A lot of plot movement condensed to a single episode. Not really sure what I make of it.
First there's the Melfi storyline, and the way that it's enough to finally convince her that she's not helping Tony. I don't know that I buy it. I mean, it seems to be the thesis of the show more or less -- that this therapy is enabling Tony more than it's actually prompting him to improve himself, but I don't know if I agree. Is Tony ever going to become a kind and gentle soul? Certainly not. Is he, or can he become a little better, a little more understanding of people and situations around him? I think the series has shown that he has, from his feelings about Vito to his mixed up feelings for his own son. The fact that after the confrontation with Melfi, Tony initially tries to be sensitive to his son when telling him that they need to hole up, only then to boil off and drag him to the closet, speaks to the sense that Melfi's had an effect, and that without some reinforcement it's easy for him to fall back on old habits. It felt very sudden somehow.
But on the other hand, part of the thrust of the episode seems to be that these people don't care about others. The random guy who has to break the news to the New York mobsters gets beaten up for his troubles. The guys who take out Silvio cause the death of a motorcyclist without any regard for the value of other lives. Phil's comare and her father are killed without anyone noticing or taking the time to check whether they got the right guy. There's a persistent sense that people are suffering for these mobster's largesse and they're entirely unaffected by that thought.
I don't know, man. A lot of it is interesting, but it didn't do as much for me as I might have hope given how long the build to the NJ/NY war was. Bobby's murder was beautifully shot and edited, but felt almost gratuitous. The image of Tony falling asleep with the assault rifle Bobby gave him is a powerful one, but still. Was it too much all of a sudden? Is the AJ stuff dragging on too long? I don't know. Something didn't quite work for me despite the ratcheted up tension.
To be frank, maybe I'm just burned out. I didn't binge watch the show exactly. Instead, I parceled out 1-2 episodes an evening. But even then, it may have been a bad idea to try to watch the whole show in the span of a couple of months. Sure, it lets me draw connections and themes between episodes that might have been jumbled or forgotten otherwise, but you also hit a point of exhaustion with a fictional world and the characters within it, even one that you're terribly compelled by. It feels like the show has been building to the moments in this episode for so long, and yet, when they arrive, I just don't feel what it seems like I should toward them. A recommendation to savor, I suppose.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-08-23T15:24:06Z
A lot of plot movement condensed to a single episode. Not really sure what I make of it.
First there's the Melfi storyline, and the way that it's enough to finally convince her that she's not helping Tony. I don't know that I buy it. I mean, it seems to be the thesis of the show more or less -- that this therapy is enabling Tony more than it's actually prompting him to improve himself, but I don't know if I agree. Is Tony ever going to become a kind and gentle soul? Certainly not. Is he, or can he become a little better, a little more understanding of people and situations around him? I think the series has shown that he has, from his feelings about Vito to his mixed up feelings for his own son. The fact that after the confrontation with Melfi, Tony initially tries to be sensitive to his son when telling him that they need to hole up, only then to boil off and drag him to the closet, speaks to the sense that Melfi's had an effect, and that without some reinforcement it's easy for him to fall back on old habits. It felt very sudden somehow.
But on the other hand, part of the thrust of the episode seems to be that these people don't care about others. The random guy who has to break the news to the New York mobsters gets beaten up for his troubles. The guys who take out Silvio cause the death of a motorcyclist without any regard for the value of other lives. Phil's comare and her father are killed without anyone noticing or taking the time to check whether they got the right guy. There's a persistent sense that people are suffering for these mobster's largesse and they're entirely unaffected by that thought.
I don't know, man. A lot of it is interesting, but it didn't do as much for me as I might have hope given how long the build to the NJ/NY war was. Bobby's murder was beautifully shot and edited, but felt almost gratuitous. The image of Tony falling asleep with the assault rifle Bobby gave him is a powerful one, but still. Was it too much all of a sudden? Is the AJ stuff dragging on too long? I don't know. Something didn't quite work for me despite the ratcheted up tension.
To be frank, maybe I'm just burned out. I didn't binge watch the show exactly. Instead, I parceled out 1-2 episodes an evening. But even then, it may have been a bad idea to try to watch the whole show in the span of a couple of months. Sure, it lets me draw connections and themes between episodes that might have been jumbled or forgotten otherwise, but you also hit a point of exhaustion with a fictional world and the characters within it, even one that you're terribly compelled by. It feels like the show has been building to the moments in this episode for so long, and yet, when they arrive, I just don't feel what it seems like I should toward them. A recommendation to savor, I suppose.