‘Entourage’ 8.01 Recap: “What Is There to Say?”

‘Entourage’ is back for its eighth and final season. The premiere picks up months down the road from last year’s finale. E and Scotty Lavin (Scott Caan) have succeeded in overthrowing Murray and taking over the managing business. Drama is riding high on the success of ‘Johnny’s Bananas’, Ari is dealing with the trial separation from his wife, and Vince is 90 days sober.

With Vince out of rehab, he’s raring to go on his next project, and every one of the guys has a stake in his success. They need him to have a big comeback year, or they could all be back down in the dumps.

Drama frantically clears the house of drugs, booze, cough syrup, and even Advil. He doesn’t want anything tempting his newly sober brother. Watching him order Turtle around is great. Drama has always been one of my favorite characters on the show, and he’s getting a good chance to shine in this season. With his own hit show, he’s finally the one on top at the moment.

Who knows what’s going on with Turtle? His whole tequila story was the downer of Season 7. Every time it was brought up, the entire flow of the season came to a grinding halt. In this episode, he simply follows Drama’s orders by ridding the house of anything that resembles a drug. Unless the show gives him something important to do, I’m hoping that Turtle stays as a background character only used occasionally for comedic relief.

E has gone through another breakup with Sloan. It’s nice how this season skips ahead in time so we don’t have to watch E and Sloan fight it out until the bitter end. They hate each other (again), presumably because E wouldn’t sign her father’s prenup agreement, and partly because he overthrew her godfather from his own company. E is also harboring a bit of resentment because, out of everyone (even Lavin), he’s the only one who didn’t get a call from Vince on the day he got out of rehab.

With Vince back, anything’s possible with his character. Does he relapse or does he make a huge Robert Downey, Jr.-like comeback? Only time will tell. It doesn’t look too good, though. He has an idea for a movie project that doesn’t seem like it would even make a decent direct-to-TV Hallmark Channel flick. He wants to make a movie about a man who mortgages his home and flies to Romania to help find trapped miners with his trained Labrador. Yeah, like I said, it’s bad.

Everyone else’s situation pales in comparison to Ari’s. His is actually a very emotional storyline. For season after season of ‘Entourage’, Ari has stayed ever-so-faithful to his wife. It’s easy to see that he loves her and their kids. They’ve had some rough patches and gone through counseling, but this time is different. They’re separated, and it’s obviously killing him. His story is easily the most compelling so far this season. He can’t focus on anything other than the fact that his wife doesn’t want to see him anymore. In the bombshell of the episode, it’s revealed she is seeing someone else. We’ve never seen Ari feel so vulnerable. The scene where he finds this out is heartbreaking. He could’ve talked his way out of anything his wife said, except that.

Oh yeah, and Turtle burns down Vince’s mansion with a hidden joint.

I’m looking forward to the last seven episodes of the show. It’s been a good run. Hopefully it will end on a high note.

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