Me too. And Carmelo sounded disappointed that Meadow is going to be a pediatrician, no?
Janice’s first child.
Oh. I’d forgotten about that.
I thought Meadow was going to study law. Is Carm’s comment the first we’ve heard that Meadow changed her mind?
I’m assuming it’s okay to talk about what’s happened in prior seasons, so somebody tell me about this Harpo person. Janice’s child is a drummer with a band in Winnipeg?
Did Bobby go to Canada to kill that guy? He crossed the border with a gun, or he got the gun in Canada?
The take-home message from this episode was that despite any talk of how Tony “changed” after the shooting, he’s still a ruthless bastard who fights back hard against anything that challenges his authority. Remember last season when he beat the hell out of his driver just to prove to everybody that he could?
That’s why it’s going to get interesting if Tony goes inside (or if it gets out that he might) and it looks like power might be changing hands. He doesn’t have an obvious successor, or even much of a short list of obvious candidates, so the infighting for a leg up will make the Johnny Sack-Little Carmine feud look like nothing. Tony won’t respond to that very well. Meanwhile, it could be a windfall for Phil and the NYC crew; after all, Tony made a killing while Johnny was inside, and Phil isn’t nearly as inclined to help Tony out as Tony was for Johnny.
This was a weird episode, especially for a mini-season opener when there are so few episodes left, but they’ve set some big possibilities in motion.
Over on TwoP they’re trying to figure out if Johnny Sack is dead.
There were a few references to him, mainly Tony saying that it ends either “in the can, like Johnny Sack or on the docks somewhere”.
Also Phil gave a longing glance to a framed picture of Sack on the wall.
Anybody here pick up on that?
Anyone think it was funny that the mob was trafficking in legal drugs?
I liked the episode. The whole time Janice was talking about being like her father, she was acting just like her mother. . .dropping hints and accusations and then getting defensive when called on them. I definitely thought she was suggesting that Tony hit Carmella because Carm got hurt during the throwdown.
I liked the fact that they were playing “Monopoly” and Bobby just doesn’t get the playing outside the rules thing.
Good set up for the season (that’s assuming that the Bobby storyline persists).
It won’t be a lame gun charge now, since the locals are out and Tony’s lawyer (somehow) knows that the feds intend to fold it into a RICO charge. Proving a RICO charge requires, among other things, proof of a pattern of racketeering. The gun would be one of many instances alleged, I’m sure. No case involving RICO is a whimper.
Anyway, I loved this episode. I loved the pacing, the dialogue. I loved seeing a bunch of hooligans playing Monopoly. Couldn’t you just smell that room? And you could feel the near-boil of violence, tension, and anger beneath the hotel-buying, community-chest-paying surface. (And it did, of course, break into a full boil.)
Yes, it would be a lame gun charge considering Tony has committed many heinous crimes for which he should be indicted, convicted, and sentenced. Getting him on a dropped gun? Lame, considering what he should be going down for. The RICO was folded in so that they can finally put him away. They’re giving it teeth, but it’s not very substantial. I mean, is THAT the best the Feds can do to put Tony Soprano in jail? :dubious: It would be the epitome of an anti-climactic end, but that’s what HBO is becoming known for anymore, isn’t it?
Isn’t that one of the problems with real RICO cases? Witnesses are hard to find and even when found they have a tendency to disappear, pass away or forget what they knew. I get the impression it does take many years to prosecute a RICO case and there are many hurdles in collecting enough evidence.
I would guess in a RICO case, that the gun would be one small part and that the FBI’s collective hand got forced a bit by this clueless DA trying to make a name for himself.
Jim
Does it have to be a Federal crime to get included in a RICO charge? ISTM that what got the DA excited was hollow-point bullets. Is that a Jersy thing? I have heard of no Federal statutes that involve hollowpoints.
No, what I am saying is that a RICO charge requires multiple underlying crimes. We have no idea what the RICO charge will look like. Many of his past heinous crimes may be alleged as part of the pattern.
You can prove a pattern of racketeering with two qualifying criminal predicate acts (listed here), but rest assured that the prosecutors would pile on many more than that.
These guys have been working on a RICO case against Tony for years. They didn’t need this gun charge. But they took it, because they needed to get the locals out of their hair.
On preview, to Brownie: No, some state felonies count. See (1)(A) in the statute cited above. However, I don’t know what law Tony would be alleged to have violated. Could have been stolen from interstate traffic. Or perhaps the gun had been used in some prior crime. I don’t think it’s very important, because I think they “took” the gun charge simply because they don’t want the state prosecutors to lock Tony up for a piddling charge and thereby kill the RICO investigation.
Heh. And then Tony took 5 from Bobby.
I agree. I thought they did an excellent job creating a palpable sense of “something bad is about to happen,” even as the characters were ostensibly still having fun. Good use of “Take Five,” which I’ve always found slightly menacing anyway.
They’re also doing a good job, IMO, presenting Tony as seriously conflicted: you get the distinct sense that he’d rather not be the boss anymore, but at the same time is afraid to be perceived as weak. Note the pointed way he asked Janice “how am I different?” since his recovery— a question which, like Joe Pesci’s “how am I funny?” becomes more perilous the more specifically one attempts to answer.
I thought they were implying the bullets were illegal - aren’t hollow points what they call cop-killer bullets?
I loved how, after the fight when Carm is helping Tony stumble away, he still has a hotel stuck to his cheek. And she flicks it off- doink!
Does it have to be two qualifying criminal acts for which he’s been convicted? Or do they prosecute those criminal acts with the gun charge as one big case? Do you feel their hand was forced by this gun charge to go forward with a RICO case before they were ready? None of this is clear to me.
I think that’s what the local cops were interested in. That doesn’t mean the feds were interested in the gun for the same purpose.
In truth, I really don’t think it matters whether or why the feds want the gun charge. I’m not certain what is going on, but it is possible that the rest of the conversation between the local prosecutor and the U.S. Attorney went something like this:
USA: “We’ve spent x years building a RICO case against Soprano, and you should have checked with us before you hauled him off for some stupid state gun charge that will put him on probation, or parole after a brief trip to jail, and keep a probation officer hanging around, which will make him and everyone else clam up, which will make it impossible for us to gather more evidence. We’re trying to flip people here, not make them go away.”
Assistant District Attorney: “Uh, sorry guys. What should we do?”
USA: “You need to drop the charges.”
ADA: “How can we do that? We already had a big press conference.”
USA: “How about dropping the charges, but feeding some information to Soprano’s lawyer about the feds taking it over as part of a RICO case? They know we’re after them, so that won’t surprise him.”
ADA: “But what federal law does the gun or ammunition violate?”
USA: “You nitwit. We don’t give a crap about the gun, although we can probably find some violation. We just want you out of our hair so our investigation can continue.”
ADA: “Oh. Okay.”
USA: “Now I have to get back to my office. I got a voicemail from Alberto Gonzalez about some pressing ‘personnel matter’ he needs to discuss with me right away.”
On Preview, to Rubystreak: The predicate acts do not have to have resulted in prior convictions. They can be proved during the RICO trial. That is why RICO trials tend to be long, complicated affairs.
No, I think they would have had one of the NYC guys say “Rest his soul” if Johnny Sack died in the period since we last visited Sopranoland. He’s away in the can for 15 years (at his age, practically a life sentence) and thus out of the game, but still a figure of some respect (even if he accepted a guilty plea, he didn’t rat anyone out).
Going way back in the story, Jackie Aprile, Sr. was officially acting boss in deference to a never seen character, Eckley DiMeo, who was (and presumably still is) serving a life sentence. Junior and now Tony were “Acting” bosses as well.
Which was my original point, that the gun charge was lame and if that’s what finally gets him put away, before he can get out of the game (a turn of events which has been hinted at the entire series). A RICO trial, as you said, would be a long, complicated affair and pretty boring viewing that it seems unlikely will be covered in the few remaining eps of the series. So I wonder how he is going to go out. IMO, a RICO trial to end the series would be with a whimper. I’m rooting for “with a bang.”