I walked away from this episode not really knowing what to think. There's a lot being thrown into the soup here. Much of it seems to be about generational issues. Tony feels like he couldn't save his surrogate son Jackie Jr. and that makes it all the more important for him to save his real son AJ. Tony learning that AJ has panic attacks as well drives home the theme of inherited problems.
The same theme pops up with respect to Meadow, who feels trapped between the different worlds she inhabits. She lashes out at her mom when she suspects that her dad was behind, or at least complicit in Jackie Jr.'s murder, but she turns around and rebukes Jackie Jr.'s sister, in much the same way as her mother, when the sister tries to blame the hit on the mob rather than on a drug deal gone bad, and even criticizes the sister for talking about the issue with "an outsider".
There's a lot of an "end of the good old days" feeling to this episode. You have the older generation, represented by Junior, singing the songs of old, the present generation, watching him and crying, and the younger generation laughing and throwing things. The fact that the song changes to ones from several different cultures suggests that this is a universal issue. It's interesting when you stand back and take a look from a distance, but up close, the episode was kind of mystifying in the moment.
I did really enjoy the scenes at the military school. (And I loved the juxtaposition of the Major yammering about the importance of discipline while smoking.) And hey, Jackie Jr. was staying with Omar! It was a finale with a number of interesting elements and scenes and themes swirling around with it, but it didn't necessarily all click for me.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-07-15T18:35:35Z
I walked away from this episode not really knowing what to think. There's a lot being thrown into the soup here. Much of it seems to be about generational issues. Tony feels like he couldn't save his surrogate son Jackie Jr. and that makes it all the more important for him to save his real son AJ. Tony learning that AJ has panic attacks as well drives home the theme of inherited problems.
The same theme pops up with respect to Meadow, who feels trapped between the different worlds she inhabits. She lashes out at her mom when she suspects that her dad was behind, or at least complicit in Jackie Jr.'s murder, but she turns around and rebukes Jackie Jr.'s sister, in much the same way as her mother, when the sister tries to blame the hit on the mob rather than on a drug deal gone bad, and even criticizes the sister for talking about the issue with "an outsider".
There's a lot of an "end of the good old days" feeling to this episode. You have the older generation, represented by Junior, singing the songs of old, the present generation, watching him and crying, and the younger generation laughing and throwing things. The fact that the song changes to ones from several different cultures suggests that this is a universal issue. It's interesting when you stand back and take a look from a distance, but up close, the episode was kind of mystifying in the moment.
I did really enjoy the scenes at the military school. (And I loved the juxtaposition of the Major yammering about the importance of discipline while smoking.) And hey, Jackie Jr. was staying with Omar! It was a finale with a number of interesting elements and scenes and themes swirling around with it, but it didn't necessarily all click for me.