'The Sopranos': Tony's lament: 'Why me?'

A.J. Soprano’s suicide attempt was very A.J.: He tied a plastic bag over his head and attached a concrete block to his foot before dropping himself into the family pool.

Depression has long been A.J.’s curse, but ineffectualness is a close second; the plastic bag wasn’t tied properly and he appeared to over-estimate the length of rope for the block. A cry for help that was, finally, sweet, like the time A.J. brought a sword into the psychiatric hospital to get revenge on Uncle Junior for shooting his father.

“On some level he may have known that the rope was too long to keep him submerged,” Dr. Melfi tells Tony. “Or he could just be...[an idiot],” says the father. “Historically that’s been the case.”

A.J. had his imagery right — the mob’s “cement shoes,” not to mention that pool. The pool is where it all began on “The Sopranos” — Tony with his ducks and his depression. In the throes of his child’s desperate act, it was not difficult to discern whom Tony thought was affected the most.
“Why me, huh?” he says to Melfi. “Doesn’t every parent make mistakes? … I’m a good guy. Basically.”

There isn’t much on the horizon now but bloodshed, sadness and death. The intimations came in the guise of A.J. reading Yeats’ classic “The Second Coming”:

“…somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.”

Didn’t we spot a creature, “a shape with lion body and the head of a man,” in the desert just last week? Maybe it was his slow thighs. “The best lack all conviction,” Yeats wrote, “while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Speaking of Phil Leotardo, it seems the final mob war is on — various business-related stalemates having gone nowhere and Tony having savaged one of Phil’s goons, after the goon got fresh with Meadow. In the previews for coming attractions, Carmela was again seen in a state of desperate emotional pique. It’s one of the few disappointments of this last go-around that Edie Falco hasn’t gotten to do more.

Oh well, “The Sopranos” is about Tony, and everything that emanates from his deceptions. The writers, in a flash of meta-analysis, included a grimly comedic scene where Melfi’s psychiatrist, Dr. Elliot Kupferberg (Peter Bogdonavich, annoyingly sipping from his special water bottle), cited a psychological study of sociopaths and criminals that found, in the main, that “talk therapy, while not only being useless with sociopaths, actually serves to validate them.”

In the very next scene Tony goes to the restaurant to beat the goon senseless, and one of the guy’s cracked teeth ends up wedged in the cuff of his slacks. Tony notices it while sitting in family therapy with Carmela and his morose son, over whom the father is equally omniscient and powerless. Deep down, they’re both Yeats-ians. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

(Photo courtesy HBO)

Comments

[Fisher]

My habit has been to TIVO The Sopranos and watch the show late Sunday night, the house is quiet - just me and the dog. Who really knows where it is going to end. I don't think we will see a happy ending my prediction is that Tony will wind up sleeping with the fishes.

The world will not be the same without T.

[Randy]

Now we get to see what Chase is made of. If he stays strong, Phil will kill Tony's entire family in front of him in the house. Then Tony will be chopped up and stuck into a dishwasher and crushed inside a car trunk at a scrap yard.

If Chase is weak Tony will give it all up and move away. Paulie will get whacked and Bobby will take over being run by Janice who really will be the new head of the family.

[John S.]

I've enjoyed the way the show is comming to a close. I think that the most brilliant thing that Chase has been doing lately is letting Tony and Carmela's ugliness shine through. These characters are so well developed, it's easy to get caught up in it all, and forget that these two are jerks, Tony somewhat of a mass murderer and consistent adulterer, Carmela a selfish, evil queen that cares not how she got her castle, and the both of them horrible racists to boot. And all this falls through the gate and festers in A.J.'s soul, no wonder the kid was so screwed up, it was enough for him to deal with Livia.

Poor Christahfuh? He beat Adrianna to a pulp on many occasions, took more snow than Juneau, and also constantly cheated on one of the most attractive women ever in an HBO series. Not to mention punching Lauren Bacall in the face and shooting Tim Daly because he didn't want to hear the secrets of the Cosa Nostra.

They all get what they deserve, except for the innocent Soprano children. And Chase is commendable for letting us see that before we shed too many tears.

[George]

The Soprano's final show ended mysteriously. Probably everyone of its millions of viewers thought their TV or cable connection was screwed up when the picture turned black at the final moment. After what seemed like a long time, the credits rolled. What happened during the blackout?

I dunno.