Entourage finished its sixth season late last week with its 12th episode entitled "Give a Little Bit." While it was satisfying watching Matt Damon take on a well-acted guest role in the season's final episode, this whole season of Entourage didn't seem to have any major plot points, nor did it stir any thrills or excitement with the characters and story.
Either the writers and producers of Entourage have run out of enticing stories to tell, or fascinating character developments to explore or the whole series has pretty much run its course, having portrayed every conceivable Hollywood vice and virtue there is. It is hard to accept the latter, when Hollywood impresses upon people that it has many, many mysterious facets to explore!
In this season, we saw Vince (Adrian Grenier) literally staying stagnant. The first episode saw him finish The Great Gatsby, and that's about all we see of his career! The rest of the season plays out with Vince being more a side player than anything else. His story is never compelling, and other than episodes where he thought he had a stalker (which turned out to be something else), Vince is nothing more than window dressing this season, with barely a solid storyline to attach himself to.
Also, there are endless scenes of him, in almost every episode, picking up strange girls and then having sex with them later as if the audience needed to be hit over the head with the fact that celebrities like Vince get sex on tap! (Yeah we get it! Vince has sex anywhere, and with anyone, and at any time! We get it, I promise!) Those scenes were clearly just gratuitous and for salacious effect more than for anything else, for we already know that Vince is quite the man-whore from the previous five seasons. Did the writers really have to peddle to such lowbrow enticements to get ratings and/or viewers' interest?
Given how feeble and weak Vince's stories were, you would think that would mean that the other characters might have had more intriguing storylines, but sadly their story angles were also marred by boring and uninteresting plot points.
We see Eric (Kevin Connolly) start his own firm, only to regret the move, and he ends up at a major management agency instead. He also is confused about what he wants with Sloan, and spends some time with a controlling and mildly psychotic girl called Ashley, only to end up engaged to Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui) by the last scene of the final episode.
Incidentally, Alexis Dziena, who played Ashley, was terribly miscast given her small stature, tween looks (the girl looks no more than 13) and whiny, high-pitched teen voice. She looked out of place and stood out like a sore thumb in this very adult series! Her "Ashley" was absolutely unbelievable and audiences were not convinced that someone as mature and centred as Eric had been portrayed all along would ever start any relationship with such a young and child-like character. By casting Dziena, Ashley looked like she accidentally walked off the Gossip Girl set and landed on Entourage instead. Luckily, Ashley's presence was cut short, and Eric chooses Sloan in the end. Hopefully, we won't have to cringe at Dziena's weak portrayal and Ashley's irritating appearance any more.
Article comments
1 - Jim Maher
Shamila,
Great Analysis.
Entourage has clearly jumped the shark this season. I was waiting every week for decent plot lines etc. There was none, and if there were ones IE drama attacking the studio exec they were rushed and no arc was developed.
The last episode was disappointing I wonder if this is the end of Entourage. It sure seemed that way. Vince's character saw no development, how about Vince gets Married or somehow they make fun of Scientology, there are other areas where the show could go.
Season 5 was the greatest season in Entourage's history(which followed a great season 4). Season 6 was a huge disappointment. The stalker could be played up how about the paparazzi angle.
Very disappointing.
If Entourage ends a better series would be "Ari" a show about Ari and he agency, there is enough sub plots to make that season work.
I think A good story line would be Vince going back to the hot agent, or a love triangle something better than what we have now.
Anyways very disappointed Doug Ellin, needs to listen to his fans and step up his game.