Why follow ‘Entourage’?

The season four finale of “Entourage,” which aired on Sunday, epitomizes everything that has gone horribly wrong with this once entertaining show.\n I started watching “Entourage” at its inception because I liked the mindless release found in predictable progression and quick-witted, easily quotable humor. The half-hour show, loosely based on the life of Mark Wahlberg and his boyhood friends, was more approachable than HBO’s longer, darker dramas such as “The Sopranos” and “Deadwood”.\nWhen “Entourage” began its first season, it had a quick-moving, single plot line: “Head On,” a blockbuster hit for promising actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) forces the star and his manager-friend Eric Murphy (played by Kevin Connolly) to find the next project with Vince’s agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven). Ari wants to capitalize on Vince’s recent fame to land a studio picture deal, but Eric encourages Vince to look at a small independent film titled: “Queens Boulevard.” This plot worked for “Entourage.”\nRecently however, the plot has become almost completely stagnant. Side stories either introduce far too many characters that are meaninglessly tossed away or involve the characters on a wild quest to get laid. \nI understand the show has always been a male fantasy, filled with absurd plots where every woman is beautiful and every dollar comes easy. But the writers never before let that get in the way of the story. The success of “Entourage” came by using Vince’s fame and money only as a vehicle to develop the other members of the entourage. Eric succeeds at managing Vince’s career, Johnny (Kevin Dillon) finally finds work back in television and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) makes a bold venture into the hip-hop game.\nOver-the-top subplots made “Entourage” great but have recently become detrimental to the story. Because of these sidetracks, conflict can rarely be drawn out, leaving every solution tied up quickly and neatly with a pretty red bow. \nThe season four finale, however, defied all previous levels of stupidity. The conflict begins when the guys need to hitch a ride to the Cannes Film Festival but are hopelessly stranded at the airport. Conveniently, here comes Kanye West strolling around the corner to save the day with his hundred-seat private plane to take them to Cannes. \nThere is actually one scene where a film producer laments his cocaine addiction while two topless women snort lines off each other and another where a Middle Eastern financier offers up three of his finest ladies to Johnny for the night. I swear that a film festival is squeezed in there somewhere.\nI realize “Entourage” isn’t Shakespeare, but good shows shouldn’t do this. It’s not just the lame celebrity cameos or the dissolving plot lines. Good shows don’t oversaturate the story with meaningless sexual references or jokes by its best character, to desperately keep the show afloat. Its redundancy is nauseating.\nI think it’s the ultimate insult to our intelligence when every other episode we meet a beautiful agent, saleswoman or billionaire’s wife and Vince sleeps with her at the end of the episode. Sweet, you’re the man, Vince. High fives all around for “Entourage.”