Much like Entourage, How To Make It in America involves a lot of scenes where our (in this case two) protagonists do a lot of walking around in the busiest areas of New York City discussing somewhat pointless aspects of their life. Which as viewers we are supposed to care about, even if sometimes it’s completely unrelated to the direction of the episode. Fortunately for my attention span, How To Make It In America has done a good job in recent weeks of holding off on the pointless endeavors taking place in Times Square. Towards the start of the season it was sort of hard to know whether or not the show was about the (very cliché) New York City “lifestyle” or the characters in it. Luckily, with one episode remaining in its first (and possibly, last) season the show has done enough to make me wish that it wasn’t coming to a close and more importantly actually made me care about the plot line it’s producing, but with all the time it took to make it there, was it worth it?

As much as the show is like Entourage – the witty dialogue, the relationships, the fact that you can pick out a handful of the characters and compare them to the Entourage crew, or the even bigger (and less surprising) aspect of the show being “produced” by Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Rob Weiss etc – it differs. Although taking the same idea and flipping it around isn’t necessarily “different” as far as creativity goes, in fact, it sounds like the “easy way out”, How To Make It In America does diverge from what we’ve already seen before. For the sake of this review (and better understanding of what I mean by “flipping it around”) it’s like this: instead of following a group of friends already famous, we follow two friends trying to get famous, or “make it”. Honestly, the name ‘How To Make It in America’ is nearly enough to put me off, as it seems like the creators are trying to tell me, this is how you make it. It would be like me making a show called, “The American Dream”. Everyone watching would think that whatever I’m doing (whether it’s eating a hot dog, sexing a woman, or driving an Escalade) is “the dream”. Wait, never mind, that actually does sound like the current American Dream.

All that aside, Ben and Cam (Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk) are the main characters who are aspiring (after many failed attempts at other things) to create a clothing line, “Crisp”. Which took me a few episodes to get used to, I found myself asking if this was really going to be the way they do it. It has grown on me with time, and I actually enjoy watching the process. Unfortunately one of the show’s flaws is how conveniently some situations arise. As you would imagine it takes quite a lot of cash to get this kind of thing started, but usually Ben and Cam find a way to get it, no matter how unrealistically out-of-reach it seems. Their luck is always being tested however, for good and bad. In our most recent episode, their luck reaches such a low. Of course, it happens when things are looking nothing but up. Something I should have seen coming, but didn’t.

The show really has improved since the first few episodes, drawing out deeper and more interesting situations with all the characters. Especially with Lake Bell (who I can’t look at the same after watching ‘Children’s Hospital’), who plays Rachel, Ben’s ex. To avoid talking about all the ‘Sex in the City’ aspects of her storyline, episode seven was redeeming. Two of the more strange actors in the show, Luis Guzman who plays Cam’s ‘gangster’ cousin and Scott ‘Kid’ Mescudi (Kid Cudi, who appears randomly, mostly at whatever party Ben and Cam happen to be at) work their way into episodes but it feels strange at times having them around. But let’s cut to the chase, How To Make It in America (to me) has become a very enjoyable show to watch. In episode seven we saw all of our characters at a low point where the “happy go lucky” feeling of the show was tested. The acting and writing found itself at a strong point and at the perfect time (building toward the finale). How To Make It In America has humor, a likable cast, and entertaining direction, despite some of its foreseeable and sometimes blatantly convenient plot elements. By no means is this the best HBO has to offer but I can appreciate having it around. I would imagine this being the general consensus of the show and if that’s the case, who knows if it will live for a second season.

A couple of notable observations:
- An unexpected appearance from Patrick Bauchau who played Lodz in HBO’s Carnivále.
- The hilarious decision from Cam to tell Rene about the stolen truck during a cheers: “By the way the truck got stolen today!”