Rewatching The Sopranos, S1 E1 "Pilot"

Family Events: Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) has a lot going on in his life. Son Anthony, Junior (Robert Iler) turns thirteen, daughter Meadow (Jamie Lynn Siegler) rebels against wife Carmela (Edie Falco). Mother Livia (Nancy Marchand) resists the idea of assisted living and is generally unpleasant. Tony cheats on Carmela; Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) resents Tony's being in charge. Tony admits being in therapy to Carmela but does not disclose the fact that his therapist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is a woman.

Mafia Events: Mahaffey is assaulted by Tony's nephew Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) and Tony for defaulting on gambling debts, Christopher shows initiative by executing the son of one of Tony's waste management rivals. Hesh (Jerry Adler), a former colleague of Tony's father, helps Tony with a plan to extract the money owed by Mahaffey. Silvio Dante (Stevie van Zandt) informs Tony that Junior plans to kill rival Pussy Malanga inside childhood friend Artie Bucco's restaurant; Tony tries to get Artie (John Ventimiglia) to leave town but ends up destroying the restaurant in an explosion. Christopher feels unappreciated in his work and mentions writing a screenplay.

Mental Health Events: Tony meets Dr. Jennifer Melfi for therapy after panic attacks, storms out of first session when asked if he felt depressed. Returns for second session after collapsing at Green Grove Retirement Community with mother Livia. Tony describes mixed feelings about family of ducks in his pool. Melfi prescribes Prozac, which Tony takes. Tony skips a therapy appointment, begins to feel better, and assumes he won't need to return; Melfi suggests that talking about his thoughts and feelings is what is helping. Tony becomes tearful in a discussion over the ducks and realizes he is afraid of losing his family.

Significant Ideology: Tony's infidelities are referenced and later shown; he is a powerful, desirable man who has significant appetites in both women and lifestyle. His house is enormous, he dines in fancy restaurants, he plays golf. Yet the first thing he mentions to Dr. Melfi is that despite having "reached the heights," he still feels unsatisfied. Why? He's the boss, he's in charge, he has a family that loves him, what is the reason for his unhappiness? Spoiler alert: IT'S PROBABLY HIS MOTHER, but could it also have been his having bought into the the capitalist myth that money buys happiness? Material excess and extravagant lifestyle are indeed popular glamours of the mafia genre, the mob boss synonymous with unrestricted wealth and greed, but always at a price. Mafia films were once regulated by the Hays code (you could make a film about a criminal but he had to meet a violent end, because morals), so we're used to seeing consequences of negative or violent actions be realized, but what consequences can we expect in Anthony Soprano's story? Will therapy help, or is he better off not knowing what's at the heart of his anxiety and depression?

Italian Language: 

Sfogliatelle = Italian dessert pastry ("Hey girls, you want some of last night's sfogliatelle?").

Se dici = "If you say," (Junior yells this or something like it to Tony after he tells him not to get Anthony Junior anything big for his birthday).

Goomara = Mafia mistress. ("Well, havin' that goomara on the side helps," Carmela responds when Tony states that no marriage is perfect). 

vaffancul' = vaffanculo = F--- You ("Then it's dysfunction this, and dysfunction that, and dysfunction VAFFANCUL'!" Tony, to Dr. Melfi, describing Gary Cooper getting in touch with his feelings). 

Stugots = sto cazzo = personal possessive of male sex organ (Tony's boat is named "Stugots").

Buenosera = Good Evening (in restaurant).

da queste parte = around here (in restaurant).

Agita = shake ("I'm all agita all the time!" Junior, in solidarity with Livia's being very upset about the state of the world). 

Meet Livia: 

The Sopranos, season 6, part two, proper.

I finally finished. And I will again stand by my previous statements; this is honestly one of the best shows created. Anthony, it hasn't always been easy, but I'm really going to miss you. 

So how do things wind down in the second half of season six? 

Melfi can't handle the peer pressure from her shrink friends and dumps Tony as a patient just after his son's suicide attempt. As he's leaving, he says to her, "I think what you're doing, as a doctor, is immoral," then stuffs a steak recipe he had earlier stolen back into one of her expensive magazines in the waiting room and storms out. It made me not like her. 

AJ is a wreck, attempts suicide and is hospitalized. "He was our happy little boy," Carmela weeps as they all watch his psychiatrist wheel him away. I loathe AJ but this was difficult and emotional for me to watch.

Phil Leotardo takes out Bobby Bacala and severely wounds Silvio; Paulie is basically the last man standing in Tony's crew. The FBI aspect (watching this time around) was important, as Agent Harris, currently working terrorism but still with a soft spot for Tony, is instrumental in Tony's overall survival and triumph over Phil. The decline of Agent Harris was a little sad, considering he really seemed to enjoy his work back when he was planting bugging devices and hanging around Satriales just like one of the guys. First came the parasite from Pakistan then the longer, more stressful hours, and strain on his wife---the poor guy looked just beaten down by the end. One of my *very* favorite scenes in the entire show (linked to another from season 2 that shows Harris's obvious fondness for Tony) was when, after hearing of Phil Leotardo's death, Harris jumps up from his desk shouting, "YES! We're gonna WIN THIS THING!" I don't think there's any two ways about what he says---he means TONY, not the FBI. How sweet. 

The Finale: There are so many things about this that are brilliant, not the least being its ambiguity, but I was one of the three people who really loved the way the show ended, and loved it even more after watching it a second time. 

If Tony Lives, the family reoccupies their places around a table, eating, just as they did at the finale of the first season. AJ said just before Meadow arrived that they should remember the good times, as Tony did previously at Vesuvio. Meadow chooses a law career, focusing on civil rights of minority groups; AJ had formerly been interested in a military or intelligence career in order to fight terrorism but then accepts Tony's help in launching into film (via Little Carmine). The bigger theme here ("Made in America") is that both Tony's children, while at first insistent in putting as much space between themselves and Tony and Tony's livelihood as possible, completely turn around and choose careers that intertwine them deeper to him, Meadow, criminal law and AJ, the family business as Carmine Lupertazzi's development assistant. They grew up with advantages, had opportunities to leave, and both chose to stay. Tony Soprano is at root, a family man and life goes on.

If Tony Dies, the link to gangster cinema is firm, and precursors from The Godfather (beginning all the way back with that orange cat) abound. As there is no one left on Phil's crew, the hit had to be authorized by Carmine or another New York family, and that particular bit isn't all too clear or motivated, but there are a few things that can't really be ignored. The lingering white hoodlum-type gets up and goes to the bathroom just as Michael Corleone went into the bathroom before hitting the table of cops in the restaurant. Why? Just before the very end, two African American men, a little gangster-ish, come wandering in and will presumably walk directly past Tony's table. Why? These are conscious choices made by David Chase, and significant ones, just as the fact that Meadow can't quite get her car parked in a spot twenty-five feet wide on the street is significant. There was happiness at the table, and as far as conversations with AJ had gone in the past, the mood was downright chipper. Journey plays on the juke "Don't Stop Believin;" and they all enjoy the best onion rings in New Jersey. If Tony and the rest of the family gets clipped in the diner, they die happy or having at least experienced good times, as Tony had hoped for his family. In ending that way, Tony Soprano becomes at root, The Godfather and his story, epic.

My own personal thoughts on the finale are that I don't care which is true, only that Tony picked that song and that it started when Carmela walked in. (Matt sang this to me when I was 18, waiting tables at the Sheep Shedde). 

The Sopranos, season 5, proper.

Sums everything up perfectly.

Season 5 is cruel, that's all I can say. I think the only positive event that happens the entire time is the Marco Polo game in the pool, everything else is seriously depressing.

Tony, while never making any real secret of this in any season previous, is basically an insecure, reactionary, horribly violent man-child. And while it's tempting to do so, you can't blame old lady Livia for all of it; many of the events that went down (that I really don't even care to remember) were done out of angry cruelty. At this point in his life, he should know better. It's difficult to witness all this because despite everything we've seen, we still want to like these guys! I honestly had love only for Christopher, freshly sprung from rehab, and Tony Blundetto, (STEVE BUSCEMI!), and even those two were dicks to each other. And look how things ended with them! Also, Phil Leotardo is a goddamned psychopath, it's like he's seeking retribution from Tommy in Goodfellas from every single gangster now and until the end of time; what a lunatic. "It's the guy's mother, Phil, come on. It's the guy's mother."

Heading right into that gutter now, aren't they?

You were better off in the clink, Tony B.

There were some really good things, too, of course. The cameos (Robert Loggia, Buscemi, Anabella Sciorra, ANNETTE BENING!) Carmela's taste of adultry with Mitch McDeer's brother from The Firm; the blow job incident at the construction site with Meadow's boyfriend, Finn; and almost best of all, the DVD Menu images with all the black and red? Killer. And I have to say that Gandolfini's acting this season was probably the best it's ever been---those glimpses of emotion over Tony B. when he knows he's got to take him out, in the middle of really the most tyrannical, monstrous time in his life? Nicely played.

Also (and this is just a silly aside): during the scene where Tony B. and his girlfriend (who is none other than Dr. Gina from SESAME STREET!) find the bag of cash and drugs, she says, "Honey, you're doubly blessed!" A friend of mine (after hearing this) asked deadpan, "What, you were barely seventeen and barely dressed?" And I laugh every time I think of it.

This Thing of Ours.

This Thing of Ours: Investigating The Sopranos, 2002, edited by David Lavery.

1. This book pretty much marked the point I realized that there were people out there, respectable  and educated people, who geeked out about film and television WAAAAAAAAY more than I ever knew was possible. One of my favorite professors dug this out when I met with her to discuss the senior paper I was planning to do; I went home and immediately ordered my own copy.

2. David Lavery is my favorite television author/editor. In addition to this volume, he's also put out similar studies and essays on Twin Peaks (Full of Secrets) and Lost (Lost's Buried Treasures) among other programs----it's safe to say that if I was an academic I'd want his job.

What we have here is a collection of critical essays on The Sopranos, intellectual as hell. Some, with their Marxism, post-modern obsession and Orwellian comparisons, really made my head hurt, even now. And yes, some of the essays irritated me with their refusal to just see the show for what it was---A NARRATIVE, someone's story, someone's vision---and not an ideological set of regulations to be paraded as absolute philosophy (I want to scream, HEY! At no point is David Chase or anyone else involved with the show suggesting that all women must writhe around the pole at the Bing or be kept under lock and key in the kitchen baking endless pans of lasagna . . . )

Topics covered: Italian-American defamation, feminism, television as a unique media, the show's roots to cinema, the gangster genre itself, geography, music, food, and the downward trend of Mafia culture (1970s to 2000) together with its relevance to society. And that this show can be dissected a million different ways. Lavery, in his prologue, compares the show to an elephant in the dark, "whose nature reveals itself in entirely different ways depending on which part of its complex being is currently being examined."

Kind of crafty. My favorite article, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Tony Soprano," by Steven Hayward and Andrew Biro, did a great job of examining the show's complexities in several different contexts, (capitalism, Napoleon, Marxism, I'M NOT KIDDING, The Godfather, and the Mafia code of silence)

"Don Corleone might have inhabited a world in which certain things (honor, community, and so on) had a value in and of themselves, but Tony Soprano is forced to inhabit a world in which dollar values are the only values that matter. While Tony's nephew Christopher wants nothing more than to become a "made" man -- to become a fully-fledged member of the Mafia community, bound by the omerta (code of silence) -- this desire does not prevent him from writing a screenplay based on his own experiences and the tales he has heard. It is a similar kind of contradiction that structures the series as a whole: Tony is a gangster undergoing psychotherapy (or, as Freud called it, "the talking cure"): a mob boss who has to talk to maintain his position."

It's fun. There was only one article I honestly couldn't get behind even a little, not really because of the subject matter but because of the choppy, unprofessional prose (mostly epitaphs) and the fact that the two authors accused Livia of being OVERWRITTEN. Please. The coming of feminism (first, second, third wave or beyond) does not change the fact that there are some seriously unpleasant women out there. Get over it.

The Sopranos, season 1, proper.

The Sopranos, Season One, 1999.
Created by David Chase.
Starring: James Gandolfini, Lorraine Braco, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Dominic Chianese, Tony Sirico, Steve Van Zandt, Nancy Marchand, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Robert Iler.

I don't want to be unnecessarily dramatic here, but this series is hands down one of the best in the history of television. So much so that there really will not ever be anything else like it, Mafia-related or otherwise. If you haven't already, you really owe it to yourself to see it, even if you hate mob stories or violence, because there is more than meets the eye to Tony Soprano. He just might be more like you than you realize.


EVENTS: The Sopranos obviously has firm roots in Gangster culture, but before we get to that, let's be clear on a few other things first. The experience here is only partly focused on The Mafia; you know, the Italian-American based crime families of New York and New Jersey who make living from robbery, extortion, illegal gambling, illegal loans, bribery, and who solve problems with fists, feet, and fishes (as in putting their enemies to sleep with them). But that's only one side of the story.

Tony Soprano (Gandolfini), Captain of North Jersey, is having trouble with panic attacks and begins therapy with Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Braco). Along the way his wife develops an unnaturally close relationship with the priest, his daughter procures methamphetamine to cram for college testing, his son gets suspended from school and might have ADHD. And his mother Livia I-wish-the-Lord-would-take-me Soprano? Madon! It's not his job that's messing with him, it's his family life! (Anyone out there relate?) This series is very different from its mob-centered predecessors in that we see this angle, we're let in on a (powerful) gangster's less glamorous moments: Eating cereal. Driving his daughter to college visits. Meeting with a school psychologist. Placing his unwilling mother into a retirement community.

There's a wonderful scene early on where Tony is cleaning out his mother's house after she's moved out. He's putting framed photographs from a shelf into a box and pauses to study two of his mother holding him as a baby and seated next to him as an older child, smiling. Throughout the show it is affirmed and reaffirmed over and over that this woman is unpleasant, conniving, and mean-spirited, but there is no denying the fact that despite it all, Livia matters very much to Tony and he still loves her. It's emotional.

STYLE: Of course, it's not all melodrama, and there are some seriously wonderful bits of production happening here. The pilot episode gets the best of these moments, but the rest of the series ain't slacking either. Tony chases down a man who owes him money to the happy tune "Love You Like I Do," much in the vain of a Scorcese film. Gangster humor, "Whaddya cryin' for? Huh? HMO! You're covered! You prick!" When Chris (Imperioli) meets Czech rival Emil at Satriale's after hours to discuss sanitation strategies and things don't go well, a different black and white portrait (Martin, Bogart, Cagney) is cut in between the sound of each bullet spent together with Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man." Nice.

There's also a really great accompaniment to two separate scenes, just a synth and a drum machine, probably, but it's very effective stylization. The first moment happens at Tony's first session with Melfi; he narrates his feelings of having "come in at the end" (of the mob's golden age) as we see him walk down his enormous driveway to fetch his morning paper. Later the same music plays as he relocates his arsenal of cash and guns from a ceiling panel to the closet of his mother's retirement home. It's a small thing, but one of the many things that makes this series stand out.

NODS: We've heard for years, "it's not TV, it's HBO," and in this case, it's true. The Sopranos was one of the first major television shows that actually felt cinematic, like the world's longest film we could enjoy one Sunday night at a time. Profanity, nudity, violence all basically uncensored, and no commercial breaks, but probably best of all are the little homages paid to its ancestors---not other television shows but cinema: The Godfather Trilogy.

"You broke my heart!"

Silvio (Van Zandt) is called upon to quote Godfather (part three) on demand; Chris inaccurately quotes the first Godfather as he attempts to hurl Emil's body into a dumpster ("Louis Brazzi sleeps with the fishes!") Father Phil is well studied on Coppola's cinematographer, Gordon Lewis. When Tony's daughter Meadow's soccer coach takes a job at another school, stating "They made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Paulie (Sirico) says, "You haven't heard ours yet." Probably most memorable of all is the segment of the season one finale, where in the true spirit of Michael Corleone Tony touches his mother's cheek as she rolls by in a gurney and tells her, "I know it was you." (!!!)

There are production nods too, really skillful shots that together with the music, again, feel more like a film than a television show. The night shot of Silvio walking away from Vesuvio just before it ignites, the time and dedication given to Tony's constant scrutinizing Melfi's artwork, and the way power is portrayed, especially evident in Episode 12, "Isabella,"--- Paulie and Silvio's walk down the hospital corridor, the crew gathered around Tony's bar as they plot against Tony's Uncle Junior (Chianese), and the deadpan limo ride with Anthony Jr. and his date ("Can we have some of that whiskey?") There are goose-bump moments like these in almost every episode.

Bravo, Mr. Chase. Bravo. And that second clip made me frickin' bawl my eyes out over here.

The Sopranos, season 1.

I'm not all the way through it yet, but I gotta tell you, it's *great* fun watching them all over again. I'll do a respectable write-up once I'm finished, but in the meantime, take a look a few of my favorite scenes from the pilot episode. I'm happy they used "Love You Like I Do," for a car chase scene (ala John Carpenter's Christine).