After eight years, ‘Entourage’ is finally hanging it up. How did the final season perform? Read on to find out.

Eight short episodes this year, and that’s the end of ‘Entourage’. The episodes really flew by, made even faster by the fact that the first five seemed to glide around, headed nowhere in particular. The last few episodes gave the main stories a bump, but it feels like the show runners were desperate to send everyone off on a high note rather than let them take darker routes that might have been more believable.

The most interesting and hilarious storyline this season was Drama’s constant battle with Andrew Dice Clay. Clay wanted to hold out for more money on ‘Johnny’s Bananas’, so he went on strike. Drama caved and also went on strike against his better judgment. Watching Johnny squirm the entire season, wondering what he should do, and then watching him haggle with producer Phil was great. This was some of the best stuff of the season.

As per usual, Turtle’s storyline felt tacked on and, in the greater scheme of things, useless. Trying to distance himself from Vinnie’s shadow, Turtle tried to start up a restaurant business in L.A. He hired a couple from back home in New York to bring their food to Hollywood, but they were too busy gazing at stars to even care. Some of those scenes were excruciating. Then, in the end, Turtle didn’t have to live with his choices, because Vinnie just bailed him out once again. The whole “I bought your Avion stock, Turtle” scene was just a little too neat and tidy. I did like Drama’s reaction to it, though: “Turtle’s a millionaire now?”

E spent the entire season fretting about Sloan. Then he had sex, twice, with Sloan’s ex-step mom. Then stalked Sloan at the Farmer’s Market. Then found out that Sloan was pregnant with his baby. Then he got a happy ending too.

Vinnie’s storyline was literally packed into the last two episodes as he fell head-over-heels for a journalist who interviewed him. It’s easy to see how he’d fall for Alice Eve, but their relationship felt even less interesting than Vinnie and Sasha Grey.

Finally, I was convinced that Ari’s storyline would end badly. Ari dug himself such a hole over the years that he should have ended up living in it. As much as I like Ari (he’s the best character on the show), his story arc called for him to be miserable for the rest of his life, to watch his wife and family desert him because that’s all he’s done to them over the past few years. Still, in a few minutes, the writers made that storyline end happily too. However, the scene where Ari finally listens to the opera singers’ CD that his daughter gave him is actually pretty moving. He quits his job, runs home and gets his wife back.

Like Season Six, the entire gang find themselves at an airport ready to embark on a private jet. Vinnie is going to Paris to get married and wants everyone to come. He’s arranged another plane for E and has magically produced Sloan, who now likes E again. The last shot has the two planes taking off. Oh, such symbolism.

I don’t know. I really liked the show, but the eighth season seemed too perfect. It tied up all these loose ends in an episode and a half, and went out of its way to give every single character a happy ending. It was kind of disappointing.