I know you’ve all been on tenterhooks for my Sopranos reviewlet, so here at last it is.
First, I think I finally figured out what’s been bothering me about the season. At its core, the show was always about the ethics of being a mobster. Tony Soprano represented (in the admittedly clichéd manner of Michael Corleone) the American Dream run amok, and the show – especially the scenes with Dr. Melfi – explored the moral dilemma of making money on the suffering of others.
No longer. Perhaps it’s a theme in abeyance, rather than exile (Tony’s “new outlook” can only last for so long), but the show has shifted, rather abrubtly, into an exploration of the lion in winter, so to speak; the dying gasp of the Mafia. Which is interesting, but it’s not the show I signed up for.
That said, last night’s episode was one of the best this season.
-Great scenes between Tony and Melfi, underscoring the fact that for once, this episode was mostly about Tony and his reactions to the world. The incest conversation was a crucial thing that hopefully will not be forgotten.
-Thank God, the Vito plot looks to be nearing its end.
-Janice-as-Livia is not new, but it had been abandoned for a long time. It’s not clear to me if Tony’s new desire to do well to her is because he wants to please his mother or because he wants to save his sister from being his mother. Either way, it’s interesting.
-Even though I don’t care for the “long slow death of the mob,” the scenes with Johnny Sack showing that happening in microcosm were extremely interesting, in a procedural-show sort of way.
Two more before the last hiatus. Keep it up, Chase, and give us a whacking.