The Sopranos - Season Two

The Sopranos has become the go-to show for my wife and I when we've got a free hour, so our DVR has been accumulating things like crazy. We've yet to watch a single episode of Top Chef this year, we're seven episodes behind on Modern Family (no big loss there), just one behind on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and we've all but punted on Mr. Robot (probably for the best).  We'll squeeze in the new episode of This is Us when one comes out and the light commitment / attention span required for The Big Bang Theory usually means we can fit it in, but for the most part, The Sopranos is currently dominating our TV time.

I spent my year-end review post on The Sopranos explaining the basic premise and what it's all about, so I pretty much have nothing left to discuss except specifics of Season Two itself.  Therefore, the remainder of this post will be a....a.....

SPOILER SPACE!!!!

There's two primary mob storylines in Season Two. The first involves Richie Aprile (brother of former boss Jackie Aprile) getting released from prison and his rough integration back into the DiMeo crime family. The second is essentially a season-long arc for Pussy as he's torn between spying on Tony's crew for the FBI to reduce his sentence for selling heroin and his lifelong friendship to Tony.

I have to admit, when it was revealed early on in Season Two that Pussy actually was a rat in addition to Jimmy getting capped, it definitely registered as a surprise. They had set it up well to let the audience believe that Vin Makazian's tip from Season One was flawed and that he'd fingered the wrong guy. I'm glad The Sopranos decided to go this route because there were some excellent character moments from Pussy during his season-long struggle. The episode in which Pussy serves as A.J.'s confirmation sponsor gave us a good glimpse into just how much his deal with the FBI is tearing him apart. He says all the right things to help A.J. along the path and doing so makes him break down, understanding just how much Tony's friendship meant to him over the years. Even the scene at season's end in which he gets shot by Tony, Paulie, and Silvio was made to feel sad. I really wanted there to be some other way for Tony and his gang to allow Pussy to live, but you knew that wasn't happening.

Richie served as a decent villain for the season as a vile human being with some serious anger problems. He was thoroughly hateable, perhaps excessively so. The only real nuance to his character was his relationship with Tony's sister, Janice, which seemed to be pretty genuine. Unfortunately, Janice was a pretty unlikable character as well, so even though it gave the character a softer touch, seeing Richie shack up with another detestable human being further validated everything we know about him. There was enough backstory between Richie and Janice for the relationship to ring genuine and not purely as a power play against Tony, so that was good. However, I wonder how that would have played out long-term had The Sopranos not killed Richie off. Just before his death, he's pretty awful to Janice and it's the first moment we see him as anything but good to her. That made Janice's decision to shoot him the most shocking moment on the show so far, both from a plot and fit standpoint.

One of the more interesting subplots of the season for me was Tony's relationship with the father of one of Meadow's friends at school. It's clear that Tony has something of a soft spot for him, but when he enters Tony's executive poker game (against Tony's advice) and runs up debt on Tony, the friendship seemingly instantly dies. Tony doesn't quite issue the ruthless beating that he does to other debtors that he can't pay, and he does the man a courtesy of roughing him up himself rather than handing the job to one of his violent flunkies. Though the beating is minor, the message is clear: don't mess with Tony's business. Meadow's friendship with the boy, Eric, is collateral damage.

One of the weird tangents of Season Two is Christopher's side plot in which he tries to get into acting and promote his screenplay. I have to say, I never expected to see Jon Favreau playing himself on this show, but watching his discomfort grow as Christopher gets really play-aggressive with a gun in a hotel room was both tough to watch and a great, memorable scene. We spend a lot of time on this subplot in Season Two and while it's nice that the show continues to flesh out Christopher, I wonder whether they would have been better served to spread the love around. Among Tony's crew, Paulie and Silvio get slightly more development but they're still largely flunkies who are defined by their relationship to Tony. Furio was recently introduced, but there's not much known about him besides his country of origin and his capacity for violence. There's four seasons left of this show and I'm hopeful that The Sopranos will show greater interest in these supporting players down the road. While interesting, they spent way too much time on this subplot that didn't connect much to the story beyond a test of Christopher's commitment to the crime family.

Carmela's arc also continues to frustrate. She's obviously getting increasingly pissed with Tony's infidelity, the way his life of crime affects their family, and his persistent disinterest in her as a wife and sexual partner. She doesn't seem to ever do anything about it, though. I'd like to see her make a stand at some point, and maybe that's coming.

I also will voice a slight complaint about the stolen airline tickets. This is set up to be a big deal, as when Pussy actually drops a remotely useful nugget to the FBI, they make a point to say that Tony won't use the tickets himself and a connection needs to be made. The camera shot is detailed enough that when Tony gives Livia the plane tickets, observant viewers are quick to pick up on the possibility that this is going to be Tony's huge mistake that costs him his freedom. Livia gets caught at the airport, but the aftermath makes it feel like the whole affair wasn't much more than a speeding ticket for Tony. The plot device felt like a waste of time.

I'll criticize and nitpick until the cows come home, but few shows I've watched have been this consistently compelling. Tony constantly gets put into stressful predicaments and his responses to these situations are the perfect blend of anger and thoughtfulness. He's one of the best television characters I've ever seen, and I'll never tire of James Gandolfini issuing the trademark, "How you doin'" (which is sometimes friendly and sometimes chilling). There were weird subplots and way too much Janice, but overall, it was a great season of television.

Season Grade: A-