And just like that, it's over. The final montage is one of the most emotional moments I've seen on TV, not because it wraps anything up in a nice bow (or ribbon) but because it restates its general thesis: life is cyclical, and life just goes on. It's the kind of show you never want to see end, really.
Season 5 has some issues with how far off the deep end characters go in making up bullshit but I'll be damned if it isn't close to the best season. It's not a perfect season of TV (unlike, say, Season 2), but it is a perfect season of The Wire.
Final thoughts;
Fuck Cheese.
Fuck Scott.
Fuck Herc right up his ass.
Poor Dukie.
Go Bubs.
"That was for Joe." ~ I love you, Slim Charles. Right up there with Daniels, Bunny, Omar, Kima, Cutty and Bunk as one of the most respectable characters in the show (damn, the list could go on, for a show about moral grey areas there were a lot of shining stars).
Sydnor as the new McNulty and Michael as the new Omar are both threads I wish could get explored more. Sydnor was an underdeveloped character but he had potential and showed signs of being good po-lice. Michael's arc is one of the most complete runs in the show, and carrying on the torch of Omar is drama I desperately want to see. Oh well, The Wire: the Movie dies in my dreams, I guess.
Going into this episode, I knew that there was "a shocking surprise ending." So when Eugene Pontecorvo is revealed to be working with the FBI, I said to myself, "Eh, that's not that big of a twist." And then when he killed himself, I thought that had to be what I'd heard about and I said to myself "Eh, that's not that big of a twist." And then Uncle Junior shot Tony and I said, out loud this time, "What the fuck?"
Color me surprised. It was a hell of a moment. The show had spent much of this episode and the last couple of Season 5 to suggest that Tony's days might be numbered. Frank had a legitimate beef with Tony that didn't seem likely to be settled easily. Johnny Sack himself didn't seem too enamored with his New Jersey counterpart. Chris continued to run hot and cold on his uncle. Silvio openly talked about dissension in the ranks. Eugene himself seemed back into a corner with suggestions from more than one corner that he could bump off Tony, and even Vito talked about his possibly becoming the boss of the family.
Instead, it was a man with dementia who believed that he was taking out an intruder or Pussy Malenga or something along those lines in an almost random occurrence. That's often the way in this show -- when everything is looking to build to some expected confrontation, the unexpected, even mundane happens to throw it all into chaos. (See also: Richie Aprile.) There's a sense that David Chase and his colleagues are quite conscious of this episode as the beginning of the final season, with a number of callbacks to early episodes. Junior's obsession with Pussy Malenga (the guy he wanted to knock off at Vesuvio in the show's first episode), and ending up killing the nephew who stood in his way, is a nice little feint toward that opening entry, as is Tony's refrain of "it's a nursing home", in a flip on his usual response to discussion of the retirement community and his mental retcon of what happened with his mother and that pillow.
The episode also draws a number of contrasts between Tony and Eugene, and in a larger sense, between the Sopranos and the rest of the world. Tony and Carmela are enjoying sushi every night and buying expensive cars as apologies. Other folks are feeling the pinch. Even Eugene, who inherits 2 million, can't get away. In many ways it's an episode about the big guy and the little guy. Tony can throw his weight around, he can make choices, live lavishly, at the expense of those around and affected by him. Eugene, even with money, doesn't have power, and that means that everyone from Tony to the FBI can toss him around without his having any say in the matter.
It's also about that difference between money and freedom. When Carmela shows up to Ginny Sack's home, ostensibly for a spa day, but mostly to show off her new porsche while Ginny is having money trouble because of her husband's indictment, it's a little more of the haves rubbing their success in the noses of the have-nots. But when she tries the same with Angie Bumpensero, and Angie reveals that she bought herself a corvette instead, Carmela is taken aback, and is again reminded that her wealth does not give her the independence she once so sorely sought.
And there's also an idea of death as the great leveler, no matter how low your are on the totem pole or how high you've climbed. When Eugene hangs himself, the camera doesn't cut away to spare us his suffering. Instead, it lingers, and the audience sees Eugene kicking frantically, gasping for air, until he finally collapses after a few final twitches. It's incredibly uncomfortable to watch, but underscores the unpleasantness of his position that this is preferable to going on. But then the show pulls the same trick once more. A different show might have ended simply on Junior shooting Tony and Tony collapsing to the ground. Instead, it stays with Tony as he agonizingly pulls himself across the room, struggles and strains to dial 9-1-1, before passing out from blood loss. Tony and Eugene may be at different stations in life, but when it comes to the throes of death, the type of suffering that may be visited upon a person, Tony's money and power can't stop it anymore than Eugene can.
A lot of focus on Alma and Bullock here, neither of whom are my favorite characters on the show. This one also had some of the corniest lines, like the whole "you've changed" exchange between the two of them. I could do without their romance, just because they're two of the more stilted characters on the show, so I don't get a lot of sparks from them when they're together. (Sol and Trixie, on the other hand, are pretty adorable, and them I'm rooting for!)
But then again it also has Charlie being circumspect but still clearly shaken about why Bill let himself get killed like that. And to boot, it has the tremendous scene with him and Calamity Jane standing in front of Bill's grave, both uniting in their grief and finding a way to get their moorings without their friend and leader there to give them guidance.
And we're also introduce to a brother and sister (Kristen Bell!) who initially look like they're being primed and manipulated by the folks in charge of both saloons, but it turns out that they're running their own con and are not quite the babes in the woods they present themselves as. I'm sure there's something thematic there, but I can't quite figure it out. There's something very creepy about how Dan starts to fixate on Flora, and something just as creepy about Cy trying to turn her out. But the reveal that the whole thing is an act suggests something about city fathers who try to take advantage of the innocent, not prepared for the innocent being ready to bite back.
There's a decent amount to that as a larger theme. Al seems to underestimate or at least resent Bullock and considers him naive, but Bullock's also smart enough to see through the con. Alma talks down to Trixie a bit, and Trixie pushes back at her for it. There's a sense that the disregarded or underestimated in Deadwood have more force than those in power or social status might realize.
That extends to Andy, who Cy underestimated through the simple act of survival. His resentment for Cy when he comes to collect his things is palpable and understandable. But the fact that he's there to rub Cy's nose his living breathing status at all is a tribute to how the folks in charge didn't quite see all the angles, and didn't predict how the folks weaker than them might stick around to be a thorn in their sides.
I liked how the episode's theme was people who are trapped in one way or another. Junior is the most literal example because of his house arrest, and his hand being stuck in the sink, and I appreciated the subtext of how older people feel pushed to the side, and frustrated in areas where they're limited or need assistance.
Melfi is trapped in her professional relationship with Tony. It's making her drink. It's making her more irritable. It's hurting her relationship with her son. But she can't stop. Her psychiatrist calls it an obsession. She feels an obligation to try to help Tony, but admits she also gets a certain lurid thrill from it that she can't set aside. I thought this was the weakest element of the episode, mostly because Melfi's acting still throws me off and I find her scenes with her psychiatrist either on the nose or baffling, but it's at least thematically interesting.
Then, Tony's trapped by having to keep a low profile and seems bored to the point of stress. There's a sense of "everyone's having fun but me" boredom that permeates the entire episode, and while in other hands it might be dull, the ticking clock clearly going off in Tony's head makes it compelling. The phone call with Tony and the boys who have uncovered the WWI memorabilia is great in that sense, as is the scene where he returns to the Bing to find everyone playing cards and talking about moisturizer. In the first season, Chris talked about how he couldn't take the regularness of life, and "House Arrest" is kind of the episode incarnate of that thought. Tony can't take regular life; even when nothing's going on, and even when it exposes him, Tony wants to be in the thick of things in his business, and almost can't stand to be apart from it.
It's interesting that the first season portrayed Tony as at least semi-tragic, as someone who might have wanted to escape the mafia life and who was basically shepherded into it by his parents' generation of the family to the point that by the time he was old enough to reflect on whether or not it was what he wanted, he was already too deep into it. But here, it's portrayed as something he can't live without, that sustains him, that being apart from it heightens his psychological issues and makes him unhappy. Those two narratives are not necessarily incompatible. Maybe in his heart of hearts, Tony does, as Melfi suggests, reflect on all the terrible things he's done when he's not active in the business and it's distressing to him at his core. But maybe he's been doing it for so long that it's all he knows and the only way he can feel like himself. It's interesting character work in a delightfully uneventful episode and sums up the conflicting impulses that tie Tony in knots.
