The ‘Entourage’ Guilt/Pleasure Index: The Golds Communicate Their Feelings

In this week’s installment of Entourage, “The Young and the Stoned,� Drama gets off the best line of the night (as usual), and also the worst (as usual), and the Golds reveal they might just — gasp — have a perfectly functional marriage. No wonder this is the one show we can’t stop watching–slash–can’t stop hating ourselves for watching!

Pleasure: Let’s not lament what this show doesn’t do — actually examine the mechanics of celebrity, allow the characters to grow or change, indulge even the most minor conflict for more then about ten minutes — and focus instead on what it does so well. For starters, house porn. Did you see that new place Vince and the boys are renting? At 30 Gs a month? Holy smoke!

Speaking of holy smoke, Turtle spends the episode hoarding the last canister of a prized cannabis. Meanwhile, Ari and Mrs. Gold demonstrate that they have a pretty healthy relationship. Think about it: They communicate; they’re expressive; they don’t hesitate to show their feelings. It probably helps that Mrs. Gold also apparently does Pilates 28 hours a day.

Tonight’s best line goes to Drama, who, when Turtle explains that his favorite strain of weed is now extinct, chimes in, “Like the Yangtze River dolphin.� (Which only became extinct this month. Timely!) Second best line: When Ari confronts Javier, the Y&R actor who’s about to kiss his wife on the show’s 35th-anniversary special, Javier says, “I only know character names. I’m a Method actor.�

Guilt: Drama also gets the night’s worst line: “Is E still bitching about getting bitch-slapped by a bitch?�, a marvel of wordplay that would delight 12-year-olds giggling after lights-out at sleepaway camp. The bitch-slapping bitch in question is Anna Faris, who rear-ends E in a fender bender, then later asks him to be her manager. This will no doubt set up some easily resolved quasi-conflict in the future, as Vince shifts temporarily from laid-back and easygoing to sulky and easygoing.

Speaking of quasi-conflict, next week promises the return of Billy Walsh. But for anyone expecting real fireworks, just remember that this season’s big plot twist was supposed to hinge on the gang moving out of their mansion and adjusting to a different lifestyle. Next thing we know, they’re skinny-dipping in an infinity pool. As E says to Faris of an upcoming project, “If it was just a regular romantic comedy, I’d say, ‘Okay, it’s cute.’ But it’s not. It tries to be so much more. When movies do that, it pisses me off.� Ladies and gentlemen, the Entourage manifesto: It will never, ever try to be so much more.

The Guilt/Pleasure Index: