Pork Store wrote:The only thing in the pilot that still bugs me is Carm grabbing the Ak-47. The rest of the series doesn't give us any indication that she'd be so at ease with using an assault weapon for personal protection.
An amazing coincidence, PS. I was telling my brother and sister-in-law virtually the same thing tonight. Thought she was far too casual, far too quick, and far too comfortable wielding that weapon.
There are a couple of what seem to be false notes in the pilot (as opposed to just story anomalies or inconsistencies). The assault rifle is one and the light-hearted, comedic treatment of Tony going after the guy in the car with the 50s do-wap playing in the background is the other IMO. Chase offered in the pilot commentary that it was a bad choice on his part musically, and I whole-heartedly agree.
He lamented in later years that the audience was too in love with Tony, too comfortable with him. And that may well be true, but he was too comfortable with him in the beginning, and so it's not entirely the audience's fault. The whole vibe of that scene would have changed had the music either been eliminated or replaced with something that underscored the nastiness of what was taking place.
I thought Jamie Lynn Sigler improved by leaps and bounds as an actress as the series (and the first couple of seasons in particular) progressed. Meadow is annoying enough without an overacted performance increasing the yuck factor.
But everything else is so perfect. I loved Chase's direction in that first episode almost as much as his writing. The first sequence in Melfi's office remains a landmark, a tremendous example of how much can be said with silence, fine acting, and great composition and editing.