Entourage Season 5 - Page 9

Naw, it just makes you a good friend.

I didn't have as much problem with the Scorsese thing because the last scene of the season was as good a time as any to show Vince getting out of his slump. But, since the reason it came about was E's determination, and Vince had set fire to that bridge, it seemed a natural that as he was reclaiming his success and E was building his independent of Vince, their friendship would go through some new levels. In a way, Vince would owe his career as much to E as E does to Vince, and they'd reexamine their relationship as something closer to equals in the professional sense.

Of course, this being Entourage, they would have buried the hatchet by episode two at the latest.

Agreed with the majority here. It was just a complete waste of a potentially great storyline to have E fired and re-hired in 5 minutes. A lot of crap led up to that, and it went nowhere.

Besides, while it was nice to see Vince to take an interest in his own life, he was completely full of shit. Medellin was the reason Vince's career was in the dumps, and Eric was the one trying to save him from that train wreck. The whole, "You screwed up!" and "Maybe I did" response was inexplicable. E seemed like an abused spouse in that episode.

Major wasted opportunity, and a sour taste to leave after what was a pretty decent season.

Re: E screwing up. Wouldn't Vince's predicament be more on the agent than the manager? Although I guess, in a completely self-centered sense, Vince could blame E for letting him go in the direction he (Vince) wanted rather than listening to Ari more, or something. But, then again, isn't it the manager's role to get the client what he wants, and the agent's to get him what he needs? At least I thought that's how the show had defined it.

All attempts to humanize Vince for our empathy have completely failed.

Well, since this show is technically designated as a comedy, I don't know how far HBO would let them push the more dour aspects of stardom. I think they're intent on having a show on air that's mainly fluff and naked chicks. I'm also pretty sure that HBO likes the Sex and the City comparisons that Entourage sometimes gets.

Maybe for you, I for one was actually right with him during his meltdown in that last ep. Mr. "Everythings Going To Work Out Cause It Always Does" finally showed how utterly terrified he was. His freaking out and throwing the phone had the room I was watching the show in totally shocked and there with him. Turtle gets some and we find out more about him and now we have Vince finally seeming human in all this.

I don't see why this is such an odiuous concept to some people. It's a HBO sitcom, it aint The Wire and I have no problem calling it 'my Sex and the City"

Either way, this may be my favourite season so far to be honest.

It's not that he got upset, it's why he got upset. He was so far off base about Eric ruining his career it was nearly comical...that kind of idiocy does not endear me to someone. If they had Vince actually get angry at himself (for a change), not only would it have been out of character, but it would've worked perfectly because it would show he's growing. Instead he's as dumb as ever. The fact that he apologized later meant almost nothing because he was relieved he got the Scorsese gig and was just giddy about stuff. There was a moment on the bridge with that girl where Vince called E and said he wanted them to stay friends, but didn't apologize for what he said. That's why it didn't work for me.

But thats just it Ambler, if he'd gotten upset at himself it WOULD have been out of character. Vince hasn't had to face any real challenges most of his life and obivously doesn;t have tohe coping mechanisms when shit gets hard, thuus him completely unfairly lashing out at E.

Sure, thats not madly endearing - realising almost immediately afterwards how badly he'd fucked up and going to as much trouble as he did to apologise to E, on the other hand, is endearing in my opinion.

We are not our fuck ups, we are what we do about our fuck ups.

When you want to have a character grow they must do things out of character, that's the nature of growth. So it's okay sometimes. That moment would have been perfect for it. I don't mind Vince lashing out, it was just completely misdirected in the most comically fucked up way. The bottom line is, Vince is a selfish asshole, and he is not endearing. He ripped Eric apart because he couldn't accept the fact that it's his fault for not taking his own career seriously ("we always said if it didn't work out, we'd go to New York"). Vince is always throwing caution to the wind about his career...when he fails he lashes out at his friends. Apologizing for it later because you got a Scorsese movie does not count. If he hadn't gotten the movie, he would've stayed in New York and he and E wouldn't be friends anymore, as it should be, because Vince is a black hole of a time and energy waster and E finally figured that out and said fuck him. The tacked on ending with them getting wasted was dishonest. I think next season E will still be kind of pissed.

We just don't agree, so let's leave it at that.

No probs, but you do love clinging to the stories in your head rather than the ones on the screen Ive noticed - unless you end up writing everything ever, or only watch stuff from writers who think exactly like you do, you don't leave yourself open for much else other than disappointment in my humble...

...but hey, maybe thats the way you're wired or something.

Either way I like Vince, I don;t think he's an asshole at all. He's selfish sure, but jesus, he's an actor whos spent his whole life pampered and spoiled, yet he still is incredibly loyal to his friends will bend over backwards for them and then the one and only time he acts in an unfair manner you insist it proves what a selfish asshole he's been all along.

Do you just not like Vince or something?

That's pretty much how I saw it. That scene reminded me of when I quit watching SEINFELD: the episode where George accidentally kills his wife and the group's reaction is to shrug and go get coffee. Comedy or not, you don't get to make your characters loathsome and then ask people to root for them.

Is he? It's easy to be generous and helpful when everything's going your way. When things got tough, Vince blamed everything on the only person who was actually giving a damn about his life. But the bad part is that he never learned anything... he got his movie, E apologized (for what I have no idea), and Vince shrugged and moved on.

Despite his obvious flaws, Vince has always been portrayed as a good friend. That's gone. He's a douche and he deserves to fail. I don't think that's the reaction they were hoping for.

Well that was in no way my reaction. Jesus, have you guys not heard the saying 'to err is human'?

People fuck up, they make mistakes, Vince tried to fix his and apologised the minute his head cleared - I just don't see how that now equates to him being an irrideemable douche who 'deserves to fail', he fucked up, he tried to fix it and apologised profusely - even happily admitted he was taking his frustrations with himself out on E, so the guys hardly totally lacking perspective.

Seriously, I'd hate to be friends with you and Ambler - this whole, 'one mistake and you deserve to die miserably' mentality doesn;t leave a lot of room for humanity.

Do you guys just have 12 friends each who follow you around or what?

It took you THAT long to realize the characters on Seinfeld were loathsome? Jesus... it's one of the most integral (and best) parts of that show.

As for the issue at hand, some fans clearly don't like Vince, and I think it is almost certainly a fault of the way the show's written; because I don't think you're supposed to hate him any more than you are fan-favorite Ari.

Yeah, but Im beginning to see Vinnie as a bit of a rorshach test in that peoples reactions to him say more about them than the show.

There's a difference between amusingly screwed up, and just despicable. I find Larry David in CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM far more likable than any of of the main four in SEINFELD.

Probably true. And I don't think it's necessary to like every character in a show (even the 'main' character). But it is a flaw when the show is trying to get us to root for a guy who has undeserved success (he is commonly shown giving little care or effort towards his own career), appears to have little talent (from the bits of his films we've seen), and blames it all on his friend when his own mistakes bite him in the ass. If this were a dark comedy, I'd think all of that was intentional commentary, but with ENTOURAGE, I'm not so sure.

I don't recall the great character growth that you got from that 20 seconds. I do recall Vince's grand gesture came only after he got his career back, and that when E meekly admitted he had screwed up (which he hadn't), Vince let that stand.

I'm sure much of the problem here goes back to their decision to cram this big turn of events into 5 minutes at the end of the finale. It was a hamfisted way to deal with a pretty big character moment, and the result was kind of a mess.

...but Entourage has never done anything else, thats why Im surprised you guys are surprised.

The shows been following a relatively steady formula for five years now.

Not entirely true. He has been shown to be an actor who wants to do interesting projects; not just stuff for the money or fame.

As has been said, films within films almost always look bad; not to mention the fact some of the stuff (Medellin) was played for slightly comic effect.

The show has never clearly defined how good Vince is supposed to be as an actor, but he's definitely supposed to have some talent.


Yeah, it was an asshole move, but that was the point. He is self-centered, but that was out of character. He usually has his friends' back.

It seems to me that some of you just didn't like Vince to begin with and now this unloading on E seems to be validating 5 seasons of not liking the guy.

Yeah he's selfish, but he knows he is and tries to counter-act that through his loyalty to his mates.

He does care about his career - but he sees himself as an actor first, not a movie star, and thus seems to care little about all the movie star bullshit that goes on - ie, about 85% of the show. When he's got a dramatic piece he's passionate about in front of him, I see none of this lack of caring he gets accused of.

Vinnie cares about being an actor, not a movie star - now whether thats justified by his talent or lack of it is never really made clear, but personally I love that aspect of the show.

You never quite know if the fuss over Vince is justified or if the guys got an undeserved ticket on himself.

I look at Vince as one of those true 'actors'...the ones who pretty much only act in their best interest and continually lie to themselves and only confront things as they come to them without thinking ahead much. Most of these guys don't think they're assholes, and they seem to be nice people in general, but they're phonies and are definitely assholes. The asshole part comes out when the pressure builds and they look for others to blame instead of confronting themselves. Vince has continually shown this trait. Watch the reruns and you'll see it. In the first episode Vince even flat out stated he didn't care about his career and didn't have a clue as to what he wanted out of it. He didn't even read the script for Head On. That continued in subtle ways in later episodes. What I mentioned above was not an isolated incident.

That's my own viewpoint and I stand by it because I've known people like Vince and it's a casebook study. End of story.

It's cool if we don't see eye to eye, but that's what's so great about a forum.

I didn't say it was a good thing or a bad thing.

Well as I intimated earlier, I feel your response to Vince actually says more about you than the character.

...another great thing about an open forum.

Your quote goes both ways, chief.

You don't have to be obnoxious to be an asshole.

Seriously, I wasn't trying to be obnoxious, just commenting - and yeah, my response probably says a lot about me too.

I know it comes off as snarky - not my intention in the slightest

So Vince reminds Ambler of someone he doesn't like. Great. Let's move on.

I thought the show took a pretty strong stand on Vince's level of talent when Ari gave him an honest answer. "It remains to be seen." Not that we should consider Ari's voice as the center of the show, but that seemed a lot like the show was going more to the side of showing Vince as the mediocre actor running on load of charisma.

Now, with the studio heads', Van Sant's, and Scorcese's approval of his Smoke Jumper's footage, that may be changing. Vince actually really tried that time.

My opinion on Vince is similar to Ambler's, only less extreme. I don't particularly like the character in general and his laid-back-facade-hiding-his-insecurities way, but I do find it interesting. And I'm quite this says more about me than it does Vince.

Pretty much sums up the entire series.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1914477

I love that college humor video.

WE FUCKING OWN THIS TOWN BITCHES!

It's a damn good video

"Vince just ate a strange peanut. The movie's off!"
"The peanut wasn't strange. Vince can do the movie!"

Just finished the season. I completely and totally sided with the angry German director. Vinny can't act, and even though he's been told he simply does not wok as an actor, he whines and hides behind the studio. I'm supposed to side with Whiny, Ari the dick and his entourage over the director who clearly is trying to do what's best for his movie, not for Vinny Chase? Fuck you Chase, you can't act, the director thinks you're a shitty actor, if you can't scale up to the emotion he needs for that scene in 50 god damn takes then fuck the fuck off.