Self-satire ‘Entourage’ returns

Now that “Deadwood” has ended its second season, HBO subscribers may be wondering where they can turn for a weekly dose of foul-mouthed cutthroats, liars, schemers and con artists.

They don’t have to look far. They don’t even have to change the channel.

“Entourage” returns Sunday at 9 p.m., followed by another Hollywood self-satire, Lisa Kudrow’s new series, “The Comeback.”

The main difference between “Entourage” and “Deadwood” is that the former has cleaner streets and whiter teeth.

“Entourage,” which had an eight-episode run last summer, is a serialized comedy about Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier), a drop-dead handsome actor from New York City who shares a mansion with his older brother, Johnny (Kevin Dillon), and two other homeboys, Eric (Kevin Connolly) and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara).

Their job is to keep him “real,” watch his back and make sure his pizza and Perrier get ordered as he attempts to negotiate the peaks and valleys of the eternal boomtown that is Los Angeles.

To manufacture some fresh tension for the new batch of half-hours, the series’ creators have thrown Vince a little curve.

Back in Hollywood after shooting an indie film, Vince meets with his agent, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), who’s eager for him to accept the lead in a movie version of the “Aquaman” comic book.

“It’s Spider-Man underwater,” the agent raves.

But Vince and Eric, his boyhood pal and de facto manager, are dead set on Ari pushing Vince for the lead in a film about the overlord of a Colombian drug cartel.

The series succeeds because it feels honest, unapologetic and, at its best, spontaneous – and because the writers let us see that Vince and his buddies, however spoiled and swaggering, are working-class guys bluffing their way along.