Entourage: Nowhere to Go

By Kevin Burke | October 6, 2009 at 10:03 pm | Arts & Culture, Life | 8 comments | |

 

I know that HBO has renewed Entourage for another season, but honestly where can the show go from here? The characters aren’t that interesting anymore. [Spoiler Alert! If you haven't seen the season finale, shield thine eyes!]

Let’s recap:

- Eric is a successful agent and getting married (and the whole subplot with Ashley was pretty weak anyway; she wasn’t even close to competing with Sloan).

- Vince has been successful, unsuccessful and back to successful (and we’ve hardly even seen him this season, as the writers realized that he’s not interesting anymore).

- Drama is loses his regular acting gig only to get the lead in another inevitably terrible show where he plays the same terrible role.

- Ari owns the biggest agency in the city and has already turned down the only position that would make him more powerful.

The only two characters that are interesting anymore are Lloyd and Turtle, which the writers clearly noticed, because they got more airtime than any other characters in this past season. But now their stories are finished: Turtle’s done with Jamie Lynn Sigler and Lloyd is working with Ari as an agent.

So honestly, where can the show go from here, besides to re-hash material it’s already covered?

  1. Drama becomes a syndicated chef.
  2. Turtle uses his business degree to become the biggest drug dealer in Los Angeles, and the show turns into him vs. Mexican gangs in brutal wars for turf (Entourage: The Streets of LA)
  3. Eric cheats on Sloan (which he did before, in Season 3, but there is no other way to make a married man interesting).
  4. Better yet, Sloan cheats on Eric with one of the other guys on the show, becoming Entourage‘s Yoko Ono. (Sidenote: I can’t remember the guys in this show have ever competing for women, getting jealous of each other, growing apart (besides from Eric moving out, and occasionally arguing with Vince), or trying to steal each other’s women. Perhaps this is why every guy likes Entourage so much; it presents a world where all the guys get along. Women enjoy watching women friends argue and eventually get back together; guys don’t. Every guy competes with his friends for women).
  5. Vince wants to start acting in plays, off-Broadway (? Im really struggling for ideas here)
  6. Now that Ari owns everything he funds a vanity project featuring a star actor, a hot-shot agent and his entourage, in a meta-meta-Entourage.

Anyway, the show will have to go someplace radically different in season 7. I respect shows like Extras and The Wire for ending when they ran out of things to cover. A friend of mine wanted to see a sequel to District 9 but honestly where can that story go? The aliens have gone away and will come back, but the drama’s gone. Matrix 2 and 3, anyone? Sometimes it’s best just to end things when they reach a natural stopping point.

Reposted with permission from kburke.org.

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Kevin Burke

Kevin once inadvertently left Waiting for Godot during the intermission. He runs a link blog and a daily CMC newsletter.

 
 
 
 
  • Josh

    Haha, here are my predictions:

    Drama- syndicated chef is spot on. Alternatively, nobody is better suited for a reality show than Drama.

    Turtle- Loses weight and opens a high end restaurant. Becomes a man, mentors street kids and starts dressing business casual. Lots of potential for Turtle’s character.

    Eric- Slowly gets less and less airtime as he settles into the married life and works a steady job as a decent manager. He’s pretty much been the main character of the show thus far and people are getting bored of him. Unless his personality changes from the stressed, anxious manager and friend, people will get bored.

    Sloan- Would never cheat. Don’t ever say bad things about Sloan, please.

    Vince- Pulls a Dr. Carter (from ER) style mission to Africa or somewhere that he’s living out of a hut and helping poor people or refugees, under the control Matt “he Jason Bourned me, bro!” Damon. Maybe develops some personality too.

    Ari- Moves into a role so powerful that he isn’t really dealing with clients much anymore. Starts to see himself becoming like Terrence.

    Lloyd- He irritates people too much to stay a major character much longer. People like him as Ari’s funny pet, not as a powerful role. He’ll get very little airtime in his new role.

    Seth Green will come back in some form.

  • Josh

    Haha, here are my predictions:

    Drama- syndicated chef is spot on. Alternatively, nobody is better suited for a reality show than Drama.

    Turtle- Loses weight and opens a high end restaurant. Becomes a man, mentors street kids and starts dressing business casual. Lots of potential for Turtle’s character.

    Eric- Slowly gets less and less airtime as he settles into the married life and works a steady job as a decent manager. He’s pretty much been the main character of the show thus far and people are getting bored of him. Unless his personality changes from the stressed, anxious manager and friend, people will get bored.

    Sloan- Would never cheat. Don’t ever say bad things about Sloan, please.

    Vince- Pulls a Dr. Carter (from ER) style mission to Africa or somewhere that he’s living out of a hut and helping poor people or refugees, under the control Matt “he Jason Bourned me, bro!” Damon. Maybe develops some personality too.

    Ari- Moves into a role so powerful that he isn’t really dealing with clients much anymore. Starts to see himself becoming like Terrence.

    Lloyd- He irritates people too much to stay a major character much longer. People like him as Ari’s funny pet, not as a powerful role. He’ll get very little airtime in his new role.

    Seth Green will come back in some form.

  • Chase Gray
  • Chase Gray
  • clover

    Are you slow? Where in the line “all the alliens have now moved to District 10″ did it become difficult to forecast a sequel? That whole movie was an intro to a series…so much so that they even wrote the title of the first sequel into the movie.

    I agree that entourage has little room to maneuvre, but I’m fairly certain they’re setting up the final seasons to roll out an Ari-centered spinoff.

    As for why they are continuing, syndication is the name of the game. As soon as season 2 was over, the only purpose that show had was to get to 100 episodes. They’re at 78 episodes now. Season 7 will be another 12 and then they’ll go a couple more seasons to top 100.

  • clover

    Are you slow? Where in the line “all the alliens have now moved to District 10″ did it become difficult to forecast a sequel? That whole movie was an intro to a series…so much so that they even wrote the title of the first sequel into the movie.

    I agree that entourage has little room to maneuvre, but I’m fairly certain they’re setting up the final seasons to roll out an Ari-centered spinoff.

    As for why they are continuing, syndication is the name of the game. As soon as season 2 was over, the only purpose that show had was to get to 100 episodes. They’re at 78 episodes now. Season 7 will be another 12 and then they’ll go a couple more seasons to top 100.

  • http://kburke.org Kevin Burke

    The Matrix was “set up” for sequels, too – when Keanu Reeves gave that speech into the phone and then blasted into space. However once he became the One, the story was no longer interesting. Which is why Matrix 2 and 3 stunk

    The District 9 story is finished – there’s nothing terribly interesting about the aliens returning. I’d be willing to bet you $20 that there’s no sequel and/or that the sequel gets critically panned.

    District 9 is the name of a famous slum in Johannesburg. One way to look at the movie is as a critique of race relations in South Africa; replace “prawns” with “black people” and watch the movie again.

  • http://kburke.org Kevin Burke

    The Matrix was “set up” for sequels, too – when Keanu Reeves gave that speech into the phone and then blasted into space. However once he became the One, the story was no longer interesting. Which is why Matrix 2 and 3 stunk

    The District 9 story is finished – there’s nothing terribly interesting about the aliens returning. I’d be willing to bet you $20 that there’s no sequel and/or that the sequel gets critically panned.

    District 9 is the name of a famous slum in Johannesburg. One way to look at the movie is as a critique of race relations in South Africa; replace “prawns” with “black people” and watch the movie again.