Diary of an Entourage Virgin – Let’s hug it out, bitch

I’ll admit it: I enjoy watching shows about groups of women who flock together. Pretty Little Liars, Make It Or Break It … yes, even Sex And The City. Pair that enjoyment with the twisted pleasure I get from watching California-based “reality” shows like The Hills and it sounds like I’ve got a great chance of liking HBO‘s Entourage.

So why have I never given it a go before? Well, for one, I haven’t had HBO for about nine years. Two, Adrien Grenier had always seemed a little too pretty and vacant for me to enjoy watching. I didn’t even really like him in Drive Me Crazy with Melissa Joan Hart, which is odd considering I usually revel in those sort of cheesy movies.

This first diary entry is going to be about Season One of Entourage as a whole. I was surprised that I finished the season so quickly, but I cough that up to the fact that a) it’s a short season — only 2 discs and 8 episodes; b) the episodes are a half-hour, not an hour (didn’t know that before). And of course c) it was awesome and I couldn’t stop watching.

I found this first season to be pretty strong, but it’s apparent to me that these characters are only going to get better as they work into themselves a little more and gain lots of loyal fans. (That seems funny to say now, because we’re coming up on the eighth season currently, but I’m imagining how it might have been back when the show started.) There are a couple of episodes where I was kind of bored (“Busey and the Beach” and “The Scene”), but it picked up again for the finale, “New York.” As I was watching the guys getting on the plane and E just standing there near his crappy car, I thought, “There’s no way Vince is gonna hop out of the plane and run to him, even though that’s what I want to happen.” But he DID!

By the way, I had no idea these guys were from New York before I started watching. That’s great! Their accents are really good, especially Turtle’s.

A couple of notes from the season:

• I LOVE Ari. I’ve seen Jeremy Piven here and there (I guess the most memorable role he’s played in my mind is the intolerable Dean Gordon “Cheese” Pritchard from Old School. Ari is such a jerk sometimes (especially to his wife), but I just love his mannerisms, articulations, and the way he steals a scene. When he first said, “Let’s hug it out, bitch” to Eric, I almost died.
• Shauna (Debi Mazar) is another character that I think the show benefits greatly from having. I don’t usually enjoy a foul mouth too much on a woman, but this is an exception.
• Nobody has a smartphone!!! This was the part that really took me back to 2004. They all had flip phones. Which they utilized to a great degree, especially when hanging up on somebody by swiftly and angrily snapping the phone shut.
• My husband (who is annoyingly perceptive and picks up on even the tiniest details out of the corner of his eye while doing work on the computer) made me rewind a little part I missed in the first episode because I was looking at my phone. “Hey, you’re totally missing this joke. That’s Marky Mark and his crew!” he barked at me. Thanks, honey. (Side note: I totally heard “Good Vibrations” on the radio this morning after taking a break from writing this diary entry!)
• At first, I was a little confused as to why Kevin Connolly had first billing in the opening credits, and not Adrien Grenier. But, as the episodes went on, it seemed to make sense. Eric is a sympathetic character; someone with a personality, opinions, and, to a certain extent, a struggle. We see him contemplating his career and the direction in which his life is going. Vince, by contrast, is still a bit one-dimensional and his emotional interactions are quite limited. We see Eric attempting to have a functional relationship with Emily (Samaire Armstrong, who I last saw as Seth’s short-lived love interest Anna on The O.C.), while Vince has a bunch of different girls he strings along. The finale dealt with E trying to convince Vince to hire him as his real manager — not just a friend who happens to make decisions for him. By the time the end credits rolled at the end of the season, I understood that Entourage is as much about Eric as it is about Vince — if not even more.

What did you most enjoy about Season One of Entourage? What do you think about the show in general?

Clacked by Rachel Blum-Jose
on Jun 03, 2011 @ 15:06 EST5EDT