VAGUE SPACE

The Sopranos Finale

Would a show about a surety company be as intense as the Sopranos?

Howard Stern: "That's what it must be like to live as a Mafia boss... in what other way could David Chase have built up the tension for the final scene better and shown what he's tried to show in the entire series."  I think I agree.  On my first impression - after getting over the whole "Did my DVR shut off too soon?" thing and turning off the cable by accident as a response and panicking and then going back to watch the ending again and seeing the credits come up, I was pretty damn pissed and disappointed.  That was just an incredibly well-shot end scene, ratcheting up the tension in truly wonderful fashion with the whole Meadow Soprano parking troubles and Tony's head popping up as each person entered the restaurant, finally ending with (and I'm quoting Simmons here) "the person he loves most of all (Meadow) about to come in" but Tony is still tense and afraid that the visitor will try to kill him.  That's how he lives his life and that's how his "life goes on" whether we as the viewer felt cheated or not.  Upon further examination, I think it was actually quite a good ending.  Of course, I thought that about Seinfeld too - that they stayed true to the characters right until the end (unlike Buffy, where all the characters' personalities had changed 100% by the end of the series).  I thought this final half-season of The Sopranos was one of the best ever and the last couple weeks wrapped up the show in excellent fashion.  Read on for my interpretation of how so many of the story lines did come together at the end.

Season in Review

What a roller-coaster television season, one marked mostly by disappointment, but with a few bright pleasures, including a single brilliant shining example of quality network television comedy.  There was little else.  I've stopped watching TV as much in recent years, which you've probably noticed in my lack of blogging about the pleasures of television, and it is admittedly quite freeing.  I don't miss having shows to watch, for it seems as if (even with DVR) you become beholden to the shows as more than mere entertaining distractions from daily obsessions.  Several times this season, even with my limited schedule of must-watch programs, I've stared at a list with three or four O.C.s and a couple Losts and felt more resigned than anything at my need to watch them.  The truth is, it's better not to get involved, to spend my time socializing or reading or writing or listening to music -- heck, almost anything is better than being forced to watch another confusing episode of Lost... and that's one of my favorite shows.  And I've found I can only take my television in small bites for the most part.  The Daily Show and The Colbert Report - yes, of course, but they only take about 15 minutes each and then some Food Network, some baseball, maybe a glimpse of Seinfeld, and that's basically my viewing day.  I have other things to do.  The point is, when I was younger, for better or worse, I could easily make a list of some top 20 or 30 programs in a season that I've at least watched on a semi-regular basis.  Most of those were sitcoms, back when sitcoms were still programmed, but still, I had serious trouble coming up with 10 shows to make this season's list.  And I don't regret it.  Looking at the state of the top 10 in fact, I'm kind of glad that at least three of the programs will not be returning next season.  I just don't have the time anymore.

Worst Episode Ever

Wow.  What a disappointment that whole disaster was.  Twelve eagerly awaited episodes unfolded with all the speed of Manny Ramirez running out a popup and ended not with a bang, nor a whimper.  Just a fucking disastrously boring episode in which Christopher goes back on the juice (again this season), someone in the family fucks Julianna Margolies (sort of again this season), Tony re-evaluates his life (again this season), and Phil and Tony feud (do I need to repeat this?).  Talk about being bereft ideas.  And the long-awaited, long-hinted at, long rumored, long plotted feud between the New York and New Jersey families erupts into a ... um... an angry walkout at Little Carmine's house.  And a threat on one of Tony's gang's life.  But the only blood that gets spilled is when Adrianna's mom tries to kill herself because her daughter is dead and she's a little nutty, but even that remnant of a storyline that actually entertained gets shut off prematurely after Carmela gives up on her plans to hire a P.I. to find Ade when Tony finally helps her out with the spec house.  At least they tied up a few loose ends.  So I guess this entire season was a setup for the next (final) eight episodes occuring sometime in the distant future.  Wake me when it's over.

"I Love You Too Johnnycakes"

Where did it all go wrong?  When did The Sopranos season not only derail but run so far off the tracks that Vito's murder of a hapless guy on the side of the road barely registers amidst the disaster that was the rest of the episode?  Things started so strongly this season.  Senseless murder, gratuitous nudity, lots of comic relief, and Tony gets shot.  Many didn't like the Tony in purgatory dream episode, but I appreciated it.  And they followed up with a few more strong ones in a row, setting up what appeared to be a potential bloodbath between Tony's lieutenants, and also involving the New York mafia.  And now?  Well at least Vito's out of New Hampshire.  We can all be thankful for that.

Luxury Lounge

For the second straight week, we had basically a "one-off" episode involving minor characters in the lives of The Sopranos, used mostly for comic relief.  It was disjointed in places, and things didn't exactly flow together particularly well, and nothing could top last week's "Finn in the headlights" meeting at the back of the butcher store.  But this week had quite a bit more violence, some celebrity sightings, Christopher falling off the wagon, and a dead bunny.  Happy Easter.  Oh, and the writers haven't dropped the Vito is gay story line.  Or at least Phil Leotardo hasn't.   

    "It's an honor to be joined by men and not faggot ass cornholing cocksuckers like married my cousin.  He should fucking die."

The Sacrimoni Wedding

The Phillies have 1 win.  The Mariners have lost 5 straight.  The Edison Rounders lost their first softball game of the year.  Die Yankees Die has fallen to nearly last in the first week.  And the Leonardo Reapers can't even begin to figure out the free agency process.  So baseball season has not been particulary kind so far.  The weather's nice, but I really don't want to play two.  Instead, let's catch up on some TV.

In this week's Sopranos, Johnny Sack's daughter "Allegra" is getting married and Johnny finds a judge to let him out of prison for 6 hours to attend the wedding that he paid "425" for.  That's in hundreds of thousands of dollars for those of you from South Jersey.  And despite inheriting her mother's eating habits and a horrible name, the young girl has a wedding to remember.  Although not for all the right reasons.
   
    Christopher: "Allegra, isn't that a cold medicine?"
    Paulie: "It's the Italian word for happiness."
    Christopher: "What the fuck does that have to do with cold medicine?"

The Fleshy Part of the Thigh

In a disjointed and disappointing episode after two of their best of recent seasons, Tony wakes up from his coma in time to settle a dispute about sanitation workers, some evangelists try to save him from his sins, Bobby Bacala makes friends with some rappers, Tony makes friends with Hal Holbrook, and Paulie goes insane.  Or at least more insane than usual.  I will admit that the Paulie scenes brought the funny, but the rest of it was oddly uneven.  And although there may be a future storyline involving Bobby's shooting of the wannabe rapper in the butt, in this episode it really didn't work.

Barone Sanitation is the name of the company that Tony's been "working" for all these years, and trouble ensues after the owner's death when his son, unaware of the mob ties involving his family's firm, decides to sell.  He does notice that an "Anthony Soprano" is the 2nd highest paid person on staff, but doesn't seem to have recently occupied his office.  The tension rises when Tony finds out that Barone has been sold to Chianelli Sanitation, who work for the New York boss Johnny Sack, which would put Tony's front job in jeopardy, including his salary, his health insurance, and his "W-2". 

The Sopranos

My first recap of the show!  But don't blame me, it took them 2 years to put out another new season - and boy was it worth the wait!!!  Um... not so much.  Actually last night's episode was surprisingly good.  The first week was full of stuff - not really action so much as "stuff" that sort of all got thrown on the page in a rather incoherent manner and then someone got whacked - but not anyone we'd seen before - and the guy who whacked him killed himself - but he was someone we didn't really even know so who the fuck cares, and then Tony ate a lot of Japanese food.  Huh?  Yeah, we waited over 2 years for that.  Oh yeah, at the end Uncle Junior shoots Tony.  So that was kind of cool.  And sorry I ruined it for anyone waiting for the DVD.  It happened over a week ago.  And buy fucking HBO for crying out loud.  Let's just move on.