Tag: The Sopranos blog (Page 4 of 4)

“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.

I’ve been wondering, as I’m sure most “Sopranos” fans have, how David Chase planned to bring his series to a close. The obvious choice would be to have Tony get whacked, but that seemed too easy to me. Now, I’m not so sure.

If the final season (plus the eight “bonus episodes,” whatever those are going to be) played out like your typical mob story, with Tony going down in the midst of some bloody power struggle with Johnny Sack or an internal conflict with someone from his own family, that could qualify as a copout. But it’s clear now that Tony’s brush with death has him examining his life in ways he never has before. He appears to be headed toward some sort of spiritual awakening, inspired by the Ojibwa saying that was pinned to the wall in his hospital room: “Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind carries me across the sky.” We’re all part of something much bigger, Tony’s neighbor in the hospital suggests, and it’s an idea that Tony seems to be warming up to. As they’re leaving the hospital, he tells Janice that he’s the luckiest guy in the world to still be alive and that every day from here on out is a gift. Later, rather than keep haggling with Phil and Johnny over the sale of Barone Sanitation, he agrees to their terms and in the process keeps Jason Barone, who found himself in the middle of a very nasty situation when his father passed away, out of trouble. “Truth be told,” Tony tells Phil, “there’s enough garbage for everybody.”

Tony seems to be finding answers to questions he never knew he had, which could very naturally lead to problems for T down the road. For starters, his guys aren’t going to be thrilled with the fact that Tony relented on the Barone situation, and if his new outlook on life continues to affect the decisions he makes, you can bet someone like Vito, who was visibly disappointed when Tony pulled out of his coma, will start thinking about a coup.

Of course, the other possibility here is, Tony may decide that he wants a change, that this isn’t the life he wants to lead anymore. Before the shooting, he never would’ve given in to Johnny on the Barone sale. “…there’s enough garbage for everybody”? Those aren’t the words of a ruthless crime boss. I think Tony’s gradually going to warm to the idea of retirement, of living out the rest of his life with Carmela and whatever grandkids Meadow and AJ end up giving him. That seed was planted very early this season when Gene Pontecorvo asked Tony if he could retire to Florida with his wife and kids, living off the $2 million he’d just inherited from his dead aunt. Tony denied his request and Gene, a childhood friend of Tony’s, wound up hanging himself. This week’s final scene, with Tony sitting next to the pool and watching the wind blow through the trees, tells me that he’s giving in to this notion that he’s part of something bigger, and he’ll soon come to the realization that he’s not happy doing what he’s doing. It’ll be a gradual change, with the rest of the season shaping up to be one massive internal power struggle which could very well lead to the “Tony gets whacked” finale. But Chase would be taking a very intriguing route to get there, with Tony’s spiritual transformation sparking the conflict rather than some tired dispute over money or territory.

So who would be the in-house candidates to off Tony? Vito’s way too obvious – I think he’s dead long before he gets a chance to do any real damage. It’s obvious that Sil would have very little interest in running the family after his disastrous run on top while Tony was in the hospital, and besides, I think he’s too loyal. Christopher would make a lot of sense, especially since he told Tony two episodes ago that he thought T owed him after the whole Adriana situation. Chris has always been a hothead and he’s already made it known just how much he hates Phil, which means he’ll be pissed that Tony caved on the Barone sale.

Then there’s Paulie. He’s about to cause some major trouble. After learning this week that his mother was actually his aunt and his aunt was his mother, Paulie snapped. I kept waiting for him to send his mom/aunt through a window (he tossed her $2,000 flat screen TV out the window instead), and he’s been unhappy with Tony for a while now – remember last season when Tony threw Paulie’s painting in a dumpster? Again, this week’s final scene was very telling: Paulie, consumed with jealousy after watching Mrs. Barone beg Tony to protect her son, takes a pipe to Jason’s knees, demands Jason pay him $4000 a month and warns him not to tell Tony anything. Then, while Tony sits next to his pool peacefully, watching the wind in the trees, Paulie walks back to his car, a stiff wind blowing in his face. That clearly places Tony and Paulie in opposition. Now, we’ll have to see how that plays out.

“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.