Apocalypse Now: The Sopranos

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The Encyclopedia of Film Criticism: Michael Pattison

Michael Pattison

Just as the cinematic landscape as a whole is peppered too sporadically with outstanding works, so on a micro level, unremarkable films frustrate precisely because otherwise fine technical rendering is undone by an apparent unwillingness to confront prevailing political currents.

Contributed to: Sight & Sound, MUBI, Fandor, Grolsch Film Works, Jigsaw Lounge, IndieWire, Film Comment, Senses of Cinema, Slant Magazine, Eye For Film, Front Row Reviews, Permanent Plastic Helmet, The Big Picture, Beyond the Green Door, Festivalists, New Empress, So Film UK, de Filmkrant.

Noted Champion of: The Sopranos, Patrick Keiller, Story of My Death, Ken Loach, Russell Crowe, Alfred Hitchcock.

Influences: "My inner teenage completist-auteurist was influenced by annual Halliwell’s and Time Out Film Guides. I attribute much of my cultural taste and knowledge to the small message board community I hung out with between 2005-2010 (political sensibilities are definitely indebted to this period). I don’t read many critics. Nick James’s monthly editorials and Nick Roddick’s former ‘Mr. Busy’ column in Sight & Sound were influential for a number of years after I began reading that magazine in December 2004, aged 17."

The road to Gateshead-born Michael Pattison (October 12th, 1987-) publishing his first paid review for de Filmkrant in 2013 was long and storied. While in high school he co-founded an international online message board focused on politics and the arts (this would eventually become the foundation of idFilm, where Pattison collects his writing). From 2005-2009 his accolades are innumerable. In 2005 he's "awarded second prize in a writing competition that culminated in a published anthology of site-responsive prose." He was a member of the inaugural Northern Stars Filmmakers Academy, in Northeast England, where he began making films and playing many roles (writer, director, editor, actor). Directs and co-scripts Road which picks up a National Young Filmmaker’s Award at the Leeds Young People’s Film Festival. He graduates from the University of East Anglia, BA Honors in Film & English Studies. And during this time he never stops writing.

He writes prose, a dissertation on The Sopranos, is selected to be part of Words & Music Review, a music journalism initiative, and is President of the University of East Anglia Film Society for two years running, contributing regular reviews to the student newspaper. He begins contributing to Front Row Reviews before getting his MA in film at Newcastle University and just before moving into professional film journalism and reviewing writes a dissertation on Patrick Keiller’s Robinson Trilogy. Since his first review appeared in de Filmkrant, he's juried for and covered a dozen film festivals for various publications (first dispatched on behalf of Neil Young's Jigsaw Lounge), become a member of the Online Film Critics Society and FIPRESCI, has contributed to dozens of serious film journals, continued to make films, started programming for the Bradford International Film Festival and earned a regular column at Fandor's Keyframe. In other words he puts most of us to shame.

Pattison is a pragmatic stylist, someone who never flaunts his formidable intellect unnecessarily. Much of his writing, specifically his latest dispatches from the Rotterdam Film Festival for Mubi, contains the overwhelming sense that he not only hopes for the best from film artists, but will draw blood if necessary in defense of an ideal (and politically engaged) cinema. He holds everyone to a higher standard and believes that every gesture, articulation and decision can be the best imaginable. It's a genuinely exciting point of view and it makes his reviews all the more engaging.

On Classe Tous Risques:
Belmondo’s the kind of actor who imbues in his characters an inscrutable edge; as long as he’s in the scene, nought can go wrong. Classe tous risques was released the same year as Belmondo’s breakthrough, Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle, and while in that film he’s the happy-to-go-lucky, Bogey-admiring, footloose wanderer, here he’s a pro till the end. It’s somehow apt, then, that Classe tous risques fell into relative obscurity alongside its hipper, flashier counterpart. The nouvelle vague had fashion on its side. But this is the brawnier, burlier, bulkier and in some ways brainier film by far.

On Bastards:
In Bastards, France is a top-to-bottom nightmare of all-consuming corruption. But its deeper, more troubling implication is not that big business is the bad guy, but that its position is enabled by more systemic evils. And just when you think you’ve dealt the beast a deathblow, the extent to which it has corrupted the innocent into aiding and abetting it is revealed. The lasting feeling here is one of absolute despair.

On Side Effects:
Following Contagion, Haywire and Magic Mike, Side Effects is apparently Steven Soderbergh's final feature as director - an announcement that has no-doubt overshadowed this intriguing and experimental work, as critics struggle to come to terms with what they'd like to be a kind of summary statement. But Soderbergh was set to do his own thing from the off, and the unfussy way in which he has gone about an experimental and prolific output for the past few years is something indeed to admire. Suffice to say, at a time of crisis with regard to the funding, distribution and exhibition of independent film, the apparent retirement of its one-time king says more than any film could.

True Detective: Seeing Things

Fox on True Detective's second episode.

I paid much more attention to the opening credits on this episode. They’re fairly typical of an HBO credit sequence. Beautifully shot and edited. A tad abstract. But what’s terrific about these credits is exactly what they depict. The sequence uses double exposure to project cityscapes, highways, church interiors and other locales onto the faces, foreheads, and abdomens of the series’ various characters. It shows these men and women as completely made up of their surroundings. They’re products of their environment. While this isn’t completely original thinking by any means it is a great entry into the headspace this series wants it’s audience to occupy. People are indeed a product of their environment and when opening moments of "Seeing Things" returns us to the back and forth narrative structure of past and present, we’re forced to think of how this gothic, murderous depiction of Louisiana is going to mold young Rust and Marty into their present day forms. And that’s just the first two minutes.

As if to call back to my comments last week about this not really being an according to Hoyle original cop drama, Marty has a great line of inner monologue where he likens police work to screenwriting. “You’re looking for narrative. Interrogate witnesses. Parsing evidence. Establish a timeline. Build a story. Day after day.” It’s a great insight to how his character approaches police work that completely backs up what we already know about him. But it’s also a nod to the audience. Cop stories have been done to death on TV. This show’s creators know that. And they’re really hoping you’ll stick with them to discover what they think is going to make this one different. Luckily I think we already have an idea. Star power is a great marketing tool but in the age of HBO finding stellar nobodies to fill roles it’s not everything. So when a series like True Detective tracks down two very killer performers I like to think it’s because the show’s creators know they’re going to need a deep bench. They're going to take these two lead characters into difficult territory and they need to be sure that whoever did land the parts would be able to bring them home.

True Detective’s second episode takes it’s leads to task right away. We learn from present Rust’s video confessional that even before the ’95 case he worked four long years as a deep cover narc. He cites a double cartel murder he committed with little more than a wave of his hand. We also see a hint of a smirk sneak into his thousand-yard stare as he asks the interviewing detectives, “you boys didn’t know that?” This revelation sort of scares me. Whatever happened to Rust between the ’95 case and now must really be something to have affected him so much. Especially when we know that his deep cover work was filled with drug addiction and violence and that resulted in a great, if stone faced and occasionally PTSD-and-hallucination stricken cop. The creators know that we want more insight into that period before the series ends. It does seem to inform why Rust dropped off the grid for so long after the ’95 case concluded. But what happened during those years to get him to his present state? The mystery box remains wide open.

This episode also gives us more insight into Marty’s character. He really wasn’t given much screen time in the pilot so he earned himself some more in this outing. It rapidly becomes clear why: Marty cheats on his wife with a woman named Lisa who works at the courthouse played by Alexandra Daddario. This is nothing new for a modern television audience. Don Draper and Tony Soprano had plenty of trysts in their respective series and we round out the antihero trinity with Marty echoing Walter White saying his cheating was “for the good of the family”. This facet of Marty’s character doesn’t do much for me but I really don’t think it’s supposed to. What’s important here is that we aren’t supposed to side with Marty. Unlike the leads on Mad Men or The Sopranos Marty isn’t our audience’s only direct line into the series’ established universe so we don’t have to try and justify what he’s up to just to like him more. If this show were about Marty Hart exclusively, it wouldn’t be all that good. Quality aside, we’d have seen it all before. But because we’re given Rust as his foil we’re allowed to see into a world we really haven’t been able to before. Neither Mad Men nor The Sopranos provided its leads with a distorted mirror image and this aspect is what’s going to keep me watching True Detective.

Last week, I wrote that humanity is the singular cause for evil in the world, in True Detective’s world. And whether it's the cause or effect of that evil, humanity managed to escape nature during its rise to autonomy. So it’s only natural then that those who live on the outskirts of society return to nature. Marty and Rust spend some time this episode investigating a group of prostitutes who live quite literally in the middle of nowhere. They’ve dragged some trailers out into the swamp and treat it as their own private sanctuary. And even while Marty berates them for their life styles they really appear as the only truly loving group of people in the series so far. And that’s part of why this show continues to have me hooked. It presents itself as one very familiar type of series. Cops and killers. Hookers and junkies. But just as quickly as it sets up its camps, True Detective quickly tears down our pre-existing ideas of who these people are and gets to the complex, dark, and surprisingly vulnerable creatures within.

A Clean Sword - Game of Thrones Season Two

Last year around this time, Fox and I started a very tangent-filled, casual, spoilery, swear-laden dialogue about Game of Thrones, which was airing its second season. I had intended to edit each one down every week and run them as a series, but we would inevitably still be talking by the time the next episode aired and I lost track of time. So here, in honor of the third season beginning (and our chats along with them) is our talk about Season Two, with most of the smut and personal anecdotes excised for clarity. This happened over ten weeks so bear with it...

"Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow." -Lord Varys

Fox Alright, I'll start by saying that much like the first season its incredibly hard to watch the show one episode at a time. It's a slow burner for sure but I think its more based on the fact that since they're really adhering to the bookish nature of the storyline there aren't really "breaking points" for an episode to end. Every episode just leaves me wanting more which is definitely the mark of a solid show but it's different. I'm not quite sure how to convey that idea.    In short I'm loving the new season. More importantly I'm loving the new characters. So far I think they've spent just as much time if not more time on the new people, which is ballsy for a young show like this but I think its really working.       

Scout   Aside, this is from an international dvd brief from Cinema Scope magazine: On another recent trip, thanks to Bloomington resident James Naremore, I managed to land an English-subtitled version of one of my all-time favourite French noirs (and, arguably, the very first), Jean Renoir’s 1932 La nuit du Carrefour (1932), on a homemade label calling itself Video Dimensions, with Douglas Fairbanks’ The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) included as an extra.        

Fox   Well thats possibly the best news I've ever gotten in a Game of Thrones facebook thread.        

 Scout To damn that piece of news with faint praise. Balon Greyjoy blew my mind. I loved him in yesterdays episode. What a shitbag he is.  I liked how much of a shitbag he was because with Theon standing next to him to intimidate, he's basically powerless.

Fox boooooi! Love Davos the pirate, too. And Melisandre is downright terrifying

Scout   Oh yeah. Carice Van Houten, a titan! Perfect for that role! I love that Melisandre's whole story line is spelled out in just that moment alone with Stannis. Like you can see every possible bad way that shit's gonna end.        

Fox Although it's killer watching it one at a time - it's the most all-at-once show I've ever seen

Scout   You wanna be like "Ain't you seen a goddamn movie before!?"   It's so fatalistic. Even more so than Deadwood.        

Fox For sure. I just love how hard they're going to make it a book-tv show . They don't give a shit about spending time with fan's favorite characters.    They're telling a story and refuse to compromise      

Scout   Exactly. But in doing so they actually get more mileage out of their cast. The thing about the structure is that, yes, you'll only spend a minute with Daenerys and Jorah, but those two sell the plight in that time with no problem because they're great at what they do. And it also makes you appreciate those few minutes with these people because you know there's a lot going on in the world. 

Fox I've never had more faith in a show runner (or show runners in this case). They love Game of Thrones to death so they're doing it right. It's funny because having read the story I still come at this season like its something completely new. I guess I did with the first season as well     but it's got me in unfamiliar territory and I like it  .

Scout Last season seemed so much more about establishment. They had room in a given episode to follow winding and often cryptic conversations to strange ends because they were helping you get to know these people and understand exactly what sort of world this was. Which worked not only to give you a sense of what the show was, but also what it wasn't. It's not whimsical, it's not about fulfilling prophecy, it's about everyone trying to keep their head above water. So the first season played like a cross between something by Aaron Sorkin and The Sopranos. They took their time within a given scene and filled them to the brim with crackling verbiage. This season, whole nother fuckin' ballgame. Because we know everyone every scene feels like a cliff-hanger, even if nothing happens. Far more than last season I feel like I absolutely have to know what happens next when the credits roll, which is a major improvement over the great first season. The show isn't as densely written these days because it can only spend a minute in every kingdom, which is slightly to its detriment, but the pacing is now closer to first season Walking Dead territory. I need to see what happens, something that the first season only managed in the last few episodes for me.        

Fox   Thats a great way of putting it. Yeah I'm interested to see if they slow down. I'm really trying not to compare it to the book. We recently discussed the problems with that. What I will say is that the novel is SUPER slow and it's almost entirely Tyrion's ballgame. I think that the writers know that it's a stagnant story at times (though never bad or boring) so they're trying to make it as manic as possible, especially since there's a war on now even though there's no combat yet        

 Scout   Indeed. It's a little more West Wing this time around and less Sopranos. Which I like because I know these people and because the writing is still amazing. If we get one good Tyrion scene, I'm happy because I know he's got a lot to do this season and if it's stuck between the other people that the Lannisters will have to deal with when the actual combat starts, I'm ok with it. What they've done is made this season The Two Towers. It's a gradual build-up to something we know is being promised. The difference is that Towers felt like a lot of wheel spinning when it wasn't directly about Aragorn building up the Hornburg's defenses. GOT is better because everyone's headed to the same fracus, and you want to know what the combatants will be up against and whether the fighting will actually come to mean a damn. If the backroom dealings and stealth firings/assassinations continue, there may be no allies left. It's an exciting feeling whenever someone leaves by a different door than they came in.          

Fox   I'm rewatching "The Night Lands" and I'm realizing how I'm a total sucker for horribly sun burned lips. Dany and Jorah wandering the desert is actually the most compelling part of this season so far. And you're totally right. Even though the sequences are so brief they pack the most wallop.         The one thing I will say is that they had better really nail us with a battle near the end of the season. Even though the show is brilliant with just dialogue-driven sequences they really need to build up to something this season. I think they will but I'm saying that they must to give a lot of what they're doing real meaning.         

Scout   It's funny, there are a few things I can think of where a sort of action setpiece is filled exclusively with people we know. To go back to a previous example, Helm's Deep may as well have been a Hanna Barbara cartoon because the only people we knew or cared about on either side of the fighting was Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, who we'd been with the whole time and who were never in any real danger to begin with. What I'm excited to see is a battle where all sides are filled to bursting with people we know, and not simply faceless soldiers. The beauty of HBO is that the cast of characters on a given show is massive and so when even a minor character is stabbed to death, you feel it. The best example of this is, for my money, on Deadwood when out of nowhere you discover that someone, who is narratively a minor character, turns into someone you realize is a huge part of the reason you love the show. I'll always cite W. Earl Brown as Dan Dorrity perfecting the art of the Milch side character. Brown meant nothing to me until midway through the second season when Al Swearengen's laid up in bed, suffering and pissing blood, and Dorrity excuses himself to cry on the balcony. Until then you hadn't really figured he was much more than a child in a hulking and terrifying man's body. You'd seen him capable of jealousy, but that's not much on the emotional richter scale. Here he was openly sad, experiencing emotions so overwhelming he could barely explain them to Trixie later in the day. And just like that someone who will never actively figure into the plot as you could write it on paper, became an indispensable character. To the point that when his life is in danger, I found myself saying that he was the one character I was certain I could not live without. And then they pull the rug out from under you by killing someone equally if not more important. Now, that's a very long tangent, but my point is that the best shows on HBO or Showtime or wherever will fill their worlds with enough people to sell the place as believable.

Todd Van Der Werff constantly talks about Deadwood as a microcosm of community which means that someone like Dorrity or in his case Charlie Utter can be people you love and believe in, even if they're often sidelined by the ostensible leads. So what I'm saying is that when Game of Thrones gets to the combat portion of the story, it's going to be one of the most brutal and honest moments in currently running TV series. Let me explain: until this point the GOT writers have made it abundantly clear that no one's life is guaranteed, unless they're so much a shitheel that killing them before the end of the show would rob the series of a lot of drama and of a greater catharsis, as in the case of Cersei and Joffrey, who still have so many more situations to ruin. And as we've seen not even being the show's lead character and poster adornment will save you from the executioner. So, why this is so exciting is because as the show fills out its world with more and more characters, each of whom we know better with every episode, when they finally clash, the stakes will be astronomical because everyone in danger of being killed in their scenes of combat could be someone's favourite character. If Stannis' forces make it to King's Landing first, you have Bronn, The Hound, Ilyn Payne and potentially Tyrion on one side, and Davos, Stannis, Mathos and Salladhor fighting with the fate of Melisandre, Joffrey, Cersei, Baelish and countless others in the balance. If the North gets their first, Theon, Robb, etc. will be on the battlefield. Then anyone could and probably will get an axe buried in their face and that'd the end of it. Film typically doesn't have the potential for wringing this much pathos out of a set piece, unless it's something like the excellent Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, but even there you only really knew about 10% of the crew. What I'm saying is even if it only lasts for ten minutes, it's going to be amazing.        

 Fox   It certainly doesn't help that I'm approaching this show from a reader's stand point as well so I know more or less exactly what's going to happen narratively. Though some of my excitement is extinguised in that regard I have even more fun watching exactly how the writers decide to carry out a lot of the action in the show. I'm in full agreement with your saying that the stakes are high no matter what. That is unquestionably true. The way the book goes about telling the eventual chaos (as with a lot of what goes on in the book) is they sort of sideline the action and only tell you hearsay and at most what one or two characters experienced there.

I really have no problem with this method and much prefer it to being treated to a God's Eye camera so that I always know what's going on. This method fails more often than not because it doesn't allow the audience to truly delve into the world they medium is trying to sell you. GOT does a tremendous job of putting its viewers into its locales by first putting you into it's character's shoes. I guess my plea for violence comes from a yearning to really see GOT go ballistic on itself. I think their advertising for this season (constantly promising that "War Is Coming") had better pay off with some serious blood if only to satiate the viewers who don't really get what GOT is going for yet, but I have to say I'd love to see a really well executed battle sequence mainly because I've seen the series succeed flawlessly at just about everything else. I want one more great battle for my "best of" pantheon.        

"You gave me away!" -Theon Greyjoy

Fox  Stray observations from this week: First, best episode this season. Second, Lena Headey rocks the fucking shit as Cersei. Even more so than people give her credit for. Theres so much going on in her head. You can see these wonderful little nuances in her eyes, particularly when she's dealing with Sansa. It's like Cersei really just wants Sansa to bust out and rebel like crazy but can't ever let her at the same time. In direct opposition to that, the guy that plays Little Finger drives me fucking crazy. He looks the part for sure and I'd never call him a bad actor but he is incredibly inconsistent as LF. I hate to judge him harshly but LF is one of the most secretive and interesting characters and I really think he's dropping the ball more than he's carrying it.          

Scout  Let me first say this: Natalie Dormer's here, and I couldn't be happier. She's got that very english cuteness that I can't resist and has a splendid curiousity about the violent craziness around her. Those eyes are alive with it. The way she treats her husband is so goddamn perfect (Oh, and I'm glad as anything that the gay knights are back) her manner is so agreeable that you don't know if she's taunting him or appeasing him when she says that she'll turn over and pretend to be her brother. Either way, she's running the show at Renly Baratheon's place. Anyway, I'll see your Cersei compliment and raise you a Theon Greyjoy finally coming into his own. I liked him more and more as his dad smacked him around but it wasn't until Theon bites back with "You Gave Me Away," that a whole season worth of his being minor and ineffectual made sense and he became a real character. He's been in the shadow his whole life - unloved by one family, another kind of bastard in the other.

 But to your criticism about Aiden Gillen - I don't mind him being tossed aside like this because he's paying for handing over Ned Stark by losing his control over everything except the girls in his harem - and even they need to be terrorized in order to do what he wants. He was who you describe him as in the first season, but the way I see it, and the way I want it, everyone who had a hand in Ned's murder (namely LF, the eunuch and Walter Donavan), Tyrion's going to make them pay. Not because he cares about Ned Stark (though I think he respects him and was sorry to see him die) but because everyone who killed him happens to be in opposition to his taking power, pleasing his father and staying alive. So perhaps LF's fallen in your estimation and in his stature as secret keeper, but I don't think it's by accident. Watching Tyrion move pawns is so hugely entertaining that I don't mind anyone seeming small in his presence. I loved his conflicting wedding proposals, I loved him putting Shae in Sansa's bed chamber (maybe one of the best scenes in the episode), I loved him intimidating Donavan with Bronn. I love him in charge. And because of this, I have to predict that it won't last because this show is just as crafty and backhanded as he is.

 A final note. The series is paced much more briskly this time around, so even if we spend time with a given character, it's in a series of locations, as with Renly and Tyrion. And then comes that beautiful sequence with Arya and Yoren. Yoren is my favourite kind of character on Game of Thrones - dependable, colorful and bearded. Yoren, along with Bronn (who, it must be said, is to GOT what Dan Dorrity was to Deadwood) and Jorah Mormont, lives to serve, each in his own way. They are supporting players but they imbue their characters with experience, of lives hard lived and piece of mind hard earned. They have nothing to prove and act because they believe in who they act for.

The story Yoren tells is about the one purpose he had in life, revenge, is beautiful not only because he delivers it quite nicely, but also because it shows that the things that Arya and the other lead characters are building to now, the things that this series are ultimately about, are still ahead of them. His purpose has been met; he killed the man who killed his brother, so every step he takes is for someone other than himself. So it was fitting to see him go for Arya because she still has her destiny, for lack of a better word, ahead of her. And I think he was happy to die for her. And better still, he left with a cry that will ring in my ears long after his presence has ceased to be felt on the show: "There's men out there want to fuck your corpses!"

Fox   Good gravy Natalie Dormer. Yes she runs the show in Renly's camp for sure. And I agree 100% about not being fully sure how she actually feels about Renly's orientation which was brilliant. I think for the first time in the show's 13 episode run I actually came away liking Theon. Which I'm glad about. As far as the book is concerned, you're occasionally in Theon's head but you never really like him and more importantly you don't sympathize with him. The writers here have done a fantastic job putting us in Theon's camp, even if it is only for a little while.           

Now Aiden Gillen. My complaints have very little to do with his situation. One of my favorite sequences ever in this show is Tyrion laying down the law 3 different ways on Varys, Little Finger, and Grand Meister Pycelle. My troubles with Alden come entirely from watching his body language. Because though Little Finger is a sniveler to some degree he's almost always in control whether the audience knows it or not. I found him particularly inconsistent in last night's episode. Alright I'll stop complaining about him. It's not worth it since last night was (for me) the best episode this season. They're really picking up speed but managed to spend more time with almost as many people as the previous two episodes.   Arya and Yoren stole the show for me last night as well, even after I just harped about Tyrion's wonderful work. It was so tender yet very funny in the way that I only thought Deadwood could ever truly deliver on. I'm just happy that Arya got even a little bit of sympathy for her plight from Yoren. Because at the end of the day, Arya is 12 years old and that girl is going through some serious shit for anyone let alone a girl her age. And as far as last lines go, I'm putting Yoren's on my tombstone.        

"Bronn, the next time Sir Meryn speaks kill him" - Tyrion Lannister        

Scout   TCM's running an old ad for Mack Sennett. With Featured player Harry Langdon. On a keystone cop pie fight, the narrator helpfully informs us: "This one killed in its day!"        

Fox   You have to remember that all the guys that put those ads together were first seeing those things their freshman year in quallege. Ladies and Gentleman, this is "Garden of Bones"

They start by doing a lovely little job of showing the ferocity with which Robb Stark is fighting his war. The soldiers that die at Grey Wind's jaws are not obviously evil men. They're sitting their post (in a heavy downpour no less) and are trying to make the best of their situation. Robb's conversation with the field nurse Talisa, following the slaughter was great as well. Eye opening for both sides of the war. We finally get a little insight as to Robb's intentions and its almost comforting that he wants nothing to do with the Iron Throne.        

Fox When Joffrey's bedroom scene got going I really felt it was over the top. I wasn't exactly sure if they needed to drive the point home as much as they did as far as him being a madman. I came to be fine with the scene only because they're really trying to ramp the stakes up. Absolutely no one is safe from Joffrey's sadistic nature. Not whores. Not Sansa. Not even his own mother. Though these are all female examples, we got a few others at the end of Season 1 including the minstrel who was singing ill-willed songs about Joffrey's lineage and of course Ned Stark himself.  Little Finger got some nice air time in this episode. He heads to the Storm Lands to speak with Margaery Tyrell (and any time at all with Natalie Dormer is a blessing) as well as Cat Stark and Renly. Though he's here on Tyrion's orders, he does a wonderful job taking control of his situation and getting everything he would want and every word he wants said, out before taking his leave. Little Finger also has no qualms about toying with Cat. Even though he loves her (and its probably the only genuine feeling that he feels for anyone) he isn't even remotely afraid to play with her motherly affection to try and strike and deal with her instead of Robb.        

Arya's storyline is frightening as always. The first shot of Harrenhall is fucking horrifying and then we watch with Arya as strangers and friends are tortured. It was smart of the writers to not really explain yet what it was the interrogator was asking for. It added to the general confusion of the situation. Tywin knowing she was a girl was a great little touch. Plus its a nice surprise to see a Lannister appear as a guardian angel.       

"Born amidst salt and smoke? Is he a ham" -Renly Baratheon        

Fox   Daenerys finally learns that being a Targaryen and a Khalisee will not get her everything. She's spent her life surrounded by men who get everything they want through threats, violence, and fear. At Qarth, Dany now has to try a new method: Submission. And she doesn't take to it well since she spent the first 16 odd years of her life being forced into this very way of life. Arya is really beginning her transformation this episode. When she watches her friends (and even strangers) die, she doesn't cry or show fear. She's tempering steel. She's hardening herself for the most true and total revenge. And I really can't wait until she gets it. Tyrion is so absolutely thrilling to watch. Not only because Dinklage is a revelation but because Tyrion is literally the most powerful man in the realm and he's utilizing his power in the smartest way. He's moving the most pieces out of anyone but he's doing it with such skill that it's impossible to look away.        

Lastly, we don't see magic a lot in Game of Thrones. So when we do it needs to be a big deal. Melisandre's shadow child is absolutely terrifying and is important for a number of reasons. 1. Renly seems to be in real trouble now that we see exactly what Stannis was threatening him with. 2. Melisandre isn't just all morbid talk. The woman is very very dangerous especially now that we know the kind of power she can harness. Great episode.         

Scout   This episode is all about sleight of hand. The show could be said to be about the hands moving pawns, the action behind the action. This episode has Tyrion responding to harshness with uncanny deftness. He'll walk into any given room, change the tone and direction of whatever conversation or action he witnesses, and then leaves in charge of everyone and everything. He's going around snipping wings in King's Landing, meanwhile I couldn't help feeling like the whole scene in Qarth was a put-on, a bait-and-switch to lull Dany into a false sense of empowerment. Stannis talks a big game, but he's in Melisandre's pocket. Tyrion and Baelish are hoping to use Cat to get around Robb. Stanis came to Renly to get him to surrender, already prepared for his refusal. Tywin Lannister, in thirty seconds of screentime, puts a few people abusing their tiny amount of power in their place and changes the fortune of many. In other words, earnestness is a put-on, and everyone's hoping that someone gives them a reason. Everyone wants to be pushed so they can flex their muscle, whatever it may be. So even though no one is stabbed to death, this is the most exciting episode we've seen all season.

Fox   So 6 seasons in, The Sopranos is just starting to be on the same level as Deadwood. 

Scout Yeah, it took some time getting there, but the time it wrapped up, it was absolutely unmissable. I love the last episode so much.        

Fox   I didn't even know you've watched The Sopranos, but yeah this season is so far above the last seasons and i'm only 4 episodes in.

Scout   Oh, yeah. I saw the whole thing. Barring a few in Six part 2.     You hit johnny Sack's Wedding yet? That's some Godfather type genius shit.     Or, well I guess it's not his wedding. It's his daughter's wedding.        

Fox   It's in the next episode but I'm watching this show entirely for the last episode so that i can understand everyone's problem with it. I'm fully prepared to love it. 

Scout I had no problem at all with the last episode. To me it's as fitting as Al on his knees scrubbing blood off the floor. How else are you going to end a show that's one portion of a hundred people's lives? Nothing's going to wrap it all up for them. You know? Van Der Werff said of Deadwood that he liked the feeling that you could still happen upon these people if you somehow walked into the black hills. I think they were after the same sort of thing.          

Fox   A great point. I think the people that were upset were the non-critical viewers who watched it for the mob part, which is still the least interesting aspect of the series for me        

Scout   Yeah. I like that critics are still talking about the ending to The Sopranos.        

Fox   I know pretty much everything about how it ends except how they get there        .

Scout You'll like it. There's a thing at a gas station that is blackly hysterical that I still think about from time to time.       

Fox   But having seen most of this, most of The Wire, and all of Deadwood I think the latter tops the holy trinity of television.

Scout Game of Thrones has the uncanny ability to turn my hands into Devil Horns. My official word is simple: This episode manages to burn even brighter than last week's despite it being simply the release of tension expelled in the first scene. It's all agreements, bonds and promises, and is it ever thrilling! Brien and Cat, Arya and the prisoner, Little Finger and the widowed queen, Tyrion and the alchemists, Theon and his first mate, Jon and the rangers, and on and on and on. Every union broadens my smile because not only is it this kind of bond that Game does so well (somehow people swearing allegiance to each other has the excitement of a swordfight and the catharsis of a love scene in this show) but also because they all grow stronger to fight each other. Each gains a powerful ally, each goes from crawling to walking in proving themselves worthy of the throne and toward their destiny. 

On an individual note how goddamned great is Iain Glen? We've talked about him before, how much we adored his understated performance in the first season and here he finally gets a moment of confession that you believe in. Most confessions in the show come either with the stench of guile or the earnestness of the naive. Jorah Mormont is neither a liar nor an innocent. At times he seems the last noble character. When backed into a corner he does not grovel and beg for Dany's love or even confess what I assume is the extent of his; he keeps his head above water, remains uninvolved and yet somehow strikes at her sympathy deeper than if he had started in with schoolboy language. "Sometimes I stare at you and can't believe you're real." These are the words of someone besotted, and it's clear that Mormont has feelings that run deeper than protector or companion, but he sells his devotion so simply and so perfectly. He is there to keep Dany honest, to remind her that she can unseat the firmly grounded simply by being herself. She seems uncertain of it because she sees a veritable buffet waiting for her just within reach but Mormont has two excellent reasons to warn her away from what she thinks she wants. One, she won't be queen as he sees her, free of debts to anyone but himself (which I feel he'd shrug off in a minute - he seemed content to die of thirst for her). And second she'd be another man's wife, which would kill him a little. And mind you, Glen says all this in about twenty seconds with nothing more than that beautifully grizzled face and the most heartfelt delivery a man with his inner scars can muster. It's a command performance among command performances. To return once more to Deadwood, he's Whitney Ellsworth with a touch of the bleeding, violent interior of Seth Bullock. As if it needed to be said, I can't goddamn wait to see what happens next.          

Fox Everyone made a partnership this episode and if the pieces weren't clearly moving before, they certainly are now. I'm so glad you mentioned the fealty bit because I was on the edge of my seat when Brienne drew her sword for Catelyn. I'm trying to keep the book and the series seperate but Margaery Tyrell gets a lot less time in the novel. Its clear the show runners know what they've got and are giving Natalie Dormer every single chance they can for her to slowly turn her head and flash those sexy ass fox eyes. Arya's new friendship with Jaqen H'ghar is wonderful. He makes me smile everytime he's on screen but what's more important is Arya has power (though a thimbleful) for the first time ever and it'll be very interesting to see who she picks for the remaining two lives owed. Literally every scene with Bronn has me psyched. The dude doesn't have to even do anything anymore and I'll still be laughing madly at every one liner he's got.           

Ladies and Gentlemen, Iain Glen. I didn't even know what to do with myself when he dropped his 20 second monologue. I really wish it was the last scene in the episode only so that it'd force viewers to think about it even more. In a show where literally every single word uttered is a lie, we finally got some genuine truth and its about what seems to be the rarest thing in Westeros, Qarth and all the rest: Real genuine love.       

Scout Charles 'Charlie' Dance and Maisie Williams rocking out. Fuck a goddamn I love the way this show does verbal sparring matches. Jon and Ygritte, Jaime and his cousin, Tyrion and Cersei, Theon and everybody who'll listen to him bitch. It's like chess and sex in one. This was the first episode where tension was sustained from scene to scene. Skipping between Qarth, Winterfell and beyond the wall was an excellent choice. Stakes are always high in Westeros but we've never been more certain that death is over the next hill.          

Fox   The last couple of episodes they've actually strayed from the books a great deal. I don't want to compare them but its nice to see that the writers of the show are treating the series like a second chance to tell a great story. Dany's dragons never get stolen in the book but it's making for a much more interesting plot line for her. And Tywin and Arya literally never say word one to each other in all their time together at Harrenhall. Thank god they've added those sequences because they're arguably the best the show has ever done. And yes, even with only a brief glimpse at Tyrion he's a frontrunner for stealing the show with that little quip off with Cersei. This show needs to stop casting such wonderful women because ever since Ygritte showed up I've just been pawing my way over furniture to be as close to the TV as possible when she says anything. She's one of the best casting choices yet.       

"Any man dies with a clean sword I'll rape his fucking corpse!" -The Hound

Fox   How did "Blackwater" treat you?        

Scout   Haha!!!!! "Blackwater" proves my desperation in the face of a narrative and spectacle. So a storm knocked out my internet and I got it back around 10. I started two downloads, one for a 1.56 gb, one for a 386 mb, which oddly took longer. So I start watching and the file's too big for my processor and every few seconds the screen freezes, then tries to trudge through the frozen image - I'm sure you know what I mean. So this won't do. I go online to find it streaming and it works, but the picture and sound are shit. So I kept switching between them until Stannis hits the beach. Finally the other download is at 97% and I decide to just sit in silence and wait it out to watch it in slightly diminished quality but better sound. Which means I watched that guy get his shit wrecked by a thrown rock three or four times. Upside I got to hear the Hound say "Any man dies with a clean sword I'll RAPE HIS FUCKING CORPSE!!!!" three times . A fantastic episode that makes you forget about everyone else in Westeros. The Hound makes the strongest showing of himself yet. Rory McCann takes a one-note character and gives him life. I loved this episode. I loved Tyrion cutting off a warrior's leg and proving Varys right about his ability to save the city. I loved this fucking episode!         

Fox   Couldn't have said it any better myself. The wildfire explosion actually forced me to stand up out of my chair and yell at the tv. George R.R. Martin actually wrote that one too. It's always interesting to see changes that an author makes on their own material for film and television.       

Scout   Agreed. It's like Lindqvist doing the script for Let The Right One In - you have to know the strengths of the medium, because that novel is a real grotesque slog and that movie is the most beautiful thing ever made.  

Fox  But I think the best parts of the episode were all the dismemberings. They were fucking incredible and all completely unexpected.        

Scout Rewatching this, I agree with your dismemberment theory two-fold. For this we have Director Neil Marshall to thank. Someone else might not have thought like he did. Neil knows work on a budget - he's never had bloat (except maybe Doomsday, when he blew it) so he knows that if you get a little money, you've got to make it last. So the dismemberments are not only tonally appropriate to the grisly proceedings in Westeros, but also Neil uses them as shorthand for the violence of combat. You only see one or two men getting killed in battle, but those few men are cut in half or have the tops of their heads cut right the fuck off so their brains are like a blood mary in Dudley Moore's shaky hands. You're going to remember those images, and you're going to get how fucking dirty the men of King's Landing fight.        

Fox   I think you're totally right. The imagery from the episode that really stays with me are all the dismemberment and the Wildfire explosion. I remember the entire time I was watching it on tv I kept looking at the clock hoping for more time for fighting. What I didn't notice while doing that is the entire episode goes by in a flash. Its nothing but gold even when there isn't any fighting. Cersei's drunken breakdown is fantastic. (Though I will say that the most touching thing on the planet also happens in "Blackwater". Sansa bitched Ned out for getting her that doll and she was so attached to it in this episode) Really tugs at the haat strings....    

Scout Tugs right on 'em.       

Scout   Well that was a hell of a way to end a season.

Fox   Haha. Yeah they're really setting everyone up for disaster in book three. It was an extremely busy finale unlike the first season. I'm just about to the point where I want a spin off buddy cop movie with Jaime and Brienne.        

Scout   Best scene. I loved Jamie's cockney put-on  .

And then we start talking about lord knows what. A bit of a copout considering how well the season ended, but then, we were too heartbroken to admit it was over. So we didn't say goodbye...we said bon voyage.

Better Late Than Never: A Latecomer's Season by Season Guide to The Sopranos

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Season 6 Act 2
The final act of The Sopranos carries quite a bit of weight behind it. The show's creators made it quite public that this was the end so everyone's expectations were risen quite a bit knowing that one of the biggest series in television history was coming to a close. But assuredly the question was asked by fans, critics, and me alike. How can they wrap up a show so vast in length, so high in technical and narrative quality in an abbreviated 9 episode season?

Easily, according to David Chase the show's creator and head writer.

The final 9 episodes sees a lot occur. The war between Jersey and New York finally comes to some kind of head as a number of main characters are involved in various shootouts and wind up dead. Some characters meet their demise completely removed from mob violence. I'm looking at you Christopher.

So after 8 episodes we're left with Tony's final hour of television. He's lost a number of great friends and associates. His son is dumber than ever. His daughter is a rising star at a law firm. His wife is finally spreading her wings in the real estate world she's been trying to break into for 3 seasons. But where is Tony? He's pretty much exactly where we found him six seasons ago. And thats the fucking point.

Life is full of experiences. Quite literally every waking moment is an experience whether is memorable or not. The Sopranos was probably the first show I've ever given my time to that really just shows a linear passage of time without ever truly stooping to dramatic storytelling. Any drama that does occur in the series is never far removed from anyone human being's own life. Car accidents, panic attacks, violent and devastating deaths. None of these are reserved for the realms of film and television. They happen every day.

It could be David Chase's supreme love of anti climax that brings the show to its controversial conclusion. Its as if we as viewers are just picking up the show again. We see a man and his family. We know what he does for a living but not really what he's going to do. We know nothing about his friends other than that they work with him. The final scene of The Sopranos could just as easily be the first. Tony sits down in a booth and puts “Don't Stop Believing” on the table's jukebox. He looks around the room seeing a couple and a small troop of boy scouts enjoying their meals. Carmella enters and the two of them discuss where their kids are and how long until they'll meat them at the diner. Tony quickly mentions the state of affairs with his job but the two of them shrug it off. AJ appears eager to order some of the restaurant's famous onion rings. Meadow pulls up outside but can't for the life of her parallel park the damn thing. AJ complains about work and Tony tells him to buck up. AJ responds by saying he should “focus on the good times” a direct quote from Tony earlier in the show. Tony smirks and says “Well, its true I guess.”. Meadow continues to have trouble parking. Tony watches every adult man in the restaurant for fear of mob violence taking place against him and his family. A waitress brings over a basket of onion rings. Meadow runs across the street from her car toward the restaurant's entrance. Tony puts another quarter in the jukebox. He hears the restaurant door bell and looks up.

And thats it. The song cuts out with the picture. The 86 hours of The Sopranos comes to a close.

But what does it mean?!

Well it means whatever the hell you want it to mean. And isn't that the point of art in general? To draw your own conclusions from stimuli? There is plenty to be said about the ending scene for sure. The use of an abrupt cut to black followed by several seconds of silence led many viewers to initially believe that their cable had cut out at a crucial moment. Opposing interpretations soon emerged among viewers regarding the ultimate fate of Tony Soprano with some believing that he was killed while others believe that he remains alive. One argument for the former points to a conversation that Tony had in the Act 2 premiere episode, “Members Only” with his brother-in-law Bobby, in which Bobby comments on how suddenly and without sound death can happen in their lives as gangsters: "you probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" A flashback to this scene also appears in the final minutes of "The Blue Comet", the episode preceding "Made in America".When questioned on the theory, HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer stated that the conversation is a "legitimate" hint. The final scene showing a man credited as "Man in The Members Only Jacket" who goes to the bathroom has been interpreted as a nod to a scene in the The Godfather, in which Michael Corleone retrieves a gun from the bathroom before shooting his enemies. Speculation has also linked the jacket to the title of the opening episode of the abbreviated season in which Tony is shot and also as a symbolic reference to membership of the Mafia. Actor Matt Servitto told Entertainment Weekly that in the script, the scene continued with the man in the Members Only jacket emerging from the washroom and starting to walk towards Tony's table before the screen cuts to black, but he preferred the ending that made the final cut of the episode.

But the other side stands to reason as well. Absolutely nothing could have happened. The man in the jacket could simply be the man in the jacket. How do you end a show like this? Whats wrong with simply ending a show about the life of a man? We know he will die. We don't know how but why does it really matter. The most human knowledge is that death comes no matter what and in the grand scheme of things why on earth does it matter how it finds you?

David Chase was hounded (and probably still is) about the end of the show. In an interview conducted by Brett Martin several weeks after the finale's original broadcast, Chase shared his views on the final episode and the reaction to it. On the fans of the show and the demand for an unambiguous and definitive ending, Chase remarked, "There was so much more to say than could have been conveyed by an image of Tony facedown in a bowl of onion rings with a bullet in his head. Or, on the other side, taking over the New York mob. The way I see it is that Tony Soprano had been people's alter ego. They had gleefully watched him rob, kill, pillage, lie and cheat. They had cheered him on. And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that. They wanted 'justice.' They wanted to see his brains splattered on the wall. I thought that was disgusting, frankly. The pathetic thing—to me—was how much they wanted his blood, after cheering him on for eight years."

Chase also made comments about the purported lack of finality in the final episode: "This wasn't really about 'leaving the door open.' There was nothing definite about what happened, but there was a clean trend on view—a definite sense of what Tony and Carmela's future looks like. Whether it happened that night or some other night doesn't matter." On the future of the Soprano children, Chase said, "A.J.'s not going to be citizen-soldier or join the Peace Corps or try to help the world; he'll probably be some low-level movie producer. But he's not going to be a killer like his father, is he? Meadow may not be a pediatrician or even a lawyer, but she's not going to be a housewife-whore like her mother. She'll learn to operate in the world in ways Carmela never did. [...] Tiny, little bits of progress—that's how it works."

On moments during and after the final scene, Chase referred to a scene from the episode "Stage 5”: "There are no esoteric clues in there. No Da Vinci Code. Everything that pertains to that episode was in that episode. And it was in the episode before that and the one before that and seasons before this one and so on. There had been indications of what the end is like. Remember when Gerry Torciano was killed? Silvio was not aware that the gun had been fired until after Gerry was on his way down to the floor. That's the way things happen: It's already going on by the time you even notice it. [...] I'm not saying anything. And I'm not trying to be coy. It's just that I think that to explain it would diminish it." Chase also addressed the widespread opinion that the open-ended finale was insulting to the show's longtime fans: "I saw some items in the press that said, 'This was a huge fuck you to the audience.' That we were shitting in the audience's face. Why would we want to do that? Why would we entertain people for eight years only to give them the finger? We don't have contempt for the audience. In fact, I think The Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience credit for having some intelligence and attention span. We always operated as though people don't need to be spoon-fed every single thing—that their instincts and feelings and humanity will tell them what's going on.

David Chase had set himself up with a no win scenario. I don't think there's an ending to a show like The Sopranos that more than half the viewership would have been cool with. What I will say is that I truly loved the ending and I applaud David Chase for not copping out. He had his ending and he gave it to you, like it or not.

So on the whole, how would I rate The Sopranos? I'd call it a solid and important piece of television. It is FAR from the best show I've ever seen particularly in its early seasons. But like most long form stories you can't just jump into the later arcs without a solid foundation to work on. So even though I'm not huge on the show's beginnings, they are 100% necessary. I would never say I regret watching the show. In fact, I think I learned a lot about what makes good TV by pushing through The Sopranos. I recommend the series to anyone who has the time to give it a fair run. But be warned. Its not an easy journey.

Final Word:

If there is anything the show didn't give me at the end, its more time with Dr. Melfi. The show's original premise was about a mobster in therapy (IMAGINE THAT!). Melfi became one of the most important parts of the show and though I realize series have to grow and chance I think that the writers simply lost their way with her and I think it does the series a disservice.

If I had to give the show a more comprehensive ending I would only add one thing. The ducks. Tony becomes obsessed with a small family of ducks that live in his pool in the first season. I'm sure it completely contradicts what David Chase had in mind for the end of the show but I truly think that the ducks reappearing in Tony's pool right before he heads off to the restaurant for the final scene would have given the show a strangely complete feel. But hey, thats me. Thanks for reading along everyone. I wish you all-

Better Late Than Never: A Latecomer's Season by Season Look at The Soprano's

Season 6 Act 1 -->

Season 6 Act 1 of The Sopranos comes with quite a lot of weight behind it. It's the beginning of the end. Its the calm before the storm. It's the deep breath before the plunge. So where does it all begin to end? It ends with the episode Members Only and with a man we met in season 3 and who sort of bounced around in the wings between then and now. His name is Eugene Pontecorvo and he wants out. He's inherited 2 million dollars from a deceased aunt and fully plans on moving to Florida with his wife, leaving the mob life behind. And what does he get for his good fortune and his aspirations? He gets Tony up his ass about leaving at this point we learn that Eugene has been an informant for the F.B.I. and they too can't see letting him leave at it would mean a serious loss in information in their case against La Cosa Nostra. So Eugene, paralyzed by the stresses of two immovable objects weighing down on his life, hangs himself in his basement. Good. For a second there, I though The Sopranos might go soft in it's final season. Now we can begin.

Now Eugene isn't the only storyline we follow in the premiere. In fact, in the grand scheme of the season its probably the least important. But it sights precedent and that's whats important. Again we see a person who finds a safe and easy way to escape the life of crime he's lead for so long. But he simply cannot. Whether it be fate or otherwise the stakes end up being too high and they can't get out. Eugene taking his own life is a nice touch. It ties back in quite well with the notion that at the end of the day a criminal only has his or herself to blame for their situation.

The big moment that starts off season 6 takes place at the end of the season premiere. Junior Soprano, increasingly overcome by his Alzheimer's, shoots Tony during a fit of strong memory loss. Tony then spends the next two episodes in a coma. And I'll go out on a limb and say that those two episodes are some of the best the series has ever produced. Tony takes a serious journey through his subconscious. He spends his time there as another man named Kevin Finnerty who is in turn looking for Tony Soprano to return a mistakenly taken briefcase. Tony's journey takes him through some strange adventures. He meets violent monks. He consistently sees a beacon, not unlike a lighthouse, on the horizon. He even meets a few characters who had died in seasons past. Outside of the coma, Carmella, AJ, and Meadow all struggle with Tony's situation and do all in their power (well...maybe not AJ) to be as supportive and positive as they can. On the mob front, everyone begins to wonder if Tony will actually ever come back and start to figure out who'll run the show if Tony does pass. But it all takes a serious back seat to Tony's dream experience. The key scene in Tony's coma comes when he gets to a giant house part out in the woods. The house is lit up like a Christmas tree and is filled with guests. Tony as Kevin Finnerty runs into Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) who is playing a waiter at the party. He comes to learn that this house is heaven and Blundetto is playing the role of St. Peter. Tony is very hesitant about entering the house and is even more put off when he sees a shadowy figure, no doubt a woman, standing just inside the doorway. Its pretty clear that we're looking at Livia Soprano and it makes sense that Tony would be especially put off at the idea of seeing her again.

Tony does escape the coma by the end of the 3^rd episode (to my disappointment) and we the audience are told exactly what this season is about. Tony's survival is a blessing and now he plans to live with that constantly in the front of his mind. But, this is The Sopranos we're talking about. Thats not the way things work. And sure enough, not long after Tony is recovered he heads right down the same road. He comes very close to cheating on Carm, though doesn't actually, and makes so attempt to clean up his life or his business practices.

Now a big focus of the first act of season 6 is Vito Spatafore. Vito's always been around but early in the season the entire cast learns that Vito is gay. He makes a sad but smart decision and runs to New Hampshire knowing that at least some of his fellow gangsters will be so offended by his sexual orientation that they'll come after him in a violent way. Audiences really weren't happy about this side plot. They found it a tad contrived especially this late in the game. I don't see it that way at all. In fact, I think it hits home better than a lot of the series' attempts to show the dangers of living a life of crime. Vito's homosexuality becomes a character flaw as far as his associates are concerned. They feel they can't trust him because he's lied to them for so long about it, though with good reason. Vito runs north, falls in love with a small town firefighter and actually moves in with him. But he can't escape the mob lifestyle and more importantly, his love for it. He runs back to Jersey after spending nearly the entire season in New Hampshire. Before he's even back he kills an innocent bystander to avoid an encounter with the police and finally meets Tony in secret to apologize and show that he can still be quite valuable to the crime lord. Tony is reluctant but accepts his proposal. Unfortunately Phil Leotardo, who's taken the most offense to Vito's lifestyle, finds and kills him in a motel room not long after he returns home.

I'm sure audiences were happy to see this subplot finally come to a close. I was happy but not because it was over but instead because of how it had ended. The Sopranos didn't disappoint. Vito's homosexuality wasn't his job. It wasn't how he earned money. It was him more than anything else ever could be. It was his truth. And he found an escape and true love, love that he'd never been able to fully experience or enjoy before because he'd finally admitted this truth to himself. But like so many before him he simply could not escape because of his ties to crime. And like Eugene his death was his own fault. He didn't take his own life but if he never went home to Jersey there's a great chance he could've lived as close to happily ever after as anyone in the series' universe ever could.

There's plenty of other subplots going on across the twelve episodes that comprise Act 1 but most of them are pretty much fluff. Only Carmella's brief but potent trip to Paris in the penultimate episode really rings home as being important but even that sort of falls to the wayside when measured against Carm's experiences in the the beginning of the season and the end of the previous one.

What Act 1 is really about is the idea of redemption. So many characters are given the possibility of a second chance. Tony being chief among them. What The Sopranos tries to say is that redemption doesn't simply happen to anyone. They have to work for it. They have to earn it. And frankly, they have to want it.

Better Late Than Never: A Latecomer's Season by Season Look at The Sopranos

Season 5

The main excitement I had going into the fifth season of The Sopranos came solely from looking ahead at the writer's who'd be running the show. Matthew Weiner was my prime choice but Terence Winter was getting some more weight to throw around as well. But most importantly of all, none of the episodes were written by Michael Imperioli who is famous as far as I'm concerned for writing the worst episodes the series has had so far. So starting with that brief but important list of good news, I headed into the fifth season with a fair amount of hope.

Oddly enough, Hope is the very thing that this season tends to be about. Not in the sense that a bunch of Italian immigrants are finally seeing the Statue of Liberty after weeks on a cramped ship, and can't wait to get off and start their new life in a golden land of opportunity. No that's not it. The hope comes from people this season who only want to better themselves, and simply can't do it. The Sopranos' writers work incredibly hard this season to reinforce a universal truth: Nobody really changes. At all. Ever.

The season uses three characters to really hammer that point home. Carmella, who begins the season on her own since kicking Tony out, Adriana who is Tony's cousin and Christopher's wife, and who is beginning what looks to be a long standing relationship as an informant for the FBI and finally Tony's cousin Tony Blundetto, who is released from prison early in the season and wants nothing more than to be a massage therapist.

Carmella finds herself trapped under Tony's weight all season. She wants only to be on her own and free of her old life, but her son AJ begins to resent her for kicking his father out, and Tony more or less always shows up at the house even when he's not wanted. In some great animal symbolism, Carmella is suddenly threatened by a bear that seems to have taken residence in The Soprano backyard. Tony is that bear. Its not very thinly masked but that's fine. Watching Carm deal with the bear is funny every single time it happens but more importantly it gives you an insight as to how the writers think of Tony. Sure he's threatening but there's more. He comes, he takes what he wants, and he'll probably leave you alone in your fear and insecurity to go off to sleep. Feel free to expand that metaphor a little bit but I think you get the idea. The point is, even though Tony is doing all of these bad things to people he can't really help it. He's an animal and he behaves almost entirely on instinct. His behavior shouldn't be condoned but it should be understood that he doesn't think like the rest of us.

Adriana's storyline is the most heart breaking the show has done so far. As a C.I. she spends most of her time in season five with FBI agents, telling them the goings on of the Soprano family (the mob one). She has no real friends because her situation has isolated her from anyone she really spent time with besides Christopher who she is obviously to afraid to tell whats going on. So she suffers in silence for the entirety of the season. Its really terrible because Drea de Matteo does some career making acting this season. The key scene I'll point to is in the season's penultimate episode. She's finally told the truth to Chris. And Chris tells Tony. So Adriana is taken for a ride. She's crying her head off but all of a sudden you see realization come across her face as to her impending death and her tears actually change to fit the new feelings. I kid you not. Its fucking incredible.

Tony Blundetto has a hard job to do. We, as an audience have never met him before but we're assured from the premiere that he's a really important guy to all the mobsters in the show. TV series pull this shit a lot and it usually goes badly because they try to cram emotional connection into some dialogue rather than letting it grow with the audience because they don't have time. Luckily casting made the right choice and got Steve Buscemi to play Tony B. Now I care and I have no idea who this guy is. Tony is actually a man who the prison system worked for. He's out and he wants to go straight. He takes a beating from everyone in his former life when he tells them is future goals but he sticks with it, admirably I might add. The trouble is that being a criminal is like being a drug addict. You're never really over it. So when a challenge comes that Tony can't seem to overcome he falls back into his old way of doing things. He rejoins the mob, and not really on Tony Soprano's side, and returns to the life he tried so desperately to escape. And almost as a lesson to viewers from the writers, Tony too is executed in the season finale. By Tony Soprano of all people. The series wants you to know that if you turn to a life of crime you have two choices. You can succeed in getting out but it will be the hardest thing you've ever done. Or you'll die. That's it.

Now Carmella is the only person who tries to change and doesn't die for it this season. Why? Because she doesn't change. She tells herself that she's changing and she definitely does make the attempt but at the end of the day, she's still comfortable living off of Tony's money. She's too comfortable with his presence to even kick him out anymore and by the end of the season she allows Tony back into her home. I don't know how other viewers of the show felt when this occurred but I'll say that I was furious. Carm is your idiot friend who's been with the same dickhead for years. They break up, they get back together, seemingly endlessly. The worst part of it all is there's potential for Carmella. If she could break the very minimal chains that are around her she could definitely get by. She just refuses to and teamed with Adriana and Tony B.'s stories they make this season the most Shakespearean of the show's arcs (at least so far).

So where does Tony enter into all this? He's everywhere actually. None of these storylines would occur without direct involvement from Tony Soprano. This season you really learn that the writers don't want anyone to like him all that much. This season you learn that Tony is a black hole. He sucks in anyone close to him and unless they're incredibly lucky they'll be trapped there. Tony's personal story takes a backseat this season to the three characters I previously mentioned but he's still got plenty of great sequences. Namely the entire episode "The Test Dream" where we spend almost an hour exclusively with Tony as he drifts in and out of some insane and incredibly telling dreams. Tony's biggest growth this season comes from him learning that his mother Livia wasn't inherently evil. She was awful for sure, but a lot of her nature came from spending time with Tony's father. The two of them wore each other down.

So late in the season, we learn that the only real way people can change comes from being married to someone. And even then the change only really occurs between the two people. Its a horrible notion but I think that they're right.

The mob story line takes a major backseat this season. Almost nothing occurs in terms of the war between New Jersey and New York. I'd be mad but honestly who gives a shit? The non mob stuff has always been the core of the series for me and in a season with so much incredible drama occurring why would I really care about some tacky ass mob violence? The war ultimately does get resolved but not at all in a climactic fashion. Johnny Sack who seemed to be the most antagonistic player in the war game is sent off to prison and that really puts an end to it.

Sidenote:
The show has gotten increasingly prettier as its gone on. The first season is a pretty ugly show by today's standards. Luckily that changed quickly. But in the season 5 the show really got a facelift (in one episode in particular). In episode 10 "Cold Cuts" Mike Figgis comes on to direct. He leaves such a great visual stamp on the episode that despite its more standalone plot arc, its one of the best episodes of the season. I wish Sopranos employed more outside directors. HBO's team is incredible for sure but its always nice to see a new take on something.

So where does season five leave us? I'm not really sure. There's obviously more weight put on the fact that the upcoming season is the last but I think that viewers who were paying attention knew this when the show was originally airing. This was probably the best season the show has had so far. I definitely get why The Sopranos is so legendary but the legend is coming to an end. Next season is 21 episodes long so I probably won't be back for a while so I hope this was engaging.

See you around the bend.....