VICTORY by Chris Osifchin
VICTORY! Vinny Chase and his crew are back for what should be a star studded, extra long episode of Entourage and I couldn’t be more excited.
My introduction to Entourage was choppy, at best. I watched a few random episodes with my college roommates and just didn’t get it. It was only when I watched it from the beginning that I learned there’s really nothing to get. After a couple years of putting it off, and a few days of wading through the first season, I slammed through the entirety of the show in about two and a half weeks after reaching the Aquaman years, some days watching an entire season in one sitting. Does that make me a loser? I just shook my Magic 8 ball – signs point to yes.
While I loved the show when I finally gave it a chance, I have to admit I think the last season was lackluster. I appreciate that the writers tried to turn Vince down a different road, but it didn’t come off authentic to me. Maybe that was Adrien Grenier’s performance, maybe it was the writing, but Vince falling for Sophia, the writer who trashed him in Vanity Fair, seemed, well, farcical to me. It’s not that I don’t think these characters deserved their happy endings – Sloane and Eric, Ari and Mrs. Ari, etc. – but that it was all too neat and clean. Just when things looked like they could go a different way, they went back to the way they always were.
The redeeming quality of that final season, however, was Johnny Bananas. It took eight seasons, but finally Johnny Drama, my personal favorite character, gets his due. VICTORY! The resistance he initially put up to the animated show was typical Drama – getting in his own way, laziness and a lack of humility. But Andrew Dice Clay was the perfect foil for Drama and a catalyst for the realization that he finally had a chance to quit playing bit parts in B dramas and have a show that was all his own. It was a perfect payoff for Johnny.
We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out for Johnny and the gang, but I have to admit the premise of the movie does have me perplexed. Vince as the star of a… deejay movie? All of Vinny’s movies have been a bit cheeky, probably intentionally, but what sort of dramatic premise will come out of this? Is it a superhero movie? I’m excited to find out, but hoping that it doesn’t fall flat.
Entourage was always at its best when Vince was at his best. Judging by the previews, it looks as though Vince is on top of the world again, but who will be up there with him?
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