The 250 Square Foot View

This past Sunday’s Entourage finale marks the end of an era. In the age of DVRs and Netflix streaming and on-demand video, Entourage was still appointment viewing at the height of its popularity—truly water cooler television.

My old roommate Mike and I would meet at the couch every Sunday night to see what kind of Hollywood hi-jinks Vinny Chase and the gang would get into this week. And the timing was perfect. As the weekend was winding down and the harsh reality of Monday mornings was starting to set in, at least we had Entourage to look forward to.

We all wanted to be Vince or E. (We’d settle for Turtle or Drama.) We worshipped Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold, who would emerge as the star of the show, and we wanted to scream “SHUT THE FUCK UP, LLOYD!” and then “hug it out, bitch.”

Entourage was classic escapism TV. Rather than thinking about our own problems—stalled careers, rent increases, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends—we worried about Vince’s problems instead. And along the way, there was no shortage of beautiful [and often topless] women, celebrity cameos, and tons of dude speak that drew  “Sex and the City for guys” comparisons.

Inevitably, we grew tired of Vinny’s problems and their easy fixes. We needed to see him fail a little more often, which in the later seasons he did. Then, of course, we griped that his failures—a downward spiral in which he became an adrenaline junkie, dated a porn star, and got hooked on drugs—weren’t compelling enough. Couldn’t we just go back to the old days when he was hooking up, partying, and all the studios and agencies inHollywoodwanted to be Vincent Chase business?

By the end, Entourage had become unrecognizable from the show I had gotten hooked on years earlier. In the last few minutes of the finale, all the problems that had arisen over the course of the last season were resolved: E and Sloan worked out their differences and were back together, as were Ari and Mrs. Ari, Vince was inexplicably getting married to a woman he had dated for 24 hours, and even Turtle and Drama had found some professional success.

Of course Entourage hung on for one or two seasons too long. Countless other shows have done the same thing because there’s more money to be made in seven or eight seasons than in three or four. (I’m looking directly at you, Lost and How I Met Your Mother.)

But in five or ten years when someone mentions Entourage, I won’t be thinking of their lackluster final seasons. Instead, I’ll probably remember some obscure line from one of the first couple of seasons and talk about what a great show it was in its prime.

And more than that, I’ll never be able to read a sign for New York State Route 25A again without thinking, “Are you kidding? I am Queens Boulevard.”

Next post: HBO’s How to Make It in America: the new Entourage?