Friday, December 16, 2016

Entourage Season 7 Review

Entourage (2004-2011)
Season 7 - 10 Episodes (2010)
Entourage Season 7
Buy Entourage Season 7 on Amazon
Watch Entourage on Amazon - Free HBO 30-day Trial to Prime Members 
Created by: Doug Ellin
Starring: Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, Jeremy Piven

Rating: TV-MA

Plot: 
Movie star Vince Chase navigates the road to stardom with his agent and group of friends.

Season seven is the downfall. A car stunt lead to painkillers which leads to harder drugs and Vince losing control.

Verdict
This season depicts the hazards of the movie industry. We slowly watch as Vince spirals out of control, lying to his friends, becoming more erratic, and missing out on a movie role. By the end of the season he's hit a low point.
It's a sad season as Vince may become another Hollywood horror story.
Johnny, Ari, and Turtle are on the verge of losing everything for which they've worked in their own story arcs.
Watch it.

Review

The season is the downfall of Vince. We feel bad as he slowly loses everything, becoming unreliable and erratic.
Entourage is a fascinating look at the character of Vince. When this series started he seemed completely confidant, but we've seen that he's more vulnerable than he lets on. He doesn't take bad reviews well, instead hiding. He avoids confrontation.
His entourage that seemed like leeches at first, insulate him from the world. He may need them more than they need him.
This season shows just how easily he's influenced. Being a movie star, he's by default a dominant personality, but when you take away the fame, he's a pushover. In season 4 Dennis Hopper was able to coax him into betting on a soccer game even when he had no money. A director and a girlfriend are able to push him into bad decisions quite easily this season.

Read my previous Entourage season reviews.

At the end of season 6, Vince was off to begin filming the Ferrari movie. At the start of season 7, that movie is about to release and he's busy filming a Nick Cassavetes movie.
Eric is planning a wedding with Sloan, Turtle is running a car service business, and Johnny Drama is still waiting on his holding deal.

Vince survives the crash.
Cassavetes pushes Vince to do his own stunts in the movie. Vince doesn't want to, but is coerced into it. Eric and Ari both try to get him out of it to no avail. Vince is afraid to defy Cassavetes.
I just don't see a studio letting their star do a stunt, especially without any training. He doesn't even practice.

Vince got a motorcycle.
Vince pulls off the stunt, and while the car's brakes fail, he walks away relatively unscathed. He's on pain medication and decides to cut his own hair which ruins planned reshoots for his movie.
 When he begins talking about his mortality, jumping out of planes, and riding a motorcycle, his friends begin worrying.
That's only amplified when he says the Cassavetes movie might suck while doing an interview for the Ferrari movie.

Vince gets close with Eric's rival Scott. Scott strokes Vince's ego and tells him yes. Scott isn't worried about Vince's behavior, he's looking for a good time. His friends are telling him to slow down, and Vince isn't about to do that.
Vince has also started dating porn star Sasha Gray. She is portrayed as much more intellectual and cultured than Vince, but she parties hard and Vince is struggling to keep up.

Ari loses a bid to negotiate television rights for the NFL, but Jerry Jones says he'd like to see a football team in Los Angeles and Ari might be the guy to make that happen. I never saw this arc coming to fruition, but I wondered if Jerry Jones told him that just to pacify him.
Lizzie and Ari.
Ari used Lizzie (Autumn Reecer) to help land the deal and she tries to pivot that and her leadership in the TV department into a promotion. Ari refuses, and Lizzie quits and sues him for sexual harassment. The bad press puts a stop to Ari's NFL dreams, though we all knew something was going to block that.

Ari's home life isn't faring well either when the content of the sexual harassment suit is leaked. His wife is dismayed at his behavior and wants to separate.

Turtle's car business is crumbling. He has no money and has to give it up. Even this was a venture partially funded by Vince. Turtle is trying to get out of that shadow, but not having any luck. He jumps into a tequila distribution deal that has great projects, attracting interest from Mark Cuban, but Turtle is constrained by the owner.

Johnny Drama and John Stamos.
Drama is nervous because his holding deal has almost run out and he doesn't have a show. He warms to the idea of a sitcom, but alienates his potential co-star John Stamos. Stamos is an obsessive ping pong player, and Drama crushes him, potentially ruining the potential of the sitcom.

Billy Walsh presenting Johnny with the Johnny Bananas sketch.
The one person most likely to lead Vince down a self destructive path would have been Billy Walsh who has cleaned up his act, is sober, and an ordained minister. He wants to get back to directing.
Billy Walsh comes up with an animated show for Drama, Johnny's Bananas, but Drama doesn't want to deprive the world of his face. He finally agrees when he realizes he has no other prospects.
Vince almost ruins his chance at a new super hero movie, Airwalker. He brings Sasha to a meeting with Stan Lee, which doesn't go over well because he's also hung over. When he attends a meeting with the director on coke, he's outed but denies it, lying to Eric who vouches for him.
The studio wants a drug test and Vince refuses.

Vince says no to an intervention.
The end of Vince and Sasha's relationship is imminent when Vince wants her to stop doing porn. He offers to pay her or get her a role in his movie, now directed by Peter Berg.
She refuses and Vince attends a photo session while wasted, demanding she quit. That's the final straw in their relationship as Vince flies off the handle. An intervention attempt by Drama only upsets Vince more.

Vince ends the season by getting into a fight with Eminem and losing. Vince ends up in the hospital, blaming everyone but himself, with the cops asking him where he got the coke.

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