In anticipation...
With only a few hours to go before the last episode of The Sopranos EVER, it's not without certain trepidation that I await the ultimate fates of Tony, his family, and crew. Once those precious 65 minutes are over, I too will feel like a chapter in my life will be closing.
Okay, fine. The connection between us may not be quite so solemn, but like Tony, I do feel like I'm–in the words of Little Carmine–"at the precipice of an enormous crossroad"... a time of imminent transition, if you will.
You see, I associate much of my time spent religiously watching The Sopranos with my early years in Boston. The ship has since sailed on that era, but it brings me back to when I was still at my first job, and living alone (quite poorly in hindsight) in a crap apartment of my own doing [Note to self: police locks on doors, never a good sign]. Ever the opsimath, it took me some time to get into the show everybody was talking about. More precisely, it took me a Netflix subscription and a complimentary subscription to HBO to realize that I was in a very good position to get into it if I really wanted to.
Naturally, I was skeptical at first. Like perhaps 50.3% of the world's population, i.e. men, I am utterly fascinated with mob movies. The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Casino all hold a very special place in my heart, and dvd collection. Having seen the promos for The Sopranos and heard the hype for quite a while, I couldn't help but wonder how it would compare to the canon, and to what degree I would be disappointed. A show about the mafia and the main character is called Soprano? Fuhggedaboutit!
I received the first 3 dvds of Season One on a Tuesday night in the fall of 2002, slid them into my dvd player, and was immediately hooked. As I watched the episodes back to back (even after dinner while doing the dishes in a sink that was only a sink in name) I thought to myself: This is great television. This is masterfully nuanced art. This is f*****g amazing.
And it only got better. There are many pretenders out there, but what the creators of the show and its inspired cast have been able to do in the last 8 years, 86 episodes and 18 Emmy awards is put together one of the best TV shows of all time.
The generation before mine had the Godfather. We have the Sopranos. And I guess the children of the future are better off for having both. So thank you, Mr. Chase. Thank you, Mr. Gandolfini et al.
There are way too many good qualities to enumerate about the show, but among them and at the top of my list would certainly have to be the pacing of each season... it's like every one of them was a new "dish" being prepared from start to finish. It would begin at a slow-burn, throwing characters new and old into situations that would cause them to blend, simmer or–when things inexorably heated up–burn. Nothing was guaranteed, no one was safe, and loose ends were often left untied. Also, years would pass between certain seasons and the creators chose to use that to their advantage. The show moved with the times... often even presciently predicting them.
The second great quality that set the show apart in my eyes was the myriad of insights into characters (major or marginal) that were offered through both the stellar writing and performances. That Adrianna's ill-fated dog was called Cosette, or more recently, that one of the girls responsible for running Chris (Cristofuh!) and Tony off the road and refusing to call the authorities because they were driving on a learner's permit after dark was called Kennedy, for example, stood in my mind as being just masterful. Paris, anybody? Not to judge a book by its cover, but with names such as those you get an unbelievable amount of subtext from which to infer from. And that's writing, folks. One word *can* say it all.
And then there were the performances: nobody was really played for laughs or really over the top except perhaps for Paulie Walnuts, but that's just who the dude was... and it's believable. Everything is. Time and time again, it's been reinforced in the show that Tony and his crew are fully functional sociopaths, and that's exactly how they come across. I don't think Edie Falco or James Gandolfini could ever get enough plaudits for their portrayals of Carmela and Tony respectively. I particularly enjoy the additional heft that Gandolfini has conveyed to Tony this season as heard through his character's increasingly lumbered breathing. This again is not real, but legerdemain. And that's a testament to their craft.
Which brings us to tonight.
Will Tony live, die or turn? That's ultimately what everybody wants to know, and I for one can't wait to find out.
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