What I’m Watching: Entourage

Entourage: Season 8, Episode 3 “One Last Shot” (B)

It’s interesting to see an actor like Kim Coates return to this show. I didn’t even remember him ever have appeared on the series, and after a bit of research, I discovered that he had been in the season five finale, which aired the same week of Coates’ signature show, “Sons of Anarchy,” first premiered. Now Coates has established a firm and fantastic role on that series, and it’s far better than his broken-down, drug-addicted producer Carl Ertz on this show. It’s mainly that Ertz doesn’t do anything productive on this show, and his involvement is yet another thing based almost entirely on one of Vince’s hunches that never seem to work out. His suicide at the end of the episode is almost surely going to send the show in a much more serious direction than might be necessary. Turtle getting retired just means that he’ll be trading one so-so business for another, and being broken up with on Alex’s behalf is a bit of a cop-out conclusion for one of his better arcs. Phil managed to deliver an Ari-like tirades about raises to Drama, but it seems that firing Dice is pretty much going to squash the hopes of the show being a hit. I liked how bothered Ari was by not having sent Lloyd an e-mail, and it’s nice that he entertains Lloyd’s desire to set him up with a friend. Clearly she wasn’t the right fit for him, and I wasn’t the least bit surprised when he called Dana and ended up spending the night at her place. I’m not sure how that’s going to play out, but I’m definitely intrigued.