Tag: The Sopranos (Page 4 of 5)

Okay, four episodes to go and David Chase has set up just about every possible storyline imaginable. “Things are about to change,” we were promised tonight during the preview for next week’s episode, and it sure seems like we’re on the cusp of something big.

AJ’s not taking the breakup well. Okay, so that’s an understatement. It was interesting watching Tony try to talk to AJ about what he was going through, especially when his advice is to get a blowjob and go to a party at a strip club. I mean, how funny is it that Tony forced his 20-year-old kid to go to a strip club? “I’m not debating this with you.” Okay, fine, if you insist, Pop. Tony did throw some decent advice in there, though, something along the lines of the old “there are other fish in the sea” pep talk. AJ wasn’t biting, not until his new therapist put him on anti-depressants, anyway. Once that happened, well, life is apparently all good again. AJ’s going to parties, boozing it up with a bunch of frat buddies, and helping said frat buddies pour sulfuric acid on a welcher’s foot.

That’s the ironic thing in all of this: so AJ had his heart broken. Fine. It happens. Granted, if your kid starts talking about killing himself, you’ve got to get him some help. But while Tony’s heart was definitely in the right place, pushing him to hang out with some of his guys’ kids was clearly the wrong choice. He’s talked before about how he doesn’t want AJ to follow in his footsteps and get involved in the kinds of things he’s doing, but that’s exactly what seems to be happening. AJ got a kick out of the way that kid reacted when he learned that he was Tony Soprano Jr., and he was wired when he got home after the sulfuric acid incident. There’s clearly something there that he’s drawn to, and while Tony may think that depression is in his blood (“My rotten fucking genes have infected my kid’s soul,” he tells Melfi), it’s clear that emotional problems aren’t the only thing AJ’s inherited from dear old Dad.

And right about now it’s time to admit that I was wrong about Chris: he hasn’t already flipped. In my defense, that was just one of my theories, but it became clear tonight that he’s still siding with the good guys…whoops, make that the bad guys, I guess. Anyway, it also became clear tonight that it’s a very real possibility that Chris will flip at some point. Hell, he was kicking around that very idea tonight with his AA buddy J.T., right after he nearly spilled the beans about Adrianna and Ralph Cifaretto. J.T. knew he was in trouble when Chris started talking about that stuff, and he tried like hell to get him to shut up and leave. Chris finally agreed to go home, but not before shooting J.T. in the head. Damn, didn’t see that one coming. I kept expecting something to happen, but for some reason I wasn’t expecting that. Chris grabbed the doorknob with his hand in his sleeve when he left, but it won’t take too much digging for the feds to figure out who may have been involved with this, considering everyone knows J.T. wrote the screenplay for Chris’ movie. Is this going to be the heat that’ll turn Chris against Tony? At this point, it’s clear it wouldn’t take much pushing to get Chris to turn, considering how much bad blood there is these days between him and Tony.

Sorry to jump backwards (that’s what happens when you write without thinking), but is this tension between Chris and Paulie finally going to come to a head? Those two have been at each other’s throats for years, and I thought for sure there was going to be some fireworks tonight. We came close, but aside from Chris tossing Paulie’s nephew out of a window for robbing his father-in-law and Paulie then turfing the shit out of Chris’ front yard (which was hilarious, by the way – does anybody have a funnier pissed-off face than Paulie Walnuts?), it all blew over. Chris decides to have a drink with Paulie in a show of good faith, and that’s when the trouble began. Paulie started busting his balls again, made some pretty low cracks about his daughter, and Chris, who already felt disconnected from the group because he doesn’t hang out and drink with them anymore, didn’t appreciate everyone laughing at him so he bailed. But, damn – I was expecting more there. In fact, I kept waiting for Chris to smash his rock glass into Paulie’s face. Instead he killed his AA buddy.

Finally, how uncomfortable do you think Tony was giving agent Harris that information? Sure, it had nothing to do with him and he was doing it mainly because he hoped cooperating with them on the terrorism stuff would pay off down the road should he ever be convicted of any crime…but still. It’s the feds, T! They’re the bad guys. Okay, the good guys, whatever.

I’ve got to start this week by giving props to BF, the reader who pointed out last week that I failed to mention Tony’s gambling. Clearly it’s become a serious problem, as BF predicted, to the point that Tony considered clipped Hesh rather than having to pay him the $200k he owed him. But then Hesh’s girl Renata died and Tony, ever the caring friend, showed up to offer Hesh his condolences and a paper sack filled with cash. Of course, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought Tony had Renata killed up until he showed up to pay Hesh his money.

This is the first episode of the new pseudo-season that fell a little flat for me. Obviously, Tony’s gambling has suddenly become a big storyline, and you’ve got to wonder just how big of a role it plays in these final five episodes. Tony was out of control this week, losing $20,000 on a horse named Meadow Gold and then, after caving in and deciding to give widow Spatafore the $100k she asked for to give her and, more importantly, her deranged son (more on that later) a fresh start, he took that money and bet it (and lost it) on the Eagles because the Dolphins had to rely on a rookie kicker. The interesting note about all of this was the reaction Chris had when Tony decided to throw that money at the Eagles; if anybody knows dangerous addictive behavior, it’s Chris. Is he going to try to help Tony? Will that drive a wedge even further between the two?

Of course, the central problem was the fight between Tony and Carm after Carm refused to roll her earnings from the spec house into a bet on the Jets over the Chargers. Tony had inside info on the game and wanted to turn her windfall into a million-dollar payday but she refused, saying it’s her money and that she’s determined to not end up like Ginny Sack once Tony’s gone. Well, the Jets roll 42-10 and Tony’s pissed because he “only” put $10,000 on the game. “When I’m gone, you can live in a fucking dumpster for all I care,” Tony says after Carm chucked a vase at him. Yikes. He smoothed things over later, at least temporarily, but as well as things seemed to have been going between Tony and Carm so far, you knew something was bound to happen. I just figured it would be the Adriana questions, though I’m sure those will crop up again soon enough.

As for little Vito Spatafore…dude, that kid’s screwed up. Going hardcore Goth is bad enough, but taking a dump in the school shower? And then stepping in it?! Ewwww! As is often the case with this show, I’m not entirely sure where this storyline is going to go or what its purpose will be, but it may be as simple as the added tension it’s added to Tony’s relationship with Phil. If somebody should be stepping up to set the kid straight, it probably should be Phil since he’s Vito’s uncle or cousin (or whatever), and since he’s the one who offed papa Vito last season. But since Tony’s the one cleaning up the mess, you can bet he wasn’t lying when he told his guys he wouldn’t forget that Phil refused to step up.

Then there’s AJ, who finally looked to be getting his life in order. He’s got a woman he loves, a decent job (pizza shop manager, baby!) and, finally, some motivation. He asks Blanca to marry him and when she hesitates, he tells her that he’s going to keep moving up the ladder at work and in a couple of years, he’ll own his own restaurant. You had to feel sorry for the guy when she turned around and dumped him a couple days later, but I think another reader made a great observation a couple of weeks ago: Blanca’s pregnant. This one is obviously a guess but she’s been acting strange all season and, when Meadow mentioned that someone was expecting a baby, she looked very uncomfortable. Hmm….

Finally, two small notes. First, it looks like the two Arabs from the Bada Bing are going to finally come back into play. I’ve been waiting for this for a while. And Tony had a nice little callback to last season when he was talking to Vito, saying, “You go about in pity for yourself.” If you remember, that was a saying someone pinned to the bulletin board in Tony’s hospital room after Junior shot him, and he said the same thing to Artie a few episodes later. With the gambling issues and the general problems he’s been having recently, it seems Tony’s the one indulging in a bit of self-pity.

At one point during tonight’s episode, Tony told Beansie that things were going great, but he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Excuse me? Things are going great? Not only are the feds up your ass more than ever, but your brother-in-law beat the snot out of you two weeks ago, you said last week that you thought your cousin wanted you dead, and this week you very nearly dropped one of your oldest, closest friends over the side of a boat. Again. If this is “going great,” I’d hate to see Tony after a bad day.

I’m sure some people will complain about this episode’s apparent lack of action, but think about what’s been accomplished now: Tony had the brawl with Bobby, the backlash from which we still haven’t seen; Tony’s convinced that Chris despises him and Chris thinks Tony’s pissed about his movie; and now Tony apparently thinks Paulie is so much of a liability that he’s giving serious consideration to whacking him. Three episodes in, and Tony’s at odds with three of his guys. If I’m Sil, I’m watching my back.

It was pretty cool to hear some of the stories Tony, Paulie and Beansie were sharing this week, and that picture of young Paulie was awesome. I wasn’t entirely sure what Tony was trying to accomplish on the boat, but it seemed like he kept harping on the joke Ralph told about Johnny Sack’s wife because he was looking for a reason to off Paulie. When Paulie flat-out denied that he told Johnny about the joke, T thought about going through with it anyway before deciding to chuck a bottle of beer at him instead. Still, judging by what Tony told Beansie and by how annoyed Tony seems to be with Paulie these days, it certainly seems like Paulie’s living on borrowed time.

Fortunately, the potential problem with the Willie Overalls killing from 1982 (apparently Tony’s first) blew over, but after Sil told T the good news, he said, “You gotta wonder what’s next.” Maybe it’s not the most optimistic outlook, but it definitely seems to be a realistic one. The feds may not be able to pin Willie Overalls on Tony, but that won’t stop them from digging up something else on him.

Speaking of which, did anybody else think the girl Tony hooked up with was asking too many questions? Seems if you’re “laying low,” as Tony told Paulie earlier in the episode, you use your aliases even around the ladies. The blonde Tony slept with seemed awful interested in the people at the table the night before, and she said something that made it sound like she’d been talking with Paulie too. Something to keep an eye on, maybe.

How great was it to see Junior back in action? Sure, it’s not quite the same now that he’s hopped up on meds in that criminal loony bin, but he’s clearly still a little ‘oobatz.’ That Asian kid that was hanging around Junior was trouble from the get go, and I figured he was going to attack Junior at some point, but I wondered if he would actually kill him. Turns out he just beat Junior up pretty good. How exactly Junior’s arc this week relates to the overall storyline is a bit unclear, though I’m thinking it was a way to show just how far someone of Tony’s stature (and Junior’s before Tony) could eventually fall.

Finally, I guess we should discuss the drama in New York, where the guy who whacked the guy everyone thought was going to take over for Johnny Sack got whacked himself (got all that?). This time, Phil was behind the hit, and for a good reason: you just don’t take food off another guy’s plate. I’ve always known that, but now I know just how dire the consequences can be if you break that rule. Keep your fork to yourself. Lesson learned.

There was a very telling moment in tonight’s episode, and as is often the case, it came in Dr. Melfi’s office. After attending a screening for “Cleaver,” Chris’ just-wrapped horror flick, Tony breaks down and tells Dr. Melfi that Chris despises him. It was obvious during the screening that the boss in the film, played by Daniel Baldwin (“Fuck Ben Kinglsey. Danny Baldwin took him to fucking acting school!”), was based on Tony – the open white bathrobe in the basement scene was a dead giveaway – but not until Carm confronted Tony about the scene where Baldwin fucks the fiancée of Michael “The Cleaver” did Tony stop to think about what that could mean.

So Tony tells Dr. Melfi about how Chris was more like a son after Chris’ dad died, and it bothered him that Chris now seemed to hate him. In fact, the big fella actually broke down and cried during the session before saying, “He wants to see me dead,” a reasonable conclusion considering Baldwin (I didn’t catch his character’s name in the movie) wound up with a cleaver in his skull. But here’s the thing: Tony didn’t seem too concerned about the possibility of Chris making a move against him; he was broken up by the fact that – by his estimation, anyway – Chris despises him.

By this point I think everyone can agree that, whatever goes down in these final few episodes, Chris is going to be right in the middle of it. What exactly that means, of course, remains to be seen, but after agent Harris told Tony that he had recently talked to Chris before adding, “maybe he never told you about it,” I’m hanging on to my original theory: Chris is going to rat Tony out. Maybe he really does despise Tony after having Adrianna killed, or maybe he’s just trying to save his own ass, but all the signs are there, including the scene tonight where Chris was talking to Shooter McGavin (for all you “Happy Gilmore” fans out there) and an FBI agent showed up to talk to him.

Of course, the possibility exists that David Chase is leading me around by my nose and he wants everyone, including Tony, to think that Chris has flipped. That could very well be the case, but at the very least it’s clear that Chris, like little Carmine, has started to distance himself from the family, intentionally or not. He’s clean (allegedly), he’s got a wife and a baby now, and his movie is about to hit theaters. Chris seems to be following Carmine’s lead and trying to find happiness in his life.

Not much happiness in the New York family these days, though. Stage 4 lung cancer took Johnny Sack out at the end of the episode while everyone – even people on the freaking news – speculated about who would be his replacement. Phil apparently doesn’t want the gig after his heart condition last season, and the apparent favorite, Jerry Torciano, was whacked while having dinner with Sil and some lovely ladies in the coolest scene of the episode. Meanwhile, Tony wants Carmine to take over but, as he told Tony over lunch, he’s not interested, and his reasoning certainly seemed to strike a chord with Tony. Is it time for Tony to find happiness in his life? Is that even possible at this point?

I’ve heard and read complaints by people who say not enough happens on “The Sopranos” anymore, but I don’t think those people are appreciating the story that Chase is creating. This is a mob show, sure, but it doesn’t need to be all guns and blood and “fuggedaboutits”. Chase is building toward something, with the trouble brewing between Tony and Chris, last week’s brawl between Tony and Bobby, the drama in New York and the potential problem Phil poses, and Carm’s refusal to leave the Adrianna situation alone. And beneath it all runs Tony’s mounting questions about the choices he’s made and the state of his life, capped off by the fact that the guy he loves like a son seemingly hates him. Changes are coming, big things will happen. Maybe they’re not happening fast enough for some fans, or maybe there just aren’t enough corpses along the way. But as long as Chase gives us the payoff he seems to be moving toward, I’m going to enjoy the ride.