Alison at the IFC Blog points to the 50th and apparently final episode of Dinner For Five, which premieres on IFC Friday night, but which you can watch online via Brightcove now. According to this press release, it’s basically a promo for a soon-to-be-released film documenting Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, but in practice, it doesn’t feel that shilly.

The show has always had a boy’s club romanticism to it that can either be fantastic or unbearable, depending on the assortment of guests, but this last episode is interesting if only because it draws attention to the entire series as a work of Jon Favreau/Vince Vaughn autobiography.

Just in this final episode, Vaughn and Favreau’s behavior and demeanor speak to their respective career situations. Favreau––looking skinnnnnnyyy––opens the episode the episode by calmly ordering a Diet Coke, and soberly sticks to his role as facilitator of  the conversation. Vaughn–puffy, clearly drinking something other than soda–goes on long tangents, and repeatedly betrays nostalgia for Swingers, at one point even quoting directly from the movie. His friends laugh supportively but lightly, as if he  does this every night, but each time they have to pretend like they haven’t heard it before.

I don’t know if either will have the kind of triumph or scandal that will make them interesting to future generations to study––Vaughn seems to be a little bit past his peak as an A-list comedy star,  whilst Favreau’s career as a reliable director of tentpoles will be made or broken with Iron Man––but if so, they’ll find a lot of fertile material here.