****Sopranos Season 5 Season Guide (Spoilers) (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Pezzo]

That Happy Birthyday song really freaked me out, didnt know where they were going with that.

My fav part of the episode was when Chris was at the AA meeting and his buddy was going through his life story. What was ironic about that was it easily could have Chris when he wanted to move and become a writer yet they both ended up in the same place, rehab. I found this very interesting.

 

[JasonDNJ]

I thought it could of been better since it seems like Chase is covering old ground with Tony's issues and his Mother. There is so much to work with in terms of the plot that it's episodes like this that slow everything down. I wouldn't be as critical if there were 22 episodes per season but that's not the case.

 

[RobertW]

not a great episode, but ok. although i was having serious flashbacks to LA Law, and the storyline about douglas and his father's mistress.

i get that we were exploring the similarities between tony's conduct and that of his father, and how their relationships with other women created problems within the marriage. and it seemed for a time in melfi's office that tony was seriously considering the harm his conduct had done to carm and the family, and was considering changing his ways, but then that moment passed quickly with a "eff her". and then at the end, when he was ogling the bada bing girls you could see what was on his mind.

loved christopher berating tim daly for falling off the wagon, when he was basically responsible for the whole thing. replaces one addiction(drugs) with another(gambling), hooks him into the high stakes game, then taking on his debt. so the guy's down and broke, gets beaten up, pawns his laptop and signs over his car, and there's christopher: "how could you let this happen? why didn't you call your sponsor? why didn't you call me?" i don't think he even realizes that the guy's fall was due to him.

the actress playing livia had her vocal mannerisms down pat. excellent job.

best line of the night? junior: "this chicken's nice and spicy!"

 

[Matt Pasant]

My take was that Chistopher had both a professional and personal relationship with Tim Daleys character and did not really ever blur the two... Just as if he was a guy who bought stocks, a mortgage, or anything from. He had to deal with his business interests but also wanted to be his friend after he basically foreclosed on his life.

"I am not going to enable you"...

I liked the line, paraphrase... "I'd give you something for it if it was an Oscar, but come on, its tv"

 

[JonZ]

"I thought it could of been better since it seems like Chase is covering old ground with Tony's issues and his Mother"

"I wouldn't be as critical if there were 22 episodes per season but that's not the case."



I dont think we'll see much more on this issue in the series which is why Im not complaining.

Hopefully its closure.

 

[Mike Broadman]

It was the nail in the coffin that destroyed Tony's glorification of her image. His hatred of his mother made him eager to hold her up as a classy, charming wonderful woman, someone his father would see as the polar opposite of his mom. He realised that this, too, was an illusion, but in the end lied to himself and his friends that she was really all that and more. Liking her is a direct consequence of hating his mother and a way to excuse his own actions.

I like how they went from a Carm ep to a Tony ep. I also absolutely loved how Chris was shaking down his sponsor. I can just imagine the uproar this might cause with program members.

 

[Brent M]

Chris,

Just so I can be clear on this, are you saying 24, Alias, and CSI are "crap" because they're on network TV?

 

[Steve...O]

Agreed. I think she should be given Emmy consideration for this appearance.

As an interesting side note, one of the movies that introduced me to Miss Bergen was something called "Kisses for My President". Kind of ironic considering her character's "past". I don't remember much about the movie except that she played the President and Fred MacMurray was her husband.

Steve

 

[Brent M]

Maybe she could just go buy an Emmy for $15 at the pawn shop.

 

[Jim Meeks]

Saw this too. Powerful moment when Tony's Dad used Tony as his alibi, when all parties involved knew the truth. I think that moment, when Tony chose his father over his mother, set the tone for his troubled relationship with his mother for the rest of her life.

 

[Chris]

Well, neither 24 or CSI competes with Sopranos on Sundays. As far as that goes, I really loved the first season of 24. The last two have been (IMHO) terrible. You talk about jumping the shark.. Alias was a show I never bought into, though I know many love it.

There are plenty of good network programs as well, but I think it's been a long time since I've seen programming as well written or thought out as "Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under"

There was a time when I felt ER really hit it's stride, and then it became "disaster of the week"; Law & Order, a continual favorite of mine, became overly repetitive with "ripped from the headlines" (which means: we lost creative thought, picked up a newspaper and copied with slight changes)

Are there shows on regular TV that I've found sensational? Yep. But right now, if you were to ask me what is "must watch" on regular TV.. with all the reality programming going on.. uh.. there isn't much.

 

[Brent M]

Well, I strongly disagree that the past two seasons of 24 have been terrible. In fact, in my opinion all three seasons of 24 are infinitely superior to seasons 3-5 of The Sopranos. No contest. The same goes for Alias which is a much more entertaining than The Sopranos has been since its second season. As far as I'm concerned, the first two seasons of The Sopranos were arguably the best television drama ever, but it has gone way downhill since then and I've found myself enjoying shows like 24, Alias and CSI a lot more than The Sopranos in that time. Hell, the finale of The Apprentice was even better than last night's episode of The Sopranos. David Chase, you're fired!

 

[Quentin]

24 is garbage compared to the Sopranos. Though, it is eminently more "fun" a lot of the time.

But, that's not supposed to be what this thread is about...

I thought the episode was ok. A little slow. Definitely freaked out by Bergen.

Best line - "I'm not going to enable you." LOL! You created it, Chris!

I do think Tony will be back with Carm within 3-5 episodes.

 

[Scott Van Dyke]

Better than last week, IMO.

I enjoyed this episode. Nobody got whacked, so I'm sure it's not going to go over well, but in the same breath, Tim Daley got kicked to the curb! (Wings was one of my favorite's)

Janice is back. Oh well.

I just loved the confrontation between the Tony and the greasy capo from NY. Too funny. Good sit-down scene with Sack, too.

Sopranos will pick-up, you'll see.

 

[chuck_b]

From Terence Winter, writer of last nights episode (copied from MSN Slate article):

As you know, to the never-ending frustration of some of our viewers, we often fail to pay off what happens in one episode in the next and sometimes don't pay things off at all. (The next guy who asks me what happened to the Russian gets kicked in the nuts.) This is by design, for such is life, even if such is not network television, where everything is wrapped up in neat little bows.

As for this episode, there was a lot of story to tell in 60 minutes, much of it involving the complex psychological relationship Tony has with his dead parents. As we had hoped, the "Tony-also-hates-his-father" segments were interesting, and to explore this issue fully, we needed to spend some time on Tony's emotional roller coaster. First, he puts his father's mistress on a pedestal, then slowly comes to see her for what she really is. But just when he begins to empathize with his mother, he pulls back, choosing to hide in the safety of the fiction that his mom was pure evil and his dad's comare was "like a princess." As for giving her the full $150,000, we decided that Tony regarded this as blood money, in a way—if his father wanted this woman to have it, that's what he was going to give her. The fact that his behavior is not usually in keeping with that of a mob boss in some ways cuts to the core of Tony's character. Perhaps his biggest flaw as a mobster is that he has a conscience.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2098696/entry/2099159/

 

[Todd.Martin]

24 vs Sopranos? No contest. Not even the same league. Like the NFL versus NFL Europe.

Some parts of 24 are exciting but for the most part they are just trying to come up with some new "thrill" no matter how stupid. Can't forget all those great 24 storylines around Jack's daughter.

Would we all love to see a 1 hr Soprano's that is nothing but gunfire and whacking? Sure, but that's not really what the series is about. The worst Sopranos episode is still better than the best episodes of network shows.


And the fact that some think an episode is a failure if all threads are not wrapped up in a given week just shows how far the entertainment standards and attention spans in the USA have dropped.

 

[Rob Willey]

Loved Chris' comment about That's Life, another show set in New Jersey: "That one with Paul Sorvino? That was totally fuckin' fake."

Rob

 

[Tino]

Btw, I have breakfast regularly at the same IHOP featured in this episode. It's about a mile south of Satin Dolls (aka Bada Bing) in beautiful Hasbrock Heights N.J. And what makes it even more memorable for me is the fact that I had ummm...relations... with the female manager in the upstairs office years ago!
Mmmmm pancakes!

 

[Andrew Bunk]

I liked the first two seasons of 24 a lot, but they are definitely not on the same dramatic plane as the Sopranos. Alias is fun but has next to no replay value IMO.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[Cary P]

Well, I won't criticize this episode over-all, but one aspect that disappointed were the flashback sequences.

Although his appearance was brief, I didn't buy into the young, shaggy Tony character at all. Couldn't they have done a better job with casting? The guy looked and acted nothing like I would've expected.

I thought they did a much better job with the flashback sequences in that earlier episode from Season 1, I believe. By the way, was the actor who played Tony's father in last night's episode the same one who played him in Season 1?