EdaMaria wrote: Last week I came close to posting about the truly astounding and at times downright unnerving prescient quality of David Chase's writing...

Putting aside the overarching themes of the show and what they say about our times and our collective selves, the show has always, in my opinion, had an almost eerie ability to telegraph key societal events and trends...

And I KNOW the story is far from a perfect parallel... but it's close enough in my book.

i have a prediction of my own, I can see it now. It's a tv-special on the history channel!!

DAVID CHASE: the musings of NEO-NOSTRADAMUS....starring Bill Murray

Meyer Lansky

Dutch Schultz

Bugsy Siegel


All parts of La Cosa Nostra, and none Italian. It is a misconception brought on by Goodfellas that everyone has to be 100% Italian to be in the mafia. Hesh may not be an official part of the family, but it may be because he's half retired. He's still in on some stuff, but it seems that he was around more during Tony's dad's time.

I thought Tony was a jerk to Paulie. Paulie was just being Paulie, that's all. He is annoying, but still, he's a pitbull in the family. The family is all he's got, why would Tony let that go.

All this talk about Tony's paranoia/decompensation in regard to wanting to kill Paulie has me kind of confused. People on this show have been beaten within an inch of their lives for much, much less. Paulie has been a liability for a long time, his betrayal of confidences to Johnny Sack while in prison being the most flagrant example. While he's good for a laugh, I won't be sorry to see him go down; in fact, I've been relishing the idea ever since he murdered Minnie Matrone.

Tony may be on a hair trigger, and he may be acting out because of his stress level, but honestly, that's a pretty appropriate response, or at least a predictable one, given his current circumstances. Hey, he's not passing out! I wonder if we'll ever see another panic attack.

zellar1 wrote: im not going off any spolier info but some how tony is going to die and its going to be dumb, it wount be in a hail of bullets or in some dramtic thing, its going to be him walking across the road and he gets run over buy vitos gay lover.

LOL, Vito's gay lover ... I feel like that sometimes, too. My husband was pretty much afraid I was going to break something after the way season 6a ended. I swore I wouldn't watch when it came back from hiatus.

And yet, here I am ... watching. And waiting. I still see a lot of value in the dramatic richness and emotional warfare going on, but sometimes I really do find myself looking at the clock going, "Okay, only 10 minutes left; is anything going to happen, or are we going to get 8 episodes of subtext and metaphor which will ultimately foreshadow ... nothing?"

For that reason I give the ep a 6.5 - my mind wandered. The Junior storyline was touching, but ultimately just sad, and really the only mindblowing part of it for me was the camerawork in the boat scenes. That was done incredibly well, though I got the idea of what Tony was thinking after I saw the cut to the ax, I didn't need it rammed down my throat with constant cuts to the fish knife.

Carmela had, what, two lines?

Why did Tony get so angry at dinner with Beansie, Paulie and the girls and say,"'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation"? Was it a sudden disgust for "The Life" and all of the violent history that his family and friends have been part of? Or something else? I've watched it twice and still can't gauge exactly what's going through Tony's head at that point.

I think he's disgusted primarily at how much Paulie talks and how much detailed information he inadvertently gives away, as total force of habit, in front of outsiders. But also, they've been playing "remember when" for about two or three days at that point, and I'm sure it's quite tiresome. But I think it's mostly disgust at Paulie.

Speaking of giving away information -- When Tony was lying in bed with the bimbo, I thought she was fishing around for info, asking too many questions, and Tony was answering her without a thought. Granted, he didn't really tell her anything other than his relationship with Paulie (IIRC), but I was suspicious of her.

Sorry if anyone else has pointed this out already, I may have missed it. But I am thoroughly convinced that the writers are foreshadowing each episode with a cell phone call in the previous episode. Perhaps this is all just coincidental, but I’m almost positive this has to be a very small, but intentional, detail being consciously inserted into the show.

In “Sopranos Home Movies”, Christopher gives Tony a call the day after his birthday, almost as an afterthought, already tipping us off about the growing separation between the two characters. Tony promptly hangs up on him, and the entire scene only lasts a few seconds, but it’s enough to set up exactly where their relationship stands. The next episode brings their conflict to the forefront.

During that episode, Paulie gets a cell phone call during the premiere of “Cleaver”, but instead of simply turning off his cell phone, he has to become the annoying, inconsiderate busybody in the theater that aggravates others trying to enjoy the show (“Who, the Guatemalan? What time's he gonna be there? …Tell him to put it in the trunk!”) It's also interesting to note that this was an obvious business call. Whatever the conversation was pertaining to, even though there was nothing said on Paulie's end that could implicate him in any illegal dealings, it probably wasn't a conversation most of the other guys in the crew would have had so freely in a room full of people. Sure enough, the main focus of the next episode brings Paulie’s aggrivating and over-talkative tendencies (pertaining to the business) to the front.

And then, in “Remember When”, Tony has a brief conversation with Hesh on the phone about a loan to cover gambling losses, which, if the preview is any indication, will be the main storyline next week.

Just a thought. So will there be another cell phone call clue next week, which will pertain to the week thereafter? If so, it would probably be subtle enough that it would only become evident after episode five airs, in retrospect. Or perhaps this is all just too far of a reach.

I am not the type that wants to see a major character get whacked every week, because at some point you run out of main characters. The violence is there as a compliment to the great character depth, writing, acting and even the humor; always one of my favorite elements of the show.

That being said I felt they spent too much of the episode on the Tony/Paulie situation. I did enjoy it, but felt it would have been better in a smaller dosage. I would have liked to see more of the other stars of the show in it's place. We have seen hardly anything from Christopher, Silvio, Phil and nothing about Bobby since the first episode. I did however enjoy the reminising by Paulie when getting on the boat about Puss, as well as the Ralph/Ginny Sack joke. I wonder what Tony would have done if Paulie would have admitted he was the one who told Johnny about that joke? It is obvious Tony knows Paulie was the one who told him, but he was still trying to get him to own up to it.

I thought the stuff with Junior was the highlight of the episode. Always one of my favorite characters, it was good to see him involved again. The jokes, running the card game behind the back of the facility, beating someone down; it was all great. Then reality set in when he forgot the punchlines to the jokes and peed his pants. I hope this isn't the end for Junior as some speculate, but I could easily see Tony or Bobby getting a call in one of the final episodes that he has passed. If this is the end, thank you Dominic Chianase for bringing one of my all time favorite characters to life.

Overall Episode Grade- 7 out of 10, a solid episode building towards the end.