The Sopranos: Season 4, Episode 2.
Published September 24, 2002
The New York Times said this was as good an episode as the Sopranos has yet to produce. I'm not sure I'd go that far. But it was one of the most entertaining, probably because it was primarily plot driven. Plot driven episodes are fun, but they don't lend themselves as well to analysis. Nevertheless, let's give it a go:
First, a few complaints. Top of the list: Meadow. The writers need to lay off the pretentious college girl schtick. It was fun to watch her make the clumsy allusions of the half-learned, and to hear her pepper conversations with hundred-dollar vocabulary words that didn't quite fit the context she was using them in - the first four or five times. But it's getting a little old. This week, we had to listen describe a guy friend as "so duplicitous," instruct Carmella to "read Henry James sometime," and invoke the western canon. Enough. Also, Meadow's new therapist, on the recommendation of Melfi, isn't remotely believable. I'll leave it to Slate's team of shrinks to cut her off at the knees. But because I'm such a fan, I'm inclined to side with the school of thought that says the writers are satirizing the psycho-therapy profession, not attempting to portray it accurately.
Toward the end of the episode we see Meadow enroll in a class entitled "Morality, Self and Society." The writers of this show have been deft at weaving philosophy into storylines and tweaking great thinkers to fit their purposes, whether blatant - as they've done with Nietzsche and Sun Tzu, or more subtly - as when we saw the state's witness to a hit carried out by Tony and Big Pussy reading Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia just before he buckles, and recants his testimony. Meadow's course should be a nice jumping off point for more of the same.
My other complaint concerns Tony's tap of Christopher as acting capo while Pauly sits in the can, and his endorsement of his nephew as his heir apparent. It just doesn't make much sense. Producer David Chase has spent three seasons demonstrating to us that Tony is, for the most part, a capable don. "Contrarily," (as Christopher has been wont to say), in the last season-and-a-half or so, we've also been shown that Christopher Multisanti is little more than a smack-hooked, power hungry buffoon.
Just in this episode, for example, we watch him give the thumbs-up to the theft of fiber-optic cable from the construction site he's been tapped by Tony to oversee, jeopardizing a quarter-billion dollar project. He's also oblivious to the fact that his fiancé has just befriended an undercover agent. He nearly demonstrates some level of competence when he begins piecing together the odd aspects of the agent's personal life (no boyfriend, "great ass," over all the time). For a moment, we're led to believe Christopher might stumble onto a clue. Of course, he then blows it when he comes to the meathead conclusion that "she's a dike!" He then attempts to work his fiancé and the federal agent into a threesome.
- The Sopranos: Season 4, Episode 2.
- Published: September 24, 2002
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Drama, Video: Television
- Writer: Radley Balko
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Comments on this articleComments
Nice. Insightful. Good writing. Thank you.
Just what this pathetic Sopranos addict needed:
some accessible post-game analysis to kill time
over while waiting for the next episode. Now, if
only this could become a daily column!
Ditto to Boris's post. Your commentary has helped out big time considering I was out of TV range for the first episode.
Thanks for the great site. It's nice to have a place where all Sopranos addicts can come and read some insightful analysis into a this incredible show. But, I heard recently that the Sopranos might get cancelled, si this true?
wow, season four......
can't wait for it come to Australia.............
Considering the 'Pay T.V.' channels are only showing Series One I will have a long wait...
Hope they put it out on VHS here....
Have managed to purchase one-two & three on VHS
Hello
whats this place then
um...
do you know whats going on with the sopranos?
i'm stoned at the moment so i;m not good at this time
do you belive that 1 skunk joint gets me high.
I was wondering if you could find out the song playing at furio's house party where he and carmela dance.
Thank you.....
could anyone tell me the name of the song/singer in Sopranos Season 4 - Episode #4 (The Weight) - where Carmella and pony-tail dude are dancing.... what's the name of the song / singer? Thank you!
>But Christopher isn't blood - he's related to Tony by marriage.
It has also hasn't rang true to me that Tony's plan to keep things in the "blood family" would be by using Christopher, who isn't his blood family at all. So here's an idea: perhaps Tony knows more than we do. Perhaps Chris isn't his nephew by marriage at all, but actually his son! Far-fetched, but does explain a few things.
Case for:
*Tony keeps harking on about blood, and Chris isn't officially blood by any definition.
*Tony is extraordinarily close to his nephew-by-marriage, cuts him some extraordinary slack at times, and seems blind to failings that he wouldn't with his other underlings.
*Chris has called his mother a "F#@*ing whore" on occasions; perhaps she was as he was growing up, and maybe even before she slept around. Tony would have been about 18 when Chris was conceived, I'm guessing Chris's mother is a bit older. In a similar circumstance in season 1 Uncle Junior remarks at a funeral of a very old, seemingly respectable woman how she went with him when he was a youngster.
*Perhaps the corrupt retired cop Tony tells Chris is his father's killer, also knew the real secret of Chris's paternity?
Case against:
*The pic of Chris's dad in the Navy uniform looks a heck of a lot like him (same big nose). On the other hand Chris's mother also has a pretty big nose.
*Tony and Chris's mother have exchanged so much as a single glance.
I'm guessing that at some point down the track Chris is going to find out that Adriana is grassing to the Feds and face the choice of whacking her or going into witness protection and ratting on Tony. At about this point Tony will spill the beans that they are closer than Chris ever thought.
Pretty out there perhaps, but I have just watched seasons 1-4 over the last couple of weeks and its been burbling in my head for this time.
Spam aside - Rad, where've you been, bro?
Nice, Rad, I don't even have to watch it anymore.