TV Review: ENTOURAGE, 8.3 - "One Last Shot"
After a more traditional light-hearted start to its final season Entourage takes a turn back in a very dark direction with the third episode of season eight, largely thanks to episode-stealing guest star Kim Coates.
This kind of tension upsets my Cat Dice
rating: 4
After spending a good few hours watching footage of the frankly ridiculous London riots last night, when I finally switched over to Sky Atlantic ready for Entourage I was seriously in need of some light relief. Somewhat surprisingly though One Last Shot didnt follow the trend of the previous episodes of the final season by returning to the shows more light-hearted origins. Contrary to how Id been expecting the remainder of the season to pan out, this third episode made it clear that the darkness that loomed over a large portion of season seven hadnt quite cleared just yet. Going dark again by no means made the show any worse though, in fact this was by far the best episode of the season so far and just a cracking TV episode in general. One Last Shot wasnt as funny as the previous two episodes of season eight but it still had enough light-hearted moments and killer one-liners to make a more dramatic episode not feel like too much of a departure. The episode began with Vince at another AA meeting, at which he spotted scumbag producer Carl Ertz (returning guest star Kim Coates) who had previously screwed him over for a movie role in season five. In spite of Turtle, and later Ari (who claimed hed rather hack off his penis than let Vince work with Ertz) vocally protesting for Vince to not even entertain dealing with Ertz, Vince, seemingly keener than ever to offer people a second chance or one more shot after what he himself has been through, agreed to let Ertz try and sell his TV movie idea to one of the networks, ominously asking the rhetorical question: whats the worst that could happen. Unfortunately for Vince he would soon find out the answer to that question, more on that later though. The other big story developing over the course of the season has been Johnnys co-star on Johnnys Bananas Andrew Dice Clay attempting to rock Dramas comeback boat by insisting on a better deal for the show. In the aftermath of last weeks declaration from the Dice-man that he would walk if he didnt get a better deal it was damage control this week as Drama, Scott and Eric, all on the same page for once, raised the subject with Phil (William Fichtner) and as expected they were rebuffed in no uncertain terms through a brilliantly profane rant from Phil as he drove along the coast. I lamented Fichtners lack of screen time last week and although Id still like to see him used more on the show, he at least got a speech that he could really sink his teeth in to here, and it was great to see. My personal favourite moment of the exchange was Phil telling the three of them that they should Remind Dice that when we cast him two months ago he was doing stand-up in a fucking bowling alley. I also loved another reference to Dramas ridiculously unsuccessful career as Phil mentioned a show he produced for Johnny in 1994 called Concrete Heat that too had tested through the roof only to be cancelled after one week; Dramas excuse? Thats because they put us up against fucking Seinfeld. At Phils insistence the three of them headed over to Dices rather modest living quarters to unsuccessfully try to convince him not to make waves. Dice had absolutely no intention of playing ball though and after a lot of fucks threw them out of his flat as they were upsetting his sick cat. Im quite enjoying how Dice Clay is being portrayed as a complete egomaniac, its always far more compelling when people play themselves on the show if they are playing exaggerated or unpleasant caricatures and Dice Clay is certainly coming off as a pig-headed idiot here, and its great! So kudos to everyone involved. Away from the drama with Vince and er, Drama himself we had more moping from Turtle as another of his lacklustre storylines was seemingly wrapped up and another one began. First he was effectively booted out of all Avion business by Carlos and then he was dumped by Alex, as if that wasnt bad enough the dumping came through Carlos. Deciding to sell his stock in Avion so he could go back out on his own Turtle pitched the idea to Vince to open a branch of famous east coast clam joint Don Pepe out in LA, which was met with approval by Mr. Chase, but given his track record in this episode, Vinces judgement is way off at the moment so Id be very wary if I was Turtle. This will no doubt lead to another inconsequential Turtle arc that just takes time away from the more interesting characters. Speaking of which, the episodes other big storyline was Ari going back out in to the dating world after much persuasion from Vince and the put-upon Lloyd (Rex Lee). Ari has always exuded enough macho charisma to make you think he would be incredibly confident out on the dating scene but as hes always had a wife and never had to back up his many words with actions, weve never got to see how hed get on. His protests at first about being set-up with Lloyds hair stylists manicurist Niece seemed to indicate that maybe he was scared as Lloyd suggested, but after a bit of needling he agreed to the date. It didnt take Ari long to realise he was too old to be on a date with this woman he had nothing in common with, so after some shots failed to loosen him sufficiently and a sure thing moment was ruined by his dates Carrot Top-looking room mate, Ari made a phone call to long time flirting partner Dana Gordon (Constance Zimmer). It seemed innocent enough at first but when we were next greeted with the sight of the two of them in bed together the next morning it was obviously far from innocent. I really enjoyed seeing Ari and Dana finally get together again after seasons of flirting; Ive always liked Dana and the way theyve portrayed Mrs. Ari so far this season Id find Ari and Dana ending the show as a couple a suitably happy ending, though I doubt thats how this will play out. Coming back to Vince then, the episode ended with Vince, unwisely, out at Ertzs house after receiving a phone call the night before from Ertz informing him that CBS was in on the miner movie. The only problem was that somewhere between phoning Vince and meeting him the next morning Ertz had fallen well and truly off the wagon and greeted Vince and Turtle high as a kite. I had been convinced that Ertzs motive in all this was just to try and get revenge on Drama for taking a golf club to his car after he screwed Vince over back in season five, but he soon revealed his true colours by offering Vince an aside a role in a Falling Down rip-off entitled Tax Man. As Vince tried to be gentle with Ertz, the twitchy producers mood swings became pretty funny, one second yelling at Vince and then telling him he was sorry. Events soon took a turn in to very dark territory though as Ertz locked himself in the bathroom and started hoovering up line after line of coke I was by this point expecting an OD but in true shady Hollywood producer caricature fashion Ertz pulled a gun out from under his bathroom sink and blew his own head off. As I said, Id been expecting Ertz to die so the death aspect of things wasnt surprising in the slightest really, but the manner in which it occurred was certainly shocking and leaves us with an honest to God cliff-hanger for next week. The ramifications of Ertzs suicide will no doubt impact greatly on Vince, as it was his unrelenting drive to give second chances and his new found inability to walk out on a fellow addict that really proved the catalyst to Ertz going off the deep end like that. It should be very interesting to see how Vince, firstly gets out of trouble for being there at the time of the suicide and secondly deals with the death on a personal level. Darker than one would have thought but interesting nonetheless. A Hail of Bullets: - I couldnt really start anywhere else than with Kim Coates here; hes been so good as Tig on Sons of Anarchy recently, but he was nothing short of superb here as the out of control Ertz, and seemed to really be having fun with it. - Nice to see a talented British performer getting a bit of spotlight with the closing credits song as James Blakes The Wilhelm Scream perfectly accompanied the credits after that shocking climax. - Another week another episode title with a double meaning, but if last weeks was juvenile this was quite poetic as One Last Shot clearly referred to Vinces desire to offer anyone and everyone a second chance, but it was that same desire thats now landed him in the middle of a very unfortunate situation as Ertz took one last shot to his own head. - Best lines of the night, other than Dices call back to his sick Cat from last week, were Turtles I dont know how much you can relate to the girl who blew her brother for an 8-ball to Vince after the opening AA meeting and Scotts sarcastic you should get separate beds to Drama as Johnny bemoaned the fact that Dice had kept him up all night over the contract negotiations. - It wasnt really made clear if Jamie Kennedy was playing himself or not in that short scene with him as Dices replacement but either way it was pretty funny to see him doing his best Dice impression only to be told he sucks by Billy in a brief scene-stealing rant.
Entourage continues on HBO Sunday @ 10.30pm in the US & Sky Atlantic Monday @ 10.50pm in the UK