Where do I possibly start? I'm flabbergasted by how the writers are able to so skillfully cram so much into 60 minutes. Just amazed. So if I ramble at length, its coz I have no choice!
So last week we left off with Tony still in a coma and stuck in his parallel hell where everyone thinks he’s a guy named Kevin.
Outside the hospital room, business politics are moving into a new gear as
Silvio takes over the role of skipper in Tony’s absence and immediately runs into huge problems when the guys turn on each other over the spoils from a $1-million score from a Colombian gang. The pressure begins to take a heavy toll on Silvio when his asthma decides to flare up again.
Gosh, watching a middle-aged big shot mob boss suck away desperately on his inhaler is an odd, funny sight. But not as funny as watching
Paulie get his nads busted during the raid on the Colombian drug dealers. We haven’t seen this kind of blood-spattered action for a while, so it was cool to see their comedy of errors and brute force work out for them in the end - as usual.
But, as Silvio himself says, with great power comes great responsibility, and the new boss just cannot handle the in-fighting and demands on him to make a decision about how the money will be split. So instead he gets an asthma attack and lands up in the hospital too. Oh dear.
At this stage of what has been a rather difficult and traumatic period, I shouldn’t be laughing as much as I have been thus far this season. But I have been. A lot. Huge, ugly guffaws that irritate the neighbours. And how can I not with such beautiful, larger-than-life, farcical dudes like Bobby, Vito, Paulie, Silvio and Christopher around?
Christopher again showed his tendency to get his head in the clouds with this whole filmmaking bug that bit him while he was getting off heroin. His new plans to make a mobster slasher film (Saw meets Godfather 2, as he calls it) sees him literally abduct his sponsor and scriptwriting buddy JT (
Tim Daly) midway through a scriptwriting class and then forcing him to collaborate with him and the rest of his investors (basically all the captains in the gang) on the project.
J.T: (outlining the plot for the film) So he's kind of out-shining his own boss, so the guy has him clipped. But, he's alive when they cut him up.
Vito: Ho! He'll feel that the next day.
Chris’s only motivation for the film is the money. Its clear he is chomping at the bit every time he hears how some low budget film made by a dreamer just like him goes on to make millions.
I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to see as much of the Tony/Kevin alter ego as we did last week. I’ve been worrying about him all week. He’s still in his hotel room in California, looking for answers and confiding in the barman, staring out his window at that lighthouse/beacon thingie that’s almost calling to him from the edge of the city. But, alas, he still has the violent Buddhist monks to deal with.
They’re clearly taking their grievance with Kevin Finnerty seriously coz now they’re taking him to court. I always suspected it, but now I'm convinced – Buddhist monks are cool. There’s just no bullshitting them. Life is elemental and uncomplicated, so if you look like Kevin Finnerty and carry his briefcase around, then that’s who you are.
I think Tone’s learnt a lesson or two from them. But ultimately they can't give him the answers to his own life. He has to find those on his own….
Back in Jersey,
Carmela bumps into
Dr Melfi at the supermarket. And what contrasts they make now - Carm looking dishevelled and old in those godawful velour tracksuits women of her age favour - and Dr Melfi, looking more radiant and beautiful than ever.
Melfi offers her counsel, but with so many friends and family around, Carm assures her she’ll be ok. But we all know she’s not and then we absolutely definitely unequivocally know she’s not when she totally loses it with poor AJ, telling him that he’s nothing but a cross she and Tony has had to bear, after she sees him cursing at the press on national TV.
I wonder what she would’ve done had she known AJ tried to buy a gun? Scratch his eyes out with those talons of hers? So its no surprise that we later see her in Melfi’s office, finally coming clean about her life and how she chose it, despite all her doubts and Catholic protestations.
But her children didn’t - and now they’re in the crossfire. It’s a heartbreaking confession, the only honest one she’s made thus far and one that finally brings things full circle for her.
Tony/Kevin is beginning to suspect that he is in fact this Kevin Finnerty fella. He can't trust himself anymore, esp since the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. But things start to look up when he finds an invitation in Kevin’s briefcase to the Finnerty family reunion at a country inn that’s nearby that mysterious beacon out there.
This has to be more than mere coincidence. As he searches for directions to the reunion he is annoyed by the loud chatter coming from the room next door. Hmmm, could that be Tony hearing Paulie talk to him from his hospital room? Paulie is smuggled in to finally get some “face-time” with Tony, and is warned by
Meadow to remain positive, despite the awful condition Tony’s in. But of course he can't keep his mouth shut….
Meadow: Uncle Paulie, you gotta say positive things.
Paulie: (walking into Tony's room) Oof! Madorn! He looks fuckin' terrible!
What follows is another surreally hilarious monologue from the silver-winged one as he regales his comatose boss with tales of his busted balls and fast fading youth. He yaps and yaps so much (much like I'm doing now) that he is completely oblivious to the loud beeping Tony’s heart rate machine is making as he goes into cardiac arrest. Could this be the end? Can't be, coz this entire sequence is too funny for words!
Tony/Kevin may get answers as he arrives at the reunion and is enchanted by the beautiful colonial house.
It’s alive with light and the promise of happiness and children’s laughter and family – the one thing he has missed the most. Oh, so that’s how mob heaven looks, does it? As he nears the house he is greeted by a man, a man who looks exactly like the cousin he whacked, Tony Blundetto (
Steve Buscemi) who tells him that everyone in the house is waiting for him, but first he has to leave his briefcase behind because no business is allowed inside.
But Tony/Kevin is too afraid to let go of his life. A woman appears in the doorway of the house, and I’ll be damned if that’s not his evil dead mother. She turns away before he can see her face. And he hears a girl’s voice calling out to him to not leave, to come back.
The house disappears into a brilliant light, becoming a doctor’s penlight and we’re back in the hospital where Tony awakes to the sound of Meadow’s encouraging voice (surely the little girl he heard over on the other side).
James Gandolfini does dazed and confused better than I've seen any other actor. His groggy first words to Carmela are, “Am I dead?” You gotta wonder if he were happier if he was.
The news of Tony’s frankly miraculous recovery is initially greeted with huge celebrations, but tensions still simmer. Vito had already made known his intentions of taking over leadership, now that he’s not eating carbs or sugar anymore, and he and Paulie are still bickering over whether Tony’s cut from the takings should go to Carmela. Because if, God forbid (of course), Tony were to kick the bucket, that’d be $100 000 down the drain, according to Paulie (who’s still cutting out 50c coupons for Band-Aids from a magazine).
Tony may be out of his coma, but you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. There’s just no life behind those little eyes and nothing anyone tells him registers. Is Tony brain-damaged? Does he still think he’s someone/somewhere else? Will his colleagues trust him to be their boss again?
There are just soooo many questions and permutations running around in my scrabble mind right now. All I can do is keep watching with an open mind because this astounding and confounding season (just 3 episodes old, mind!) is going wherever it wants. All I can do is blindly and faithfully follow. Trust me, the rewards are infinite.
A coupla weird things that happened that had me going “What the *bleep!*?!”- Why oh why was Vito caressing Meadow’s boyfriend’s (Finn) arm like that when they ran into each other at the hospital? From Finn’s scared expression, this can only point to something very very sinister….
- What was written on AJ’s T-shirt again, anyone? Something about Bogart. I made a mental note but then totally forgot. That’ll teach me to watch this show without a pen and notepad….
- Did AJ really think that if he had a gun, he could just infiltrate Junior’s prison cell and deal with him?
Some interesting episode trivia:- This episode (“Mayham”) was directed by Jack Bender, who most may recognize as a regular episode director on both Alias and Lost.
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Lorraine Bracco (Dr. Jennifer Melfi) is credited 2nd and above Edie Falco, even though this is her first appearance in the season (and she certainly doesn’t feature as much as Falco does)
- Max Casella makes a guest appearance as Silvio’s driver, Benny. Casella is more famously known as
Neil Patrick Harris’s wise-cracking best buddy Vinnie on Doogie Howser MD.
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Steve Buscemi is credited as “Man” – not Tony B, the character he portrayed in previous seasons before he got whacked.
- According to Nielsen ratings, nearly 9 million people tuned in to watch this episode when it aired in the States. (Source: TV.com)
- Some of the movies Christopher cites as inspirations for his own mob slasher flick: Saw, The Ring, Ghostbusters, Godfather II, Halloween, Friday the13th, Nightmare on Elm Street.