Friday, November 10, 2017

The Sopranos 1.09

Boca

Tony finds out something about Uncle Junior, that he like to perform oral sex on his girlfriend. When he starts needling his uncle about his sexual practices (using double entendres) his uncle needles back with the same sort of comments about Tony's mental health issues.

Meadow's soccer team is doing really well but the coach has plans to move on to a better, higher paying job. Tony and his friends, including Artie Bucco, aren't too happy to hear about the coach's plans to leave. First they try nicely to persuade him to stay. They try to bribe him with women and gifts but he turns down those offers. Artie is a straight shooter and tries telling Tony to stop with the heavy hand.

One of Meadow's teammates attempts suicide. Tony gets concerned that it has something to do with playing soccer. It turns out that Meadow's friend is suicidal because she's distraught over her relationship with the coach which includes an intimate physical component. Meadow tells her parents in the middle of an argument. This changes the whole color of the situation but it was telegraphed early in the episode and did not come as a great surprise to me.

Artie can't believe the news about the coach but at first he thinks the guy deserves to die. Tony is close to giving Silvio the order to kill the coach but get talked out of it by Artie who has a change of heart and manages to get through to Tony, even though Tony won't admit it.

Uncle Junior tells Mikey Palmice, in a moment of frustration, that Tony is seeing a psychiatrist. Mikey was already thinking that it is time to kill Tony, whom he suspected was the one who named names to the DA. This is one loose thread that doesn't get resolved in this episode and will get picked up and resolved later on.

This episode felt a bit forced. There were a lot of moments that lacked nuance. I'm not sure exactly why that is the case or who is to blame. The performances were good enough but the way it was edited together just felt a little too on the money and below the standards set by earlier episodes in this season.

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