People be whining about this season of Entourage -- but we think they're totally missing the point. Seems to us that this is a show whose creators -- not to mention whose protagonists -- are starting to wonder where they're going, what they're doing with their lives, if there's an end to this constant quest for boobs and bucks, and if so, how to get there. To put it another way: are you gonna be interested in Vinnie Chase when he's 35, checking his hairline, and in the middle of a paternity suit? No; us neither. So maybe now's the time to give him the gravity he's -- by everyone's account -- never had?
Hence last night's surprisingly moving episode, which managed to take a standard couple Entourage plotlines -- Ari turning a studio head's death to his own advantage and Vince trying to get with a model -- and combine their respective climaxes into brief, trenchant meditation on men growing apart. No way we saw that coming, but just think of all the things that have been happening this year to make both Vince and Ari start to reappraise their lives: Medillin, Dom, death...
The ep as a whole dealt with Vince trying to get with a model he's on a shoot with and Ari getting an offer to run a studio at the same time that his job at the agency is driving him nuts. Again: standard Entourage fare, rife with the potential for boorish profanity and perfect boobs. And then they pull this little moment out of thin air -- turning Ari and Vince's major lifts into minor falls -- and darned if we're pretty sure that scene would have worked w/o the Radiohead. (You can watch part of it here, btw.) Any other half-hour show, an episode like last night's would have worked as a season finale. Entourage is only halfway through their run. We have no idea what else is in store, but it seems like next ep Turtle is gonna possibly start crushing on ex-Meadow Soprano Jamie-Lynn Sigler... and if Turtle's getting a girlfriend, you know things are changing around these parts.