[Originally posted on September 12th, 2011.]

Well, here we are. Pretty incredible. After ten thousand episodes and 45 years of memories, Entourage finally comes to an end. To say that this is the end of an era hardly does the momentousness of this occasion justice. If anything it’s almost TOO important. I just feel honored and blessed to be alive in these times and in a position where I can offer up a recap, however inadequate. Anyway, where to even begin? How about the only way TO begin. With this:

Powerful stuff. Oh yeah, indeed. SO: Turtle, Johnny Drama, and Billy Walsh are all eating brunch together in the penthouse (HBO’s new slogan should be “It’s not TV, it’s Brunch.”) when in walks Vinny Chase [APPLAUSE]. He just got back from “the best 24 hour date of [his] life,” which apparently is a kind of date, and he’s got some big news. Well, so do the boys. Well, this is bigger. Well, the boys don’t know about that. EASY, LADIES, I’M SURE YOU ALL HAVE BIG NEWS THAT’S GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE! Vince “thinks” he’s getting married. Wait, that’s not how you deliver that news, Vince. You either are getting married or you are not getting married, especially when THE WEDDING IS TONIGHT IN PARIS! Better make up your mind soon, you’ve got six hours. Wait, what is the boys’s news? Oh, right, Sloane is pregnant. Vince falls asleep this news is so boring. He sleeps through his wedding. Ari dies. The End. JUST KIDDING THERE’S SO MUCH MORE WONDERFUL EPISODE TO RECAP:

It’s kind of unfortunate that this is the series finale insofar as there should have been an episode in between last week’s episode and this week’s episode that can explain what the hell is even happening with this Vince Chase marriage thing. This Sofia woman who we are told is “the smartest woman who has ever lived” and who “hates Vince” gets a homemade Girls Gone Wild DVD from him, agrees to go on a date, and now she is instantaneously his bride to be? Sounds like a real fucking genius. (It is also unfortunate that this show skipped its opportunity to insert some kind of Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage contract plotline in which Vince convinces Sophia to marry him in return for 10 million dollars cash and a guaranteed career bump. That would have been fun! Woulda Coulda Shoulda Johnny Drama.) Anyway, he is in love. Fair enough. Considering the fact that his character is razor thin and completely devoid of any kind of motivation who just floats along on a breeze of plumb luck and free millions, it makes total sense that he would go from a womanizer to the honorable husband of a SuperGenius in 10 seconds. Congrats, Vince. Couldn’t have happened to a better faker guy.

Meanwhile, Ari is looking ragged and disheveled in his office.

Wait, why? Last episode he was fucking Dana Gordon’s brains out, but then ended that relationship because he knew that he still loved his wife, and he decided he was going to try to win her back. But so now he’s just a wreck? What happened? He was still divorcing his wife even before he got back together with Dana and he managed to keep it together, and then he was fucking Dana and keeping it together, but now he is not keeping it together. The human is a very funny beast. Hey, I’ve got an idea, who wants a Mike Ditka cameo for no reason?!

The only thing dumber than a completely unnecessary Football Coaches Of Yesteryear cameo on Entourage (because Ari wanted them to come and give his agents a pep talk, but Babs didn’t want them to come, but she doesn’t explain why she didn’t want them to come, because this show doesn’t actually understand how to create dramatic conflict and so the closest they can come is just having someone say “I didn’t want this to happen” without any justifiable reason for saying so. Going to miss you, Entourage old buddy!) is a RACHEL ZOE cameo on Entourage.

She is a loathsome garbage person. I can’t believe she hasn’t been on the show before! (Phew, just made it.) She slithers out of the wood work on her seven spider legs (spiders have eight legs normally but Rachel Zoe is a piece of shit) and offers unsolicited advice on Vince’s engagement ring, but Vince is too busy blowing up Sloane’s spot to her father, who hates E. Uh oh! Sloane didn’t tell her dad that she was pregnant yet, which is actually kind of weird, like, how long was she going to sit on that one but also why was Vince talking about it? Why was Vince and this old man talking in the first place! Absolutely no reason for it. Cool plot device. It’s called Raising the Stakes and Entourage does it perfectly every time. I can’t believe we only have less than one episode left in which to resolve this dramatic and thrilling storyline! There is so much more to be told! Vince is so distracted by the phone call that he off-handedly purchases a 1.4 million dollar engagement ring because he cannot be bothered. THIS SHOW GETS PEOPLE!

E is packing up all of the things at his office. Huh? I guess he has decided he is going to move to New York to help Sloane raise the baby even though the last time he saw her she said that she didn’t want anything from him and she never wanted to see him again. Definitely shut down your business. Very good thinking. (I’m all for being a responsible father, but a) this is a bit rash and extreme, and b) these people aren’t real people so fuck them and fuck their imaginary babies.) Vince wants E to come with him to Paris and be his best man. OH MY GOD, AM I CRYING? ARE THESE REAL TEARS?

Turtle and Drama go to Sloane’s house…to convince her to come to Vince’s wedding…because she is carrying “their” baby inside of her? ( I am excited for the Turtle and Johnny Drama sitcom: Wing Men.) There is this weird insistence that this baby somehow belongs to the whole gang. How fun is that? For the girl? Ladies, quick poll: when you get pregnant with your ex-fiance’s baby and you hate him because he is fucking your stepmom, how fun is it for his best friends to come to your house uninvited and refer to your baby as “everyone’s baby”? The most fun? 100 percent of ladies agree that they love that shit. She will think about going to Paris, she says, if they will answer one question: did E sleep with her stepmom. Both Turtle and Drama bow their heads and say something to the effect of “we are both decent and honorable people, and our friendship with you means more than you will ever know which is why we keep referring to your baby as our baby, and so as much as it pains us to say this to you, you deserve nothing but honesty from us as a woman whose respect we yearn for even if we sometimes don’t deserve it: yes, he did.” Just kidding! They lie through their teeth! OH YEAH!

Now it is Vince’s turn. He also comes over uninvited. He says that he would never forgive himself if he was the official ending of Sloane and E’s relationship. Well, that is certainly self-centered! Sloane explains that she can never get back together with E because her father hates him. That’s it? I thought there were more reasons. But I guess that’s that! They’ll almost never get back together. Only 10 minutes of Entourage left, so you better just kiss that one goodbye because there is NO WAY they are just going to resolve this right at the end with no real explanation for what changed. Sloane asks Vince the same thing she asked the boys, whether or not E fucked her stepmom, which he totally did, multiple times, which is disgusting. Vince tells her that he genuinely doesn’t know the answer but that If E did fuck Sloane’s ex-stepmom it is only because he’s TOO loyal and loves Sloane TOO much. HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Unbelievable.

Ari calls his daughter because he and his wife were going to have a family meeting that afternoon to break the news to the kids about their divorce but then he called the school and it turns out she had the day off, which is just another example of how Ari has been an absentee father and doesn’t pay any attention to his family. The daughter really doesn’t seem to mind that much, to be honest. She is out shopping, what does she want to talk to her gross old dad about? Somehow, though, this conversation leads to her talking about some proto-teen-opera group that she is championing and how she gave him the CD because she thought maybe he could represent the band but he never listened to it and it’s just been sitting on his desk for a week because he’s a bad dad. If he signs them, she is going to get a commission. “My daughter the agent, when did you grow up?” When you are trying to pretend that you are not as bad and disengaged of a father as everyone is saying you are, don’t ask “When did you grow up?” Because growing up takes years. Pay attention, dads. Also: “my daughter the agent.” Barf me a river. So Ari goes back to the office and frantically tries to find the CD but it’s nowhere to be found. Oh, Lloyd has it. Ari is mad that Lloyd has it. Who cares. (Hopefully everyone involved with Entourage will change their minds and we will get a ninth season and it will be all about Lloyd having Ari’s CD, like the full story of what was going on there.) Ari tells him to play the CD throughout the whole office on the loudspeaker. Lloyd does this immediately. It is amazing that he has the power to do that from his computer! Moving on up, Lloyd!

Ari is overwhelmed by the trash popera he is hearing, and that is how he is convinced to abandon the company he built and go back and rejoin his family. Amazingly, this works! Like, right away! You would think that years of built up resentments and petty disagreements and fundamental shifts in attitudes and emotional attachments might be harder to repair than just pulling up in a porsche coupe and saying “I listened to this opera CD” but there you have it. So now Ari and his wife are back together, because Ari learned what is really important in this world: having enough money for five lifetimes. HAHAHAH. Oh, yeah, by the way, Ari points out that they have enough money for five lifetimes, which makes the whole “quitting your job and just traveling to the Amalfi coast and being a good father to your children and a wonderful husband to your wife thing” a whole lot easier? Lloyd pulls up and Ari tells him that he’s in charge now. You get the keys to the Agent Factory, Gay Charlie! He also tells him that his first clients are the teenage opera singers, which makes no sense because Lloyd has been an agent for a couple of years and already has clients? Then Lloyd tells Ari that he better hurry up and get to the private airplane hangar if he’s going to make it in time for Vince’s wedding that Ari didn’t even know about. RUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

CUT TO: INT. PRIVATE AIRPLANE HANGAR – DAY

Everyone is here! Wow! Except Billy Walsh and Andrew Dice Clay, I guess. But look, there’s Vince! There’s Turtle! There’s Johnny Drama! There’s E! There’s Scott Caan! Oh wait, here’s Ari! And his wife! Her name is MELISSA! Incredible! (When they tell Vince they are working things out he actually says “Uh-mazing,” which is about right. Sophia, of course, is here, and has absolutely nothing to offer. After all of her quips and references to graduating from Oxford and being a hard-hitting journalist, even she has been reduced to pretty arm-candy. CONGRATS, SOPHIA! Everyone is about to get on the private jet to Paris for the wedding. Uh, not you, E. WHUT?! E has to fly commercial. JUST KIDDING, HE WOULD NEVER! Vince got E his own plane. And guess who is standing at the steps of this plane? Sloane!

After hearing absolutely nothing even remotely convincing from everyone, she has decided to give it another shot! Vince says that the pilot is ready to take them anywhere in the world that they want to go. Wait. Isn’t everyone going to Paris for your wedding? So, what, they’re going to fly to Hawaii, land, have a Mai Thai, and then have to get back on the plane for a 16-hour flight to fucking Paris? Nice present. Very thoughtful. Anyway, it looks like it all worked out for everyone. The two planes take off. AND SUDDENLY VEER OF COURSE AND CRASH INTO EACH OTHER! NO SURVIVORS! THE TARMAC IS COVERED IN BLOODSTAINED LOUIS VUITTON LUGGAGE. TURTLE’S NEW YORK METS HAT TUMBLES DOWN THE RUNWAY. AS THE HAT COMES TO A STOP THE CAMERA ZOOMS IN. CELINE DION SINGS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM. HBO GOES DARK FOR 10 MINUTES IN HONOR OF THEIR MEMORIES.

For real, though: A blooper reel plays during the credits in which Ari Gold is sipping champagne with his wife at George Clooney’s castle on the Mediterranean Sea, or whatever, and he gets a phone call from that old Australian dude from The O.C. and also Lost who tells him that he wants Ari to come be the CEO of his company and that he is the ONLY ONE who can do it (which makes absolutely NO SENSE even to someone who doesn’t know about business? I mean, how is some Hollywood agent the ONLY person to be the CEO of a multi-national company with numerous non-entertainment industry business interests? A candidate, fine. The ONLY candidate?) and find out what it’s like to have as much money as God. Ari’s face looks conflicted. WILL HE OR WON’T HE? And…..that’s the very end of Entourage.

Holy fucking shit. I had every expectation that the final episode of Entourage of all time would be bad. That it would casually wrap up its boring storylines in convenient ways and that at the end of it all we would be left with exactly what we had when we started eight seasons ago: nothing. And that is basically what happened, but it was so MUCH WORSE than I could have imagined! Obviously, this was a bad, lazy, terribly written show, but you would think that after eight years they would have managed to squeak out some kind of half hour conclusion that was more satisfying and less disgusting. This isn’t The Sopranos. There are literally no actual loose ends to tie up. The only thing they had to do was bring all the characters together, pop open a bottle of champagne, wave their ATM receipts showing the millions each of them has in their checking account in the air, and crash a Lamborghini into the White House. Only Entourage would base its series finale around the wedding of its main character and then NOT SHOW THE WEDDING and KIND OF IMPLY IT DIDN’T EVEN END UP HAPPENING PROBABLY. And this final scene in which Ari Gold hovers at the edge of emotional redemption having abandoned his greedy, self-aggrandizing ways in order to enjoy his life and reconnect wit his family only to have an unlikely business opportunity arise and we as an audience are genuinely supposed to HOPE that he takes it because “wouldn’t that be great” (this is definitely the implication of the scene) is weird and misguided and gross even for a show as weird and misguided and gross as Entourage has been about money and material wealth since the very beginning. Is this what the rumored Entourage movie is going to be about? Ari running a company? While Turtle eats his baked clams on a bed covered in 50 dollar bills? And Sophia takes Vince to Divorce Court? GREAT MOVIE, PRETTY SURE THE FANDANGO SERVERS HAVE ALREADY CRASHED. I suppose it is appropriate, though, for Entourage to end as it began: terribly. R.I.P. Entourage. May you rot in TV hell.

[Originally posted on September 12th, 2011.]