Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Lose Yourself, and the merciful end

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Drama: As any halfway decent finale should do, this week's episode of Entourage brought each of the series' individual plotlines to a head...sort of. They already did that with Drama's plotline on last week's episode, so the only Johnny bits we see (ewww) are a few mentions of how great his monkey cartoon is going to be and shots of him freaking out about "Baby Bro."

Vince: Most of this week's creative reserves - talk about about scarce resources! - this week went towards Vince's drug-induced collapse. And we do get to see Vince legitimately freak out this week, either because the makeup girl actually showed up or Adrian Grenier saves up all his (meager) talent for the last episode of each season. At the end of the fifth season, we got to see him blow up at E for being a bad manager, and this season, we get to see him blow up at E - and several other people - for being a bad friend. This takes place at an intervention the entourage has staged for Vince, which he of course walks out on because he thinks the rest of them are acting like pussies. And then he goes to Eminem's party, and Eminem punches him in the face.  Yes, this was another in a long line of Entourage's braindead, inexplicable celebrity cameos (John Cleese, WTF), but seeing Vince get clocked by Slim Shady was probably one of the most satisfying moments of the season.

Elsewhere, Vince and Sasha broke up over her determination to, you know, be a porn star. Also, the finale's big reveal came in the form of a police officer discovering a bag of coke on Vince after Eminem's bodyguards put him in the hospital. Viewers not suffering from amnesia will recall that this is exactly the same big reveal as last week's episode.

Turtle: Deus ex machina, Entourage-style! Football player, who had previously - and inexplicably - threatened to buy Carlos out of his tequila company, relents and promises to invest the five million dollars needed to expand the factory. But because this is Entourage, a sudden, unmotivated change in plotting must be accompanied by a threat of physical violence. See, a 180 degree turn by a character is totally understandable if that character threatens to beat the shit out of another character should they "fuck them over." Plus, creator Doug Ellin can sleep at night, undisturbed by the realization that he's written a script that would be laughed at in a 100-level drama class. After his fifth bottle of Avion Tequila, that is.

...

Oops.

Ari: It's pretty much the pits for Ari at this point. The whole town thinks he's a douchebag (or now has evidence of it), he's lost his shot at bringing an NFL team to L.A., and now the unflappable Mrs. Ari wants a break. Ari is informed of this last bit of news over the phone as Lady Gaga (oh wait, that's Christina Aguilera) sings in the background for Mrs. Ari's would-be surprise birthday party.

I've wondered essentially since the beginning of the show why Mrs. Ari stays with her husband despite how much she complains about his behavior. I content myself, I guess, with the fact that Ari constantly professes his love for his wife in the sincerest way he can. So I don't find it completely plausible that she would abandon Ari now, when he's at his lowest point. Is she really so shocked by his behavior? The characterization doesn't really make sense, considering Ari has never hidden his homophobic/chauvinist behavior from his wife. But both Perrey Reeves and Jeremy Piven are talented enough performers to pull off this bit of domestic strife. Piven in particular manages to say volumes with a simple incredulous stare. Reeves never gets nearly as much good material as Piven, however, because the show has made it clear that they don't want her character to exist independent of Ari. For God's sake, they don't give her a fucking name! Am I the only one who thinks that's ugly and chauvinistic rather than cute or clever?

Eric: E's dinner with Sloan's father, Terrence (played by the always-unpredictable Malcolm McDowell), takes a turn for the worse when he takes E to task for his seeming laziness at work. Eric, you probably don't remember or care, is an inexplicably successful agent at Sloan's godfather's agency. Sloan's godfather, who was played by veteran actor George Segal in season six, has not appeared in a single episode of season seven, hopefully because Segal's found better work. But dude has been absent this season, leading Scotty Lavin to conclude that the agency is ripe to be taken over. Eric, who initially balked at Lavin's offer to bring him in to the deal, accepts after the dinner. And, of course, we know he's worried about Vince because somebody told him to grow out his facial hair slightly. Good thing he didn't have to act worried.

Departing Words: I haven't mentioned Eric for the last three weeks, and no one who reads this column has noticed. This is either because nobody actually reads my column, which would be my conclusion if not for the few Facebook "Likes" I get each week, or because Eric is such a dreadfully dull character that even in a show with only five main characters, his absence in a plot summary doesn't raise a red flag. Speaking of which, this thoroughly unmemorable character is actually a good jumping off point for my closing thoughts on this, the seventh season of Entourage. As is my idiom, I'll pick out a few characteristics of the show that make it particularly insufferable and explain my rationale in my typical, winningly sarcastic fashion:

• It's forgettable - It hardly needs to be said, but Entourage is almost absurdly unmemorable. At its best, Entourage shows a bunch of pretty people having more fun than you. But even then, I've always been at a loss when trying to recall the specifics of what happened on an episode, or even across a whole season. The plotlines on Entourage are so hackneyed and forgettable, in fact, that resorting or reusing them has never aroused the ire of the show's dedicated fan base of bros. It's like the stock market, as we watch the fortunes of Entourage's cast rise and fall: Turtle's cool, Turtle's a loser; Vince is successful, then he's a flop; Drama's got a big show, then he's back to being a failure; Eric is boring, then Eric is more boring.
• It's ugly and hypocritical: The Entourage writing staff has no problem using "This Character Doesn't Want to be a Pussy" as a dramatic motivator again and again. Now, if we're to believe the Entourage Wikipedia page's section on "Themes" (HA!), this is just an example of the characters' intense "Male Friendship." But it's really an indicator of just how macho and insecure the whole show is. For the most part, Entourage is almost startlingly unaware of how ugly its characters' behavior is. And when it does point out just how poorly Vince and the boys treat the opposite sex, the show just seems hypocritical and preachy. Take this week's episode, when Vince strikes out with a girl at Eminem's party because she thinks he's a womanizing asshole. For purposes of the plot, we're supposed to side with the girl. But would that character have been portrayed as anything but a bitch last season? We, for the most part, are meant to admire Vince's ability to fuck anything that moves. But now, when Vince has actually been in a dedicated relationship since the beginning of the season (with a porn star, granted), we're supposed to wag our fingers at him? Gimme a break, Entourage. If you want to be a satire, you need to at least implicitly critique your characters' behavior.
• It could be so much better: I've waxed poetic about an Entourage free of Vince and the boys (or at least Vince and Eric). And yes, in its current form, Entourage minus everyone but Ari would be infinitely more tolerable. But imagine, if you will, a Battlestar Galactica-esque reboot of Entourage in, say, thirty years. You dump the original series' dated, smug stupidity (because the early part of this century has been nothing if not smug and stupid) in favor of a real, biting take on the Hollywood nightmare. You replace the noncommittal tone (Is it fun? Is it serious? What popular rap song can we play to convey what the audience should be feeling?) with a sort of consistent ambivalence: Hollywood's fun, Entourage 2.0 would say, but it's a killer. And, best of all, you recast every role because, after all, the original stars of Entourage will have been gathering dust on the bottom shelf of the metaphorical bargain bin for the past couple of decades. That's an Entourage I'd be excited to watch. But this isn't one even I'll be masochistic enough to take up again.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Porn Scenes from an Italian Restuarant

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating- or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO'sEntourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.


Drama: Johnny still doesn't like the idea of his star vehicle being animated, but E's hot British assistant manages to get him to come around by being hot and British. CBS dude even agrees to take another meeting with Johnny, but Johnny, on the advice of hot British chick, decides to take the show even before the meeting. The more and more I think about Johnny's Bananas, the more ridiculous it seems that a show like this would ever be successful except in the world of, say, Entourage.

But I did enjoy the stuff about how Johnny initially rejected the idea because he thought he was being made fun of. The arc here actually nicely portrays a past-his-prime actor coming to terms with the fact that this may be his last shot at fame, even if it's not in the form he expected. It's a refreshingly real(ish) storyline for a show that takes pleasure in stacking contrived plotline on top of contrived plotline until it becomes all but inevitable that the whole stupid house of cards is going to tumble and hopefully catch fire and not get renewed by HBO.

Turtle: Take Turtle's story, for example: Hot chick's (now) angry uncle (Miguel Sandoval) doesn't like Turtle messing with his family tequila business - because apparently the show needs this character to be angry at Turtle for some reason - and so uncle guy is especially pissed when Turtle tries to bring some football player into the deal. Then the football player, who was ready to shell out $5 million to fund the tequila company, gets equally pissed at the uncle and threatens to buy the company outright.

Of course because uncle guy is an experienced businessman, it's completely plausible that he would fly off the handle and put himself in danger of losing the company he loves, which his good-for-nothing brother actually owns the majority stake in. The show can't seem to decide whether hot chick's uncle is a reasonable businessman or the psycho racial stereotype Turtle suspected him to be. They're going with the latter this week, though, because Turtle is short and fat and can never succeed at anything.

Vince: As is usually the case, I still don't give a shit about what is happening with Vince this week. Sasha Grey - a PORN star, in case you didn't know - still wants to make her gangbang movie, and Vince still doesn't want her to make it because he's in love with her. Gasp.

Vince's uncharacteristic sentimentality/clinginess has been a running theme on Entourage since the character got all stalker-y with Mandy Moore all the way back in season 2. And yes, I have spent an embarrassing amount of time watching this show. But again, Adrian Grenier is such an abominable actor that we can never really tell what's going through his head. He does flippant pretty well, but he continues to prove himself incapable of much else.

Apparently Vince is supposed to be wrestling with both his feelings for Sasha Grey and his mounting drug addiction following his brush with death (!) early in the season. But even the stupid makeup department isn't doing its job because I couldn't see anything wrong with the guy, even when somebody tells him that he "looks terrible." Jeez, Entourage, you can't make the writing staff do all the work. They're fucking stupid.

Ari: Ari's story was perhaps the most frustrating this week because, once again, it was actually interesting. The Ari storylines show that Entourage's writers are capable of much more, but they're just too lazy to extend quality storytelling to the whole show.


This time, Ari delivers an impassioned diatribe against Amanda Daniels in the middle of the restaurant before she can tell him that she was interested in bringing him back in to the NFL deal. Jeremy Piven, too talented to rely on narrowed eyes and quivering lips, lets all the color drain from his face and, once again, makes me pissed off he isn't on a better show. Maybe in an alternate universe, he could have played a rival agency head on Mad Men. But now he'll just be Ari Gold for the rest of his career. Wonderful.

But even this plotline was sullied by Entourage's staunch refusal to make any fucking sense. Because why in the hell would Amanda Daniels have any reason to bring a man she despises into the biggest deal of both of their careers? We also found out this week that Amanda didn't actually leak the tapes. Her assistant actually had the bone to pick and leaked them without her permission. So it was actually one big ruse on Amanda's part to, uh... um... do nothing? I take it back. The Ari plotlines are frustrating because they're a part of Entourage, a series of ads for a revolving cast of actors and products cleverly disguised as a half-hour sitcom.

That sound you hear, in case you're wondering, is a collapsing, burning, "I can't believe there's one more season left" house of cards. Continue...

Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Sniff Sniff Gang Bang

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Tequila and Coke

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is largely a fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Vince: Let me say at the beginning of this thing, that the second I saw the title of Entourage's latest episode, I thought, "Huh. That's probably a cocaine joke." It is a cocaine joke, but I wouldn't put it past Wahlberg to put a product placement in the title of one of his episodes.

So yeah, Vince does some coke in this episode, and, unfortunately, he's still strung out for his meeting with writer/director Randall Wallace (Braveheart, and, uh, Pearl Harbor). Wallace, who's directing Planeswalker - nope, that's an ability in Magic: the Gathering - or whatever Vince's new movie is called, calls the studio in an understandable huff. They call Ari, who predictably reams out E for being as crappy a manager as Kevin Connolly is an actor. But Ari, if you'll remember, has much bigger problems.

Ari: I really thought Entourage was going to crap out on me - or rather, continue crapping out on me - and quash the most interesting plotline in the series' history before it even got going. On a call with Nikki Finke stand-in Anna Fowler (Carrie Fisher, how far you've fallen), Ari learns that Lizzie has had a falling out with rival Amanda Daniels (Carla Gugino; be still my beating heart) and is looking for an out. Lizzie informs Ari over the course of a couple of suspiciously civil meetings that she's ready to bury the hatchet provided that her former boss get her a job at Warner Bros., where another of his former proteges (Constance Zimmer) is president.

All Ari has to do is get Lenny Kravitz (yes...Lenny Kravitz) to appear in some movie because the gay director totally wants to do him ("Is that enough gay jokes yet, Mr. Wahlberg?" "YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY GAY JOKES, QUEER!"). Lenny doesn't want to do it, probably because one appearance on Entourage is enough to create hype for his new album ... Negrophilia. Ari only frets for a few minutes, though; his assistant informs him just after Lizzie drops the tapes off that copies were indeed leaked to Deadline Hollywood. Ugh, that smarts.

Turtle: Blah blah blah tequila commercial hot chick whatever. Sorry, Entourage writing staff, if you're not going to put more than fifteen minutes of effort into writing your B plotline, I'm not going to spend more than fifteen seconds thinking about it. At least you put your boss in the episode so he doesn't call you gay or beat you up.

Drama: Apparently Drama really doesn't like Billy Walsh's idea for a star vehicle for him. Walsh does a few sketches of Drama as a confused gorilla - which really hammers home just how much Kevin Dillon looks like an ape - because he thinks Drama's too ugly to have his own show. This continues to be a moderately satisfying plotline, even though the concept of any animated sitcom that isn't a clone of The Simpsons or South Park being successful is basically absurd. Although maybe it's just The Simpsons with apes. Hmm. He could have something there.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Hair

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Turtle: You know, for a show that sees its characters fretting over whether or not they're pussies on practically every episode, Entourage is remarkably reticent to use the word when it actually denotes anything biological. In this episode's most "limp" - whoops, wrong pun - side plot, Turtle has problems performing with Alex for a reason that is both stupid and vulgar (even by Entourage standards). Or maybe I just feigned offense because I was watching with my mom. Either way, it was uncomfortable and the worst part of the episode.

Drama: Johnny spends most of the episode drunk off of two brand name liquors, neither of which I'll name and the latter of which Vince happens to be endorsing (just how, I'll get to later). Drama's show with John Stamos has effectively been snatched away from him by John Stamos, in what is a quintessentially Entourage turn of events: introduce a plot line, milk it for all the celebrity cameos you can get out of it, and dismiss it when its usefulness has evaporated.

But the return of a now-sober Billy Walsh (Rhys Coiro) may mean good, animated things for Drama's career. Here's hoping Wahlberg puts some of that tequila cash into animation so we can see an animated Johnny Chase vehicle.

Eric: Now that he's officially allied with Scotty Lavin and he's got a ginormous offer for Vince for Windwalkers or Airbreakers or some shit, it seems like nothing can stop Hollywood Agent Eric Murphy. Except, of course, for his biggest (and seemingly only) client.

Vince: Apparently Vince is supposed to be spiraling down an alcohol-induced sinkhole (aided and abetted by actual porn star Sasha Grey), but I'd think Adrian Grenier was just having a good time if the dialogue didn't remind me regularly to be worried about him. Vince's freakout at Eric at the end of season five showed that Grenier is indeed capable of slightly more than the lackadaisical affect his character evinces most of the time. But neither he nor Entourage's below-the-line are capable of communicating the idea that Vince is using his reputation as a lush to cover up some real issues.

Ari: I dismissed it last week, but the plot about former agent Lizzy attempting to publicly humiliate Ari seems to actually have legs. After a tense meeting with agency co-head Barbara Miller (Beverly D'Angelo) and the firm's attorney, Ari's informed by archrival Amanda Daniels (who has poached Lizzy) informs Ari that Lizzy had actually been recording all the racist, sexist, homophobic crap that Ari's been spewing for the last seven seasons. But, Lizzy tells Ari, she's not going to sue him over it. Instead, she's going to leak it to Nikki Finke at "Deadline Hollywood."

And what a treat it is to watch Ari melt down. It's a testament to Jeremy Piven's skill as an actor that the audience is able to tell the difference between when Ari's just being an angry douchebag and when the character is just using his anger as a cover for true fear. His performance, all wide-eyed terror and hopeless chest-thumping, is a thing of a beauty.

If only Ari were actually the main character.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Bottoms Up

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Eric: Not that Entourage is a paragon of sophistication or anything, but Eric's plot this week was just tasteless. After spotting Vince flirting with porn star Sasha Grey, James Caan's son makes a comment about how much fun it would be to have sex with her in a fairly, um, uncomfortable place. E's discomfort with the conversation makes the guys think he's never done it before, and, consequently, they call him a pussy. And so does Sloan when they (ugh) try it at the end of the episode. Let the record reflect that this is the only time I've ever wanted Entourage to go back to talking about pussy.

Drama: Bob Saget's gunning for Drama's part on the sitcom that gay Jeff Garlin supposedly wrote for him. But Saget informs the lesser Mr. Chase that the writer told the same thing to every washed-up actor in town. Guess Drama's got some DRAMA on his hands.

Huh. I should write for Entourage.

Ari: Hollywood agent Taylor Townsend is still trying to muscle Ari out of his biggest clients, if the power trio of skinny Mike Tyson, totally not fat Jessica Simpson (thanks for clarifying that, Entourage writing staff), and normal-looking Aaron Sorkin counts as such. He manages to lure them back to the firm with promises of special treatment -- which works because the script needs it to -- only to have rival superagent Amanda Daniels tell Ari that Lizzie's been taking notes on all the sundry goings-on at TMA. Ari freaks out because apparently in the Entou-verse, nobody knows he's a dick.

...

Still the most interesting part of the show.

Turtle: Tries to get his most successful friend to become the new face of Tequila-Brand-that-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but Sasha Grey keeps distracting...

Vince: ...Who is apparently having back pain from that stunt that Neck Tattoo Cassavetes made him do. He also blows an interview with Stan Lee and eventually decides to actually endorse Turtle's tequila over Eric's objections. Thank God! That'll probably pay for another five minor celebrity cameos with enough left over to buy Mark Wahlberg another motorcycle so that he doesn't feel like a pussy.

Also, that Sasha Grey is FUNNY! Like, really funny! She makes as pancake shaped like a PENIS! THAT IS SO FUNNY.

Oh wait, "Bottoms Up"! I get it! That is FUNNY!

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Tequila Sunrise

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Eric: James Caan's son is still being a huge douche to E, and E is understandably threatened by a more interesting character. This is saying something, considering Scott Lavin is essentially an aggregate of high school movie jock archetypes who just happens to be a talent agent. But, for some reason, the two of them make up halfway through the episode, probably so that we can all be shocked when Lavin screw E over later on in the season. Because on Entourage, there's no such thing as a twist.

Drama: Johnny continues to be the most interesting of the show's central foursome. His ping-pong matches with potential costar John Stamos (who's meeting with Drama to see if the two of them have enough chemistry to do a show together) were actually funny. Entourage's "satirical" portrayals of stars usually amount to little other than "this guy's actually a huge douchebag in real life," but they're nonetheless the show's best moments. Plus, though a tad convenient, seeing Stamos agree to do Drama's sitcom was genuinely satisfying.

Turtle: The shady business deal that Alex (yes, the girl Turtle sexually harassed) introduced last week turns out to be an attempt to get Vince to endorse a Mexican tequila brand. Turtle's understandably pissed (he thought he had a shot at starting a legitimate business), but I was even more pissed that I got tricked in to watching a fucking tequila ad (yes, it's a real brand of tequila, and no, I'm not going to link it). I know the show's basically an advertisement for a revolving cast of out-of-work actors, but I draw the line at actual product endorsement. I mean, come on, Wahlberg, what happened to all that Departed cash?

Vince: Literally did nothing other than distract John Stamos from actually hanging out with Drama. And the episode was, consequently, much more enjoyable.

Ari: Though the guys over at the A.V. Club see Ari's plotlines as becoming increasingly perfunctory, I still count the seconds until Jeremy Piven's asshole superagent appears on screen. He's still trying to bring that NFL franchise to L.A., and, this week, he brings in a bunch of Hollywood heavy hitters to see if he can scrounge up enough cash. That in itself isn't particularly fun to watch, but hearing about former Ari subordinate Lizzie (Autumn Reeser, the saving grace of The O.C.'s fourth season) trying to poach clients away from the agency is damn near exciting. Plus, we got a brief glimpse of Andrew Klein (Gary Cole), whose tenure on the show was cruelly cut short most likely by Cole getting a better job. Well, cruelly for us, I guess. Continue...

Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Buzzed and Dramedy

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Vince: Excelsior! An episode where no one is worried about being a pussy! Because, after all, Vince's brush with death in the season seven premiere turned Vince into a testosterone-addled speed freak whose unquenchable thirst for danger leads him to skydiving and, uh, going to celebrity wine auctions. And we can discern all this because Adrien Grenier is an actor capable of the degree of subtlety necessary to communicate a man so gripped by his own mortality that he turns to cheap thrills. Or because he got a new haircut (which pisses off super-badass Notebook director guy, who we know is super-badass because they just come out and tell us this time around).

Eric: E and Sloan are doing good, which we know because they tell us they're good. Or maybe they're trying to hint that all's not well in the house of the two most boring characters in a cast of really fucking boring characters.

And - fuck. E is the one worried about looking like a pussy, because his super-jacked coworkers is a total badass whose badass ways have lured the newly badass Vince into a life of badassery. As if Vince's diet of gorgeous women and constant boozing wasn't badass enough. Oh wait, I've forgotten about Eric...again.

Turtle: First he sexually assaults one of his drivers, now that same driver is beckoning him to Mexico for some kind of apparently not drug-related connect that can get his business out of the toilet.

Turtle's a likable character, but I guess the writers get their jollies out of making him seem like a creep. They probably think he's a pussy.

Ari: Mr. Gold may be the one to bring an NFL franchise to L.A. Taylor Townsend from "The O.C." was probably the one who got him the offer, but he won't promote her to the head of the television department because she banged the erstwhile head into rehab. Plus Mrs. Ari saw them dancing or something. So she quit.

I like seeing Ari rise to greater and greater heights, and I like Taylor Townsend, but somehow I get the feeling that both of these storylines will peter out just like they always do.

Drama: Nothin' in the first episode, and quite a bit in the second. A supergay Jeff Garlin plays an unretired Emmy-winning TV writer who figures out that Drama is funny even/only when he isn't trying. You know, this is actually a welcome slice of meta-humor for a show that rarely ventures into self-awa- wait, where is that siren coming from? Is that a loudspeaker? Why can I hear it in -

GOOD EVENING, TELEVISION VIEWERS.

IT'S 11:00 PM EASTERN, AND THIS IS THE VOICE OF ELLIN BROADCASTING ON 275 AND 285 IN THE MEDIUM WAVE.

THE PEOPLE OF THE BOX ARE ADVISED THAT, ON THE EIGHTEENTH OF THE SEVENTH, TWO-THOUSAND AND TEN, AT APPROXIMATELY 10:35 AND FIVE SECONDS, AN INSTANCE OF SELF-AWARE HUMOR WAS SPOTTED IN THE NEWEST EPISODE OF OUR NATION'S MOST POPULAR AND HILARIOUSLY WITTY SHOWBIZ SATIRE, ENTOURAGE.

THE CHARACTER "JONATHAN DRAMA" WAS PORTRAYED AS BEING UNINTENTIONALLY HUMOROUS, THUS CONFIRMING THE LONG-HELD SUSPICIONS OF YOU, THE VIEWERS, THAT "JONATHAN DRAMA" IS UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY.

POLICE RAIDED THE HOMES OF THOSE BELIEVED RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS EGREGIOUS ACT OF CLEVERNESS. THEY ARE CURRENTLY IN DETENTION AWAITING TRIAL.

DO NOT FRET. AS IS CUSTOM, THE SHOW-RUNNERS OF ENTOURAGE HAVE BEEN GIVEN A TONIC THAT ERASES ALL MEMORY OF PREVIOUS EPISODES. BY THE END OF THIS BROADCAST, YOU TOO WILL HAVE FORGOTTEN ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON THIS EPISODE OF ENTOURAGE.

THIS IS THE VOICE OF ELLIN, SIGNING OFF.

WAHLBERG PREVAILS.

What was I saying? Oh well. Guess I'll go watch "The Wire" again.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Stunted

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Vince: Vinny is worried about looking like a pussy in front of a totally badass action director (he has a NECK tattoo!) because he doesn't want to do his own stunts in a seriously Robocop 2-looking generic action movie. We know this because he says the phrase, "I don't wanna look like a pussy" in just about every scene in which he appears. Seriously, would anyone fault a Hollywood actor for not wanting to drive a car over a ramp and into a burning building? Did anyone know that Will Smith and Tom Cruise did their own stunts a few times until they saw THIS episode of Entourage? More importantly, does anyone care?

But at least that action director is a total badas- wait...is that NICK CASSAVETES? Well GOD FORBID Vince appears wussy in the presence of the guy who directed THE FUCKING NOTEBOOK! A badass father does not a badass son make.

Drama: The mob banker from The Dark Knight doesn't wanna put Johnny in a new series that, of course, Johnny thinks he's perfect for. So he asks Ari to assemble a blah blah blah Drama's ugly blah blah blah setting him up for a hit blah blah blah unfortunately the only interesting person among the non-Ari main characters.

Eric: To be perfectly honest with you, I don't remember. But at least because Vince is the one worried about being a pussy in this episode, we don't have to hear everyone making fun of E for being one. Seriously, how often does Mark Wahlberg worry about being a pussy?

Turtle: Having finally put together that "hot girls driving limos" business idea he introduced in the fifth season, Turtle now has to contend with the Rhodes scholars he's hired as hot limo drivers. One particularly gifted driver loses a car, attributes her flightiness to her parents' impending divorce, and then gets sexually assaulted by Turtle. Didn't we get past the "Turtle is a loser" thing after he started banging Jamie-Lynn Siegler? And wasn't he enrolled at UCLA? And, now that I think about it, weren't three out of the five main characters in Italy to hang out with Vince while he shot the Ferrari movie?

Somebody needs to fire the fucking script girl.

Ari: Something about the NFL and trying to get Vince out of doing the stunt for Alpha Dog. Ari didn't yell nearly enough or fire nearly enough people in this episode, and he yelled a bunch and fired a few people.

Departing Words: I remember enjoying this episode while I was watching it, but now I can't figure out why. Oh wait, that's how I feel about the whole damn show.

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