Preview

Entourage

What: Vince (Adrian Grenier) gets out of rehab at the beginning of the cable comedy’s eighth and final season.

When: 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

Where: HBO

HBO’s “Entourage” probably has stayed too long at the Hollywood party. It’s a common temptation in Tinseltown, of course, and the cable comedy hardly is the first series to stick around past its creative prime.

The special irony in this case, however, is that so many of the “Entourage” plots are based on fast-lane Hollywood temptations. So there was a sense in those high-octane early seasons that this inside-show-business vehicle would know when it was running out of gas. Time to pull over. Time to call it quits.

But maybe the uneven nature of the last few seasons is just proof of a recurring “Entourage” theme: Hollywood is no place to look for perspective, grounding or even sanity.

What’s left of those incredibly precious commodities can be found in the strong bonds of friendship forged by the main characters on the New York streets they shared as children. If they can keep from being blinded by all that glittering bling, friendship is what can save them. And the continuing focus on friendship is what has saved “Entourage,” keeping these later episodes engaging, enjoyable and, despite the slip in quality, sporadically brilliant.

Like the characters, the series has experienced plenty of ups and downs. As the eighth and final season gets rolling at 10:30 p.m. Sunday. “Entourage” remains, if not consistently hilarious, a giddy good time at La-la Land’s expense. And the three episodes HBO made available to critics even suggest a home-stretch surge that’s also not uncommon with aging comedies.

The first season of “Entourage” introduced us to up-and-coming young actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his tight circle of friends from a Queens, N.Y., neighborhood. Executive producer Mark Wahlberg based the show on his own up-and-down experiences as a young actor wrestling with personal and professional challenges in Hollywood.

Quick catch-up: Vince made the jump from promising newcomer to A-list star, then fell off the A-list. Last season, he was caught in a self-destructive downward spiral fueled by cocaine use. In tonight’s opener, an incredibly mellow Vince is completing a three-month stay in rehab.

“I’m ready to get on with my life,” he tells a rehab support group.

Preparing for Vince’s homecoming, his half-brother, Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon), and their always-enterprising pal Salvatore “Turtle” Assante (Jerry Ferrara) are frantically cleaning up the house, removing every hint of coke, every marijuana joint, every can of beer. Meanwhile, Eric “E” Murphy (Kevin Connolly) is fretting about why he’s the only one Vince hasn’t called.

Drama is supplying one of the lead voices for a proposed animated series called “Johnny Bananas.” Turtle seems to have invested and planned wisely with the tequila line. Eric, reeling from the breakup with Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui), is running his own management company. And Vince’s super agent, Ari Gold (three-time Emmy winner Jeremy Piven), also is coping with relationship problems: He and Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves) have separated.

Reversing the feel of the seventh season, Vince seems like the calm at the center of this particular Southern California storm. He emerges from rehab passionate about an idea for his next movie. He wants to make a film about a Romanian mining disaster.

Fearful of triggering a relapse, the guys want to be supportive. They don’t know how to tell Vince that this idea might stink worse than “Medellin,” his disastrous dream film about Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

Troubled romantic and professional relationships are front and center in the first three episodes, which see the return of unpredictable film director Billy Walsh (Rhys Coiro), Eric’s management partner Scott Lavin (Scott Caan), producer Carl Ertz (Kim Coates) and, of course, Ari sidekick Lloyd (Rex Lee), now a full-fledged agent. Guest stars in these episodes include Illeana Douglas, William Fichtner and, playing himself, Andrew Dice Clay.

A strong element of satire always has run through “Entourage,” and, let’s face it, the writers, producers and actors can’t miss. Working out what must be deeply ambivalent feelings about an industry with deep pockets and a hollow heart, they’re taking aim at the broad side of a garishly painted barn.

But if lampooning Hollywood types was the primary reason for “Entourage,” the ride wouldn’t be going into its eighth trip around the roller-coaster tracks. No, at its heart (and this series does have a big heart), this has always been a show about friendship. However the eighth-season plots resolve themselves, you can be sure those resolutions will be defined by friendship.

So, for all its wicked turns and glamorous settings, “Entourage” has something wonderfully positive and relatable to offer fans. His friends can drive Vince crazy, but, then again, they can keep him sane. Sound familiar?

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