Friday, September 1, 2017

The Sopranos 1.03

Denial, Anger, Acceptance

Tony continues to go to therapy. His problems aren't solved yet. He thinks he sees something in one of the pictures in Dr. Melfi's waiting room. He accuses her of trying to pull a fast one with the painting. He loses his cool when she casts doubt about Jackie Aprile's chances for beating the cancer he currently has.

Meadow and her friend are stressed out and try to score some drugs. When their friends can't seem to help them they turn to Christopher Moltisanti. He doesn't want to help but is concerned that they will get hurt trying to buy drugs elsewhere. In the end he helps them but so far no consequences. Maybe this will be a plot thread that will be picked up in a future episode.

Silvio and Paulie do their best to shakedown the son-in-law of a Hasidim. The father-in-law wants his son-in-law to divorce his daughter. The son-in-law won't do it unless his father-in-law gives him a piece (50%) of the motel where he works. It takes some work, more than one effort, but they finally the son-in-law to agree to the divorce after they threaten to castrate him.

Artie and Charmaine Bucco cater a fundraising event for Carmella. Artie is having trouble getting the insurance company to pay up after his restaurant blew up. He still doesn't know that Tony is the one behind the destruction of had the restaurant. Tony seems to experience some guilty feelings after Artie tells him that the insurance company suspects that it wasn't an accident that the restaurant blew up.

Charmaine shares a moment with Carmella after the fundraiser. She didn't like the way Carmella treated her and talked down to her. She gets back at her by telling her about how she slept with Tony before she and Tony got married. Later in the episode, right near the end, Tony experiences a bit of backlash from Carmella without knowing why she is acting cold towards him; clearly its the memory of what Charmaine told her.

Uncle Junior is fuming about what happened in the last episode. Christopher and Brendan returned the truck full of suits but they did nothing else to make up for what Brendan did. Uncle Junior wants to whack Christopher but Livia, Tony's mother, talks him out of it, says he just needs a good talking to. When Junior mentions Brendan's name, she just shrugs. He takes that as a sign that its okay to whack Brendan.

The episode else with Tony and Carmella watching Meadow sing with the school choir. Meanwhile Christopher gets the piss scared out of him by some Russian thugs, presumably hired by Uncle Junior; and Brendan gets whacked by Mickey Palmice.

Very impressive. I can't really point to any one thing other than possibly the ending but it was all very well put together and executed. It felt like watching a very good movie. That was the quality of the pacing and way in which the story unfolded. It did not feel formulaic in the least bit. From what I could see, in reference to the title of the episode, Tony experienced some denial and anger but left acceptance up to the others like the son-in-law he shook down.

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