Okay, I voted for the pilot. I probably voted differently on this years ago when asked (thanks, DH!), but the more I think about it, the more I believe it does more than any other single episode to haul you in -- hook, line, and sinker. It HAS to do that because it is, afterall, the pilot. It has to do a lot of the expositional bit, it has to setup the core characters, it has to setup the fundamental conflicts in their relationships and personas, and it has to do all this so organically and naturally that you are engaged enough to return the following week. Even though it was not the first episode I saw, I believe it is the most narratively dense episode of the entire series.
The choices for the exposition to me are absolute genius, starting with having the series open in Melfi's office rather than in the obvious places of either his home or the Bing. I don't know whether it was Chase the writer or Chase the director that dictated that opening shot, but it's inspired, either way: Tony, trying hard to pass time the way we all do in doctors' offices, framed between the legs of a nude female statue. Is it the vise of Livia? Or perhaps a nod to his sexual "vice"? Or is it a precursor to this place, a shrink's office, as a place of rebirth for him . . . with a new "mother"?
None of these things really ocurred to me the first time I saw the scene. I was too engaged right off at the unusual, prolonged silence and stillness of the scene, such a contrast to most television and movies. But all these interpretations have been offered and have made sense at various times since. And the funny thing is I think they all might have been at work in the inspiration for that one opening scene.
When the first few seconds of a drama don't feature a word of dialogue yet are that dense and resonate that loudly with themes that would be expounded upon for the next 77+ hours, well . . .
It's all there in the pilot -- Tony's mother problems; his infidelity, marital, and general "women" problems; his "head-in-the-clouds, no-good nephew" problems; his Uncle Junior problems; his children problems; the complex friendship he has with Artie; his cold-blooded, murderously violent gangster side; his child-like sentimental side; his abiding fear of losing those closest to him; his calculating business side; his casually deceitful side; his "Gary Cooper" side; and even his very, very rare, completely candid, vulnerable side. Even as I type this, I'm still amazed that so much of what makes this show so great was able to be glimpsed in that first hour.
And it doesn't hurt that one of the greatest moments of offbeat, "Sopranos-esque" hilarity occurs when Tony narrates the bellybutton dream. How something with such serious portent and continuing thematic relevance in the show could, at the same time, be that freaking funny is just amazing. I never fail to laugh out loud at the visual of Tony's thing falling off while working a phillips head screw out of his navel and him holding it up in his hand while running to find the Lincoln auto mechanic to reattach it, only to have a swooping bird grab it and fly off with it. Matching the comic genius of the narrative itself is Gandolfini's note-perfect performance, punctuated at the end when he curses himself in the third person for crying.
:icon_mrgreen::icon_mrgreen::icon_mrgreen::icon_mrgreen: How can I vote for anything else?