Two once edgy cable comedy-dramas (although Entourage was supposed to be a straight comedy, Rescue Me was often funnier) crawled to a close last week after 8 years on the air. Of course I would love to kick the skeletons of Rescue Me and Entourage, two shows long past their peak and that both started slipping as early as season 3, but the truth is that in a TV landscape where reality shows are growing like kudzu, losing ANY once quality scripted shows is a bit sad. Sure, they both had ridiculously drawn-out love stories that sucked up story momentum (Entourage’s Eric and Sloan, Rescue Me’s Tommy, Sheila, Janet triangle) and revolved around supposedly “macho” groups of men that look more like Abercrombie & Fitch models (Rescue Me employs the most metrosexual firefighters in history, there’s barely a mustache in the bunch). Still, the shows were good once, and in Rescue Me’s case damn good, so proper respect should be paid by reviewing the finales…
Rescue Me: I think I might be the only person still watching this show by the time it crawled to a finishing point last week (cleverly timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of September 11th). The show started out as an excellent drama of NYC firefighters dealing with life post-911 and Denis Leary created a great lead character in alcoholic, ghost-seeing firefighter Tommy Gavin. But the show curiously abandoned most of its weight in season 3 when it really started to lean too heavily on the comedy aspects of the show. And that rang especially loud in most of this final season which included, yet again, an exploration of the played out Janet/Sheila/Tommy love triangle and another 400 references to how legendarily drunk Tommy’s family is.
I lost interest in Tommy’s supposedly “crazy” family years ago (they’re so predictable in their behavior there’s nothing crazy about them) and really only cared about the core group of firefighters. And sometimes not even that (both the overly metro firefighters here and the overgrown frat pack at the heart of Entourage rely too heavily on easy gay jokes, as if maybe they’re overcompensating). So I wasn’t all that interested in Tommy’s daughter’s wedding in the episode before the season finale or Janet’s 20th child being born in the season finale like she’s some kind of breeding hog.
But the show snapped to life when dealing with a massive fire in the penultimate episode and dealing with the aftermath of Lou’s death in the season finale. The show tried to play it dramatic for about ten minutes (the previews for the finale featured the great Adele song Fire to the Rain set to a montage of a huge firefighter funeral that promised to bring the drama) but the finale was mostly comedic. [There is an admittedly great joke about Lou’s ashes getting lost and they have to replace them with red velvet cake mix.] In the end, Tommy stayed in the FDNY and all of the other guys stayed pretty much the same. I would probably call it a B+ ending for what used to be an A show that was having a C- season, and if that was too complicated a formula for you…
Entourage: This show isn’t complicated or deep or heart wrenching and for a comedy it has a shocking lack of jokes to it. It’s about four guys and their agent hanging out, “banging” totally hot babes (which we rarely see but always hear about), and the occasional movie getting made. Entourage’s scripts often seem written by fact checkers for CNBC, as literally entire episodes have been based around how much money someone will make off a relatively undramatic deal and dollar figures are routinely thrown out to substitute for interesting plot points. Yep, Entourage kick started the genre of HBO comedies with no jokes in them (How to Make It In America, a poor man’s Entourage, looks set to continue the tradition) and it was fitting that it ended with no real humor.
Eric carried a pregnant Sloane off into the sunset. Ari convinced Mrs. Ari to give him another chance (although exactly what her problem was never properly made sense to me). Turtle and Drama continued to be the live action Beavis and Butthead of a new generation. And Vince ran off to Paris to marry a woman he’d known for 24 hours, so that sounds promising (I guess the show wanted to address complaints that they had never featured a real relationship for Vince so they crammed one in the last episode to substitute for eight seasons).
The finale is exactly what you’d expect with the only surprise being that Ari is offered the chance to run the entire Warner Bros. corporation after the credits…I don’t know if that sets up a Vince-free spin off show or a movie (which will have a hard time getting made despite everyone thinking its a given, 24 had ten times the viewership and is having trouble getting off the ground), and I can’t say that I care. The show went out the best possible way it could have but really, it’s too little, too late.
So fair well to both shows. I wish they had left on better terms and a few seasons earlier but I’m still glad they existed and will be even more glad if they inspire some quality scripted shows, ANY quality scripted shows to rise up and take their place.
i actually like happy endings. Loved both finales :)