Entourage: The Complete Fourth Season

The spoiled brats of Hollywood are back again. After three years of whining and partying and constantly getting everything they ever wanted, and then some how always managing to want more, Season Four finally has something bad happening to these bitches.

Unlike most people in both Hollywood and in life where there are a series of 'up's and down's' this happily hetero foursome have only experienced the 'up's and the up's.' Whenever it appears that something bad is looming on the horizon, you know that we are only moments away from them being saved by some amazing stroke of good luck and fortune. It was cute at first but after four years of it, it got old. Actually after half a season it got old, but for some reason we keep watching.

For those of you not familiar with this Mark Wahlberg Executive Produced HBO opus, it tells the story of a group of under educated kids from queens who all move out to L.A. when a member of their childhood group makes it big as an actor. Adrian Grenier plays Vincent Chase the supposed 'next big thing' in Hollywood, Kevin Connolly is his best friend and former manager of a pizza place, Eric Murphy, Jerry Ferrara is Turtle the biggest hanger on of the bunch contributing nothing but his ability to drive the others around and finally Kevin Dillon as Vince's half brother Johnny Drama who has had a less than successful but steady acting career.

This year it's all about Vince's ridiculous passion project Medellin; a movie that makes any Lifetime Movie of the Week look like an Oscar caliber smash hit. This was so bizarre to watch because they filmed scenes from it, they cut a trailer for it and the whole time the story is about how amazing everyone (except pizza boy) thinks it is. But as the audience you're thinking, 'OK I understand the need for the suspension of disbelief, but seriously, this is bad!'

Fortunately by the end of the season it's shown that that was part of the point but for a whole season to watch them going nuts over this garbage film got really annoying.

Fortunately, there were a few other things going on as well to distract from this awful film within the show; Eric decides that he's been mooching off of Vince for too long and decides it's time to take on another client. As luck would have it Anna Farris rams his car accidentally while driving home from the gym in nothing but a towel (yeah, only on this show). Joining Eric on the journey to be more than just part of Vince's crew is Johnny Drama as he finally books and keeps a job working on the Ed Burns show Five Towns. Turtle gets into a scheme or two but

nothing really develops for him this year around. No more rappers to turn into stars for young Turtle.

And as with every season of this show the one shinning light of actual entertainment in the form of uber-agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) shines brighter than ever! He and his character are the only reason I still bother tuning in. Well, that and I do secretly hope that one day Vince will have a horrible disfiguring accident and they'll all lose everything; but other than that it's all about Ari!

He's hard at work at his new co-owned agency the Miller Gold agency and his fast talking, smooth moving moves are in hyper drive this year. He runs into a few bumps in the road with his hysterical assistant Lloyd (Rex Lee) and ultimately helps to salvage his relationship with boyfriend Tom (Brandon Quinn) which while unexpected was a nice way of showing the softer side of Ari without actually cutting off his balls like they did when he was sad that Vince left him the season before.

One mistake that this season definitely makes is in the episode where the whole gang goes to Cannes for the film festival. They show clips from the red carpet of the actual festival with cutaways to Angelina Jolie and George Clooney; why in the world would you remind your audience what an actual Movie Star looks like when you want them to some how believe that Adrian Grenier is the biggest star on the planet? I mean, don't get me wrong the kid has pretty eyes and a nice 5 o'clock shadow, but he is the furthest thing from a true 'star' that you can get. Rotund Jerry Ferrara has more charisma and little Kevin Connolly more of a presence than Grenier ever has. So the last thing they should be doing is putting those faces in people's minds as you're watching the show.

Other than that there are very few surprises this year other than the ending which I definitely enjoyed and has led to what has been so far, a good start to season 5 as the group tries to pick up the pieces after a shameful showing at Cannes.

The one thing that I will say that this show has going for it is the 'insiders look into Hollywood,' that America desperately still wants to see. We're all, myself included, still fascinated by not only what they do but how they do it and what it must be like to live the sweet life the way they do. My only complaint is that it isn't always sweet and it's taken this show 5 years to get to the shittier side.

Special features in the set include audio commentaries which I never pay any attention to, the trailer for Medellin (you know now how I feel

about that travesty) and a behind the scenes featurette for Medellin again as if it were an actual movie and finally the only decent extra, a US Comedy Arts Festival Panel featuring the cast; that one is actually worth checking out feel free to skip the rest.

My interest in the show is definitely waning, but I'm hanging in there watching the new season hoping it gets better… and by better I mean worse…. way worse…..

Season Grade: C-

DVD Features Grade: C-

Overall Grade: C-