"Turns out I'm still just a fucking robot to my own pussy-ass weakness."
Just finished watching -- finally -- Season 5 of The Sopranos on DVD. At this rate, I should be able to catch the sixth and final season some time in the summer of 2008.
Anyhoo, since we don't subscribe to HBO, I'm gonna have to do my level best to duck-and-cover out of the way of any phenomenal revelations about Season 6: I've already heard about the infusion of William S. Burroughs into the first episode, as well as the sub-plot about the gay member of Tony's crew (Vito Spatafore, played by Joseph Gannascoli; Terry Gross interviewed Gannascoli on Fresh Air on 31 May, ostensibly on the strength of the novel that he co-authored, A Meal to Die For, although she spent at least half of the interview discussing his character's murder and the circumstances leading up to it) who gets clipped because he can't, ultimately, bear the thought of being a straight (meaning legit) citizen and alive instead of being a wiseguy and dead, 'cause wiseguys don't dig fanooks. (And oh, how I wish that W.R. Burnett had dug into Rico's tutti-frutti tendencies just a bit more in Little Caesar; in the movie version, there's the barest, two-second hint of what in the novel looked at first to be a fairly significant plot point.)
While I'd love to be able to watch the last season as it airs, I have to say that there's something about being able to watch a whole season in three or four days. (Or, in the case of Season 6, with its, what, eight extra episodes, 6 or 7 days.) A major downside is that watching two or three episodes back-to-back makes me absolutely ravenous: everybody's always friggin' eating....
Thought I'd share some random thoughts about Season 5, behind the cut, natch.
Anyhoo, since we don't subscribe to HBO, I'm gonna have to do my level best to duck-and-cover out of the way of any phenomenal revelations about Season 6: I've already heard about the infusion of William S. Burroughs into the first episode, as well as the sub-plot about the gay member of Tony's crew (Vito Spatafore, played by Joseph Gannascoli; Terry Gross interviewed Gannascoli on Fresh Air on 31 May, ostensibly on the strength of the novel that he co-authored, A Meal to Die For, although she spent at least half of the interview discussing his character's murder and the circumstances leading up to it) who gets clipped because he can't, ultimately, bear the thought of being a straight (meaning legit) citizen and alive instead of being a wiseguy and dead, 'cause wiseguys don't dig fanooks. (And oh, how I wish that W.R. Burnett had dug into Rico's tutti-frutti tendencies just a bit more in Little Caesar; in the movie version, there's the barest, two-second hint of what in the novel looked at first to be a fairly significant plot point.)
While I'd love to be able to watch the last season as it airs, I have to say that there's something about being able to watch a whole season in three or four days. (Or, in the case of Season 6, with its, what, eight extra episodes, 6 or 7 days.) A major downside is that watching two or three episodes back-to-back makes me absolutely ravenous: everybody's always friggin' eating....
Thought I'd share some random thoughts about Season 5, behind the cut, natch.
- For all the hype about Adrianna's (Drea de Matteo) exit -- courtesy of Sil (Steve Van Zandt) -- to me, the real climax of Season 5 was Episode 7 (#59 overall), "In Camelot," written by Terence Winter and directed by Steve Buscemi (who also had a role as Tony's cousin Tony Blundetto this season). "In Camelot" was black, black, black, like Balzac -- or at least like Balzac's reputed to be: satire at its most acidulous. This episode had arguably the least amount of action of the season, and it does start off rather languidly, but around 20 minutes in, I was riveted. Without resorting to mayhem, bloodshed, and death, "In Camelot" shows to perfection how petty evils committed in the service of base desires soon spiral out of control. Anyone who was even semi-sympathetic wasn't given much -- if any -- dialogue in this ep. This one was for the bounders, scoundrels, rotters and villains -- even sweet-on-first-impression Fran Feldstein (a terrific Polly Bergen), who was the goomah of Tony's father at the time of the latter's death. I'll probably check out Buscemi's commentary track before I return the DVD to the store.
- Ade's murder (Episode #12 [#64 overall]: "Long Term Parking"): not too much of an homage to Miller's Crossing, eh?
- Tony finally discovers (Episode 13 [#65 overall]: "All Due Respect") that painting of him and Pie-O-My (Tony's ill-starred racehorse from Season 4) that Paulie neglected to burn and had retouched, dressing Tony as a general from the American Revolution -- priceless!
- The way that Tony handled Feech La Manna's (Robert Loggia) challenge to his authority (in Episode #4 [#56 overall]: "All Happy Families") was very neat, and refreshingly non-fatal; it gave me hopes that Tony, if not all of his crew, was in fact moving more firmly into legitimacy, but no such luck.
- Whatever sympathy Tony B. had earned for the way he settled the volcanic feud between Tony and Christopher (Michael Imperioli) in Episode 5 (#57 overall]: "Irregular Around the Margins") was totally blown in #6 (#58 overall: "Sentimental Education") when he beat the bejeezus out of his boss and the investor in his (legit! legit!) massage parlor, Mr. Kim. Have to agree with Tony's crew on one thing: Tony let him live for way too long.
- Speaking of #5 ("Irregular Around the Margins") -- in which Tony and Adrianna are in a car wreck that appears to one and all as a compromising situation -- Christopher had the best line of the season when blowing up at Tony: "Everybody knows you been the biggest fuckin' cooze hound around the last four or five years. Your mid-life crisis. You'd fuck a catcher's mitt." Damn! Has anybody -- even Livia -- ripped Tony a new one like that??
- Christopher's screwing over of a screenwriter buddy in #7 ("In Camelot") nicely parallels the figurative shtupping that Tony gave childhood chum and restaurateur Artie Bucco (John Ventimiglia) in Season 4 (Episode #6 [#45 overall]: "Everybody Hurts") -- except that Christopher, if anything, proves himself to be an even more "evil cocksucker" than his "uncle," Tony.
- Will someone please hurry the hell up and make a Captain Marvel movie -- the Fawcett, now DC Comics, Captain Marvel ("SHAZAM!"), not the two, or I guess now three, Marvel Comics superheroes of the same name, just so that Dominic Chianese (who plays Tony's Uncle Jun') can play Dr. Sivana?? I mean, Hollywood already dragged its feet on making a Spider-Man movie, so we never got to see William S. Burroughs as The Vulture; I don't want to miss the opportunity to see Chianese as the perfect Sivana, angrily exclaiming, "You big red CHEESE!"
- Pretty funny that, when Carmela (Edie Falco) finally put the horns to Tony, it was with a cultured WASP-y type (played by David Strathairn) instead of the hunky wiseguy from the old country (Furio, played by Federico Castelluccio) she had hot flashes for throughout Season 4. If we weren't convinced of the limits of Carmela's culture-vulture tendencies by her laughable attempt at a "ladies' film club," this episode -- wherein she doesn't "get" Madame Bovary (too close for comfort, perhaps..?) -- would be the clincher. And as far as Strathairn's character's telling her she's a user: true dat, but that's more than a little of the pot calling the kettle black, n'çest pas? (Strathairn's character was too damn similar to the skeevy high school teacher he played in Blue Car, and wasn't developed any further than in that movie: the character never rose beyond a pump 'n' dump for me, despite his patronizing recommendation of Madame Bovary to Carmela, and subsequent gift of a first edition -- "well, the first Modern Library edition, any way" -- to her. Although the behind-the-scenes glimpse of how some kids' homework gets graded was a bit of an eye-opener...)
- Tony's got rotten luck with his goomahs, huh?
- Finn DeTrolio (Will Janowitz): the proper response, on accidentally spotting one of the captains of the father of the Mafia princess you're dating going down on a security guard at the mobbed-up construction site you're working at for twenty bucks an hour -- and then being bullied into a corner by said captain so that he can supposedly proposition (or worse...) you -- is not to propose marriage to said princess when she goes all weepy and hormonal on you (Episode #9 [#61 overall: "Unidentified Black Males"]). Let me express it in terms that even an over-educated, guilty white liberal slacker type such as yourself might understand: RUN, YOU STUPID FUCK, RUN!!!
- Season 5, more than the previous four seasons, really showed the inner rot of the characters, whether caused by greed or lust of various stripes or by dangerously willful naïveté (see Meadow's blithe -- and hysterically funny -- dismissal of the possibility that Vinnie is gay -- "He's married and has a wife and children" -- in Episode #9 [#61 overall: "Unidentified Black Males," a terrifically-written ep]; but see also Adrianna and the FBI agents working so assiduously on "flipping," through her, a member of Tony's crew, that they just don't give a good goddamn about the safety of someone who is, ultimately, more a victim and captive of "the life" than an active participant); one is left with the glum impression that there ain't nobody but nobody who's worth a tinker's dam here -- even the representatives of "law and order." James Gandolfini's face, in particular, could've been a title sequence animated by Saul Bass: Tony Soprano's turmoil and corruption were that manifest on his phiz. (And man, not all the friggin' tea in China could get me to work at Badda Bing!; Tony's too damn rough on the hired help....) As for Carmela, I can't help but conclude that even if she knew about the fate of Adrianna, she still wouldn't get the fuck out: she values the money, the toys, and the lifestyle too damn much. (Whether Carmela's gorge would finally rise if she knew that Jackie Junior's killers weren't "unidentified black males" is another question, however: Carmela is one of those women who are much more simpatico with the males of the species than with the females. Plus she liked Jackie Junior as the groom in the Barbie Dream Wedding she had planned for her daughter Meadow.) Maybe Season 6 will prove me wrong, but I'll be extremely surprised if it does. I guess the main question left at this point is, will Tony get kacked, stroke out, or eat his own gun? Stay tuned....