Soprano's Sunday...

[Brian]

1st slow episode of the year, IMO, tonight. Paulie just keeps having bad luck.

Christopher, that sly dog. I like how they showed the flashback of Chris telling Tony about Aidrianna.

[Rex Hudler]

Aside from the first episode, I think this season has been pretty boring. I hope the last few episodes pick it up.

[RibbieRubarb]

Aside from the first episode, I think this season has been pretty boring.  I hope the last few episodes pick it up.

 

I disagree whole-heartedly.

 

As for last night's episode, I was enthralled with the scenes between Tony and Chris. The flashback scene alone might have garnered Michael Imperioli another Emmy.

 

For those who have been following this thread's analysis of the first few episodes, did you notice Paulie watching the wind flowing through the trees ala Tony?

[Controlled Chaos]

I've been reading this guys stuff on the Sopranos. He provides a nice recap and helps those of us that don't dig as deep into the symbolism, while watching the show.

 

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

[FlaSoxxJim]

I liked Tony giving Paulie the "heckuva job, Brownle" quip in last night's episode.

[Brian]

I fear that the season finale this year will not be anything big. I have a feeling they are setting stuff up for the last "season" in January.

Last night was just more of Tony and Janice. Didn't we do this in previous seasons?

The last 10 or so minutes got interesting again. That mixed with a good "Grey's Anatomy" made for a good night. 2 hour finale tonight at 8pm!!!

[Brian]

**Spoilers****

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poor Vito. Guess we all saw it coming. Not a pretty way to go. Thought the retaliation to New York would of been more intentional.

Sucks we have to wait 2 weeks for the season finale. The preview made it seem that the episode in 2 weeks just sets up the last 8 episodes in Jan. Not expecting anything big.

Will probably need an analyzation on the whole Paris sequences.

[Brian]

Sorry, but this season has been garbage....

 

To each his own.

[RibbieRubarb]

Will probably need an analyzation on the whole Paris sequences.

 

I need to dwell upon them more, but a quick analysis:

 

Carmella commented to Ro that while Tony was in his coma he said "Who am I? Where am I going?" she then stated that she felt she was in a similar train of thought.

 

Then when she was getting ready to leave the city where, as she put it in a cafe, "no one knows who she is" (like Tony in his coma world) she looks over and sees the Eiffel Tower, echoing Tony beacon, in the distance.

 

And like Tony...she chooses to return.

[The Ginger Kid]

welcome back David Chase! The first episode I've seen his name in the writing credits and you can sure tell the difference.

 

How funny was the Mickey Rooney/crystal meth reference? LOL

[Chisoxfn]

This was a good episode. Didn't see the preview cause my tivo cut off. Didn't realize the season is already over (well I guess 1 episode left).

[Brian]

Bump-eroni!

 

Here's hoping it is a good one tomorrow night. 10 more coming in January!

[THEWOOD]

Any spoilers? Im very excited to see what goes down tomorrow night.

[Brian]

That is what I expected. Just a set up to the last 8 episodes. I read a rumor yesterday by accident that Silvio was going to be off'd and thought it was gonna happen for sure after the sit down, but nope. Not yet anyway.

Good acting by Imperioli, IMO.

 

[bmags]

show keeps getting worse

[tonyho7476]

That is what I expected. Just a set up to the last 8 episodes. I read a rumor yesterday by accident that Silvio was going to be off'd and thought it was gonna happen for sure after the sit down, but nope. Not yet anyway.

Good acting by Imperioli, IMO.

 

 

At least they had a nice christmas, despite the puerto Rican, or Domican or whatever she was.

 

Lame ass ending.

[Brian]

Is it symbolism that Phil is "coming out of the closet" in that scene?

[MSHAWKS]

This season was an absolute dissapointment. From Tony's coma to Vito and Johnny Cakes to that boring Christmas party yesterday. Too much AJ bulls*** this year, as well. I hate that character.

Edited June 5, 2006 by MSHAWKS

[RockRaines]

This season was an absolute dissapointment. From Tony's coma to Vito and Johnny Cakes to that boring Christmas party yesterday. Too much AJ bulls*** this year, as well. I hate that character.

It may seem that way when all you do is watch the show for the action and the killing and not as much for character development. I think its a solid season setting up the final episodes.

[Controlled Chaos]

Call it a semi-finale

Anti-climactic episode means wait'til 2007 for real fireworks

 

Monday, June 05, 2006

 

WARNING: This column contains major plot spoilers for last night's "Sopranos" episode.

 

Don't think of it as a season finale. You might feel happier that way.

 

HBO has been careful to call January's final eight shows "bonus episodes" for this season. At first, I assumed that was just clever language to avoid having to negotiate a new season's salary for the actors. But the only way to rationalize last night's meandering, closure-light episode is if you believe that David Chase considers all 20 episodes to be of a piece.

 

But fact is, this is the last episode we'll get for seven months. An eyeblink compared to the last hiatus, but season five closed with the double-barreled power of "Long-Term Parking" and "All Due Respect," and "Kaisha" wasn't nearly in that class. By opening the hour with a dedication to the late John Patterson, who had directed all the previous season finales, Chase and company were calling this a finale of some kind.

 

I've heard all the complaints about this season, but this was the first time all year where I felt genuinely unsatisfied. I know I've been writing for weeks that we were heading towards an implosion, and that I didn't think much would be resolved before January. But it's one thing to predict it and another thing to experience it.

 

Chase has always had a fondness for zagging when the audience expects him to zig, and sometimes it feels like he goes zagging off just because he can. He wants to wean viewers off of all the TV narrative traditions they've been suckling since birth, but some of those traditions are there for a reason, and have been since long before TV existed. Steven Bochco didn't say that if you show a gun in the first act, you have to fire it by the third; Anton Chekhov did.

 

I'm not insisting we needed all-out war between Phil and Tony, or Carmela to visit the FBI offices in search of Adriana, or Paulie to die of cancer. But we needed something interesting to happen in one of the arcs, rather than the crude jokes Chase and company tried to disguise as resolutions, like Carmela abandoning the Ade search as soon as Tony revived the spec house, or Phil's heart attack tabling the war.

 

The latter half of this season hasn't had the same drive and cohesion of the first five or six episodes, but each hour has featured at least one compelling development or image: Johnny Sack, broken man; Tony finally taking a firm hand with AJ; an oblivious Carmela helping Tony get dressed for a tryst; etc.

 

Last night was mostly another installment of the Christopher Moltisanti Scag Junkie Hour. We get it already: Drug addicts are among the most boring people on the planet. We got it when Christopher shot up through the Italy trip. We got it when he was high at Livia's wake. We got it when he sat on Cosette. New punchline, please.

 

We know that characters on this show rarely, if ever, change (even New Tony has backslid enough that you could call him Slightly New Tony), but usually the writers manage to use that immutability in service of interesting stories. When they revisited Christopher's Hollywood obsession in "Luxury Lounge," at least we got to see him punch Lauren Bacall in the face. All we got here was Julianna Margulies proving that skimpy underwear doesn't make you look good if you're puking in it.

 

Even Tony had to acknowledge to Melfi how much his life is running in place -- and that, since his therapy sessions haven't done him much good in years, he just comes to see her. (Note his wardrobe for these visits.)

 

Not coincidentally, the only character not stuck in the mud was the most interesting of the night: AJ. Not only has his derisive nickname been upgraded from "Prince Albert" to "Working Man," but for the first time in his life, he seems to understand about responsibility.

 

Falling for the right girl helps, of course, not that Carm's prejudices would allow her to see that Blanca could be the right one for AJ. Before, he might have been dumb enough to think he could scare those guys on the stoop, or callow enough to just use them as an excuse to bail; instead, he offered up his bike to make them go away, about the smartest, most selfless thing he's ever done. To be fair, he did get rewarded with his first sex scene on the show, but this really feels like a new and improved AJ. Even the bit where he mouthed off to Tony at the Christmas party ("I got a guy." "And I got a job.") felt different -- maybe because AJ wasn't taking the easy way out.

 

But is AJ's redemption enough to tide us over until January? "Kaisha" didn't change my opinion of the overall brilliance of this season, but it's leaving a sour taste in my mouth as we wait one last time for more adventures of Messrs. Soprano, Gualtieri, et al.

 

Some other random thoughts:

 

Butch Deconcini, one of Phil's sidekicks, was played by Gregory Antonacci. Nearly 30 years ago, Antonacci played a wannabe wiseguy from Newark in two Chase-written episodes of "The Rockford Files" called "The Jersey Bounce" and "Just a Coupla Guys." The latter featured a family-oriented Jersey mob boss named Tony who was sort of a rough draft for our Tony. And the circle is complete.

 

I know she's only appeared twice, but I think I hate Mrs. Phil more than any character in the history of the series. Now she feels bad that Vito's dead?

 

At The Movies I: Christopher's line about getting "the 50 Cent movie" free at the car wash was a self-deprecating joke by Terence Winter, who wrote the script for "Get Rich or Die Trying." Also in the wheels-within-wheels category: The Christopher character in "Cleaver" is named Michael. Might the last name start and end with an I?

 

And now AJ has replaced narcoleptic Aaron as the guy Tony throws food at on Thanksgiving. Good times.

 

At The Movies II: "Vertigo," the movie Chris and Julianna see, is about a man whose obsession with his dead lover consumes him to the point where he tries to turn his new girlfriend into a copy of the old one. When we come back in January, will Julianna have talon fingernails and an animal print wardrobe?

 

Maybe "The Shah of Iran" is an unfair nickname for Phil. When he lurched back into the hospital, he looked more like Frankenstein's monster.

 

With Junior, it always comes back to JFK, doesn't it? Sad, sad old man, trying to keep his dignity by regifting the Bacala money to his orderly.

 

At The Movies III: Why so many shots of Bacala's son watching "Casablanca"? Will there be a scene in January where Phil and his guys start singing "New York, New York" at the Crazy Horse and Tony and pals drown them out with a stirring "Thunder Road"? Will the final shot of the series be Tony and Agent Harris walking along a Newark Airport runway, talking about their beautiful new friendship?

 

That's all the mob talk until January, folks. I'm still writing about TV daily in The Star-Ledger and on our Web site (nj.com/tv/ledger/), and if you're a fan of HBO's other violent masterpiece, "Deadwood," my fellow Star-Ledger critic Matt Zoller Seitz will be doing weekly Rewind columns that you'll be able to find on our Web site every Monday. And we may have more Rewinds in store when the network TV season resumes in September. Until then, see you in the funny papers ...

 

Alan Sepinwall may be reached at [email protected], or by writing him at 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J. 07102-1200.

[The Ginger Kid]

It may seem that way when all you do is watch the show for the action and the killing and not as much for character development. I think its a solid season setting up the final episodes.

I would normally agree with you on this point but don't you think it's getting old that they take the idea of a mob war to the brink and then pull back right at the end? Tony saved when Johnny Sack gets thrown in jail, Tony saved when Phil has a heart attack...

 

AJ's develpment would be worthwhile if he could act. He's just so overshadowed by the great acting of everyone around him, IMO.

[jackie hayes]

I would normally agree with you on this point but don't you think it's getting old that they take the idea of a mob war to the brink and then pull back right at the end? Tony saved when Johnny Sack gets thrown in jail, Tony saved when Phil has a heart attack...

 

AJ's develpment would be worthwhile if he could act. He's just so overshadowed by the great acting of everyone around him, IMO.

I don't know that Tony's saved. Phil never agreed, and all he'll need to send him over the edge again is the mention of his brother's name. His captains know that, and some of them wanted Tony killed. Or if word came back to him that Tony celebrated his heart attack, etc.

 

I think it was nicely wrapped up as a prelude to a final bloodbath. Nothing's resolved, every relationship is uneasy. The NY-NJ war is uncertain, Ade has been put off, but not exorcised, especially if her mother does anything further, Chris is still screwing someone Tony's hot for, one of the relatively stabilizing characters (Meadow) has vanished, and we're having Christmas in June. AJ seems to be improving quickly, but that's happened with AJ and Tony before, and it all evaporated. Overall, I think the mood is a very uneasy peace.

 

Btw, I think the idea that Sil gets offed looks good, especially as scarce as he's been the last few episodes.

[Milkman delivers]

I haven't watched this show much recently, so I'm gonna have to ask this. Why would they kill Silvio? I'd be unhappy with that, as he's been one of my favorite characters.

[jackie hayes]

I haven't watched this show much recently, so I'm gonna have to ask this. Why would they kill Silvio? I'd be unhappy with that, as he's been one of my favorite characters.

Lotsa spoilers, most of 'em spoiled earlier...

 

 

 

 

 

 

NY killed Vito, and NJ retaliated by killing a captain who visited NJ to mock them about Vito, also by blowing up one of their hangouts. (NY seems pretty sure NJ killed their captain, although they can't prove it.) NY captains suggested Phil kills Tony, but he refuses to kill a boss. They suggest he gets someone high up and close to Tony, and he seems receptive.

 

Tony tried to make peace, but it's not clear if it had any effect.

 

You figure that's Sil, Chris, or Paulie, if anything happens. Then trying to guess what the show will do, I think -- killing Paulie is unlikely (not that interesting, and I'm not sure Johnny Sack would let it happen after Paulie's help). So Chris or Sil -- I just think Chris is too obvious to make a good whackee, plus Sil is really the biggest loss, so that improves the drama (imagine Tony actually having to depend primarily on Chris, as drugged up as he's become, again, with Chris bopping Skiff). Since it's the last 8 episodes, they can afford Sil's character at some point. Jmho.

[Milkman delivers]

When you say "he seems receptive," do you mean Phil or do you mean one of Silvio/Chris/Paulie?