Entourage: Welcome to the Jungle (season premiere)

(S04E01) "Medellín is not a movie. It's a life. It's how it is. And I defy anyone to define where life stops and the film starts... or vice versa." - Billy Walsh

I have to say, a two week season hiatus for a show like Entourage might be the best thing ever. Granted, once this season ends we probably won't see new episodes for another two years... but hey, live in the moment. What we got though was something special, unlike anything Entourage has tackled in its previous 42 episodes. A documentary look at the making of Vincent Chase's latest feature. A blend of the humor we've come to expect from this show was merged with a heavy dose of reality and drama -- what goes into making a film under the harshest of conditions. It's a layer of the show that we haven't seen before and I hope that it can continue when the normal format returns next week.

Plenty of the clichés you'd expect from "the making of a movie" were played out, but none of it felt used. It clearly paid tons of homage to Hearts of Darkness, the documentary that captured the making of Apocalypse Now. You have to admit, Walsh going nuts as the days in Bogotá progressed was pretty Coppola-esque.

Overall though, I just loved the character development that we got. Vince, as a dedicated actor, has grown immensely. He wants this film to be good. Same goes for E. He's come a long way. Drama was just there being himself. But we did find out that season one of Five Towns had wrapped, implying that the show had been picked up. Turtle had the least input, but he didn't really play into what this episode was about. Same goes for Ari. You had to love the little bits from Nicky Rubenstein (rehab!) and Steven Gaghan though. $275,000 down the drain because Billy finally decided to get creative with the script once Gaghan was already on a plane.

Other thoughts...

• Loved the nod to Martin Landau's season three character Bob Ryan. Eric had been reading his book, "Is That Something You Might be Interested In?" Hilarious.
• Why was Debi Mazar dropped from the credits? When I read that press release a few weeks ago, it said we were going to get more of Shauna. Perrey Reeves was added though, so maybe we're getting more from Ari and Mrs. Ari at home in the coming weeks?
• Speaking of Ari, was why he such a naysayer about this whole process? You know that once Medellín is a huge success, he'll be the first one in line for the credit.

Now the film is in the hands of "Wally Balls." With the way this mini-doc ended, that's got to be a little scary for E and Vince. Walsh already got his wish to shoot the whole film in Spanish and subtitle it. With Nicky sobering up and Ari not really caring, does this mean that Walsh got his wish to have final cut too? I'm fine with that... as long as Drama's one scene doesn't end up on the editor's room floor. Losing that would be the only strike against this great start to the new season.