Well…I guess Chris wound up flipping after all.
Okay, I know – bad taste. But come on, how else would I lead this blog entry off? There have been plenty of shocking moments in TV history, but I was utterly speechless for a good five minutes tonight after Tony suffocated Chris following their car accident. The buildup surrounding Chris’ character in general and his relationship with Tony in particular had been going on for years, and it accelerated the past few episodes, so to see it all end like that was…to be honest…a little disappointing. Sure, it’s one of the biggest moments in the show’s history, but with everything that had been going on – the tension between T and Chris, the possibility that Chris was going to talk to the feds, Carmella suspecting Chris of killing Adrianna, and the ongoing feud between Chris and Paulie – this was just about the most anticlimactic way to wrap up his arc. I thought somehow, some way, that Chris was going to be right in the middle of whatever went down in the final moments of the series, but that’s obviously not the case now. Bummer.
At first, I couldn’t tell why Tony killed Chris…or helped him die, if you prefer to look at it that way. Did he think he was doing Chris a favor since he was high and would therefore lose his license? Well, I suppose it’d be better to be alive and without wheels than six feet under, so probably not. Did he think Chris was a goner anyway? He sure was messed up, coughing up blood and barely able to keep his eyes open, so that may very well have had something to do with it. But the overriding factor, we later learned, was that Tony just wanted Chris dead. And this way he didn’t even have to do the dirty work. Hell, he didn’t even need to plan anything or set it all up; just hold the guy’s nose for a few seconds and let him choke on his own blood. Problem solved.
I was more than a little surprised by how open Tony was with Melfi in his first visit, especially when he admitted to murdering friends before. Then, of course, Tony woke up from his dream and, for a split second, I wondered if the whole damn thing was a dream – was Chris really dead? Turned out Tony only dreamed the session with Melfi, a dream that ended with this realization: “Every morning I wake up thinking, is today the day that one of my ‘best friends’ is going to dime me to the FBI? And a weak fucking sniveling, lying drug addict? That’s the worst kind of bet. The biggest blunder of my career is gone, and I don’t have to be confronted by that fact no more.”
Wow, tell us how you really feel, Tony.
He wasn’t as forthright with Melfi in his actual visit later in the episode, but he did repeat the “weak drug addict” line while saying he had to basically fake being upset about Chris’ death when, in reality, he felt relieved. I guess I can understand Tony’s stance to a point, but the one thing that doesn’t quite jive with me is how, just a couple of episodes ago, Tony broke down in Melfi’s office because he thought Chris hated him. He told her how Chris was more like a son and how he felt like he let him down. And now that he’s dead, Tony’s not upset at all?
Apparently not, or at least, if he was it wasn’t anything that a solo trip to Vegas couldn’t cure. Dude…that ex-girlfriend of Chris’ that Tony hooked up with was gorgeous. She winds up hooking T up with some peyote (he’d apparently always wanted to try it) and after puking initially, T and his new friend head down to the casino – high as two kites – where Tony wins an ungodly amount of money on the roulette wheel in the matter of seconds. “He’s dead,” Tony says, staring at the pile of chips in front of him with a goofy grin on his face before falling to the floor in a fit of laughter. Later, as Tony and the girl watch the sun rise over a mountain in the desert, Tony stands up and shouts, “I did it!” (UPDATE: Upon review, it would seem Tony said “I get it!” More discussion below….)
So what did he do? Maybe he was just jacked up about finally trying peyote for the first time? Nah. Apparently he thinks that Chris was the cause of his recent stretch of bad luck, so maybe he was announcing to the world that he changed his luck? If that’s the case, we’re probably about to see Tony, armed with a new sense of unflappable confidence, go on a rampage back home and start cleaning house, beginning with Phil. Then again, Tony thinking his problems died along with Chris could be bad news, if he assumes he’s bulletproof now.
I’m running long so I’ll quickly touch on two other notes, the first being the death of Paulie’s mom (or his aunt, whatever). I asked last week if anybody had a funnier pissed-off face than Paulie, and this week he convinced me that the answer is an emphatic ‘no.’ When he was sitting at his mom’s wake angry because nobody showed up, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I wonder if Tony Sirico has to practice that look in front of a mirror everyday. With Chris gone, I think Paulie becomes an even bigger player in these final episodes. The other story this week was AJ’s ongoing battle with depression. He’s gotten close with the guys from school and is now enrolled in some classes, but when his buddies beat up on a Somalian kid (and dropped the N-word), AJ broke down in therapy again. I’m sure this will be fleshed out more in the final three episodes, so I’ll leave it be for now.
One final note: we saw the return of Juliana Skiff tonight. Looking fine, as always. But she may have delivered the best line of the episode, after Carm asked how she knew Chris: “I used to buy my meat at Satriale’s.” The looks on Tony’s and Carm’s faces were classic.
