Entourage Season 8 Blu-ray Review
Brad Sturdivant
June 12th, 2012
Perhaps feeling merciful to audiences, HBO decided that the eighth season of the show ‘Entourage’ would be the last. For those that suffered through the first seven seasons, the show’s creators now had a chance to make up for the complete lack of character development or plot and show fans that the characters they had created actually did learn something in the past decade and weren’t the shallow, egotistical douche bags we all thought they were. I thought for sure the writers would start out strong, set our characters up with some challenges and then finish them off full circle and show that in fact, they can tell a story and weren’t just relying on the audience’s envy of Vincent Chase to carry them through. I don’t know why I thought that since I had spent seven miserable seasons being frustrated, but I guess you could call me an eternal optimist.
Of course, as all optimists know, you have to get used to disappointment. And so the eighth and final season came to a close and Vinny, Drama, Turtle and Eric are still the same immature jerks they were when the show started. But Turtle lost some weight, which I would say is a good development for the show, but that was all actor Jerry Ferrara taking it upon himself to get healthy and it was funny because the writers on the show had no idea what to do with it. It was as if they were dumbfounded that one of their characters had actually changed. I’m being facetious of course and maybe a little unfair since the very last episode did technically see all of our characters change.
Yep, in the final episode of the entire series, all five characters (Ari Gold being the one I originally omitted) managed to grow or overcome a particular obstacle. None of it made sense and it felt like it was an afterthought thrown together at the last second (which is confusing since the show has been on the chopping block for three seasons), but at least they tried. If you’re somehow a fan of the show, I guess you’ll be happy that your favorite characters actually made some life decisions (or had them made for them), but for me, it was as if the writers were giving a giant middle finger to their audience. You can’t cram an entire series of development into thirty minutes and expect it to work.
I have no idea what life in Hollywood is like, or if actors like Mark Wahlberg really do have freeloading loser friends like Vincent Chase does, but I would hope that if they do, their life isn’t a revolving door of dealing with the same issues like the talentless Drama consistently failing as an actor, Turtle consistently failing in business, Eric consistently whining about everything or Ari completely unable to balance his work and home life. I hope, for Marky Mark’s sake, that since his rise to stardom (let’s say 21 years, since ‘Good Vibrations’ hit the radio in 1991) his friends have made something of themselves. I have a feeling they have and that the only way characters like Vinny, Turtle, Drama and Eric could exist is if talentless writers created them. And word is that a movie might be on the way and I can’t imagine this same team of writers trying to do a two hour film when they haven’t proven they can handle a 30 minute show.
BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: As with most HBO shows, Entourage looks great.
Audio: The audio sounded wonderful on every episode, if you can look past what you’re actually listening to.
Hollywood Sunset: A Farewell to Entourage (29:12): Even when I like a show/movie, I can’t stand watching the cast and crew talk about how great their work is, so you can imagine how much I didn’t enjoy this. But I realize some of you may like the show and this was a nice featurette that featured interviews with just about everyone involved, including the real life guys the show was based on.
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