Entourage Season 8

The Entourage guys at the final season premiere~Someone commission Johnny's Bananas please~Not sure what's going on with Entourage in the UK - have Sky Atlantic snaffled it from ITV2? Fair dos if so, we never really liked seeing it sandwiched between what Katie Did Next and Peter Andre: The Next Chapter like some highly over-qualified mediator. It doesn't really matter anyway if you're, ahem, planning a trip to the US this weekend, because the eighth - and final - series is premiering on HBO in four days.

For the sake of anyone who's not previously seen the show, get with the programme - it's loosely based on Mark Warlberg's first experience of Hollywood (he's the exec producer), charting pretty boy Vinnie Chase's journey as he gets sucked through the industry machine whilst accompanied by his less successful older brother Johnny (Kevin Dillion playing himself brilliantly), best pal Eric (Kevin Connolly) and sidekick Turtle (Jerry Ferrara). There's also Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), based in part on the real-life Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel. He gets the best scenes, hence all Piv's Emmys. We'd also like to give special mention to Billy Walsh, Entourage's very own Vincent Gallo. And there are more real life Hollywood cameos than you'd see at Scientology AA mixer.







As you may recall from the end of series seven, it had all gone a bit Livin' La Vida Lohan for Vinnie Chase after he got dumped by Sasha Grey, developed a narcotics habit, lost his role in a Stan Lee adaptation because of it and ended up getting booted our of Eminem's party - apparently that's rock bottom. Meanwhile, Ari's rock bottom involved his rock-bottomed wife (uber hot Perry Reeves) leaving him, which has been on the cards since season one, tbh. Eric was planning the most boring wedding of the year and managed the impossible by making a bum sex scene with one of the hottest women in Hollywood as dull as, well, any of his other scenes. Turtle had got over losing Jamie-Lynn Sigler and was setting up a tequila firm with his new lady piece. To be honest, we expected better from him - he's gone thin now though, so it's just further evidence that hilarious tubby man is less so after a diet (see also Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill). At least we still have Johnny Drama though. We wish Jeff Garlin (who played a script-writer in series seven) would actually produce fictional animation development Johnny's Bananas.

So, in season eight, what have we got to look forward to? Well, not much cheery stuff it seems - Vinnie emerges from rehab sober with a plan for a new film - the trapped miners. The rest of the gang know this is dud. But then again, being trapped in a mine might be more interesting than being a guest at Eric's wedding, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Oh, and we finally find out Mrs Ari's name. Let's hope it's not as much as an anticlimax as HBO's other name-hanger Mr Big.