Here's a recap of everything that happened on last night's Entourage, the fourth installment of a twelve-episode season that will ultimately be jam-packed with the same amount of plot as a typical CSI cold open : Vince's Ferrari movie is pushed back three months, causing him to become amazingly bored. Roll end credits.
Six seasons into a show that hasn't been overly concerned about having "things happen" in about four years, there's really little point in complaining that Vince, E, and the gang don't do much besides lunch on the Ivy patio and needle each other about all the ass/how little ass they're pulling; if we're still watching (and we are, for some reason!), we're getting what we deserve. But given the news that HBO, happy to ensure that another two dozen or so struggling actresses earn their SAG cards for putting in their obligatory time as a Chase sexual conquest, is bankrolling another round of bottle service for the boys for next summer. Rather than being just another voice whining about a once-beloved show's frustrating stagnation, Movieline has some helpful suggestions that would provide Entourage's seventh go-around (and probably last, right? This has got to end eventually, doesn't it?) with the kind of water-cooler moments it's been pathologically avoiding since Aquaman shattered the box office record.
1. Page Six says Vince is gay.
Considering that he never leaves Chasehaven Lodge without being luxuriously draped in a man-jacket of clingy bros, the tabloids have to start speculating about Vinnie's sexuality, don't they? Delicately deflecting such rumors without sounding homophobic is a right of passage every single, pretty-boy star must endure; not even Leonardo DiCaprio, who's maintained his status as the leading cocksman of his Hollywood generation by crisscrossing the globe in search of increasingly exotic specimens to add to his supermodel collection, has entirely dodged this gossip-bullet over the course of his career. Let's make publicist Shauna finally earn that retainer by expertly killing the chatter and saving Vince's dream gig: playing Hugh Hefner while buried beneath fifteen pounds of terrible old-man prosthetics that make his version of the Playboy icon look like an infirm shar-pei in a velvet smoking jacket.
2. The gang finally discovers blow.
Roughly forty percent of each episode is reserved for footage of the guys doing bong hits, sneaking drags on joints, or filling their lungs with vaporized THC, so it's time for them to escalate their drug intake to the high-octane asshole fuel that keeps every L.A. party relentlessly humming into the wee hours of the night. The inexplicable absence of cocaine in the Entourage universe has long been the series' most false-sounding note; given the amount of time they spend carousing, at least one of the boys must have a dealer on speed-dial. E's twitchy character, in particular, is almost certainly a closeted cokehead. Perhaps he can take his long-concealed habit out into the open and help mainstream the other permablunted killjoys into Hollywood's snow-driven culture.
3. Destroy Ari's marriage and break up his family.
No one cares about the Gold family. In its frequent attempts to humanize serially abusive, Blackberry-double-fisting maniac Ari, the show often detours to a B-story about a bat mitzvah, spat with the wife, or testy parent-teacher conference to show there are things the agent cares about besides bending Hollywood over his couch and buggering it until hundred-dollar bills gush from its ears. Enough. We all know that Ari's marriage, like all entertainment industry starter-unions, is ultimately doomed. Let's free him from the shackles of family and set him loose in unfettered pursuit of his career, as the scenes of a salivating Ari locking his powerful jaw around the forearm of a studio executive and refusing to let go until his talent-impaired client has a new gig are unfailingly great.
Congratulations, Mrs. Ari, you're getting sole custody of the kids! Unfortunately, the one iron-clad stipulation of the custody agreement is that their father will only visit during hiatus, keeping his shattered family life safely off-camera.♦