“Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun.”
And then shot your nephew with it. You knew something was about to happen when Tony was in the kitchen by himself cooking loony Uncle Joon some dinner, I just didn’t expect Junior to shoot Tony in the gut. In hindsight, of course, it all makes perfect sense and seems blatantly obvious, but David Chase had me fooled last night. Whether or not this gets Tony to change his stance on admitting Junior into a retirement community remains to be seen, but it’s kind of hard to argue that your confused uncle doesn’t need professional assistance when said confused uncle tries to whack you while you’re making him some pasta. Somewhere, Tony’s mom is smiling.
“The Sopranos” has taken some heat from loyal fans the past couple of seasons for not being violent enough, but Chase made everyone happy with this season six debut. Aside from Junior capping Tony, we saw a few of Phil Leotardo’s thugs beat on Hesh’s son-in-law (Phil describes it as an unfortunate mistake), and Gene Pontecorvo splatter some fat guy’s blood all over the window of a fast-food joint. Gene later offs himself (hanging scenes always make me squirm, but this one was particularly disturbing for some reason), and I’m sure Gene’s suicide is going to be a source of immense guilt for Tony throughout the season. I mean, come on — the guy just came in to $2 million. Why not let him retire to Florida with his family?
Of course, as much as he’s going to beat himself up over it, Gene’s death is actually good news for Tony since (we learned) Gene was a “cooperator.” Now that the FBI lost both Gene and Ray Curto (who keeled over in the middle of a meeting with an agent), the big question is, who’s the next informant? I’m guessing it’s going to be someone big, like Pauley or Sil. Big Pussy’s informant days still stand as one of the show’s most compelling storylines, and with this being the final season, Chase will likely tap into that dynamic again. Considering what happened with Adriana last season, putting Chris in that position would be deliciously ironic.
And speaking of Adriana, it looks like Chase threw her a bone with that brief guest appearance. With “Joey” flopping, you can bet Drea de Matteo would kill for her old gig.
Finally, I’m going out on a limb and predicting that Chris is going to off Phil at some point this season. At the very least, someone from Tony’s family is going to off Phil (remember when Phil beat the snot out of Vinnie Delpino while hunting down Tony B?), which is going to make relations even worse between Tony and Johnny Sack. Considering how many times he told Tony how much he hates Phil last night, my money’s on Chris being the trigger man.
