere scene since the dog park like 4 episodes ago.  i don't blame him.  I wouldn't have left either.  When Brett Ratner finally approaches Drama, he's ready with some of the best ass kissing this side of The Actor's Studio .  Ratner half falls for it and Drama ends up in some weird pyramid like scheme where he has to pay to be an extra in the movie.  Whatever.  My bet is we will never hear of this again and we will look back on it as total filler.

The best part of the episode was Turtle's date.  First, I must say that the girl (she's also been in ATL) is smoking hot.  And she is probably the coolest girl any of them have dated.  She drives fast, has cool interests, and seems down to earth.  And I reiterate, she's damn hot.  What else do you need?    In fact after Turtle let her drive she made a move and planted a kiss on him, although I'd probably kiss the guy to drive his Mazarati.  I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Kelly soon, making this the only worthwhile plot development of the whole episode. 

Some Random Thoughts...

- Do 5 million dollar houses usually sell in a week?

- Would you have slept with that cazy woman for 60 million?  Ok, better question... what would you do with the money you got for sleeping with her? 

- What parent makes their kids watch a movie with them during a day date?  Rufus doesn't look mormon...

- We almost got to hear Turtle's real name!  She told him knowing his name was a condition in sleeping with her and he still balked!  Makes me think his ral name is like Turd Burgler or something.

- Watch a new episode of my animated show "The Melvin Bros" this week on gopotato.tv!

But after this little detour, last night’s show brought back everything we love about the show.  (Well, minus some really hot girls.)  So many things were set straight last night, where do I start?  How about with Drama finally having a little success and good luck fall his way?  Drama has always been the failure of their crew.  Turtle has achieved less, but he’s Turtle and he ain’t trying. Drama has been trying to make it longer then any of them.  I was afraid they were going to have his show flop and put him right back to square one, but having it be a hit is a much better way to take it.  I am really curious to see Drama living it up with a little success.  It promises to be funny, because if nothing else, where Vince buys nice cars and houses, Drama will buy horses and hand jobs.  *note: The massage parlor hand job scene was hilarious, but that was one of the grossest sounds ever heard on television.  I feel sorry for anyone with surround sound.

Next, let’s talk about Turtle.  Turtle with a possible love interest?!  That he didn’t pay for or coerce by inviting to one of Vince’s premieres?!  I am shocked that they seem like they’re going to do it, but very happy for Turtle, because he’s underused and has never had any girl stick around after they’ve grabbed a bunch of Vince’s shit to sell of ebay.  As he put it, “she’s me with tits,” Which means he isn’t counting his A cups as tits and that Turtle might finally have a girlfriend.

And last, but not least, we finally had the reunion we’ve been waiting for, Ari and Vince.  How much more focused and on point does the show feel with them working together?  You mean we don’t have to watch 2 fifteen minute scripts jammed together week after week?  Here’s a novel idea… have the main characters work together so they can be in the same scenes!  Damn!  Write that shit down, it’s brilliant!  Not to mention that E grows a set when he’s around Ari.  He looked like a lost sad wet puppy around Amanda and now he’s back to telling Ari how it’s gonna be.  And as far as Vince and E rolling the dice by buying and producing Medellin?  Look, in real life, that would be an insanely stupid move.  It would make a lot more sense to just get an iron clad contract to do both Medellin and Matterhorn, make 10 million bucks for both, not risk your life savings, and call it a day.  But for the show… it’s a brilliant move.  Look, at the end of the day, if we just had to watch Vince collect pay check after paycheck on different movies every season, the show would end up as entertaining as Golden Girl reruns with hot chicks and cool celebrity cameos. 

But with Vince finally opening his mouth and explaining why he wants to do Medellin so badly (thank god they finally explained this) and taking an artistic stance on it, we are going to get to see Vince and E take on a whole new world in producing movies while risking it all to go big.  Not only will it be really fun to watch, but it actually gives real stakes to what they’re doing.  For once, failing won’t just mean that have to hold off on buying a private island, although something tells me that they’ll be just fine and we’re going to get to see what kind of parties you can throw when you really have money.

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.