Mark your territory, Vince. Mark it for (producer) Marky Mark.
One of Entourage's favorite tricks is the ol' bait-and-switch. Maybe it's because the writing has rarely evolved past basic tropes, but this one's been prevalent for all seven seasons—as a grand reveal at the end of an episode. Like tonight, with that comically large bag of "nose candy." Holy crap.
Though the stuff with Turtle was taking a darker turn as of last week, this time we see more of the anger he doth wrought. Turtle is doing what he can for Avion tequila, but learns Carlos has a brother who has been looking to sell. Thus by taking a meeting with Mark Cuban and telling him about the company, Turtle has opened Avion up for being sold, since I guess Mark has his ways of getting what he wants. The situation has become unnecessarily convoluted. I've speculated that Avion is just one big house of cards, a scam to score Carlos some quick cash. It might still happen, but the more this plays out—the more nuances are explained—the less I'm expecting there to be a big surprise. There's too many loose ends to tie up, and introducing anything that explains away everything that's been established would feel like a too-cursory dismissal. I'm going to always root for Turtle as the most likable character on the show, though the Avion business is really grating at this point.
This episode also finds Ari digging his grave even deeper. Because he's devoting more time to his family, he dodges all of Amanda's calls, and the situation resolves itself in a great ball of fire at a local eatery. Turns out Amanda didn't leak the tapes to the press—it was her now-former assistant—and, in fact, she wasn't so much going around Ari's back with the NFL as she was fighting for him to remain involved. There's that 11th-hour turnaround again. At least the cocaine cliffhanger added fuel to a fire that's been slowly building for weeks. The Ari business was established earlier in the episode, so the resolution doesn't hit like it should. The man is about to flame out (how many fire metaphors can I use?) entirely, and these minor hiccups distract more than they build. Ari has way more important things to worry about than finding ways to sneak time on his phone to avoid the wife-imposed radio silence—a personal hell reserved for those who work on the TV show Entourage.
I did enjoy the whole "Vince is going rogue" storyline though, because it reeked of the desperation Vince probably feels to suddenly seem relevant. He circumvents E and has a meeting with Peter Berg himself, during which he snags Sasha a part in Airwalkers. This means a) E now has to go to bat for Sasha de facto, and b) Vince is doing anything he can to control Sasha and keep her from doing that five-guy gang bang. Because he loves her. Did you see that coming? Me neither. Does it change much about the story? No. Sasha's going to dump him in the next episode, right? Despite the fact that she asked Vince to "mark his territory," and Vince obliges by giving it to her in the men's room. This girl is clearly sane.
Stray observations:
- Oh yeah, and Johnny Drama is in for that bananas show. Sneaky of E to make his assistant lead Johnny on like that, and a bit heartbreaking that Johnny doesn't get to see the big party CBS had for him.
- No one on this show ever says "bye" on the phone. Maybe because no conversation on Entourage is ever over until someone snorts a comical amount of cocaine.