Entourage: No Place Like Home

When we left Vince & the gang hanging at the end of last week’s episode, Vince had reached a new low.  He’d been given one last chance to salvage his career from its post-Medellin funk with a role so hard won that people literally died in the process of nailing it down, but his tenure as a fictional firefighter went up in smoke when the tyrannical eurotrash director went off the rails.

Where better for a boy to go when he’s at his lowest than into the unconditional love offered at mom’s house back home in Queens.  Mercedes Ruehl makes a welcome return visit to the world of Entourage as Vince & Johnny’s mama, back in their lives along with a host of friends and family from the old neighborhood who’ve been dying to get news about their Hollywood homeboys from somewhere other than the pages of US Weekly.  Vinny reconnects with an old flame and Drama takes ownership interest in a local bar, but Turtle & E have a little more trouble disconnecting from the City of Angels.  Apparently Jamie Lynn Sigler is as forgiving as she is beautiful, since the onetime Meadow Soprano is still giving a relationship with Turtle a chance in spite of his hasty NY departure and Drama’s best efforts to mock their love.  And my condolences to Turtle’s mother who accidentally listens in on a bout of phone sex to hilariously awkward results.

Eric meanwhile just can’t help but feeling like a failure to Vince as his manager.  Armed with a hot tip from Mrs. Chase and the New York Post, E stalks Gus Van Sant in hopes of using Vince to fill a suddenly vacant role.  Gus takes a stoic position on Vince’s talents, so E begs Ari to send Gus the dailies from Smokejumpers.  Gus still passes, and gives Vince one of those painfully polite “I still admire your work and hope we’ll work together in the future” answers.  Vince finally cracks under the strain of persistent failure, providing Adrian Grenier with perhaps his best material in the entire series.  He yells, he breaks stuff, he accuses Eric of blurring the lines between professional success and personal desire one too many times, and even fires the poor bastard.  But just when it seems that all hope has been lost, Ari arrives like a white knight with the phone call Vince has been waiting his whole life to receive: Martin Scorsese wants him to star in a Great Gatsby adaptation, and it’s all because Gus showed him the dailies.  Eric is redeemed, Vince is back on the A-list, Turtle’s in love, Drama’s a business owner, and Ari’s his usual untouchably awesome self.  Thank god, there’s lotsa happy Entourage on the horizon.  All things considered, this was an excellent ending to an above average season.  So long, boys.  Have a great siesta and I’ll see ya next year!

Season 5, Episode 12: Return to Queens Blvd. (originally aired November 23, 2008)

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Sundays at 10pm ET/PT on HBO
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