Grid Effect

Before I delve into The Sopranos recap, and this is almost criminal to open a Sopranos post with other discussion, but I just have to comment on the fantastic episode of Survivor we had last night. Clearly the most strategic episode since Yul used the immunity idol to sway Jonathan over to his alliance. Anyways, onto the recap…

We open with Danny Baldwin starrig in Chris’ horror film, “Cleaver”, stumbling onto a gutted body with this guys innards hanging out. Anthony LaPaglia’s little brother plays the dead soldier who was murdered by his boss (Baldwin), the soldier has risen from the dead to murder his mentor and does so by ramming his skull with a meat cleaver. Chris’ take: “Fuck Ben Kingsley, fucking Daniel Baldwin took him to acting school”. Him, some Asian guy, Barisi and some random guy discuss ways to improve the editing and commercial appeal. This really isn’t a meeting of creative minds here, they discuss adding one more “sexy murder” and having to possibly alter the title because Eldridge Cleaver is threatening an injunction.

Johnny Sack has a shaved head and tubes running out of his nose. If you read any pre-season reviews, then you would know its because he has contracted cancer during his incarceration. His doctor informs him he is dying. Quickly. Johnny asks, “And there is no stage five?” To clarify the origins of the episode title. Sack is somewhat agitated because of the promises made to him in regards to all the treatments he underwent. As I imagine most cancer victims are.

On the car ride back to prison, Johnny confesses to one of the agents that he converted to a healthy lifestyle while in prison, eating right, excercising, quitting smoking, etc. And that is when he contracted the disease. The ineffectiveness of change is what The Sopranos constantly force feeds us. If you hark back to the first season and Tony’s sentiment about free will, “Then how come I’m not selling pots in Peru….You’re born into this shit, you are what you are.”

Johnny meets with Ginny and Allegra and hesitantly tells them about his condition while choking fending off tears (a popular theme for this episode). They hug and the guard on duty is quick to remind them of prison rules regarding physical contact. Johnny gives said guard a death stare that is exceedingly morbid because he is dying but completely ineffectual for the same reason. When his family leaves, Johnny goes to bum a cigarette from another patient/inmate.

At dinner, Tony, Carm, Blanca, her kid, AJ, and Meadow are eating dinner discussing the movie premiere. Blanca goes beserk when AJ says he just wants to hang with celebs. Somehow she ties the incredibly shallow yet fairly innocent comment into something offensive. His parents ask him if they had a fight, he responds in quintessential AJ fashion, “uhhh I don’t know”. It looks like she may be pregnant and AJ is in clearly over his head.

Sydney Pollack is playing convicted oncologist turned prison hospital orderly, Dr. Feldman, with a comical approach. Probably my favorite quote of the episode belongs to him: “I will save the suspense and tell you that I killed my wife, I had reason to believe she was cheating on me, not that that’s any excuse… I killed her aunt too. I had no idea she was there…And the mailman, at that point I had to fully commit.” He’s phenomenal in his delivery, very calm and collected as he adds up his murder tally. They discuss his condition, and Feldman puts doubt into Johnny’s head about the grim outlook of his diagnosis. When Johnny asks for an explanation, Feldman replies, “We tell a patient three months and he lives for a year, who looks like a hero?”

Tony goes out for his paper and is accosted by two FBI agents (Harris and some random partner who works on the joint terror task force). They probe him for assistance if they know of any illegal activity taking place with middle-easterners, they’re quick to point out his daughter uses the tunnels to go abck and forth from school. Tony goes inside and complains to Carmela about how dangerous collecting the paper is. Apparently, this is what it has come to for Tony Soprano, hesitant to walk to the end of his driveway for fear of death or the FBI.

At the screening, Carmine and Chris introduce the film to a large crowd. One of the stagehands yanks the mike away from the director before he can speak. Chris singles out Tony to thank (apparently JT Dolan, the writer thought he was going to get that recognition, so clearly he isn’t fully aware of the nature of their relationship).

During the screening, Paulie’s cell phone goes off and there is an overhead shot of the theater in which everyone in the room can hear him talking. Tony doesn’t pick up on the parallels between the Adriana/Chris/Tony situation with Daniel Baldwin (The boss), Anthony LaPaglia’s brother (The soldier) and some random girl who was the soldiers fiance.

At the party, Tony congratulates Chris on the release of the film, he comments on the lasting nature of it and leaving something worthwhile long after they’re gone. Very Beanie Siegel, but instead of a landmark casino hotel that bore a city, its a carbon copy horror flick. Chris, despite all the monetary gain from this, is still stealing items from the promotional events.

We pan around the crowd for a few minutes and eavesdrop onto random conversations. My second favorite line of the night goes to Larry Barisi’s wife: “Larry and I hung out on the set, I don’t know if you know this, but the actors, they don’t make up what they say”.

Phil and Tony ponder the current dismal circumstances of their business. Phil no longer wants the leadership position, apparently taking Tony’s advice in “Kaisha” to heart. They all take pictures with Danny Baldwin.

Geraldo hosts a fake show in which him and two guests discuss the state of the NY mob. We pan out from the television to see Melfi’s psychiatrist, Elliot Kufperberg, who’s always had a boner for mob gossip, watching the telecast and responds, “That Santoro thing, I called it a year ago”.

Johnny says to Ginny’s brother that he wants to put her on a monthly stipend. Johnny, who’s hopes are now up after talking to the convicted doctor, forces his brother in law into reassuring him, “OJ is no less a running back, he still has the knowledge”. John is concerned about his legacy. The guy convinces him that he was well respected across the board, even with the allocution, butin his last days as a free man some were judgmental of his penchant for murder as conflict resolution.

Carmela has to beat it into Tony’s head about the real life allegory in “Cleaver”. “He’s a tough prick that Baldwin”, is my third favorite line of the episode.

Silvio and Tony talk about the film and Tony tries to weed it out of Silvio about the obvious metaphor, Sil refuses to bite, so clearly he picked up on it. When Tony asks if Chris is around, Sil replies, “He doesn’t come around here anymore”. I like how Chris is running the gamut here, but doing so unintentionally or at least being very passive-aggresive about it, that ice he is on, it’s definitely getting thin.

Chris is talking to his new sponsor, Shooter McGavin, and in some parts of the country he is known as Christopher McDonald. Chris and Julianna are through, apparently, but not soon enough to piss off his mentor/crime boss. FBI guys are following him around, Chris replies, “Your tax dollars at work” Like its unjustified. Chris elaborates on the disinterested attitude of his mob friends with his proclivity for addiction, hence why he no longer hangs out at the Bing, or at least that’s what he tells himself.

Johnny is trading war stories and smoking when his family approaches. They’re annoyed, Ginny tells him miracles do happen, he replies, “What about all the six year olds with Leukemia? Is it all their negative thinking?”.

Silvio has dinner with The hairdo and is discussing business when there dates return from what I assume is the bathroom. Then everything goes virtually still and silent while Sil is splattered with blood, the camera reverts to a normal tempo and we see the Hairdo collapse to the ground. He was shot by an Asian guy who looks similar to the same hitman who was supposed to take out Ralph Cifaretto in season four before Sack called it off at the last moment. Very Godfather-esque.

Tony has lunch with Carmine, he orders a cautiously healthy meal and Tony just deadpans, “Philly cheese steak”. Tony wants him to take the leadership position, assuring him support from Jersey as he is worried about Doc taking lead because of his penchant for gun play. Carmine gives a lecture about a dream he had about his father, Tony misinterprets it thinking his dad was telling Carmine to assume his famlial pre-disposition as acting boss (very similar to the Weebay-Nemond story in The Wire), when actually he was suggesting he puts his happiness before his financial success. Carmine admits his wife made him cry with the confession that she doesn’t want to be a wealthy widow. Really eloquent scene, one of the best of the series.

Feldman tells Ginny that Johnny’s smoking is an attempt to die as he lived, “in total control”. Ginny boasts about her wieght loss once again, “I lost twenty seven pounds and he cannot even try to quit smoking”. Well, yeah, but proportionally speaking, Ginny losing twenty pounds is the equivalent to my fasting on Good Friday.

Carm confronts Chris about the obvious parallel in the movie, he denies doing it and she points out that he is on the writing credits. He claims he only did it for the writers guild dental insurance, then resents her implications.

Feldman tries to make small talk about with Johnny the hairdo being wacked, he barely has the energy to muster up a, “He was a good man”. Feldman decides to level with him, confessing that his prognosis may have been misguided. If Johnny had enough strength to give a shit he would have had this guy killed for the hopeless advice.

Chris immediately goes to JT Dolan to strong arm him into taking responsibility for the Tony-Adriana parallel. He refuses since it was Chris’ addition, “It’s bad enough I don’t get credit for my ideas now you want me to take credit for ideas that will get me into trouble. Where did yu get the idea?” Chris response, “Isaac Newton discovered gravity because some asshole threw an apple at his head.” That’s actually my third favorite line of the night. He then proceeds to picks up a writing award, calls the humanatas, Chris pronounces it humanitis, like it represents a disease for being human, and then smacks JT over the head with it. It’s essentially the best metaphor in the history of the series that summarizes how parsitical all these guys are.

At the bing, Paulie, Tony and Sil are discussing the hairdo hit. The manner in which Silvio explains it, he sounds like an onlooker rehashing a high school fight. JT shows up to attempt to subtly advertise that the dead soldier getting revenge on his old boss storyline was his idea. Paulie manages to misunderstand everything and not realize he’s scaring the shit out of JT, who claims to have gotten the idea from another film. Tony seems skeptical and asks him what happened to his head, JT stutters, blames it on a cabinet. Tony watches the film almost immediately afterwards and looks disappointed.

Tony laments his sullen relationship with Chris to Dr. Melfi, he’s really hypocritical but sad and is fending the waterworks the entire time. He says Chris’ dad, Dicky, was a mentor/friend like he wants to be to Chris. He’s deeply depressed and it seems his depression is eventually going to turn into rage, most likely directed outward, when Melfi suggests he may be reading too much into what the film says about Chris’ feelings towards him, he replies, “I’ve been coming here for years, I know too much about the subconscious now”. Alright, move every other line down one, because this tops the list. Absolutely chilling.

Johhny is on the verge of passing and Ginny tries to take his mind off it with slippers, he mutters something about his mom and is unable to speak, Ginny offers him a cigarette and he dies on the spot. Vincent Curatola, who plays Johnny Sack was a tour de force in his farewell episode.

In the back of the bing, they do a tribute to Johnny, Paulie manages to make it about his cancer survival and misquotes some song by some artist, neither of which I have heard of before.

Phil, in something comically disturbing, celebrates his dead brothers birthday seemingly three years after his Tony Blundetto murdered him. He asks a series of kids who Leonardo DaVinci was, some boy guess the “guy who wrote DaViinci Code”, then some girl points out that he was a painter. Phil points out that in Italy, this was there families name, until they were forced to change it to “Leotardo” when they came to Ellis Island, “A fucking ballet suit” are his exact words. No one seems to care and one of the kids asks if they can eat cake now.

Phil, between Johnny’s death and celebrating his dead brothers birthday, admits to Butchy, the menacing little guy from “Kaisha”, that he regrets the time he did and the legacy he is going to leave. Butchy tries to encourage him, “You’re a man John, nowadays that means something”. Phil singles out Tony and pretty much says he is no longer going to lie down, “No more Butchy, no more of this”. We have no idea if it’s directed at Tony or the New York outfit.

We end the episode with Chris’ kid being baptized, and Tony and Chris hugging with looks of distrust and concern in their eyes. Ending with a baptism? Yet another Godfather homage.

Another great episode, a lot of significant setup for only seven more episodes.