SPOILERS, they be lying ahead so tread beyond here only with care.
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
This, of course, is the famous line growled by an aging Michael Corleone in the otherwise forgettable third installment of the filmic Godfather saga. It's also a favorite refrain of Silvio Dante, proprietor of the Bada Bing and all around high level henchman of Tony Soprano on The Sopranos.
As The Sopranos so often does – blissfully and masterfully well – it takes life and art and family and the mafia and our own skewed and biased perception of all of these things, and blends them into a cocktail served cold and sweet and rushing with the torrent of beating life itself.
The Sopranos returned tonight, beginning its sixth season after a nearly two-year hiatus.
Tony (played by the mesmerizingly great James Gandolfini) has maintained his ham-handed grip on the northern New Jersey mob family. With Johnny Sack in jail and acting New York boss Tony Leotardo pacified for the time being over the Tony Blundetto affair ("Tony S."'s cousin Tony B., played by Steve Buchemi, dominated much of Season Five and ended with a not-so-pleasant cousin-to-cousin shotgun handshake on an upstate New York farm), the House of Soprano looks to be stronger than ever. Indeed, Tony's domestic life, usually a source of concern if not outright agita, is downright cozy. Carmela (Edie Falco, an actress who literally can't be overpraised), now reconciled with Tony after a brief Season Five separation, is busy with her $600,000 spec house property and even enjoys spiriting away with her chubby mob boss hubby for frequent visits to a local sushi joint.
Meanwhile, the FBI is no closer to putting Tony behind bars – it seems their best chance was a bugged lamp in the Soprano home's basement circa Season Three. The brutal murder of Adriana (remember, these wise guys ain't such nice guys, no matter how many times we're exquisitely lulled into forgetting) near the end of Season Five is presage to more death that puts the feds further away.
Article comments
1 - Eric Berlin
So, what do y'all think will happen next week?
I'm betting that we're in for some major dream sequences and head fakes as many dead voices from the past (Ade, Big Pussy, etc.) come back to haunt and visit a critically wounded Tony.
He'll pull through though... but what kind of leader/father/mob boss/patient/person will come out the other side?
I'm really freaking fascinated out of my slippers to find out !
2 - Jim Ippolito
Excellent synopsis. The first episode was better done than I expected. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season unfolds.
3 - DJRadiohead
I really loved that first episode.
Smaller point... I think we see an emboldened Christopher in this episode. He seems to have been made a Capo and he is pretty free with giving orders and expressing his opinions on people and situations.
If they do another dream episode like that one in Episode 5 I am coming off the reservation. I hated that episode- worst in the series for me.
We're off to a hell of a start.
4 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
a screed from Sir Berlin is an all too rare treat these days, but when the madness of the Real World grants you a time for to scribble, what glories result!!
in other words, excellent, Master B! The Cathode Ray Fray continues to rumble and roar!
5 - Eric Berlin
Thanks Duke, I'm really trying to reorganize and rejigger the old life systems for to get some more scribbling time in.