Tony Soprano's "kinder, gentler" mob kingpin change lasts about three days.  

After seeing the reaction of fellow made men ridicule a crying Johnny Sack after the feds ruined his daughter's wedding, Tony's understanding turns to fear.  He fears his new found compassion--that there's "enough garbage for everyone" to understanding the emotions Sack felt at his daughter's wedding--must give way to others again fearing him.

His gambit is to engage his very young, very buff, and very strong new body guard/driver in an unprovoked brawl that Tony wins.  If Tony can lick the brawny kid, who will mess with him?

But Tony's loss of compassion and resort to fear takes a toll on his injury riddled body--and soul.

Meanwhile, Vito looks like he might be eating something but it ain't that guy's salami from the construction site from last season.  Like Tony, Vito too leads a double life that is taking a psychic toll on him.  As we are learning, there is only one way out of this "family."

Meanwhile, Uncle Mummyhead ends up in the booby hatch.  In a rare lucid moment, he understands that he's in a fix.  He cannot fathom that he shot Tony.  In this family, one's problems always get buried--some more deeply than others.

 

Who is your favorite, currently living female character on "The Sopranos"?
	Carmela Soprano
	Meadow Soprano
	Janice Soprano
	Dr. Jennifer Melfi
	Gabrielle Dante
	Rosalie Aprile
	Charmaine Bucco
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Tony Sopranos needs to die.

Or perhaps more accurately, Tony Soprano wants to die.  Yet he can't.  He comes literally to death's door--the "Finnerty" Family Reunion--Cousin Tony is going to usher him in--but Tony either lacks the courage or is just too strong for his own good and breaks out of his coma instead.

Carmela, through Dr. Melfi's help, now sees in bold letters what being married to the mob is all about--Carmela lies, the children lies, the material gains are a lie.

Only Tony's death will release Tony from his earthly hell and the hell that his family lives in The Family.

So, for those of you who wished Tony would return to his self-hating but butt kicking self, you've apparently gotten your wish.

For some of the rest of us, creator David Chase went to the edge of television convention--and didn't jump. 

 

 

Last night's "Sopranos" episode, "Join the Club" was somewhat out of character: no one got whacked, smacked, or died.  Still, it was a compelling hour that let the actors who portray the Tony Soprano family shine.

Tony is in a coma from the gut shot he took from "Mummy" Uncle Junior.  He dreams he is a salesman who has lost his ID at a convention.  He gets slapped by a Buddhist monk who mistakes him for "Finnerty," an apparently less than reputable businessman.  This Tony Soprano handles all the indignities of life like most of us--without violence, without volcanic anger.  In other words, not like Tony the mobster.

James Gandolfini plays the "other" Tony lightly, with enough nuances to see the "real" Tony but who a different life would have made for a different Tony.  It was subtle but difficult acting job and Gandolfini pulled it off. 

Much of the dream sequence is inter cut with Carmela Soprano at Tony's bedside, taking the doctor's advice to talk to him and play his favorite music.  (Tony's favorite music and mine seem to overlap--70s and 80s Classic Rock--scary!)  Edie Falco allows herself to be completely unattractive from sleepless nights of watching Tony, crying, being tender and being strong for Tony.  It is how I imagine my own wife would be in Carmela's shoes.  One enormously strong and loving woman.  And she still has the ability to bust slacker son A.J.'s balls for missing his rotation at Tony's side and flunking out of school.

But A.J. is not irredeemable.  He finally sits with Tony and unleashes a torrent of conversation, ranging from cool cars he'd like to own to getting "that old Mummy Uncle Junior" for shooting Tony.  Robert Iler is usually just a brooding presence on the show, but the kid also has some acting chops.  Meadow too has seemingly grown up and finally puts something--her father--ahead of her own typically selfish needs.

We see glimpses of the gaping--and I mean big enough to stick your whole fist in--hole in Tony's belly from the gun shot and subsequent infection.  It is like producer and writer David Chase has literally reached into Tony Soprano and tried to yank out his soul for all to see.  It is difficult to watch but as a metaphor for the seeping, cess pool of a hole that Tony has plunged himself, his family and world into, absolutely necessary.   

Meanwhile, the other family is starting have fissures.  Fat Vito is too swarmy and too ambitious for the situation. Chris is his usual hair-trigger self.  Silvio doesn't have the status with the boys to keep them in line.  Paulie Walnuts is seething.  It don't bode well.

The episode reminds us that the even a real mobster's family is very much like our own.  And when Carmel insists to the comatose Tony that he is  a "good man," you almost want to agree.   Oh, and just give the Emmy to Edie Falco for this episode.

"We heard tings!" Like Season Six will be great!"The Sopranos" returns Sunday at 8 p.m. Central on HBO.  And according to recent review in the New York Times, the series and the season opener are well worth the nearly two year wait:

 Brutality and Betrayal, Back With a Vengeance

. . . Again, after all this time, "The Sopranos" returns to the basic elements that have kept the series so compelling. Big psychological themes are seamlessly woven into banal details that are comic until they suddenly turn and explode into brutish acts of violence. (The usual rule is that somebody gets brushed out after every meal.)

The best series on television are those in which two opposite things are true at the same time, and "The Sopranos" is a perfect example: it has exhausted the material and remains amazingly fresh. It's very funny, except that it is also dead serious. This season is a lot like the others, except that it's different, and may be the most creative and richly imagined one yet: it begins by going over old ground and yet something new and totally surprising happens.

The first episode opens with strange, foreboding music, but on the surface, things are looking pretty good for the Sopranos. Last season ended on a dark note, with the killing of Adriana (Drea de Matteo), Johnny Sack's arrest and Tony running in the snow like a lumbering bear to escape the F.B.I. sweep.

I am convinced the David Chase of "The Sopranos" and David Milch of "Deadwood" are two of the greatest writers of our time.  Instead of writing novels or poetry, they write screenplays.  And thank goodness (and badness) they do. 

HBO is making use of Google Map technology to bring you the places where goodfellas and others were whacked and other events took place in Season 5.  It is really cool and also uses video and text.  Click here: http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/map/?ntrack_para1=feat_main_image

The February 26, 2006 New York Times has a great story ("The Last Aria of Tony Soprano") about "The Sopranos" creator David Chase and actor James Gandolfini and how they created perhaps the greatest sustained series TV in history. Article is found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/arts/television/26cart.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=dafc80e646b7d2e2&ex=1298610000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

An excerpt:

Mr. Gandolfini and his imposing physical presence influenced Mr. Chase's understanding of the character from the very first days of filming. Mr. Chase recalled that in the pilot script, originally written in the late 1990's for the Fox network (one of the great misses in TV history), he had conceived a scene where Tony's nephew, Christopher, reveals that he is thinking of selling his story to Hollywood. In the script, Tony responded by cuffing Christopher behind the ear. 

On the set, at the Sopranos' front door, above, the two men most responsible for the runaway success of the show, David Chase, left, its creator, and James Gandolfini, its star.

After HBO finally agreed to shoot the script, that moment remained in the pilot. When they got to the scene, Mr. Chase, who was directing, called "Action," and instead of that affectionate little cuff, he remembered: "Jim picks the guy up and just throws him. I can still see Michael Imperioli. He was just sitting there with a beer bottle in his hand and the next thing I know there's like this blur of movement and the beer bottle is rolling along the ground and Michael is up off his feet." Mr. Chase laughed, remembering the impression Mr. Gandolfini's move left on him. "Of course, this is how you lead people," he said.

That one gesture changed the show. "He was always going to be a tough, hard person for most people to love," Mr. Chase said. "But that is what a gangster is. "

It is a must read if you love "The Sopranos."

It's only two weeks until the return of HBO's "The Sopranos."  Add La Vigilanza Dei Sopranos/The Sopranos Watch to your RSS feeder for news and views on the second best drama on TV (after, of course, HBO's "Deadwood"!