Ten bucks says this episode will follow the previous one, chronologically. Flashbacks aside, of course.
So far it’s a dream sequence.
Argh! I was watching the episode over a Slingbox link, but it crapped out within the first five minutes. Must be a network problem back at my house. Damnit!
I’ll have to wait until I can watch, uh, my friend’s copy. But someone tell me: thumbs up or thumbs down?
Thumbs up, so far. He’s alive but in a coma.
That was an odd one, but I liked the imaginary story. To toss a few thoughts out there: only AJ could be as stupid as he was in the last part of the episode. “I’m gonna kill Junior and I flunked out of school, by the way, aren’t hybrid cars great?” Edie Falco was understated and excellent. And I think none of this would have happened if Bacala wasn’t wearing that stupid engineer’s hat last week.
Good episode. I have very happy they are not doing the episodes in reverse chronological order. They would have lost me as a viewer.
Lots to pick at. The two Arab men in the Bada Bing drinking and chatting to Chris. I presume it was a reference to the fact that the 911 hijackers drank and hung out at a strip club before the attacks?
I thought the media was a nice little sidebar. The jockying over postion looks like it will get very intense.
Great episode – but then, what else is new?
Unfortunately, we now have to wait a week for the next one. Oh, wait. I have to go TWO WEEKS! I’ll be away for the next 2 Sundays!
Argh, my hotel in Minneapolis better have HBO next Sunday.
Good episode, a little high on the angst but looks like it should set up an explosive year. Hopefully next week lives up to the teasers. Gotta believe Vito is going to go down. Who was predicting AJ would go into the Business? It looks guaranteed now.
I worked in a hospital for almost 4 years and I have had family in ICU. I remember the medical staff keeping the family out for almost any kind of procedure like dressing a wound. The last thing a nurse wants is to have to deal with a family member passing out and have to deal with that and their critical patient.
Jim
I would have won the bet in the OP, too. Having the whole season “lead up” to the first episode wherein Tony gets shot and dies would be beneath David Chase. Hell, it would have been beneath the SOUTH PARK guys, at least after they caught all that flack for Terrence and Phillip/Cartman’s Mom fakeout.
Brilliant episode. LOST IN TRANSLATION meets THE GODFATHER. Although if I were Junior, I’d feel totally safe knowing AJ the total fuckup was after me. Ooooh, scary.
WHILE YOUR FATHER’S IN A COMA?!
Intense episode. I’m still trying to work out the symbolism for the dream stuff and I think Costa Mesa is supposed to be a metaphor for Hell. They showed a news clip of fires in Costa Mesa on the television, they showed Tony descending a red staircase. The bartender said Costa Mesa was “dead.” Kevin Finnity = Kev-infinity. I don’t know what the bitchslapping from the Buddhist monk was supposed to mean except maybe the literal message of what the monk said about his ego.
Carmela almost had me sobbing with her monologue to Tony.
Janice, of course, had to make it all about her and didn’t take any responsibility for not being with June when she was supposed to be.
AJ’s vow to avenge his father was simultaneously moving and idiotic.
It will be interesting to see how Silvio does as acting boss while Tony is down. Vito is too ambitous by half.
What the hell was going on between Chris and the Arabs at the strip joint?
I forgot to say that Edie Falco owned this episode.
I’m pretty sure it said “Kevin Finnerty.” I went to high school with a kid by that name, so I’ve been making that pun in my mind for almost 10 years. Weird coincidence.
Whoever said we were going to see a dream sequence in which Tony sees what his life might have been like without the mob was right. Seems like bad shit happens to him no matter what, but in the dream world he was powerless to do anything about it. I liked some of the little details there, too: his accent was pretty much gone, and his wife and daughter were different.
and how about that comb over.
I love this show. The jockying over who gets to run things is going to be awsome.
The pecking order issue is going to get real deep - real fast
T’s dream version of Hell - no matter what, the guy just can’t catch a break and has no power to enforce change.
I knew I should have watched the last season’s repeats.
Where’d the big sister Soprano come from? She’s new to me.
Did anyone else notice that the first time the helecopter flew over and Tony looked up at the seach light, for a split second, if changed to a doctor holding a pen-light as if he was checking Tony’s pupils. As soon as I saw that I knew Tony was in the hospital and he was alive. And I’m sure their will be plenty of discussion about the coma/dream sequence and wheather it was a symbolyzed things going on in the real world or what his life would have been had he taken a difference path, but either way, who was his wife during that. Was it just ‘someone’ or was it someone in particula? My dad seems to think it was Charmaine Bucco.
Ditto, I don’t remember seeing her till the first episode of this season, but my dad says we’ve met her before. So that means either in the second season (which I missed) otherwise maybe during season one dealing with Olivia.
I couldn’t recognize it, and neither could my mother, who is more up-to-date on the show than I am.
I thought her voice sounded like Annabella Sciorra (sp) from a couple seasons back.
JoeyP, thanks. Maybe she was at Olivia’s funeral?
I also though it was Annabella Sciorra (sp) as well Auntie Pam.
I agree. Good analysis.