The Sopranos 2.13

Funhouse

Tony has a bad experience with some food he ate. He wakes up sick. He goes back to bed. This happens several times. In between, while he sleeps, he dreams. He has lots of crazy dreams. In one he set himself on fire, on the boardwalk, in front of  a bunch of friends and associates. In the second one he watched from afar as he killed Paulie over a game of checkers. In another dream he went to see Dr. Melfi. One minute everything was normal and the next she had become Annalisa from 2.04 (Commendatori).

The Sopranos 2.12

The Knight in White Satin Armor

Richie tries to get some support for a move against Tony. He turns to Larry Parisi's son but is unsuccessful in convincing him. He tells Uncle Junior about it and that he is planning to move against Tony anyway. Uncle Junior takes this as a sign and tells Tony.

The Sopranos 2.11

House Arrest

Tony takes some advice from his lawyer. He starts visiting one of the legitimate businesses that he's invested in: Barone Salvage. The idea is to mislead the Feds as to his actual activities. Tony gets bored. He's got someone to run the business. Tony doesn't want to work.

The Sopranos 2.10

Bust-Out

Tony loses his cool when he gets a visit from the FBI and one of the local police departments. He later finds out the reason for the visit: someone saw him leaving the scene of the crime. They saw that he was with someone else, but the eyewitness couldn't identify the other person. Tony talks to Neil Mink, his lawyer, and Dr. Melfi. He makes plan to skip town in case things get bad.

The Sopranos 2.09

From Where to Eternity

Chistopher is in the hospital, in the Intensive Care Unit. He isn't in great shape. The episode revolves around what happened to him and the fallout from it.

The Sopranos 2.08

Full Leather Jacket

Meadow's friend Hunter got early acceptance at the school of her choice. Meadow feels left out and doesn't like the schools that her parents want her to attend. She wants to go to Berkley. They want her to go to Georgetown or Notre Dame. A letter arrives from Berkley explaining that her application is incomplete. Carmela sees it before Meadow does. At first she throws it in the trash but later she feels bad about what she did. She secretly retrieves the letter and gives it to Meadow.

The Sopranos 2.06

The Happy Wanderer

David Scatino (Robert Patrick), a guy Tony knew in high school, gets in trouble, first with Richie and then Tony. He borrows money from both of them with which to gamble and loses big time. He winds up owing Tony about 5 times what he owes Richie. Tony does not go easy on Scatino, whose son Eric is a classmate of Meadow.

The Sopranos 2.07

D-Girl

Christopher's cousin introduces him to Amy, his girlfriend, who works for Jon Favreau. Amy wants to see one of Chris' scripts but he threw them all out. Adriana finds a copy of one that she kept and he takes it with him. He accompanies Amy to the set of a movie that Favreau is producing. He gets a chance to chat with Jon and after the shoot he shows them around town.

The Sopranos 2.05

Big Girls Don't Cry

Christopher is taking an acting class. Adriana signed him up for it. It was a gift from her. The title of the class is Acting for Writers. He struggles with it. He has dreams of writing a particular kind of script and playing a particular kind of character. Ultimately he turns in a good performance but it seems to unleash something in him. The next time he works with the same scene partner he attacks the guy. The episode ends with him throwing out all the scripts he had written. I thought, at first, that he felt inspired to write something new but considering the note that it ends on I think I might be wrong about that.

The Sopranos 2.04

Commendatori

Tony goes to Italy on a business trip. He takes Paulie and Christopher with him. He goes to Naples to talk business with one of the local bosses. Tony's family originates from that area. Carmella isn't happy that she is left behind.

The Sopranos 2.03

Toodle-Fucking-Oo

Richie Aprile, an old acquaintance of Tony, gets out of prison after 10 years. He's a made man and he expects to pick up right where he left off. He harasses Beansie, one of the local business men who used to report to him, before he went to prison, but now reports to Tony. Richie turns to Tony for support but Tony won't back him up and asks him to back off of Beansie.

The Sopranos 2.02

Do Not Resuscitate

Uncle Junior gets out of jail. He is required to wear a tracking device around his ankle and is under house arrest. That doesn't keep him from conducting business at his doctor's office. The feds can't bug his doctor's office. He wants Tony to make peace with his mother but Tony isn't willing to do so. He still thinks that his mother played Uncle Junior. He tells his uncle that but Junior is too proud to consider the possibility.

The Sopranos 2.01

Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist's Office

Uncle Junior is still in jail. He has been indicted on several counts of racketeering. Tony's mother is still in the nursing home and he doesn't want to talk to her. Pussy returns from an extended absence. He was in Puerto Rico, at a clinic for his back. He didn't tell his wife because there was another woman involved.

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.

The Sopranos 1.02

46 Long

Tony's anxiety issues continue to plague him. His life is very stressful. One of the biggest stresses is his relationship with Vivian, his mother. In the last episode he tried showing her a retirement community but she didn't want to move there. She wants to continue living by herself in her home. She almost burns the place down in this episode, while cooking. She almost kills one of her friends with her car, accidentally, of course. Tony tries bringing in a housekeeper but his mother chases her off pretty quickly.

More stress for Tony materializes in the form of his cousin Christopher and his buddy Brendan. They hijack a truck full of DVD players which is under the protection of Uncle Junior. Tony is forced to have a sit down meeting with Uncle Junior and Jackie Aprile, the provisional boss, over the hijacked truck. Tony doesn't want to have to deal with crap like this but he does. He forces Christopher and Brendan to hand over the money they made selling the DVDs. He tells them not to hit any more of Uncle Junior's clients. They listen, Christopher agrees but Brendan isn't quite so respectful.

Big Pussy and Paulie are given a mission: find the car belonging to AJ's science teacher. It was stolen a couple days before. They track down the guys who did it. When Pussy finds out that the car has already been stripped he forces them, at gun point, to find a replacement. By the end of the episode the science teacher has his car back but it is quickly apparent that it isn't his car. The interior isn't the right color and there is blood on the bumper.

Tony meets with Dr. Melfi who suggests that his mother is a major cause of stress and that he doesn't really love her. Tony doesn't want to hear it but does take Dr. Melfi's advice about getting her into a retirement community. Vivian is forced against her will to move out of her home and into an apartment. Tony refuses to consider that his mother is a source of stress for him, despite all the heartache she causes him.

Brendan and Christopher plan to hit another truck, this one carrying men's suits. Like the last one, his truck is also under the protection of Uncle Junior. Christopher backs out of the project at the last minute. Brendan carries through with the plan without him. During the heist the driver of the vehicle is killed. Christopher contacts Tony and tries to explain. Tony doesn't want to hear it, he holds Christopher as equally responsible even though he wasn't there. He tells them to return the suits. The issue isn't fully resolved at the end of the episode. I don't recall exactly what happens but I've got a feeling that Brendan is going to pay the price for this screw up.

Adriana, Christopher's girlfriend for most of the run of this series, makes her first appearance in this episode. Drea de Matteo, the actress who plays Adriana, was also in the pilot very briefly but she is credited as playing a different character in that episode.

Mickey Palmice, Uncle Junior's right hand man, makes his first appearance in this episode. He doesn't last long but he's in the majority of the episodes in this season. As I recall that's a running theme throughout the series. People come and people go. There are very few characters who make it out of the series alive. Most of the other mobsters that Tony comes into contact with end up dead one way or another.

I can see why I liked this show so much back when I first watched it. I still like it. It isn't revolutionary or quite as top notch in my mind as it once was but it is still damn good television. I like the way the different plot threads are weaved together. It isn't this or that, it is all of it and the way it's put together. That and there are some damn good performances, not the least of which is James Gandolfini who plays the role of Tony Soprano.