Entourage: Let's Blog It Out

By Mark La Monica

Possession of the Entourage Season 3.5 DVD, officially titled "Entourage, Season 3, Part 2" provides on-demand access to one of the greatest moments in show history: Johnny Drama at the Grand Canyon.

Is there more of a rallying cry or sentimental moment than seeing Drama, post-meltdown, fall to his knees overlooking the Grand Canyon and scream "Victory!"?

Having access to this scene at any point in your everyday life makes it worth the purchase.

But, as with all DVDs these days, extras are necessary. (Gone are the days of "Hey, let's make viewers who purchase 'Goodfellas' flip over the DVD to watch the rest of the movie.)

Included on this DVD is an interesting panel discussion involving the cast, creator Doug Ellin and director Julian Farino. The Museum of Television & Radio panel was moderated by Elvis Mitchell, the guy who interviewed E, Vince and Billy Walsh for Interview magazine.

The panel is from March 2006, but is still interesting to hear the backstories and thought processes behind some of our favorite scenes.

If you're already a subscriber to the Entourage podcast on iTunes, then you've already seen the "Anatomy of Entourage" featurette that goes behind the scenes of the Season 3.5 finale. If you're not a subscriber, then you'll enjoy this 11 minutes. It basically is the real-life version of the "Medellin" documentary that opened Season 4.

One of the traits of "Entourage" is bringing guest stars and periphery characters back to the show on occasion. Remember Rufus, the Home Video Solutions guy from Season 1? He came back in Season 3.5 as Rufus, the auto body repair guy.

In the three audio commentaries, show creator Doug Ellin talks a lot about how and why he brings characters back. He also mentions the new houses for the guys each season and how the lack of continuity isn't much of an issue for the show.

In the interest of full disclosure, in the commentary accompanying "The Resurrection" episode, aka Drama at the Grand Canyon, Ellin hammers Newsday, "my hometown paper," for bashing the show in its first season.

In the interest of fuller disclosure, I had nothing to do with that back then. I was only a sports writer at the time and "Entourage, the blog" wasn't even in my radar.

Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, Doug Ellin and Kevin Connolly (in one of the three commentaries) point out their favorite lines in certain scenes and how they went about delivering them or the backstory about how they decided to do things a certain way. It's pretty interesting stuff.

Most notably, in "The Resurrection" commentary, Ellin said he went into writing that episode with the idea of getting Dillon an Emmy nomination. He did.

Epsiodes with audio commentaries:
• "Manic Monday"
• "The Resurrection"
• "Adios Amigos"