By Joe Johnson (Contributor) – Email
Date Posted: September 19, 2011
Print Edition: September 14, 2011
By the time you read this, HBO’s contemporary Hollywood television show, Entourage, will have ended. You will have heard the Jane’s Addiction lyrics “My mind had been enabled in the memory you overflow wanna be your super hero even if I tumble fall” for the last time. And you will know how the show ends. But let’s escape that melancholy feeling which many of the shows diehard fans are going through for just a moment.
Entourage started out with a bang. An instant success, it portrayed the celebrity world with a new insight. Sure it exaggerated the reality, but it was also more genuine than nearly any other show on television. Originally based on Mark Wahlberg’s (executive producer and occasional guest star) early career, it quickly went in its own direction under showrunner Doug Ellin. If you were to just hear it from off in the distance, you might be led to believe that it was a superficial show about money, women, cars, the f-bomb, and weed. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was a show of characters and the bonds between them.
The actors behind Vince (Adrian Grenier), “E” (Kevin Connolly), “Drama” (Kevin Dillon), “Turtle” (Jerry Ferrara), and Ari (Jeremy Piven), along with the rest of the supporting cast, really gave life and likability to their characters. Connolly might be the only actor that had some negativity come his way, but they all made the show a lot of fun to watch. They became very much like a family.
One staple of the show was the many, many guest appearances. Part of the reality of Entourage was based on seeing actors playing themselves. Every season had a nearly countless number of actors enter the show, either making cameo appearances or for longer story arcs; just to name a few of them here: Seth Green, James Woods, Eminem, Mike Tyson, Martin Scorsese, Snoop Dogg, Gary Busey, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Kanye West. The best, though, would have to be Bob Saget, Eric Roberts and Matt Damon.
While the last few seasons may have lost a little something, looking back it was a great ride. Some episodes really stand out in particular, such as when the boys went to Las Vegas where they run into Seth Green, Drama having a semi-homoerotic massage, and then the fight at the strip show. Another personal favourite was when they went to the desert at Joshua Tree National Park to eat some ‘shrooms with Eric Roberts.
Thus it was a sad day for all when the very last scene was shot and the show finally wrapped on the 96th episode in season 8 and it’s at the TV Critics Press Tour where the cast would all be together for only one more time. Kevin Connolly summed it up when he said, “I don’t want to start crying.”
That’s enough of looking back; it’s time to look to the future. And the future is good. The truth is that it looks like Entourage may only really be done in its current form. There is a lot of momentum going forward for a movie to be made. Everybody involved with the show, Wahlberg, Ellin, and the cast, are sounding pretty optimistic that it is going to happen. In fact, Wahlberg has said that he would finance the film out of his own pocket if he had to. To caution this optimism just a bit, though, it has been very rare for a movie to be developed from a TV show after it has ended, but right now all signs do point to it getting green-lit.
While HBO has other great shows just beginning, Entourage is going to be joining a batch of stellar shows that have reached their conclusion. It will surely be missed. At least until the movie is released.
