Grid Effect

They terrify the shit out of me, but it is great to have them back. If for nothing else it gives me something to look forward to on Sundays (even if I am twiddling my thumbs for the eleven waking hours before it airs). It was a fairly methodical episode (at least compared to the first three seasons, which is what all commercial fans of The Sopranos use as a litmus test) and so far there seems to be little complaint on the web. I think we have a little “Don’t know what you got till it’s gone” after effect with the fan base. Which is good, I am disinterested in hearing about people’s body count expectations not being met. Onto the recap…

We open with a flashback to 2004, at the end of season five where Tony is working over the Tony Blundetto situation with Johnny Sac when FBI invades drops in. As Tony fleas through the woods he pitches his gun that is discovered by a high schooler who fires it, is awestruck and runs inside. Just another night in the burbs of New Jersey. Growing up suburban Columbus, if we didn’t hear a gun go off in the distance it was a headline.

We are taken to the present day with the season opening newspaper being thrown at the foot of his driveway, yet Tony is in bed with cops banging at his door. “Is this it?” Is Carmela’s immediate response. Yes, Carm, it’s the rapture. It is some lifestyle these crazy kid live.

Ends up the kid admitted seeing Tony pitch the gun over two years ago. Meadow and Carm both lose their shit. as he is being hauled off by local police. Tony is more contemptuous than worried, seeing as how the FBI isn’t involved.

Driving to prison, Meadow is behind the wheel, Carm is shotgun and AJ is in the back trying to sleep until Carm complains about the sauce on Tony’s pants that AJ grabbed from her closet. I know AJ is a screw up and there is really no plausibile reason for him to grab sauce stained pants (he blames it on dim lighting), but why is she having her twenty year old sun pick out the wardrobe for her husbands court appearance? Especially if it is AJ. I can categorically say, my mother never said to me, “Now pick out something for your father to wear.” Was my family atypical in this regard?

Tony is in prison, he paces around the cell to establish his alpha male status amongst a bunch of crackheads, sits down and we see someone taking a shit behind him.

In court, Tony’s lawyer refers to the kid as, “some punk”. Seems unnecessary. At a deposition, does the defense lawyer have to besmirch the witnesses for the prosecution in order to dismiss their claims? Seems petty.

At Phil Leotardo’s welcome back party, presumably from the hospital, everything is overly tense, probably because there is about to be another power grab. Phil says he plans on doing what Tony suggested in last half season’s finale, almost verbatim. The turnover rate for the NY crew is high, I recognize the little one who was all menacing in the last episode, the hairdo, a couple familiar faces scattered amongst the clan, but I cannot put any names to them.

AJ plays with Blanca’s kid at their house, Tony walks in, Blanca is surprised to see him out already. AJ clarifies what she means: “What she means is, where we come from, people don’t get out of jail that quickly.” And he is right, their is a lot of class/race discrimination in the judicial process, but there are so many things wrong with that statement considering it is coming from AJ, I don’t have the time or bandwith to delve into it.

Tony looks at AJ holding a mexican woman’s (if you think this doesn’t bother him, you’re crazy) kid while talking to Bobby, and lets Bobby convince him into visiting them at Aidronacks. On the drive up, they mellow to the tunes of James Gang, the song with the melody that sounds like any number of Zeppelin tracks. Oh, and Carmela is still working on selling her spec house.

Upon arrival, Tony is taken with the serene nature of the lake and the open air. They banter about their kid, Nica, Janice complains about Tony relieving the gardner who was caught in that Paulie-Feech Lamann quandary from season five of his duties once Johnny Sac went to prison. Bobby fires an automatic weapon in the woods with Tony and offers the intimidating illicit firarm and unnecessary to any non-battlefield scenario to him as a birthday gift. Tony says, “Don’t tell Carm”. How the fuck is he planning on concealing that thing? I suppose he could dismantle it, but still. This thing is like a handheld cannon.

While the four of them sit around and converse, Bobby mentions how his father came into the country illegally, then immediately says they should build a wall along the Mexican border. I suppose the blatant hypocrisy is just consistent with the rest of their lifestyle. Janice pretends to compliment Tony saying their relationship has blossomed because he has changed. He takes offense and everyone ignores him. Tony mentions to Carm how some pool story reminds him of Nica playing near the water. Carm elaborates about some kid who drowned in a pool and is now in a wheelchair. He says, “I can’t get that story out of my mind”. Clearly the Sopranos have a morbid fascination/fear of death and innocence. “You’re always with the babies out da windas”, is Tony’s exact quote summarizing his mother’s season one fascination with infant mortatlity.

The following morning, Carm gives Tony what looks to be a mind altering blow job, judging by the expression on his face. She arises and we come to find out that it’s a birthday gift of sorts. Shortly thereafter Bobby and Tony go out on the vintage corvette version of a speedboat, seriously, if Bobby jumped on the end of this thing it would flip over like a fucking canoe.

Carm talks to AJ on the phone and he claims he’s at work when he is actually fucking his girlfriend in his parents bed and throwing a party. When Carmela ovehears Blanca on the other end of the phone, AJ claims to be working, “that’s Fran at the pizzeria”. Nice unsubtle descriptive backstory there, writers. So sometime sicne the first half of the season and today, AJ lost his construction job and is now working at a pizza parlor. Maybe his father will end up buying him that club, after all.

Blanca comes stumbling up to the bed and says how wondeful the jacuzzi is. “You can thank my dad, Blanca” are the words I think AJ will respond with. And, holy shit, I never thought about this but what if its revealed that Tony has slept with her, that’s his kid and this is some sort of revenge plot for her. Because, she said the father was an asshole, she has worked at the construction site, Paulie at least seemed to know her well, if not intimately; she has no real plausible reason to be dating AJ and that look Tony gave her kid while on the phone with Bobby. It is probably too far fetched but whatever, I’m throwing caution to the wind and expecting some sort of sordid tale. Tony is very posessive of his former girlfriends as exhibited with Irina. Is tony enough of a monster to beat his own son with a belt? Absolutely.

Carm and Janice have a conversation about Tony, she laments about their poor upbringing and says her therapist claims their mom pitted the three of them against each other. Ad how Livia only really started to resent her kids when they started to talk and form independent thoughts, but is quick to add she still loved them. What kind of sick fuck is agitated by the development of their own spawn? We’ll find out shortly enough.

Tony and Bobby are having a telling conversation that includes Bobby having never killed anyone, which is surprising, you figure it would have been mandatory. Tony calls it a pain in the balls, I think he means psychologically, but Bobby says especially with all the DNA evidence.
Tony goes on to elaborate on his distancing relationship with Chris (but does not mention his name), then implies that Bobby might be in consideration to be his successor.

We cut to the four of them and Tony receiving gifts. Janice made a home video which Tony looks repulsed by but is never the less thankful for. Carm replaces the golf clubs she set in the driveway in “Whitecaps” for him to run over, he is legitimately thankful for these.

Carm and Janice sing karoke and it’s bloody fucking awful, particularly Carm, Edie Falco had to have been intentionally singing worse than she is capable of.

Next is the greatest Monopoly scene in the history of entertainment. Everyone is tense but amazingly loose and drunk, they have an argument about the Free Parking rule that Bobby is adamantly opposed to wavering on, “The Parker brothers went to great trouble to come up with these rules”. Tony eventually hits it and Bobby complains, Tony mocks him comically, “How ’bout that? How ’bout that?” Bobby, drunk and full of courage, is not amused.

The kid runs downstairs and Janice offers her a candy bar to go to bed, which is counter-productive not only psychologically (which both Tony and Bobby are quick to point out) but also phsyiologically. What three year old can go to sleep immediately after eating a sugar induced candy bar?

Tony randomly brings up Janice filming her and Barbara fighting when tehy were kids and bribing them with the video, he tries to guilt her over it despite her denial that this ever took place. Carm is quick to mention that even if she didn’t do this, that she fed him a milk bone. Tony respnds with one of those incredulous, “Whaatt?”’s. Janice, quick to change the subject, shares some story about their dad shooting a bullet through the beehive of his gumars hair; this only infuriates him more. Has there ever been a moe angst-ridden family on television? There is so much hostility, resentment and rage they hold towards one another.

Tony makes a joke about Janice and boardwalks after she lands on the monopoly space. She gets doubles and gets a chance card about winning second place in a beauty contest to which Tony has an additional not so flattering remark about (A Greman Shepards shaved asshole came in first), Tony feigns an apology after Bobby demands one, then moments later continues with the boardwalk thing and Bobby sucker punches him. The fight that precedes between these two behemoths is uncanny, I can’t believe they didn’t fall through the wall when Tony was strangling Bobby against it.

Eventually Tony goes down after Carm distracts him (she is thrown to the floor and her shoulder lands on a coffee table) and Bobby takes adavantage. Realizing what he did and who he did it to, Bobby hops in his car to runaway, backs into a tree and now has to face the music. As evidenced by his face, he has no desire to. In oe of the funnier symbolic bits ever, Carm flicks a blody monopoly hotel off her husbands face. He is a fucking mess, and the fact his their is an overflow of blood all over him from it being thinned by the alcohol isn’t helping.

In their bedroom, Janice is chastising Bobby for what he did, claiming, “I can take care of myself” and reminds him that he isn’t going to let this go unpunished. Well, to be fair, Bobby did try to leave.

In the middle of the night (4:04am, to be precise) Tony wakes up, stumbles into Janice and Bobby’s room, scares the shit out of all three of us, and simply says, “You beat me fair and square”. Despite being heavily intoxicated, Janice and Bobby were really sleeping on pins and needles as evidenced by their response when he busts in. He leaves without shutting their door, which just completely illegitimizes the drunken peace offering.

In the morning, Carm wants to leave, Tony has an unmistakable shiner (how is this going to be explained to the tribesmen?). Bob and Jan talk the two of them into staying. Tony goes out to a lawn chair and stares out into the lake alone, god only knows what he’s thinking at this point. Janice observes him and knows, simply by his posturing, “I’ve seen that sitting in the chair thing”, Bobby dismisses it although he is clearly contemplating.

Carm approaches him and tries to make small talk, Tony delves into some kids ass he kicked in high shcool saying, “You were blown away”. They go back and forth about his physical setback after the shooting, Tony not not receiving enough credit for getting them the house. She walks away disgusted.

Tony takes into account Mercedes and Nica seeing a song about ducks as he loads the car with his golf clubs and that absurd platoon killer.

At lunch, everyone tries to make small talk, Tony abruptly changes the subject again, saying he would have won a year ago before his accident and is also quick to point out it was a sucker punch. Bobby, for whatever reason, is defensive.

Carm and Nica are playing in the very shallow end of the lake when Janice comes out and causes a scene, the girl refuses to come out of the water and Jan goes ape shit. Hey, Janice takes after her mother! Looks like someone else cannot handle independent thoughts expressed from the mouths of children. Seriously though, I fear for Nica.

When her and mercedes walk away, Janice does what Tony did earlier, tells a story about Richie and how she lost her cool after he hit her. Though she doesn’t mention who it is (other than her BF) or that she killed him. Nice selective editing, Janice. She points out she is more like her father than Tony, Carmela interprets it the wrong way, and if u recall, she knows about Richie. She delves into defending her husband calling him, “not a vindictive man”. Someone doesn’t know their spouse all that well, and how could she, really?

At the meeting with the “canucks”, they are willing to give them cheap(er) pills if they are willing to kill the father of his sisters child. They all act disgusted with said man and the only one who really gives a shit is Bobby, Tony replies, “That’s some tough, talk mon a mie”. The Canadians go to talk, Tony passively tells Bobby to handle the execution, totally disregarding the conversation they had earlier on the boat. No, not vindictive in anyway.

Tony and Carm leave, Janice says, “you let him win, smart”, after they both claim Tony won a round of golf. Bobby goes immediately from saying his goodbyes to packing for montreal to murder someone for the first time. He is already more agitated than I have ever seen him, “Stop FUCKING nagging me” is his reply to an inquisitive Janice.

We see some kid go into a laundromat alone, Bobby follows him, draws his gun and fires away. The bullet goes into the dryer and keeps rattling around. Bobby leans over the guy and holds his gun to his head, the guy grabs his shirt and bobby kills him with a second shot. The guy rips off some of the shirt off his chest.

Tony is back home and gets a call from his lawyer saying the gun charge will be rolled up into a RICO case the Feds are working on.

Bobby returns home and “This Magic Moment” Kicks in, his daughter comes running up to him and Janice hollers something incoherently, the entire scene has a David Lynch feel of lost innocence and Bobby clutches his daughter, desperately, lovingly and frighteningly. Fade to credits. Good God, can this show be any more emotionally draining? Great beginning to the end, though.

Side notes:

-Those who picked up on Carmela rubbing her shoulder before being thrown to the gorund, nice perception. Some have pointed out that neck and shoulder pain has been linked to ovarian cancer, something Carmela was worried about in Season Three. If this ends up being the case, I cannot think of any better comeuppance for Tony than his wife dying from something he is powerless to prevent.

-Janice spoke of her temper mimmicking Johnny’s more so than Livia’s, and Tony being the exact opposite, this clearly foreshadowed Tony bullying Bobby into murdering someone over a fight that originated over diverging opinions on the free parking rule.

Previews for Sunday, Chris, Phil and Paulie are back in much greater capacity. Carm is dsiappointed in Chrissy, we are supposed to believe she brings up Adriana, but she probably calls him out for not wearing a matching suit and tie to some mob function.