Author: Jamey Codding (Page 8 of 10)

So how long before Tony closes the deal with Julianna, the smokin’ real estate agent played by Julianna Marguiles? Man, she nailed her role to perfection tonight. Those knee-high boots, that little red leather coat, saying things like “I have a low tolerance for boredom,” visiting Tony at the Bing to talk business. You’ve got to feel for Tony, because on the one hand, he loves Carmella and is profoundly grateful for what she did for him while he was recovering from the gunshot wound. They’re getting along great, both in and out of bed, and T’s got a new lease on life. But on the other hand…I mean, dude, did you see those boots and that coat? Yum. To paraphrase Chris Rock, I’m not saying Tony should’ve cheated on Carm (again)…but I understand.

And yet, in a scene that proves Tony Soprano may have more restraint than just about any red-blooded man in TV Land, T tosses Julianna aside when she straddles him and starts unbuttoning his shirt, reminding him much too vividly of Carmella buttoning up the same shirt for him an hour or two earlier. That’s a great sign for Tony and Carm’s marriage, right? Not so much. Judging by Tony’s mini-tantrum when he discovers there’s no smoked turkey in the fridge when he gets home, there appears to be some rough water ahead. We haven’t seen the last of Ms. Julianna and, hopefully, we haven’t seen the last of her killer boots either.

Tony’s got more problems at home, though, namely A.J. and his thriving social life. He’s hanging out at New York clubs, staying out late, waking up later, and displaying a general disinterest in anything that doesn’t involve booze, coke or women. Problem is, he realizes his buddies only want him around because he’s Tony Soprano’s kid, which is coincidentally the reason girls find him so “intense.” Still hung up on seeking revenge against Joon and trying to prove he’s more than just Anthony Soprano Jr., AJ pays his uncle a visit in the loony bin but panics when he sees Junior, drops the knife he had stashed in his coat, and eventually winds up in cuffs, waiting for dad to pick him up at the police station.

The scene outside the station between Tony and AJ was sensational. They haven’t done much with AJ’s character this season, aside from portraying him as a total fuck-up with zero ambition, so it was nice to see some depth from him tonight. Unfortunately, T’s father-son chat didn’t change much as AJ was at the club again when, uh-oh, he suffered a panic attack. Tony went out of his way to say that AJ was “a nice guy,” an assessment AJ clearly resented, but Tony insisted it was a good thing. He’s told Dr. Melfi several times that he doesn’t want AJ to follow in his footsteps, so it’s no surprise that he would highlight just how different he thinks he and AJ are. Turns out, the apple may not have landed as far away from the tree as T would’ve hoped, which means we’re likely going to be seeing more of AJ (and his shady friends) in the coming weeks too.

And then there’s Vito. This storyline was abandoned last week and this week, we saw why. I’ve been trying to figure out the purpose behind the Vito angle all season, and it seems clear to me now that this has more to do with the problems the situation is going to cause between Tony and Phil and less to do with the situation itself. Vito’s hiding out in this little town, telling everyone he’s writing a book on Rocky Marciano while getting much more comfortable in his new skin, and now that he’s hooked up with Johnny Cakes (the cook at the diner who, Vito discovers, is also a motorcycle-riding volunteer firefighter who pulls children from fiery houses), he seems to be establishing some sort of life for himself. Okay, fine…but now I’m bored. We’re not going to see Vito and Johnny Cakes going on picnics each week, so what’s going to happen now? I’m sure the phone call Vito made to his wife is going to lead to trouble. Phil, who’s really fired up since Vito is married to Phil’s cousin, will trace the number back to the small town and take care of Vito himself. He already tried telling Tony how to deal with the situation, to which Tony took exception, and after making it clear that he’s still not happy with how Tony handled the Tony Blundetto mess last season, you can bet Phil wants to be the guy who finds Vito first.

They’ve been setting Phil up for a fall all season. Looks like that moment is fast approaching.

Who knew Vinnie Delpino was such a bad ass? Free from Doogie’s shadow, Vinnie, aka Benny Fazio in his new TV life, had his coming out party in this week’s episode. First, he hooks up with the hot new greeter at Artie’s restaurant, then he throws a couple threats at Artie when Artie starts giving his girl a hard time, and he caps off his performance by shoving Artie’s “sautéing hand” into a pot of boiling sauce. Granted, he also had his ass handed to him by Artie, but Vinnie hasn’t had this much screen time since the “Doogie Howser” heydays. Assuming there were “Doogie Howser” heydays, of course.

The trouble started when Vinnie and his honey swiped a few credit card numbers from Vesuvio, Artie’s restaurant, and sold them to Christopher’s Middle-Eastern associates (more on that later). American Express picked up on the fraud, presented Artie with the evidence, and pulled Am-Ex from Vesuvio. Already hemorrhaging money thanks to some new competition, this latest bit of news sends Artie over the edge and, when he finds out Vinnie and his girlfriend are behind the operation, he goes to Vinnie’s house and rearranges his face for him. Unfortunately for Vinnie, his small-screen renaissance may not last long, not after Tony specifically told him to forget about the Artie situation and Vinnie still charred his hand. Will Tony do anything about Vinnie’s disobedience?

As for Artie, I’m not sure where this storyline is supposed to go. Artie’s provided a handful of memorable moments throughout the years but, honestly, I just don’t find his character all that intriguing. This week’s episode lacked focus, mainly because Artie was onscreen so much. We haven’t seen much of him at all until now, and yet he monopolized most of the episode. I suppose it’s all a matter of personal preference, and maybe this Artie detour will lead somewhere good when it’s all said and done, but Tony was dead on when, borrowing from the saying that was pinned to his hospital room wall, he told Artie, “You go about in pity for yourself.” Artie’s depressing, and aside from his encounters with Vinnie, he stole some of the show’s momentum this week.

Fortunately, Christopher kept things interesting while in LA. He and Little Carmine have a meeting set up with Ben Kingsley to talk about their ridiculous “The Ring meets The Godfather” movie idea. Kingsley, of course, hardly even pretends to be interested and tries to lose Chris and Carmine by going to a Luxury Lounge. Stunned by the amount of swag heaped upon the stars at the event, Chris later attacks Lauren Bacall, punches her in the face and swipes her gift bag.

I still say Chris is in for some big trouble this season. His crew is supplying Muhammad and Ahmed with all these credit card numbers, which they’re clearly using to get their hands on guns and/or other weapons. We’ll have to see if the bender Chris found himself on while in LA carries over now that he’s back home, but I’m guessing it will. If that’s the case, we’re going to watch Chris’ life quickly unravel and, sometime soon, agent Harris will confront him about his association with Muhammad and Ahmed. Whether or not Chris flips when faced with the prospect of hard time remains to be seen, but I’m saying he’s dead, for one reason or another, by the time the credits roll on the series finale.

Not much else happened this week. The hired guns Tony imported to take out Rusty, as a favor for Johnny Sack, get the job done but at this point, it’s unclear what exactly is brewing in that pot. Meanwhile, we didn’t see Vito, and aside from his screen time with Artie and Vinnie, Tony wasn’t around all that much either. The previews showed that Vito will make his way back next week, though, and we’ll also be introduced to Julianna Margulies, who looks to be Tony’s next fuck buddy. Stay tuned.

“You can talk about every day being a gift and stopping to smell the roses, but regular life’s got a way of pickin’ away at it,” Tony explains to Dr. Melfi when the subject of his “new outlook on life” came up this week. Vito’s little secret finally got back to T and his crew, and after Meadow’s fiancé Finn gives them the details of what he saw last season (an unbelievably uncomfortable conversation for Finn, especially when he revealed that Vito was “catching, not pitching” with the construction worker in the car), the truth is undeniable. The question now, of course, is how should the situation be handled?

Paulie makes it clear: Vito’s got to go. Chris thinks it’s hilarious (“When he was always talking about ‘greasin the union, who knew that’s what he meant?”), Gerry thinks it’s a disgrace, but Tony refuses to make any rash decisions. He tells Dr. Melfi that he got a second chance at life, so why shouldn’t Vito? “I suppose something inside me says, ‘God bless, salud…who gives a shit?’” All of which leads to T’s “regular life” comment.

It’s clear that, if Tony had his way, he’d let Vito, one of his best earners, disappear and forget about the whole thing. It’s also clear that it won’t be that easy. Paulie’s not the only one who wants blood, and it gets back to Tony that Vito’s crew won’t take orders from Vito should he return. Even some of the captains would refuse to work with him. “Would you kiss him on the cheek?” Sil asks Tony. That one got Tony thinking, but Sil’s most effective argument was that taking Vito back would give guys like Paulie a reason to “go off the reservation” and start skimping on the kick-ups. Bad news.

This entire situation is noise to this new-age Tony, just like the lid that wouldn’t stop banging against the cabinet when Tony was trying to take in some quiet time by the pool earlier in the episode. He tells Melfi that your house, “the shit you own,” poor decisions, they all drag you down. Now that he’s seeing the world in a whole new light, he’s trying to make some changes, but “regular life” keeps getting in his way.

“Live Free or Die,” the name of this week’s episode, is also the New Hampshire state motto, which is where Vito happens to be hiding out. Away from the problems in Jersey, Vito’s able to let go a little. He has pancakes for breakfast and stops in an antiques store. Maybe he thinks he could be happy there, embracing a whole new life and being honest about who he is. That’s the path Tony wants to walk, living the life he now wants to live. Of course, Vito won’t get that chance – from the looks of it, Phil Leotardo is going to hunt him down – but what about Tony? I find myself following this storyline to the same conclusion I reached a couple weeks ago, with Tony trying to break free and meeting all sorts of resistance. Some may say that T will eventually “snap out of this” and revert to the Tony Soprano we’ve known for years, but is there anything to really snap out of? I don’t know that this is a momentary shift in thinking for Tony – he was honest with Melfi about his feelings on the Vito situation, and he later revealed some pretty heavy stuff to Carmella about his session with Melfi. This looks like someone who’s reshuffling his priorities permanently, not someone who’s temporarily reacting to a traumatic event.

I need to give the producers credit for saying what we all were thinking. When Tony first starts laying out his feelings about homosexuality to Melfi, he talks about how disgusting it is to see “them” holding hands and kissing in public, and then adds, “Every fucking TV show now, they rub your nose in it.” Well this is, of course, HBO, but at least David Chase and his staff are willing to poke some fun at themselves for taking the gay angle.

The Vito storyline pretty much chewed up the entire episode, but there were some further developments with my Chris/terrorists theory. Tony asked if Chris thought his two credit card buddies from the club could possibly be terrorists, a theory Chris shoots down by saying, among other things, “Mohammad and his girlfriend have a dog, a Springer Spaniel.” Oh, good, as long as that’s cleared up. They showed Chris further considering the possibility when Tony went into the other room, and I’m interested to see where they go from here. Does Chris dismiss the idea completely and, as I’ve been predicting, find himself in hot water for supplying terrorists with things like credit card numbers and guns, or does Tony or Chris figure it out before something bad happens? I’m sticking with my theory and still see Chris being offered some sort of deal to flip, but now that the seed has been planted and Tony’s got Chris thinking, I’m not as confident.

Finally, I’m sure most of you picked up on this, but I laughed out loud when Tony, in the process of defending Vito to someone, described him as a “come from behind guy.” What truly made the scene, though, was that the only reaction we saw from anybody came from Sil, sitting in the background, scrunching up his eyebrows and shifting uneasily in his chair. Just one small example of why “The Sopranos” is one of TV’s best, and as a bonus, it’s delivering one of its finest seasons to date.

Man, when Tony Soprano wants to make a point, he doesn’t fuck around. Intent on showing his guys that he’s still the Alpha Male (in the words of Dr. Melfi), Tony beat the snot out of his new Mr. Olympia driver, in front of his entire crew, for “slamming the refrigerator door.” Never mind that the dude never even opened the fridge, and never mind that Tony just got out of the hospital a few days earlier. After nearly passing out at Allegra Sacramoni’s wedding (Johnny Sack’s daughter), Tony’s convinced that some of his guys think he’s weak. Now, after watching T beat Mr. Olympia down for no good reason, they’ll just think he’s fucking crazy. Of course, in Tony’s line of work, that’s a good thing.

Tony’s got a point, though. I mean, last week I predicted that Tony’s brush with death and subsequent new outlook on life would have him thinking about grandkids and retirement more than the business at hand. Obviously, I’m reconsidering that theory after this week’s episode. Still, while Tony went out of his way to prove to his guys that he’s still in charge, he also went out of his way earlier in the episode to pester Meadow about her stalled wedding plans, telling her that being able to hold his grandkids on his lap had become very important to him after all he’d been through. Maybe his spiritual awakening won’t be as extreme as I predicted last week, but there’s no way we’ve seen the last of Tony’s softer side.

Speaking of Meadow and her wedding plans, she’s obviously having second thoughts about marrying Finn. Where that’s going to lead, I’m not sure, but last week she and Jason Barone had a little moment in the hospital and she seemed uncomfortable around Finn throughout the entire wedding/reception. I’m sure this situation will somehow tie back into Vito’s secret life, since Finn happened upon Vito getting some lovin’ from a dude in a car last season. Because Finn is engaged to Tony’s daughter, Vito hasn’t yet done anything to ensure that Finn keeps his mouth shut, but that’ll change if Meadow calls off the wedding. Then again, now that a couple of guys making collections at a gay bar caught Vito all decked out in a leather outfit (hat included), who knows how this storyline is going to play out. Vito’s holed up in a hotel room, apparently waiting to see if the guys who caught him at the bar spill the beans. I’m guessing they don’t (maybe Vito gets to them before they can), and if/when Meadow breaks up with Finn, Vito takes care of Finn too.

Looking back, I talked about the feds needing a new rat after losing Gene Pontecorvo and Ray Curto in the first episode of the season, and I said that Chris would be a prime candidate. A couple episodes ago, Agent Harris, now working the terrorist beat, talked to Chris about two terrorists who used to frequent Adriana’s club. Chris said he didn’t really know them, just a couple of drug dealers. Later that episode, he talked briefly with two Middle Eastern guys at Bada Bing, and this week he gave those guys a bunch of credit card numbers. Before they left, they asked Chris if he could help them find some tech-9 semiautomatic guns, claiming they were for “a family problem.” Rrrriiight. Chris is about to find himself in some deep shit, and when Agent Harris confronts him with evidence that he supplied weapons, credit card numbers and whatever else to a couple of terrorists, they’ll offer him a deal if he flips.

Finally, I can’t close this out without mentioning this week’s funniest moment: In his first session with Dr. Melfi after the shooting, Tony says, “So let me ask you right off: Any chance for a mercy fuck?” I love it.