Entourage – “The Young and the Stoned” Review

Entourage Review

“The Young and the Stoned”

August 12th, 2007

Eric was out spending time searching for another palatial mansion for the entourage to live in when he was rear-ended by Anna Faris [IMDB]. Honestly, I wish that Entourage would get rear-ended. It’s the right kind of accident for the show: it wakes you up from your current state without damaging the internal organs that make you, well, operate.

This episode did a lot of things right, and maybe the series did get rear-ended after all. Anna Faris’ guest appearance was perhaps one of the most seamless of the series recently, and the episode-ending twist was perhaps my favourite of the season thus far. It promises that the series is finally heading in a new direction that creates real drama and real conflict.

It’s unfortunate, though, that the remainder of the episode wasn’t up to the same challenge. Ari as possessive and jealous fits his character, but it doesn’t really do anything new. Also, I know Perrey Reeves was added as a full time cast member, and the Young and the Restless involvement was great, but her character feels really off as of late and I don’t know why. She just seems really shrill and floaty; she always seemed to be above that kind of stuff, but now it’s all she does as if Ari is the sane one in some ways.

Also, unfortunately, there continues to be not a stitch of advancement in either the Clouds script that Walsh is writing or Medellin at Cannes or, well, anything. Vince, Turtle and Drama just sat around and smoked some weed; while not a terrible storyline by any means, it was basically a complete waste of time. While I know Vince is out milking his advance, it wasn’t until sitting with E at the bar at the end of the episode that he actually mattered. It wasn’t a bad filler plotline, but it was nonetheless filler.
Still, the fact that E is becoming Anna Faris’ manager is an ideal situation for the series; it creates tension between the Entourage, it creates tension between Vince and E specifically, and it creates real life drama. Faris’ acting is right on par with the series’ sense of reality, and on the whole things are looking up. I just wish they’d look a little more in the direction of the storylines the series dropped.

In Review

– The Young and the Restless certainly did a good job of getting their name into this script: almost makes you wonder how much the licensing fees were. Also, was it ever made clear that Mrs. Ari was a Soap Opera actress in the past?

– I might say this a lot, but I wish Turtle would get a storyline at some point in the near future. Drama as well. They’ve basically been left to pick up chicks and smoke weed, and while fine in small doses it gives them no sense of direction.

– That being said, this week at least had some actual characters with dialogue, including one particular shrill one, and I think that gave the scenes a bit of an edge.

– I guess it’s a good thing that Eric got that new office if he’s actually going to have other clients. I wish I felt better about it, but part of me just knows that he’ll be back to managing only Vince as soon as the series is no longer able to juggle the extra storyline. That’s just the way Entourage rolls.