Entourage

Now he’s on the latest season of “Entourage,” playing a foul-mouthed, washed-up version of the Diceman, a character he claims contains more truth about himself than his reality show ever presented. And this time around, he’s winning praise for his performance.

So what changed? When did the comedian get a sense of humor about his own life? I spoke to Dice (his preferred name) on the phone last week about his new role, his sons — and his disgust with Internet pornography. Unbelievable.

So, what should I call you? Andrew? Dice? Diceman? Andrew Dice Clay?

Dice is cool.

I was talking to Paul Provenza recently, and he told me to ask about your sons.

My son Max was on “Entourage” with me. It’s funny: He tells everyone he’s playing my son, and I go, “But you are!” He goes, “I know, but for the show, I’m just playing it.”

That’s an interesting concept — playing yourself.

Yeah, it’s hysterical. Like I’m playing “me.” I got a part, and it’s being myself. That’s what makes ["Entourage" creator] Doug Ellin so great. He would come up to me before filming and ask, “Now, can you be you?”

But I understand that question, because a lot of people can’t throw away whatever their persona is in what they do and really act like themselves, personality-wise, in front of a camera.

Where does that persona end? I was reading an old interview with you from the A.V. Club where David Wolinsky compared you to Andy Kaufman, and you kept saying no — that “Dice” wasn’t a character. That it was all about the material.

Yeah, but when you put yourself into the material, you do become a different person. It’s a very fine line.

But I imagine this concept of “playing yourself” has come up before. You had a reality show on VH1 for a short stint, and “Celebrity Apprentice” …

Yeah, but on my reality show, they weren’t letting me be me. That’s the funny part. They were making up situations that would never happen in my world. Like, I had to go get an image change in an episode … they dressed me up like a rapper, and I’m like, “Why are we doing this?”

I’ll never forget telling the producers, “Look, we can do this my way and you’ll have a show on for the next three years, or we can do this your way and after seven episodes you guys will be looking for work.”

They chose the latter.

They want drama. I mean, look what they do to those people who live next door to each other on those f***ing “Housewives” shows.

Or “Jersey Shore”?

No, I love “Jersey Shore” because they are letting those kids run wild and be themselves. It’s a party show. Those housewives, though; there’s not a show I turn on where they’re not drinking. It doesn’t matter if they’re taking their kids to a preschool thing or soccer practice, it’s always, “Let’s have a drink!” How can those people function when they are constantly drinking?

Back to “Entourage,” though; what made you want to take the role? It’s not the most flattering portrayal of yourself. Dice on the show is very bitter — he’s kind of washed up. Is this portrayal of yourself as someone who stands in the way of his own success accurate?

Well, it’s definitely the road the character is going down; that’s why last week’s episode ends with him walking out on the show ["Johnny Bananas," the show-within-a-show]. That’s definitely my kind of spirit, but the joke of that scene is that nobody in the history of Hollywood ever demands more money based on a test screening. That’s why Drama and I split up over the decision, because he’s looking at my life choices, and he doesn’t want to be that down the road.

Right. And if that character is “You being you …”

Well, I get to pick my own outfits. There’s still a script, and there’s a story, but like I said, the joke of it is that no one would ever walk after a pilot because they didn’t get more money. They never have me playing it like “Woe is me.” This isn’t a bad guy. He just wants to get paid. With who I am in my real life, it’s always been more about accomplishment than the money.

There’s this theory floating around that “Entourage” wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for your act. A lot of the machismo we see in the characters — especially Drama — stems from these kids growing up listening to your tapes, quoting you at parties. We even see Scott Caan’s character recite your “Hickory Dickory Dock” routine.

I think that’s how Doug thought of me; that’s why he wanted me for the show. He told me when we got together, “You’re the reason all these comedians today want to be like rock stars.” I’m the original, and I took a lot of bullshit for it, but looking back it’s a good feeling to know that at least I was original. I was so bored watching these comedians with no performance style. They all dressed in the same earth tones, with the same patches on their sleeve, and I could never. I could never. Comics used to be opening acts; that was it. I wanted to be a rock star, I wanted to play arenas. I wanted to develop something more exciting to people than just a guy telling jokes.

You had a lot of heat on you in the ’80s and ‘90s because of your act. You personified “controversial.” It made up a huge part of your fame.

I never courted it; that wasn’t something I wanted. You know, I was mentally preparing myself to get slammed about “Entourage.” I’m just so used to negative press, and now people are writing me up, saying I dominate the show. As far as my thing with journalists goes, you begin to think, “Well, even if I do a good job, they’ll find some way to tear me down.” They just want to hate me. So it is so surprising to hear the good stuff. And the funny part is that a lot of these writers are women.

You have to recognize that there is a huge difference in how women will respond to your “Diceman Cometh” act versus a sympathetic character on “Entourage.”

My thing is, I look at comedians today and they all have to apologize for their acts. For going onstage and saying stuff to make people laugh. People pay money to go hear what that comic does, that’s the service they provide. Now someone gets offended and it’s like, “Should we just outlaw laughing?”

You never apologized.

Yeah, but I never had to answer to a company or a bigger show. I feel bad for those guys [comedians]. It’s like going to see a rock star and only getting to hear Mozart. You know, the only people I see doing it right is “South Park.”

There was an article Virginia Heffernan wrote in the New York Times when you had your reality show, which portrayed you as this kind of sad figure in a society that can forgive anyone for their personal indiscretions, but can’t forgive you for being politically incorrect.

An act is an act. That’s what it is. If I went onstage to talk about, you know, sending my kids to water polo, how my wife and I had coffee, no one would want to hear that. They want to laugh their balls off, and I want to give it to them.

You’re going on tour again. Do you think that outrage, the boycotts — are those things going to follow you? Have you cleaned up your act?

Look, my voice as a comic hasn’t changed. I would be bored if I wasn’t doing what I did onstage. I talk about human behavior, I talk about people and technology — about how they waste their lives on the phone they’re carrying. You know? (Laughs.)

I don’t think that’s the part that people get offended about.

I talk about the side of technology that people don’t talk about at parties and talk about it onstage. I’m not looking to do my material during an interview, but all the cellphones that people need a code to get into? To me, that’s all about sneakiness, cheating; no one has a house phone anymore. They have their own personal lives in their pocket. Everything on the computer is about “hide this, hide that.”

You’re talking about pornography?

I was just watching a show with Dr. Phil, and I forget what percentage of men waste their time on porn, but it was something like 23 hours a week.

And you see that as a negative thing, guys looking at porn?

Yeah, I mean, I love sex. I have it almost every day, and I love doing it. Porn isn’t about that, it’s about what you are doing to your mind. This isn’t normal sex. I told my wife about it, and I said, “You know, I can see how people can get absorbed into that world.” … How do you go on with life after you’ve put those images in your mind?

There’s some crazy stuff out there.

Sure, it’s not all online. Look at all the pedophiles walking around. I was in New York and saw a park sign for a playground that said, “No adults may enter without accompanying a child.” That’s what we live with now. That’s sick, that we have to have those signs.

You sound surprisingly like a dad, Dice.

Yeah, but I’m a cool dad. My sons know I’m a cool guy.

Now, I have to ask you this last question and I’m sorry in advance if it offends you …

Oh man, here it comes. What did they tell you to say?

Nothing. I just really need to know: If you were a chick and had to pick one of those four guys from “Entourage” to have sex with …

(Laughs) Oh, Jesus. Really? (There is about five seconds of silence.) Well, not Drama. We have great chemistry, but he’s too much like myself. Turtle … Turtle isn’t my type.

So Vince?

No, I think I would go with E. They say opposites attract, right? Well, E is the sweet, romantic one, but I like that he can talk business too; cut through the bullshit. So yeah, I guess I’d sleep with Eric.

Hey, at least you’re a good sport about it.

Well, you have to be able to laugh at yourself. Who would I sleep with? (Laughs.) Jesus Christ.

Matt: The producer who shoots himself at the end of the episode, and who was in that rehab group with Vince, is Carl Ertz. He’s played by Kim Coates, an amazing Canadian actor who’s on “Sons of Anarchy” and has had a long career as a character actor. Ertz was first introduced in the 2008 episode “Fantasy Island,” when Vince was hiding out down in Mexico following the failure of his dream project “Medellin.” Ertz contacted him and offered him a comeback project, a tropical crime thriller that had been turned down be Emile Hirsch. (Remember when Emile Hirsch was the next big thing as a leading man?) Anyway, it turned out that Ertz was only courting Vince to drive down Hirsch’s asking price. When the boys discovered this, they trashed Ertz’s car as revenge. But this being Hollywood, where the deal is more important than personal animosity, Vince didn’t bear any ill will over that. Plus there was the rehab bond, which counts for a lot.

I thought the moment where Vince talks Turtle down from his outrage and says he has to stay at the house to counsel Ertz, who has relapsed and is high as a kite, was one of Adrian Grenier’s better acting moments. At his best, Grenier reminds me a little bit of the young John Travolta. He seems like a street-wise kid, but with a core of decency. Maybe Coates brought that out of him; he’s a magnificent actor.

Drew: That’s so funny that you read it that way, because I read it as Grenier just kind of sleepwalking through that scene. The writers had the scene right. Vince never would have left Carl alone if they were both in the program. But let’s say that in actuality, you were in AA and someone was locked in the bathroom relapsing. Someone as new to the program as Vince would be a little less blase, a little more freaked out. But that’s splitting hairs over acting styles, I guess. The real question might be “Why did Carl relapse immediately after dealing with Vince again?”

Matt: I’ve bitched a lot about this show being relentlessly trivial and making a lot of dumb choices out of convenience, but I thought the big scene at the end between Ertz and Vince was well-written, directed and acted. And it showed that “Entourage” does have a good grasp of the dramatic/comedic core of what it’s doing. Because Carl Ertz is a fellow addict — there is a very pointed reveal of him sitting in the audience in the opening scene when Vince is speaking to the rehab group — that means Vince considers him a friend. And “Entourage” has always been adamant about the idea that if you’re a guy, and you’re truly friends with another guy, then you have his back in a tough situation no matter what. So all of that stuff at the end rang true. It also rang true in terms of the personal code of recovering addicts. When an addict you know has relapsed, you’re supposed to do everything you can to help him through it, to be a rock for him or her until the storm passes, right?

As for your other question, I don’t think Carl Ertz relapsed just as a byproduct of being around Vince. I think he was just an addict, and sometimes addicts lose their willpower and succumb. Vince just happened to come by Ertz’s house when he had a weak moment.

Drew: The whole idea that Ertz was fucking Vince over a second time though, setting up a deal behind his back, alludes to the fact that he a) was still using the entire time or b) was a dick even without the drugs.

Matt: Yeah.

Drew: And for the record, going into business deals with fellow AA program-members is generally frowned upon, as is starting a relationship. Though I suppose it’s different in Hollywood? In the beginning of the episode, Vince is talking about his script during the meeting, and makes a joke about “if anyone out there knows a guy I can send this to.” That was a funny bit, probably a bit satirical, but I don’t doubt that this has actually happened at AA meetings in Hollywood.

Matt: No, it has happened. In fact, in the Robert Altman-Michael Tolkin movie “The Player” — still the definitive inside-showbiz satire, along with HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show” — makes a joke about that kind of behavior. The Peter Gallagher character, a studio executive, casually tells his colleague, Tim Robbins, that he’ll be somewhere “right after my AA meeting.” Robbins says, “I didn’t realize you had a drinking problem,” and Gallagher replies, “Well, I don’t, really — but that’s where all the deals are being made these days.”

Drew: Yes, that’s at least how Hollywood portrays its own AA meetings, and that makes me wonder again about Vince’s intentions. I got the impression that dealing (and fucking) with Vince again led to Carl’s downfall — that while VInce might be innocent, his carefree life might be leaving a trail of broken bodies in its wake.

Matt: That’s an interesting take, but I fear it gives “Entourage” too much credit. Throughout the run of the show we’re constantly aware that the other three have hitched their wagon to Vince’s rising star, thus the title of the series. The downside of that is to greater or lesser degrees, E, Drama and Turtle are all living in his shadow, living in his house, eating his food. There have been times where Vince not-so-subtly reminded them of that. But again, the show doesn’t dwell on any of this too much because it would puncture the fantasy aspect of “Entourage,” a show that’s much more about awesome bachelor pads, swank hotels, easy access to hotties, etc.

Drew: I remember the one season with Martin Landau though — with the iconic “Is that something you’d be interested in?” — where a situation gets close to a resolution, but because of a misinterpretation (or because Ari is a dick) they inadvertently fuck someone over. But just like in Carl’s case, you feel as though the boys walk away with clean hands despite having ruined people’s lives and/or careers.

Matt: In what sense?

Drew: Well, I’m thinking of Andrew “Dice” Clay in this episode. The boys didn’t mean to fuck him over. But he ends up getting replaced on the show, and sort of getting betrayed by Drama.

Matt: Well, actually, they sort of did screw him over. Drama realized it was not in his best interest to sign on to the game of brinksmanship that Dice was pushing, and that it was dumb to be demanding more money before a show had even gone on the air. So he made a self-interested decision. In previous instances where “Entourage” characters have done this, the show has pretty much encouraged us to empathize with the guys and think, “They’re the main characters. so I’m in their corner no matter what” — which is sort of like the bro code extended to include the audience.

But in this case I think Dice really was being unreasonable. This isn’t 1990 anymore. He’s not selling out arenas. He didn’t have the clout to be issuing ultimatums about how much he should get paid to be a voice on an animated series. He hasn’t accepted the fact that his peak is behind him and that he’s probably never going to create another one. That’s something that Drama understands. He’s spent much of his life living in his brother’s shadow, and having a career that is successful if you look at is a job that pays real money, but not if you look at it in terms of multimillion-dollar paydays, critical respect, etc. The show would have us believe that Vince has the capacity to be another Johnny Depp, maybe, if he’s smart about it an applies himself, but it makes no such claims for Drama, and in his more sober moments, Drama seems to understand this and accept it. If Drama had the sort of career that somebody like Bruce Campbell or Michael Ironsides have had, he would probably consider himself a success, and go to his grave pretty happy.

I like Drama’s reactions in the scene where he fesses up to not being on board with Dice’s plan. They indicate that Drama understands himself, and is making both a right and self-interested decision.

Drew: He’s smarter than Vince is, maybe. Or at least learning more quickly.

Matt: I don’t know if Drama is actually smarter. It may be that there’s an upside of not having a posse of yes men who are constantly soft-pedaling bad news and telling you that you’re brilliant. You have to rely on yourself and be tough about your career.

Drew: Which brings me to another question: Who is that screenwriter that they’re hanging out with? He’s involved with Drama’s cartoon series, Vince gives him the screenplay; he seems awfully intense for their social circle.

Matt: That’s Billy Walsh (Rhys Coiro), who directed two Vincent Chase films, “Queens Boulevard” and “Medellin.” He also memorably signed a deal to direct a series of 25 pornos under the pseudonym Wally Balls. I love that character, and that actor. Corio makes me believe that Billy Walsh is a bit unhinged and full of himself, but also that he’s brilliant. He’s my favorite actor on the show. He was born in the wrong decade. I think if he had started out in the 1970s he might have won an Oscar by now.

Drew: My last question: Do you think that the end of this episode is a game-changer? Is everything going to get very dark as the series ends?

Matt: Who knows? Given that it’s “Entourage,” I doubt it. That was a shocking — or maybe I should say, in air quotes, “shocking” — ending, with that gunshot and the closeup of Vince’s horrified face. Of course the big question now is, what if anything will “Entourage” do with this development? Is the remainder of the last season going to be devoted to a celebrity scandal and trial involving Vince? Or will the show just promptly forget all about it, as it tends to do in situations involving really intense, ugly emotions?

Drew: I mean, let’s not forget that the guys are technically also homeless right now, and Turtle lost his job. Drama’s show just gained Jaime Kennedy, and Ari slept with, I don’t know, some old friend from college or something. If this wasn’t “Entourage,” you’d have to consider this a very, very bad time in these people’s lives.

Matt: It would be wonderfully ironic if Vincent Chase finally attained the megastardom he was always being groomed for, not through his acting, but by being involved in the kind of sordid celebrity scandal that inspires hours of cable news coverage and a quickie movie on E!

Drew: Yes, well — he might have already gotten that by going into rehab and having his house burn down. Vince is the Lindsay Lohan of dudes.

There’s only one problem: a former MTV reality star* has already claimed the name Johnny Bananas, and he’s gearing up to sue “Entourage” for using his likeness for their imaginary monkey show. Does he have grounds to take this all the way to monkey court? Let’s take a look.

Johnny Bananas, aka John Devenanzio, starred in “The Real World” in 2006 (and later on “The Challenge,” formerly known as “Road Rules/Real World Challenge”) and talks with a thick Brooklyn/Boston accent, just like Drama and Dice.

One time, Bananas was thrown in a barrel during “The Challenge,” a sly reference to the game “Donkey Kong,” or perhaps the phrase “A barrel full of monkeys.”

Bananas has gone on record against the show, saying:

“(The reference to ‘Johnny Bananas’) in no way coincidental and is instead an attempt to capitalize on the name recognition which I’m solely responsible for creating.” “I intend to fight vigorously in defense of the years of hard work and dedication I’ve spent making Johnny Bananas a household name, and the purpose of this lawsuit is aimed at protecting the integrity of my brand.”

“Entourage” claims they have yet to receive a cease-and-desist letter.

But this kind of, ahem, drama does have a precedent: Hulk Hogan threatened to sue Cocoa Pebbles for using his likeness last year in an animated ad spot called “Cocoa Smashdown.”

Paris Hilton, The Naked Cowboy , and Carol Burnett have also sued over cartoons.

But Johnny Bananas is no Paris Hilton. He’s not even The Naked Cowboy. In fact, unless you were obsessed with reality television, you probably have no idea who Johnny Bananas is. And therein lies the solution: “Entourage” needs to get the real Johnny Bananas on the show, playing the voice of one of the “Johnny Bananas” characters. It wouldn’t be that out of place for “Entourage” to have a D-list reality show star on its program, and Johnny gets that household name recognition and integrity that he’s worked so hard to build after nicknaming himself “Bananas.” Win-win.

Drew: Ha ha. Heaven doesn’t have Drama in an Ed Hardy shirt.

Matt: I like Drama insisting on the shirt’s heterosexual cred. If you have to insist that your shirt makes you look straight, there’s a problem.

Drew: It’s like insisting you are famous — another one of Drama’s personality quirks. But my first question is: If a famous movie star gets out of rehab and then his house burns down because of a pot-related accident, is there nobody — not the paparazzi, a parole officer, a sponsor — who would maybe try to take Vincent Chase away from these guys? No one who, at the very least, would point to the incident as a sign of a possible relapse?

Matt: Yeah, there would be fallout from that in real life. But this isn’t real life. It’s “Entourage.”

It goes back to what we were talking about last week. This show is hip to the way most young men — and older men with young men’s mentalities — fantasize. The messy, ugly parts get skipped. It sounds kind of strange to say, but in this sense “Entourage” is weirdly prim and conservative. It’ll show us tit implants and guys doing drugs, but the really, truly hardcore stuff — the moments where people really have to struggle with pain and doubt — that stuff, it goes out of its way to avoid. So in that sense the show is truly escapist, in a way that “Sex and the City” never was.

Drew: I was thinking of the “Sex and the City” comparison earlier — about how the women on that show used each other for emotional crutches, where this show appears to be about four guys (give or take) who just seem to be thrown together to party all the time. They are only “there” for each other in the most simplistic sense. So Vince, who’s fresh out of rehab, stays up all night to write a screenplay, and that worries no one? And then we learn that he’s basically illiterate? I feel like real friends might be concerned. And in the context of the reality of the show, I wonder how Vince ever read his scripts.

Matt: “Sex and the City” put its characters through the wringer regularly. It was an outlet for women to fantasize about living a wealthy lifestyle and having great, loyal friends, but it wasn’t totally full of shit when it came to relationships. It was tethered to reality. There was a core of dissatisfaction and anxiety to the portrait of the relationships between men and women. Nothing was easy. And the friendships were complicated, too. You’re totally right — “Entourage” is so shallow, and so terrified of complexity of any kind, that it makes “Sex and the City” look like Edith Wharton.

Drew: I’m imagining Carrie Bradshaw, fresh from rehab, telling Miranda she stayed up all night to write a book because she was just so wired, and Miranda not reacting to that.

Matt: The only things that are consistently interesting about “Entourage” are the portrait of a bunch of working-class guys importing their values into a wealthy environment, and almost any of the scenes involving Ari. Whenever Jeremy Piven is on-screen, the show comes alive, and develops an edge that it almost never has when it’s with Vince and the gang.

Drew: That’s true. Although I wonder how a guy as busy as Ari has time to spend all day ruining a waiter’s life after he thinks his wife is sleeping with him.

And to tell you the truth, Ari’s jokes at Lloyd’s expense feel horrifyingly homophobic to me. I’m amazed they still let his character get away with that.

Matt: Yeah, the gay-baiting humor has always been irritating. It’s not the language or behavior that offends, though — straight male actors, agents, producers often put on the Neanderthal macho-man shtick, just like stockbrokers and lawyers, because deep down they are ashamed of themselves for doing “soft” jobs instead of something that requires them to work with their hands and get dirty. So they overcompensate by swaggering around as if they all have gigantic muscles, cursing like sailors, talking trash about women, and gay-baiting one another and actual gay people. “Entourage,” like “The Larry Sanders Show” before it, gets that part totally right. The main characters on “Larry Sanders” were all soft-bellied older men in thousand-dollar suits who ate in posh restaurants and got manicures, but they cursed like Marines and were constantly accusing each other of being fags.

At the same time, though — and this is the unfortunate part — “Entourage” also validates the guys’ worldviews by having every woman on the show be a soft and compliant knockout or some kind of bitch or tramp or horrible mind-fucker. And all the gay men on the show are circa-1970s sitcom-style gays, lisping and wearing bright colors. Ari is a lout for constantly insulting Lloyd, and we’re supposed to see him as a lout, but the way the show depicts Lloyd, he is laughable. We’re supposed to find Lloyd pathetic, a toady. Once in a while the writers throw Lloyd a snappy comeback or give him a shred of dignity, but not often. It’s the show that’s putting forth this view of women and gays, and not just the characters. At its worst it feels as if the series is validating the regressive points-of-view of guys like Ari, Drama and Turtle. In that scene where Ari goes to the restaurant to investigate whether his wife is sleeping with somebody else, that stereotypically bitchy headwaiter is actually limp-wristed!

Drew: Is Lloyd the Varys of “Entourage”?

Matt: I wish. Varys is a great “Game of Thrones” character, a fully developed human being with complexities and depths. Lloyd is just a punching bag.

Drew: I mean, is Lloyd’s purpose in the story the same as that of Varys? He brings little pieces of information to Ari. “I saw your wife at Bobby Flay’s restaurant this morning” suggests that he has too much free time on his hands. Shouldn’t he be, you know, working? Instead of stalking his boss’ separated wife? But that might be a rhetorical question.

Matt: It probably is. Lloyd is a combination slur and exposition machine.

Drew: As far as the show being a hyper-masculine fantasy, adding Andrew Dice Clay to the cast in the final season seems like the natural end point of that.

Matt: Yeah, it makes sense that they would give him a prodigal son’s — or prodigal father’s? — welcome.

Drew: Right. Like when Scott Caan’s character is able to recite Dice’s infamous “Hickory Dickory Dock” routine from memory. I’m surprised the other characters didn’t bow to kiss Dice’s ring.

Matt: That was almost touching, in a sick way. Dice is one of the key influences on these guys’ identities as men. It was nearly impossible to be alive and American circa 1990 or so and not hear Dice’s routines played and recited at parties.

Drew: But we also see this other side: that hyper-macho guys like Clay are “washed up” and living with sick cats. And that they are very vulnerable. That Clay actually needs a guy like E to represent him is sort of … sad. Like we’re supposed to believe that Andrew Dice Clay is so desperate for representation that he’s just walking around Los Angeles, asking his new friend Drama to make an appointment today with E?

Matt: I did appreciate the way the show makes Dice obnoxious and pathetic, and very much the author of his own irrelevance. And I like that Dice the actor was on board with the idea of playing himself on “Entourage” as an arrogant, clueless loser. But then, it’s not as though he’s at the top of his game and has a ton of negotiating power. What else could he have said to the producers except “yes”?

Drew, is there anything on this show that speaks to you? Do you feel like there’s any insight or truth that’s being communicated — that it’s telling you anything about the male mind that you didn’t already know?

Drew: The idea of painting Dice as Drama’s mentor — and ultimately, someone that Drama wants to be, and doesn’t want to be — is interesting. So is the suggestion that living a misogynistic fantasy, even within the world of “Entourage,” does end up putting a person in a lonely place. That speaks to me.

Also — and I should preface this by saying I’ve never been to L.A., and that maybe this is true for women as well as men — it seems like the show’s portrayal of all these “fake” people that the guys have to deal with in Hollywood is true to how the scene really is. What is unbelievable, though, is that these guys — for all their faults, greed and what have you — have never succumbed to that, in a way that made them “sell out” their buddies.

But really, this whole episode could have really been called “Bros before hos.” We have Sloane reuniting with E, only to tell him she’s moving to New York City. We have Turtle trying to find Alex — who is Alex, by the way? — and Ari trying to discover who is wife is sleeping with.

Matt: Alex is Turtle’s girlfriend, who started out working for a car service company that Turtle started last season, and is now helping him promote Avion tequila.

You’re right about the sellout thing. The four main characters have all been tempted, at various points, to sell out one of the others, for money or for a chance at getting laid or for whatever reason, and they have consistently refused. There might have been instances where they succumbed, but I can’t think of any right now, and if there were incidents like that, obviously the guys got past them and managed to be friends again. They are staunchly loyal to each other no matter what. Maybe that’s the real fantasy.

When Vince gets out of rehab, a bunch of fans are mobbing the center and holding up “We love you!” signs. In real life, the only people outside your rehab are TMZ reporters. But this is fantasy Vincent Chase land, where, after what I’ve been told was a brief seasonal hiatus, the stakes are once again lowered to absolutely nothing. Will Vince’s surprise sobriety party go as planned? Will the truck full of women delivered to populate said party serve as a sad commentary on the fact that between six guys in Hollywood, none of them know any single ladies who want to hang out with a movie star and not do cocaine? Will the entire house burn down due to a series of hilarious mishaps? (Yes.)

So Matt, first question: What happened to the other half of Turtle?

Matt: Jerry Ferrara, who plays one of the show’s main four guys, a pot-smoking neighborhood dude from back East, used to be chunky, but apparently he decided to go svelte for the final season. Details of his weight loss program can be found here. 

“Brooklyn-born Ferrara, who recently split from his cast mate and ‘Sopranos’ star Jamie-Lynn Sigler, is said to have taken up hiking in Runyan Canyon and traded burgers and fries for tofu, fresh organic fruit and vegetables,” the piece says. The weight loss isn’t a part of any plotline on the show as far as I can tell, unless you treat it as a kind of read-between-the-lines development that’s there if viewers choose to notice it, but that otherwise doesn’t announce itself. But “Entourage” isn’t a read-between-the-lines kind of show, so the weight loss is more likely Ferrara’s response to the fact that the show is going off the air, he’s a Hollywood actor, and he doesn’t want to be typecast as Turtle all his life. Or maybe he just wants to be healthy, who knows?

 This is an excellent first question, because it’s in tune with the vibe on “Entourage.” This is not, to put it mildly, a high-stakes show.

Drew: Why is Vince in rehab?

Matt: Vince is in rehab because after years as a major star in Hollywood, he finally succumbed to the hard-partying lifestyle and became a basket case. Last season he was ingesting massive amounts of cocaine and booze, partly as a response to troubles with his career and his porn-star girlfriend Sasha (played by real life porn star Sasha Grey), partly because he survived an accident during the shooting of an action picture and became addicted to risk, and partly because the show had been almost entirely drama-free during its entire run and the producers wanted to really challenge these characters.

But, of course, it’s “Entourage,” which became a big HBO hit partly by sparing viewers the hassle of dealing with anything too troubling or deep, so in between seasons, we skipped ahead to Vince post-rehab. This is very consistent with the show’s M.O. It does an excellent job of protecting the fantasy it has created by almost never putting audiences in a position where they have to ask if they really believe in a particular plot development. When Vince played Aquaman, we only saw a little teaser or trailer for the movie, not any scenes from the film itself, much less any scenes of Vince acting on the set of that fictional film, which mean we never had to ask whether he was credible in the part, or if the movie was any good. And when the gang threw its collective weight behind a four-hour black-and-white New York drama starring Vince, titled “Queens Boulevard,” and it became an against-all-odds smash at Sundance, we were just informed that it did very well; we were never asked to look at piece of the movie and decide if we thought it was good or if it sucked, or if Vince could really act (as we’re told he can) or if he”s just a very charming Pretty Boy.

So this new episode starts with him making a little speech to his fellow addicts and hatching a plan for a new movie about a guy with a dog who goes to Romania to help dig out some miners trapped in a cave-in. The one clever thing about this development is the bit where Vince says that being in a top-dollar rehab clinic made him feel an affinity for a bunch of miners trapped underground for a month. That’s the kind of subtle dig at pampered Hollywood narcissism that I really enjoy, but that “Entourage” doesn’t do enough of. “The Larry Sanders Show” is still the gold standard for that sort of humor. “Entourage” is usually a lot more broad in its satire, always sort of jabbing an elbow in your ribs and going, “Clever, huh? Am I right?”

But I should also admit that in this case, the show’s timing is nothing short of eerie. Vince’s big idea is based on his having watched TV coverage of the mining cave-in in Chile last year. On Sunday, the very same day that this episode aired, it was announced that the real-life miners had sold their story to Hollywood.

Drew: Didn’t Sloane and E break up like … 18 seasons ago?

Matt: The breakup seems permanent now, but you never know. They’re like the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of this sitcom — star-crossed lovers. Admittedly, that description makes their relationship sound more interesting than it is. “Entourage” has never seemed too interested in it, really. It’s just there to give Kevin Connolly, who plays E, some dimension, and show that deep down E is probably a more old-fashioned guy than the other three. I always thought Connolly was the best actor on the show, and that E was the most interesting character. I feel like he’s the only one of the four who might have done just fine if he’d never had anything to do with the film industry. He’s a hustler, and way more mentally together than Drama or Turtle, or even Vince, whose visionary tendencies sometimes get the better of him. I can picture E running a used-car dealership or managing a supermarket or something, and saving his pennies so he and the wife can take their three kids to Disney World.

Drew: Wait, why is Ari out of his house?

Matt: Ari and his wife (Perry Reeves) got separated after seven seasons of Ari inflicting all sorts of Hollywood super-agent stress on her, and now she has a boyfriend. This is the other part of the episode that I liked. Jeremy Piven seems to make it a point of pride to play insufferable characters, and to be insufferable in real life, but he’s a good actor, and he does the prideful-man-brought-low thing very well.

Drew: Who all lives with each other now? Do they all live communally under Vince’s house until he gets out of his sexy rehab?

Matt: I’m a little unclear on who lives with whom, and I don”t think it really matters that much. “Entourage” is shot on location in a wide array of Southern California locales, and it’s R-rated in its humor, but deep down it’s a pretty traditional situation, with all the descended-from-the-1950s devices, like having all the action seem to take place in one set even when it’s scattered all over the lower half of a major state. People are always dropping by on each other unannounced, or stopping by one another’s homes and apartments and offices to say things in person that they’d probably handle via text message in real life.

Drew: When did they add in Scott Caan? Is he the fifth member of their crew? Is he playing himself?

Matt: The answers are 1) a couple of seasons ago, and 2) yes and no. Scott Caan is playing a guy named Scott Lavin, a talent manager, E’s associate and sometime rival and sometime friend. Scott’s a somewhat compelling character, sort of like Ari without the explosive energy, but with all the shamelessness. There was some tension between him and E last season, a falling out over Scott supplying Vince with drugs.

And 3) no, despite the shared first name, Scott Caan is not playing himself. Maybe they named the character Scott so that Scott Caan would know which lines were his?