Wow, what an intense episode. Some great performances by Drea Matteo and Michael Imperiolli. Gandolfini was good too, but when isn’t he good?
I really felt for Ade all the way through this and after Chris beat her up I almost wanted Tony to put one in his head.
Does anyone else despise that FBI agent? She seems manipulative and phony to me. I was glad Ade told her to eff off, finally.
It was an interesting comment on rumors and reputations tonight. It almost dpesn’t matter thet the rumor wasn’t true. Everyone thinks it was true even if they never mention it again. i have to wonder if even Christopher is really convinced it didn’t happen.
Steve Buscemi is just one of the greatest actors ever. His calm demeanor with Tone, his not so subtle question to the doctor (“have you seen any gunshot wounds? Broken kneecaps?”) the medical talk, “I’m a pre-board certified massage therapist,” all perfectly delivered. He may be trying to go straight but he’s obviously no pussy and no dummy either. The previews for next week seem to suggest that we may see Buscemi get postal but they do a pretty good job with misdirection in those things, so who knows? Who would have guessed that Christopher was whacking an SUV in last weeks teaser?
Oh, and AJ’s got a smackdown coming. It sounds like Tony’s finally starting to get what Carm was telling him. “What is with this kid?” It looks like AJ is going to mouth off one too many times next week. I can’t wait.
And did anyone else notice that there was already a bullet hole in Tony’s truck before Chris started shooting (lower left hand corner of the driver side rear window), maybe I just saw it wrong? Also, did Tony get a new truck or did he get his fixed? And if it’s new, how did Chris know it was his? One more thing, why was Tony so worried about wheather or not the doctor ran all the tests? (I didn’t really like the doctor either, his mother being the first certified black doctor (or whatever he said isn’t really a credential, at least it didn’t tell me he was a good doctor, but he did remind me of Medows boyfriend in season 1).
Yeah, I was like, “He didn’t ask you that, brother!”
Dio, I think the last scene made it pretty clear that the rumor was going to dry up and blow away. Tony/Carmella wouldn’t be out and about with Chris/Adriana if it was true, and Vito & Co.'s body language seemed to indicate that they were convinced.
But as far as reputations, yeah: “Get a reputation for rising early, and you can sleep till noon.” Or the reverse: get a rep for humping anything that moves, and people will always be willing to believe that you did.
It was my impression that Tony was just surprised that he didn’t have any injuries at all and wondered if they did a thorough examination. I felt like the doctor overreacted and took the question the wrong way.
Wow…that was one tense hour of television. I half believed they were going to kill off somebody before the end of the show. Pretty interesting how they quietly resolved things with the family dinner at Artie’s place…or did they? Tune in next week!
The guy who played the doctor was a major player on Joey Pants’ late and lamented The Handler show. He’s a good actor and probably destined for good things. It was nice to see him again.
Sweet lovable Bobby Bacala said “cock”! Pretty cool cameo by Tony Siragusa as one of the Bing bouncers too.
I like the FBI agent. I love how her and the other agents make fun of Ade and the rest of the Sorprano crew/family. It cracks me up everytime.
I, too, felt sorry for Ade until she told the FBI agent if it had been Christophuh and another woman she would have killed him. She did a good job telling the agent that’s just ‘how it is’ in her world.
With regards to Tony’s Chevy Suburban, Mr. Tech and I just assumed Tony bought an Escalade and just parked the Suburban outside of the club. He went back to driving it after totaling the Escalade. We may be wrong, though, because I don’t recall his Suburban being red last season.
Can we please discuss Ade’s jeans that she had one when she had to make the hurry call to the bathroom? She has either had them for more than 15 years or she has a time machine. Tell me they aren’t back in style.
Great episode, btw. I really love the little mafia “dances” these folks do - both in the scene where they all filed out of the Bing to take Chris for a ride and at the dinner at the end.
It’s probably more a case of the show continuing to poke fun at “New Jersey Elegant”. I laugh whenever I see the decorations in some of the mobsters’ homes. Ever notice all the Lladros in Tony’s place?
Even if nobody believes anymore that Tony had boinked Ade, everybody learned way too much about each other for things to be the same again.
Christopher now knows that Tony probably has some non-platonic interest in Ade.
Christopher also knows that Ade probably had ditto for T.
Everybody’s now seen the limit of Christopher’s loyalty to Tony. The fiction of unlimited loyalty, I would believe, is crucial to Tony’s family… and that fiction is compromised.
Tony and Tony B now know that Tony’s word isn’t good enough for Christopher. Slightly different from point 3.
Tony knows that the whole family thought of him as somebody who was caught with his pants down at the wheel. This underscores what has been developing since the last episode - people only fear him, they don’t love him; they laugh too loud at his jokes, but maybe they laugh at him behind his back.
And so on. Even though you can change the story that people believe, you can’t fix what people find out about each other. Once everybody’s seen each other’s ass, you can’t go back.
One more thought: Tony’s racking up more people who might be willing to rat him out.
Last week: Feech. After being sent up the creek deliberately, who would blame him for flipping? Tony’s plot to have Feech re-arrested wasn’t just disrespectful; it was stupid.
This week: Ade. In spite of what she said at the end of the episode, she might very well feel that she doesn’t need to protect Tony and Christopher nearly as much as she needs to be protected from them.
I think Gandolfini’s the only good part about The Mexican.
I thought the scenes between Tony and Ade had some of the best, most human interactions so far this season, especially when they were both talking about their medical concerns. The Family grapevine was brilliantly edited, and it was also nice to see Uncle Jun having a lucid moment; hopefully his treatment is working.
Good Lord, how many times has Tony wrecked that fucking SUV??
This show is starting to freak me out. My grandfather died of Alzheimer’s the same week Uncle Jun started coming down with Alzh. – and I’d just been talking here about IBS (regarding those silly commercials with the words written on a woman’s belly) a couple hours before Ade got it. And while watching the show, I was thinking about how I’d never seen Tony do cocaine, when all of a sudden snnnoorrrrrttt!
I love how this show makes you think that anyone could go at any time. I was nearly convinced that either Ade or Chris was not gonna make it to the end of the episode.
Well, everyone else seems pretty excited about it, but I’ll go a little further. This was one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen. Very memorable.
This was good like “early good” but better because we now know so much more about these people and the web of personal/business/family is so much more intricate.
Engywook summed up all the complications this episode presented and others mentioned all the tension throughout. A VERY uneasy episode.
The FBI thing got more complicated. The mob got more complicated. Tony’s family got more complicated. Tony’s life got more complicated.
It was great seeing him back with Melfi.
And, as others said, great performances by Drea and Imperioli.
I hope they can keep the tension building like this till the end of the season because it probably is the second to last season and they’ll have a whole lot to resolve when the next one comes out.
This whole season has been great, epecially after that snoozer last season.
After the first Tony/Adriana encounter, I had dire concerns they might drag out the potential affair over several episodes. It was a good choice to settle the issue in one night, though there will be repercussions yet to come. This may push Adriana toward the Feds, but she seems very fragile and unprepared to face life without Chris. My assumption is that she saw both herself and Chris entering witness protection, as far fetched as that belief may have been.
I’m not sure what to make of Tony B. at this point. He showed his value to Tony S. and obviously S. is desperate to have a close friend. Even more so now after the incident with Chris. It does not appear, however, that B. has either the need to earn or the “tough guy” ego to satisfy.
That was some outstanding work in the confrontation between Gandolfini and Imperioli. For a moment I actually entertained the idea of Chris taking the dirt nap.
One of my favorite scenes was the one line scene in Melfi’s office where Tony just says “I should’ve fucked her” or something like that, and Melfi just stared back. Funny stuff.
And AJ’s behavior is helping to convince the wife and I that maybe our cat is all the child we’ll ever need.
OK, I meant to write what I’m about to say in last week’s thread, and I lucked out in that nothing about it came up last night, so here goes:
Steve Buscemi’s character is gay.
You heard it here first, people. Here’s the evidence: on his first show, he (1) made some comment about knowing how to please a man (it was an offhand comment, but I think significant in a foreshadowing kinda way), (2) he’s a male massage therapist, which is kind of effeminate in the world he lives in (what with all the mafia tough guys), and (3) when Tony S called him on his cell phone, the ring tone was Queen’s “We are the Champions.”
It looks like he’ll be featured rather prominently in next week’s episode, so maybe something along these lines will take place (e.g., a visit to a male prostitute for solace from his gambling losses).
I only started to watch “The Sopranos” last season, and though I enjoyed it, I really didn’t see what all the fuss was about. This season has won me over, and this epeisode was the best this season so far, IMO. I was really especting Christopher to end up dead.
Since this season started, I’m now renting all of the earlier episodes from Netflix.
It would have to be a toss up between this episode and the one where Paulie and Christopher are chasing the russian in the snow as the most memorable. I just thought that one was so funny. I loved the whole blow-job rumor with Tony and Ade though. I was totally jumping up and down laughing. I am getting ticked at the previews. I thought Chris was killing somebody. They throw you off. I don’t have any guesses about next week, because you just never know.
Pretty cool cameo by Tony Siragusa as one of the Bing bouncers too. 