Entourage "Out With A Bang" Recap: Just Like The Good Ol' Days?

For most of last night's episode, the HBO hit reconnected with its first season charms.

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Fresh off of last week's welcome home party that literally burned the house down, the Chase squad is based in a fly hotel penthouse and ready to get this season's plotlines going. There's (unsurprisingly) more drama between Eric (Kevin Connolly) and Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui), Vince (Adrian Grenier) preps a new project, and Ari (Jeremy Piven) gets a lead on his wife's (Perrey Reeves) mystery man. Let's get into the specifics.

Vince unfortunately still wants to do that movie.

Last week, when the guys were nervous about shooting down Vince's terrible "MOW" idea, lest it push him off the wagon, it was funny and appropriate. However, it's just boring this week. Vince starts the episode having just written a treatment for his Romanian miner script, and wants Billy (Rhys Coiro) to take it from there.

So Billy hangs around the latest Casa de Chase, while Vince waits anxiously to hear his reaction. Billy sees potential, though the rest kind of sucks, but he can't wait to fix it up and get started on it. Seriously, this has got to be the most boring in-show movie they've cooked up yet, to the point where we'd rather Vince and Billy do Medellin 2 instead.

Mrs. Ari lets that boy cook.

Ari's crumbling marriage gets worse when Lloyd (Rex Lee) lets slip that he spotted Mrs. Ari eating at Flay's, a restaurant she hated when they were together. The dynamic duo skip work and go down there to do some digging, where Ari is horrified to learn that his wife may have traded him, high-powered Hollywood agent, for *gasp* a lowly waiter/wannabe actor who's known for bagging the MILFs that frequent the spot.

In true Ari fashion, he retaliates by having Lloyd—now head of the TV department—screw up said waiter's audition for Mad Men later that day, which leads to a showdown between the bitter spouses right in Ari's office. Mrs. Ari is enraged when she hears about the audition, but not because she's seeing him. Nope, she's dating a master chef, no Based God: It seems Bobby Flay himself is entertaining Ari's woman these days. How many episodes until they come face-to-face? We're looking forward to it; hopefully the burger expert is up to the acting task.

"It's not fate. It's nauseating, actually."

The realest words Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) ever spoke. In this week's development retread of the Eric-and-Sloan saga, Eric sneaks back to their house to finally get his stuff while she's out. She catches him, of course, and they hash it out some more (she misunderstood his drunken voicemail from last week) and then end up having closure sex. After which she walks out. Of her own house. Ouch.

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Sloan calls later to apologize and drop a huge bomb on the homie: She's moving to New York. It's implied that she's doing this for work, but have we ever learned what Sloan actually does? We always figured she just lived off her dad's boatload of cash. It's a somber note to end the episode on, but don't fret. Everyone keeps mentioning that the wedding was supposed to be in one month, and Entourage seasons don't normally cover that much time. We're still betting on an eleventh hour reconciliation.

Are there any happy relationships this season?

The evolution of Turtle from perenially stoned sidekick to productive adult continues. He's still running the L.A. side of things for Avion, with his own office and those old hot driver girls from last season working for him again. There's still no word from Alex (Dania Ramirez), though it seems she's been chatting up the girls on the regular. On the one hand, Alex is ridiculously hot, and if we were Turtle we'd be perturbed, too. But as a viewer, Alex has never been that compelling—she's no Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Move on, Turtle. With those two accomplishments under your belt, you should be just fine.

It's never smooth sailing for Johnny Drama.

Damn, just when you think this guy's about to catch a break. Drama and his Johnny's Bananas co-star Andrew Dice Clay are finishing up the pilot and so far, so good. Phil does a focus group for the show and it tests through the roof. But Dice, who's in even more has-been dire straits than Drama, is skittish and, now that it's tested well, ready to get the truckload of bread he feels he deserves—that Dan Castellaneta/Homer Simpson money. Or he'll walk. Drama staves him off for now, but this can't bode well.

"Why are you dressed like it's '04?"

Turtle wasn't nostalgic for his season one swag, and his wardrobe took a hit thanks to the fire. But parts of "Out With A Bang" did feel like '04 (the year in which the show debuted), i.e. vintage Entourage. Uncertainty clouds Drama's career, girls are ducking and dodging Turtle, Ari schemed with Lloyd at his side, and E's love life is the center of group conversation. This Vince plotline, however, is nothing to get excited over. That'd be acceptable for a late series Entourage episode, but it's the final season. They should be knocking it out of the park each week, no?

Lines Of The Night

"Drama, why you're dressed for a bisexual paintball tournament is a better question." - Turtle

"If I even see him as a pus-faced zombie on The Walking Dead, I'm gonna shoot someone in the head." - Ari

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