Grid Effect

I discussed much of the symbolism in Thursday’s post and glossed over it or didn’t touch on it at all in the following post. Anyway, on to the recap.

Some Eastern Europeans (not entirely sure which ethnicity, specifically, forgive my American indifference) argue over asbestos being dumped with hordes of construction equipment, they have to recalibrate the situation…

Cut to Tony and Chris talking to Phil and Butchy about asbestos, Phil wants a bigger cut than Tony feels he deserves. Chris is wearing a hat not fully pinned down and his nervously glancing around. If you remember “Two Tonys”, Tony discovered Jack Masserone was working with the Feds when he was suspiciously wearing a hat, and used his Rogaine application as an excuse. Does anyone remembering Chris wearing a hat? Ever?

On the drive back from the contemptuous meeting, Tony and Chris discuss the Phil “issue”, as he is set to induce a regular headache on for the Jersey faction. Chris seems to insist that Tony relax, “Whatever happened to stop and smell the roses?” Tony laments that there are people like Phil that will take those roses and stick them up your ass. Chris plays with the audio system while Tony observes him, he either knows he’s high or nervous about something else, it is never made entirely clear what his thought process is at this point, though shortly we will discover it’s probably one of disgust. Chris goes for the radio right when a gradual turn comes up, he heads into an oncoming car and they swerve out of the way leading to them flipping the car over seven or eight times.

The camera shoots back to Kennedy and Heidi, Kennedy suggests they go back, Heidi claims she can’t because she is driving with her learners permit after dark. Essentially displaying the self-preservation that the majority of us embody. We expect it from psychopaths like Tony, Chris, Silvio, etc. But we would like to assume two high school girls wouldn’t be so shallow. Think again. They could have been a witness to a car full of accidental deaths and continued driving. To be honest, it wasn’t entirely unrealistic.

At the scene of the accident, Chris caught the blunt end of the accident, claims he cannot pass a drug test and he’ll have his license revoked if the cops find him in this state. Tony initially goes to help him switch car seats, busts open the window and begins to help him, until Chris claims he could never pass a drug test again and Tony glances at the shattered baby’s carseat in the back for the second or third time, watches him cough up really viscous, dark red blood while wheezing violently, Stops dialing 911, then plugs Chris’ nose shut, forcing him to choke on his own blood. Tony wipes the blood off his hands onto Chris’ shirt. Yet another way of Tony recuse himself and holding someone else responsible. This time it’s Chris, for his own death.

At the hospital, Tony asks how “his friend” is, he calls Carmela and she goes hysterical. Tony looks annoyed more than anything. Tony blames his death on the lack of a seatbelt. After he hangs up, he glances at Christopher’s belongings and looks somewhat remorseful.

Tony is now lying in bed at home when the guys walk in, they are all really uncomfortable with death, trying to make small talk. Paulie blames it on Chris “led foot”. One guy keeps trying to break the awkward silence with bringing up Carlos arrival, Sil calls him out on it. When asked if he was high, Tony says he would have killed him himself if he knew that he was.

Tony walks downstairs with the assistance of Meadow, who is, unbelievably, still a cast on the show. Tony orders Meadow to get him a scotch. And suggests Meadow get one as well, explaining to Paulie, “They were close”. Well, he did get her speed when she was in high school with the assistance of Brandon Falloon. Other than that I’m not sure they’ve ever had any screen time that didn’t involve a third party. Paulie regrets his relationship with Chris, explaining, “If you were his father, I was his dutch uncle”, regretful that he spent so much time arguing with Chris about money and such. Tony simply says, “It’s over”.

Kelli’s father is livid about leaving their granddaughter fatherless, this is neither the time or place, pal. Patsy comes in and explains that Lucci died from a stroke on the way back from seeing “Jersey Boys”. Everyone gasps. In case you need refreshed, Lucci was Paulie’s mother, then discovered she was biologically his aunt, but I guess reconciled since.

Tony is in therapy, and begins lamenting Chris’ death as “pain he’s never known”, before conceding that he is relieved. Calling Chris a, “sniveling drug addict” and expressing further, “Let me tell you something, I’ve murdered friends before, relatives even, my cousin Tony, my best friend Puss, but this?” And then he wakes up and asks Carmela if he was talking in his sleep. She flips on an interview with Katherine Hepburn where she explains her hardest acting gig. Make of it what you will.

Tony waddles downstairs to make an espresso, when he picks up a Cleaver coffee mug, he immediately walks outside and throws it into the woods to discard any guilt he may have. Tony asks Carm to make it because you average person need a pilots license to operate the cappuccino machine Paulie bought them. Sweet peat, is he ever grateful? Carmela is sorry about what she said to Chris and implicating him with Ade’s disappearance. “Why are we so quick to blame? What is the attraction in it?” she rhetorically asks herself. Though I’m sure Tony can answer from experience: “What are you kidding me? Its great! Alleviating yourself of any guilt so you can sleep at night then losing yourself in a metric ton of boos and narcotics. Few things are more rewarding, Carm, I suggest you do it more often.” Tony tries to get Carm to admit that she was relieved when she heard Chris passed, she asks insulted and said that if she seemed in anyway relieved it was because Chris died and not him. She is completely overwhelmed by the life she leads, and I almost feel sorry for her. Tony mentions the branch going through the baby’s carseat, saying, “She would be mangled beyond recognition”. Carm walks away and Tony is surprised she doesn’t want to hear it, he’s reflecting his mother more and more.

In therapy, Tony talks about Chris’ mother, Joanne, a lush, who abandoned Chris as a child is now reaping all the sympathy from fellow mourners. Tony says he walked Chris through his biggest problem and says that he handled it because Chris was incapable, and that Chris never showed any gratitude. I don’t think we was all that thrilled about killing his fiancee, Ton. In fact he seemed relatively conflicted over it. I would venture to guess that if he could do it all over again he would have eloped with her. Tony says his biggest problem is having to put on the facade of mourning, and that he doesn’t feel it, which makes him feel like a hypocrite and makes him angry. Yeah, its a real bitch when people constantly unknowingly remind you that you murdered your nephew or cousin or whatever the hell days after you did so.

Julianna walks up to Chris’ wake and Tony introduces him to Carmela. Julianna first admits she used to buy her meat at Satriale’s, then admits she is a recovering addict and that she owes Chris a lot. Tony asks, “What are u going to do?” she replies, “Nothing you can do” without skipping a beat, Tony: “Thats my point”. Carm and Tony sit down and Carmela reassures him that he loved him “so much”. Tony seems to buy it, but just for her sake. Danny Baldwin nods at him.

The guys hang out and talk, Tony sees Joanne collapse at her sons coffin and says, “Fucking James Brown now”, then sees Kelli walk up with thick, dark glasses on and says, “Jackie Kennedy”, now he’s reducing everyones misery to pop-culture references. The Jason’s comfort AJ.

Tony tells the director of “Cleaver” about the babyseat. He doesn’t seem to understand the relevance.

They go to Nucci’s wake where there is virtually no one in attendance. Some guy thanks them, Tony looks over at Paulie who looks livid, and Tony says to Carm , “I gotta get out of here”. Paulie notices him in the doorway at this, Tony asks him how he’s coping and Carmela comments on how lovely the room is to which Paulie replies, “There’s no one in it”. Paulie wants to make sure that he views this as a fundamental lack of respect that he’ll never forget. Tony tries to reassure him that many of her friends have already passed, he replies, “So she outlived Sil, fucking Carlo?” Tony, to get out of the inevitable heated conversation says Paulie should be thankful he stopped by and that this is neither the time nor the place. Could these two be anymore self-absorbed? “Their disrespecting me”, “Doesn’t my arrival mean anything?” You know, you two are at occupying wakes.

AJ talks with his therapist. and says he feels fine. Numb, even.

AJ and one of the Jason’s see Victor walking up on crutches while some girl explains the story he fabricated to spare himself having to admit what happened. Tony and Jason laugh at it, she looks confused.

Tony watches Kelli breast feed, then calls some guy at Caesars Palace to book a suite. Said guy sends a plane for Tony implying that he’s probably dropped at least hundreds of thousands of dollars there. Upon arrival, He gambles, loses, repeatedly. No one wins at roulette. Not for nothing, but maybe Tony is just bad at gambling, and he’s usually infinitely lucky. Nowadays, it seems like he’s losing accordingly.

Back in dirty Jers, AJ’s professor lectures about the significance of Wordsworth and his objection to materialism.

Tony lies by the pool at Caesars where all the grade A tail tends to rest, and if you notice in the background, that’s not an embellishment. While I was staying there I got a strong impression that they were hotel employees.

Tony goes to visit a women we’ve never met before. Its an unbelievably gorgeous actress from The L Word, Sarah Shahi. We come to discover her name is Sonya, she offers him a drink after he calls her beautiful in so many words. She tells him about Chris, she seems shocked more so than saddened. She says it’s good that he left something. Tony leaves. She asks how long he’s in Vegas for, He says an undetermined length.

Tony is staying in the same tower I stayed in as well. My trip was more eventful but less enlightening. Someone named Stefano calls nervously about the asbestos, and Tony looks perturbed to be interrupted but puts his mind at ease for the moment.

AJ hangs out on the patio of the Jason’s frat house. When one of the Jasons shows up and opens his door on some oncoming Somalian on a bike. They proceed to beat him down and throw a few racial epithets his way. AJ sort of throws him into the fray as a gut reaction, then looks on in horror as they beat this poor kid for something that was essentially all Jason’s fault.

Shahi is fucking Tony. Hard. And lights up a post-coitus joint. Tony smokes weed for the first time that we have seen, and it doesn’t look fitting. They discuss Chris, and while she claims he said some depressing shit, Tony seems truly sad. Strippers, they have some great intuition.

Tony and Phil argue over the phone subliminally and Butchie giggles after Phil sends fake condolences for Chris’ death. Phil might as well be doing a Jerky Boys routine right now, except for the life and death implications.

AJ, now sullen after the racist beatdown from his newfound friends, is lamenting the state of the world to his shrink. He even drops an, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Damn, that Conflict in the Middle East is really getting to him, some people just aren’t cut out for the rigors of college life, I suppose. I really have no idea which way AJ is going.

Tony takes some peyote with Sonya, then throws up in a toilet (a common side effect) and gazes at the bathroom light, seemingly satisfied.

Cut to the two of them walking through the lobby at Caesars, my friend had an instance like this, walking from Pure to the hotel room, but was projectile vomiting in front of dozens of people fresh off a red-eye and other onlookers.

They eventually get to the casino and tony is enamored with a devil faced slot machine. They get to the roulette table, and Tony claims, “Its the same principle as the solar system”, wins two huge bets in a row, tips the dealer, or whatever the fuck he’s called in roulette, much to the bemusement of Sonya. He hits 24 again, then proclaims, “he’s dead”, then barrels over laughing.

Some men dump the asbestos in a marsh and we here some ducks quacking, so much for Tony’s concern for wildlife. Everyone and everything is expendable to him now, set aside Meadow, most likely AJ and maybe Carmela.

Tony and Sonya chill out on a cliff somewhere on the outskirts of Vegas. Tony sees a sonic flare from the sun and proclaims, “I Get it”. Then screams it out, crying/laughing in amazement. The camera pulls out showing this big, overbearing criminal force and it makes him look astoundingly insignificant, and I fucking love it.

Tomorrow night: Tony and Carmela argue, he breaks out a “poor you”, and tensions with Phil look like they escalate. I don’t really understand what Phil is trying to leave as his legacy or his rationale for it. Apparently he wants to be known as the boss who tormented Tony Soprano. Yeah, that will live in infamy.