Entourage: Separation Sunday

Today's column looks at the upcoming season (or half-season, or whatever the hell you call it) of "Entourage":

When couples break up, their friends are usually forced to pick sides. Continuing to hang around with both would prompt awkwardness, not to mention pressure to act as a spy for one or both. So you start weighing the pros and cons of each, maybe even write a list.

With "Entourage," I need no such list or even a moment to decide. I choose Ari over Vince.

When the showbiz comedy ended its last batch of episodes in August, callow movie star Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier) had just dumped splenetic agent Ari Gold (Emmy winner Jeremy Piven), blaming Ari's arrogance and bullying for the collapse of a movie deal. As the show returns in its new post-"Sopranos" coronation time slot, the split is treated very much like a romantic one.

Vince has tried to dull the pain by moving on to another woman, brunette bombshell Amanda (Carla Gugino), while Ari is pining and plotting to win him back.

The danger in splitting up the show's two main characters (three, if you count Kevin Connolly as Vince's manager/best friend Eric, who's also on the outs with Ari) is that you're not just forcing viewers to choose sides over who's right. (And in this case, the writers don't want to acknowledge how Vince's laid-back impulsiveness has derailed his career at least as much as Ari's behavior.) By keeping the two apart, essentially operating in parallel narratives, you're forcing them to choose which one they like better, and this is really no contest.

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