OK, after viewing the last episode (11/24), I’ll stick with my original decision of a couple of months ago and say the show has definately jumped the shark. At this time, I’d say the shark jumping point was last year some time. Comment?
I’d guess they have something big in store, nothing has really become of Ade and the FBI yet.
Tonight was possibly the worst episode ever. Boring, boring, boring.
Slow as hell but some classic Janice.
~t
It might have been my imagination, but tonight’s episode felt like it was supposed to be the Halloween episode.
I thought it was pretty good, though.
Didn’t it end a little too early? There was a good 10 min. left.
Uneventful but;
they pretty much know it’s Paulie leaking so he’s most likely toast
It seems I’m in the minority here but I’ve rather enjoyed the last few episodes. I don’t see the shark jump at all.
But I must admit, the dream sequences often sail right over my head. Well, most of the time they skim it, but with enough inertia to keep going. Any thoughts on that final sequence?
(BTW, I actually missed the first 5 min. or so, and I heard it was a dream sequence as well though I didn’t get too much info on it, so if the final scene is related to that one…).
I have a question about last week’s episode, if it’s not too late to ask.
At the intervention, Chris’s mom, Adriana, Tony, Carmella, Paulie and Silvio were all seated in a circle in front of Chris, with the mediator to Chris’s left. Furio and a guy I didn’t recognize were standing against the wall. I’m not sure Furio knows Christopher very well, so I don’t know what he would have had to say, and neither he nor the other guy did contribute anything. Were they only there to keep order? If so, they didn’t do a very good job of it. Or were they supposed to be active in the intervention, and just didn’t get a chance to speak before everything went haywire?
Just MHO, but I took the figure in silouette to be Livia, given the big sub-plot of being haunted by one’s mother. Notice that Tony’s inability to “speaka da Eng-lish” comes after he has finished his “job.” I would say that if you put it all together, his dream is telling him, “By quitting therapy, you’ll lose your ability to communicate your feelings and wind up being haunted by things you can’t see well enough to understand.”
For what that’s worth.
I agree that it was supposed to be Livia in the final dream sequence. Tony’ll be on the phone to Melfi within five minutes of waking up.
Haj
Maybe was his grandfather in his dream. He was a mason, and made a life for himself even though he didn’t speak English.
I think for awhile now The Sopranos has been meant to last only five seasons, and I think David Chase has been writing the show as one, very long, five-season story arc.
Given that, I think what’s been happening this season is exactly what the show should be doing. It’s setting us up for some major fireworks in season five.
Shark-jumping? Nah. Tony’s mom put a hit on him in season one, and Tony offed his best friend in season two… the show has always had one or two over-the-top moments per season.
Frankly, I really liked last night’s episode. The introspective episodes are often my favorites.
One of the things Chase likes is the flexibility HBO allows toward episode length. He writes what he wants, and if it runs 50 minutes, OK, 65, OK, etc. No cut-to-fit. Be careful when taping, I missed the last 2 minutes of the ep he whacked Ralph, I wasn’t home. Had set 1 hr, and I think it started a couple of minutes late.
(saw them Wed.)
Slow episodes do not equal shark-jumping. You won’t know whether or not a show jumps the shark until the end of its run; The Sopranos could still pull out all the stops in the next few episodes, given the overall quality of the acting and writing. Thankfully, The Sopranos is on cable, where they don’t need the cookie-cutter approach to storytelling, so new foundations can be laid even in mid-season. Just because the only person to be slapped around was the appraiser (and Anthony in the back of the head - little punk deserves much more of an ass-whipping than that - both of his kids deserve it) does not mean it wasn’t full of important messages, such as Paulie Walnuts making an overt play to become North Jersey don to Johnny SackLet’s not begin to discuss what a vagina Janice is. She could let Bobby’s wife’s corpse get cold before she makes such an overt play…in front of the kids, no less.
Okay, I want to revise my opinion from worst episode ever to very-slow-but-with-some-interesting-stuff episode:
- I agree it was Livia on the staircase in his dream.
- Paulie vocalizing his desire to be don is intriguing.
- The last two episodes have both ended with Tony sort of fumbling in the dark and then moving out into dazzling sunlight. Is this symbolic of some sort of awakening? Is he developing a conscious? Is it symbolic of the psychotherapy process? I’m clueless here.
Call me simple but I took the final scene to mean that tony likes it down there and Miami would be a good place to retire.
While still entertaining, and I’m sure it will continue to be so, I think that 10 years from now, people will say that the Sopranos jumped the shark when they didn’t follow-up on either the rape or the Russian getting away in the woods.