This was a really great show that in no way overstayed its welcome. Great characters and great acting, tons of funny moments.
This was a very interesting episode to say the least, but it was completely dragged down by the stupid plot of Larry loaning money to his friend that he used to write SNL skits with. That guy was boring and it was completely contrived. Completely forgettable. What was great, however, was the Asian guy at the diner causing the dude to die. That was completely hilarious. What was even more funny is that the guy who died played Santa Claus in Elf (2003), which made it more funny. Still, that was like 3 minutes out of the entire half hour. If it was not for the 3 minutes, the episode would be a five and least favorite episode so far, but it is still my least favorite episode of the season.
So did Tony die or didn't he? I think he did. I think the suddenness of the cut to black and the previous flashback to his conversation with Bobby that you don't see or hear death nods in that direction. But I also think it doesn't really matter. The point, if I may be so bold, is that the end doesn't necessarily come on schedule. It can come at any time, when you least expect it, when you're not thinking about it, in the heightened moments when you fear for your life at a safe house with an assault rifle draped across your stomach, or when you're feeling safe and enjoying a family meal at a diner.
We try to ignore that fact, to try to live as though it weren't true. You pretty much have to in order to keep living any semblance of a real life. But Tony, more than most people, lives, as Carmella notes, with a sword of damocles hanging over his head at all times. And that means that we should, as Tony once said and as AJ reminds him, remember the good times, to try to enjoy those sweet moments when we have them because we don't know how long they might last or how many opportunities we may have to find them again. It's existentialist, but a surprisingly optimistic take on it for this show.
Drawing back to the title, there's always been something the show posits as quintessentially American about Tony. In the final scene, they surround him with Americana at the diner: the friendly young couple, the cub scout troupe, the sports hero murals on the walls. Even Tony is assembling his nuclear family. He's from an immigrant family, considers himself self-made and both proud of his heritage and a part of the melting pot. Is Tony himself an aging superpower, or am I reading too much into it here?
The finale spends more time with AJ than I might prefer. But it also shows that as much as Tony wanted it, his kids cannot really escape his orbit. AJ is naive and misguided for the most part, and certainly insanely self-pitying, but he also shows a (again naive) sense of understanding about the greater tragedies in the world. His method of trying to help is an interesting one, but also a hard one, which is not typically the Sopranos way. Instead, his parents ply him with a cushy job (as the equivalent of a D-Girl, as Chris might say). And suddenly his concerns about the material world seem to drift away. He may not be a mobster, but he can be corrupted.
And Meadow has given up Tony's dream for her - becoming a pediatrician, and helping little babies. (The episode does lean hard into the "sociopaths like babies and pets" idea between this and the cat.). Instead, she's going to become a civil rights lawyers, and Tony can see her representing folks like him, marrying another mobster, and being pulled into a life he did not want for her. If there's a persistent theme to these series, it's not simply about the difficulty of changing on a personal level, it's about it on a generational level, how we carry the baggage of our parents and grandparents and other generations past, that makes it difficult to escape from their orbit. The show is a little blunt about it when Meadow says that if she hadn't seen her father dragged away so many times civil rights wouldn't be such a salient concern for her, but it's an interesting idea.
Indeed, another theme the show has kept close and blossoms in this episode is the idea that Tony taints whatever he touches. AJ is back to being a spoiled brat. Meadow is too much in the world of the mob to truly escape it. Carmela long ago figured out that she was in too deep to pull out of the life she had made with Tony. Agent Harris has gone native, cheering on the NJ crime family when he hears that Phil has been executed. Paulie talks about taking time off, but instead agrees to skipper the construction crew. And as he hits out in front of Satriale's, there are a lot of empty tables there with him.
So when the episode cuts to black, do we see a man about to get his just deserts, a tumor in the lives of friends and family being removed, or have we simply ended our time with a man who will go on to face a weapons charge? I have my thoughts on it, but more importantly than the outcome is the idea behind it. We don't know whether Tony lived or died, just like we don't know when the end is coming. There are perilous forces in the world like Tony Soprano who result in people like the motorcyclist from the last episode dying, or the comare and her father, who have no reason to suspect they'd be impacted by these events in this way. You can live the high-powered life of Junior Soprano and still have who you are taken away by forces beyond your control. Value the good times, David Chase & Co. seem to say, because we live in a state of sudden uncertainty, where the cut to black could come without warning or fanfare, and those moments become all we have, or had.
Tony just has to crush anyone else's sandcastle, huh? There was something wonderful about Janice really learning something, about getting her anger under control, about making a better start in life. Sure, it's Janice, so it all may have just been a passing fad, but she was trying! And succeeding! (And some impressive backbone from Bobby in prompting her to do it!) And then Tony comes in and can't let her do it, he can't let her find the peace and progress that has eluded him so. He has to push her sorest button until she cracks. Then he storms off, entirely self-satisfied.
Tony's impulse control has never been his strong suit. The moment where he yells "mother fucker" at the T.V. was hilarious, and it was interesting to see him halfway confront what has been one of his defining character traits.
Chris's story was interesting too. I liked how he went from his initial disdain for Tony B., to gradually warming to him after the goings on at Uncle Pat's farm, to feeling more and more marginalized once the two Tonys are together again and back to their old ways of breaking his balls. There's a certain idea that you separate these people from their business, and from each other for that matter, and they become something approaching decent folks. Take these mobsters away from the city, put them in some place much more bucolic, and even when they're digging up bodies, they're kind of removed from it all. Tony sitting there smoking a cigar looks like a much less perturbed, much more easy-going man. Tony B., who we've been reminded had a high IQ, has moments that suggest if he had been born at a different time or into a different family, he could have done something respectable, maybe even noble.
But you put these people back in their usual element, put them into context with each other, Uncle Pat and his daughter, the two Tony's, Janice and her brother, and they bring out the worst in each other. It's very interesting stuff.
(As an aside, there's something darkly funny about the poor bouncer at the Bing continually bearing the brunt of Tony's misplaced frustrations. Also, what the hell was the deal with that freeze frame and wipe? At first I thought it was my video screwing up.)
Jesus when Noah said meadow is too negative my god I just wanted to punch him
Good first episode.
Be interesting to see where this show goes.
I think the white vs black aspect of the show. Is going to inflame an already tense situation in the world. While its these kinds of themes that make a show good, it also serves to stir up peoples anger.
I think the show has a LOT of potential.
The world building and tech is what interests me. The obvious political bias of the writers just pissed me off.
