5x08 Marco Polo

So many interesting threads running through the same party. I loved Tony's sour grapes at not being invited to Hugh's party, and the ensuing games of telephone and so on (Junior's a prick) that led to him being reinvited despite his wife's and mother-in-law's wishes, and how he milks it for everything it's worth.

There's a subtle contrast to the way that Carmela is frantically trying to keep all of these plates spinning (almost literally) as the party is getting going, and the way that Tony just breezes in when the time is right. It underscores the ways in which Carmela is scrambling without the man she wanted out of her life, and the way Tony (who, as the visit to his hovel of a home indicates, is struggling in a different way without his wife to keep him on track) comes in and starts to fill his usual role with the gregariousness he's known for.

There's been a detente brewing between Carmela and Tony for some time now, not that they don't still have their flare ups, but each is realizing how they're affected by the other, even when apart, and how their worlds make a little less sense without each other. I'm not going out on a limb and calling theirs a healthy marriage exactly, but it's clear that 20+ years of marriage has made them accustomed to certain things, that they worked out a groove, often a harmful one, that they're terribly used to now, and it's a very difficult thing to pull oneself out of it. So they literally drift back together here.

Lord knows if it will be permanent or not, but there's the hint that things have changed a little. Carmella sees the man who gives a thoughtful gift to her father and chats up his guests and is, in the social settings where his magnetism can flourish, resembles more of the man she married. And when Carmella's mom essentially admits that she didn't want Tony to come because she was embarrassed by him, because he evinces the idea of a lower class italian family that she hopes to rise above, Carmela rejects and resents it, hinting at a rebellion that may have helped explain her attraction to Tony in the first place. Whereas her aborted dalliance with Mr. Wegler leaves Carmela lamenting that she'll always be tied to Tony in some way, this episode seems to suggest a certain pride, or at least defiance in the role she's carved for herself, regardless of her mother's classism or that of her friends.

The classism is interesting in Tony B's story as well. He's clearly at a lower station than his cousin, and his vocalized resentments to Carmela ordering him around has shades of the Charmagne story from the show's first season. Tony B. clearly feels a little lesser, even if he's trying not to. And the scene where his kid tells him that they love The Sopranos' house and never want to come back to their grandmother's more modest home again is a heartbreaking one. From the mouths of babes, who don't understand the messed up things that happen under the roof of that McMansion. "Irregular Around the Margins" focused to a degree on how a man's image can drive him to do certain things, if the way he's seen by others makes him feel small or marginalized. Tony B. is one of the few characters on the show who seemed OK with how he was seen, even if he wasn't a big shot gangster anymore, but as his request for bigger work from Tony S., and his kid-motivated agreement to do some wet work for Carmine Jr. indicate, he's starting to feel his stature, and is less and less content to sit idly by and accept it.