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Talk About Your Whack Jobs!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Michael Imperioli is scheduled to be on Letterman tonight (Tuesday), which brings us to a very important point: Did you watch “The Sopranos” when it aired Sunday night?
No? Well, then did you TiVo it, DVR it or otherwise record it so you could watch it a few hours later? Have you caught up with it on On Demand by now? Had a traveling minstrel troupe act out the key moments for you?
If you answered “No” to all of the above, too bad. I’ve given you a whole day to catch up on the most stunning plot twist since Uncle Junior turned out to have a brain as scrambled as a pan of leftover lasagna, nearly blew Tony to smithereens and then ran upstairs and hid in the closet:
Tony killed Christopher (played by Imperioli). Which we all kind of expected might happen, but maybe not so soon. And not in this way, with “Chrissy” obviously weakened by an auto accident, but clearly not about to expire in the driver’s seat of the SUV. Until Tony reached over and — well, how do I put this? — pinched his de facto son’s nose shut until he suffocated.
What? No garroting in a dark alley? No taking him out on a boat in the middle of the ocean and shooting his brains out like a man? Well, like a Big Pussy, anyway. Even crazy Ralphie got to go out in true, glorious gangland style, decapitated and cut up on a kitchen floor and then stuffed inside a bowling ball bag. Talk about your 8-10 Split, sigh….
So, what was up with this? Clearly, Christoper had been in Tony’s sights since this season’s first episode, when the former called the latter to wish him a belated “Happy Birthday” and was rewarded by being hung up on. So was Tony just waitiing for the right opportunity, and a roadside accident proved the perfect excuse? Or did something happen during that SUV ride that made him snap? And does this even qualify in the Mob Handbook as being wacked?
I have to admit that when Tony hightailed it out to Vegas later in Sunday’s episode and was seen dining alone, playing craps alone, being alone in his hotel room, I had a flashback — back to the beginning of last season, when Tony was in a coma (thanks to Uncle Lasagna Pan) and dreamed he was a mild mannered traveling salesman schlub named Kevin Finnerty. Finnerty also was often alone in hotel rooms, at dinner, at the bar, etc….
Is Tony really Finnerty? Nah, they wouldn’t do that to us after seven tumultuous, throw-out-all-the-TV-rules seasons. But is it possible he’s never going back to Jersey? That last scene, where he was out in the desert with his latest squeeze, throwing his arms up in the air and screaming “I did it!” sure got me thinking: A little earlier, in the casino, Tony had succumbed to a giggling fit, gasping “He’s dead.” At first I’d figured he was talking about Christopher. But maybe he meant Tony Soprano, whom he’d left behind for good …?
Not for nuthin’, it’s just a thought. As Dr. Melfi would say, “I’m more interested in hearing what YOU think.”
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By SAR
May 15, 2007 8:46 AM | Link to this
I must admit, I was surprised. I knew after Christopher whacked the playwright guy something was bound to happen, that was plain nuts of him to do that. Tony took care of business, plain and simple. You do what you got to do. If if stays in Vegas, how will he support the lifestyle is is accustomed to? Gambling? Hesucks at gambling. Nah, that won’t happen. If this show really wants to mirror real ife, an insider will put the lights out for Tony, they’ll have to, he is getting soft.
By Dawn
May 15, 2007 9:35 AM | Link to this
I thought he said “he got it”? Which made me think what did he get? However, one of the best plot twist so far, although Christopher shoting the playwright was pretty interesting.
By Chris
May 15, 2007 10:00 AM | Link to this
While coming off the shock of seeing Christopher get killed off, I started paying more attention to A.J.’s storyline. It’s getting more and more obvious he hates the environment he was brought up in. The wealth and overall materialism is his reasoning for losing the love of his life; being the son of a boss has led him down a path of hurting people for nothing (“can’t we all just get along?” he asks his therapist). I think A.J’s had it. He’s either going to run away from Jersey, or worse yet, get back at his family by going to the Feds in the final episode. I still wonder if his ex-fiance is an FBI plant who got too close to A.J. and was pulled from the case. Does A.J. find this out? Does he win her back by going to the Feds himself? There are so many ways this could end and the Sundays just don’t get here fast enough.
By Mochalatte Peach with Extra Cream
May 15, 2007 10:02 AM | Link to this
Ok, I really love the Sopranos, but this season sucks like a baby on the… Well you know the rest! Anyway, Tony is getting more careless and Chrissy was getting out of hand. He was caving in to peer pressure. The whole thing that he was doing well without the drinking and drugs was just a prelude to the major breakdown. You knew it was going to happen. He was the weakest link! Goodbye! As for AJ, what is up with him? I think it’s that anti-depressant he’s on making him violent. Is that a crispy nod to the pharmecutical folks trying to pan off all these anti-depressants on the population? Who knows, but I am disappointed with the way the series is going out. It needs to go out with a bang! The first part of the season should have been the second part of the season in my opinion. Junior should have tried to whack Tony and he comes out on top like it was meant to be. But that’s just my opinion!
By steve F
May 15, 2007 10:26 AM | Link to this
Come on Jill - Tony says I Get it, not I did it!
By Alex
May 15, 2007 10:43 AM | Link to this
The homage to the old Twilight Zone show “A Nice Place to Visit” was genius. Tony was in hell, or he is actually Finnerty.
By mike the ear
May 15, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this
I figured I needed a wise guy name for a blog like this.
I thought he did say ‘I got it’ and I thought it related to his luck at gambling. In the past few episodes, everything he bet on, he lost. Even earlier, when he first got to Vegas, he continued to lose. Then, after he met the babe (whom I would leave my wife for in a heartbeat BTW) and did the peyote button, he started gambling and winning. Why? He had an ephiffeny in the desert about his luck changing.
And I was blown away by his killing Christopher. Even though he had ‘issues’, he considered Chrissy his son. I had always considered Tony as the wise guy with a conscience, but this to me was an amoral act, and he showed no regret afterwards. He even said (in his dream) that he was relieved.
By Susan M.
May 15, 2007 11:01 AM | Link to this
Why assume that Christopher would survive that wreck? He was bleeding horribly from his mouth, the car rolled over about 1000 times and Chris-Ta-FUH (as Adrianne would say) wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Mebbe it was a mercy killing… MEBBE Tony did it out of love.
By a1adiver
May 15, 2007 11:02 AM | Link to this
Did he wack him, or did he realize that he would not make it to the hospital and euthanize him? Typically when you vomit that amount of blood, you suffocate within minute or bleed out.
By Susan M.
May 15, 2007 11:04 AM | Link to this
PS — I also heard “I GET it” rather than “I DID it” at the end. Time to turn on the Closed Captions on the repeat.
By Yang
May 15, 2007 11:35 AM | Link to this
Christopher was a loose cannon and could not be trusted. He voiced his love for his daughter; however, he couldn’t fight his addiction. She would have been killed in the accident even if she were restrained in the car seat. Tony would have been killed had he not been restrained by the seat belt and all because of Christopher. He lied about being clean and changing his life; he lied about valuing his daughter’s life; he lied…Not a big leap for Tony to believe he would head to the Feds tell the truth and start a new life. Confronting death once again, Tony realized that Chrissy was like the baby in the back seat…he had figuratively given him life and in that moment he took it away. The moment in the casino was a reference to his luck having changed, previously he was losing; now with Chrissy gone he is winning. He had to “get the monkey off his back”. I got it.
By rags
May 15, 2007 12:10 PM | Link to this
Tony did shout “I get it” while in the desert - while he was “tripping” on the sunset!
By ewright
May 15, 2007 12:55 PM | Link to this
I always believed the things that orginally sent Tony to Dr. Melfi was his fear of not being able to save A.J. from the mob life.
Tony supposedly loved Christopher, but equally detested his weakness to drugs and his strength in fighting them. He almost casually killed his “like a son” when he became a liability. His “love” for A.J. makes him associate with the “college boys” who are putting him into the life Tony supposedly wants to save him from.
The “I get it!” is apparently the common misunderstanding the drugs can make things better, paticularly for those who suffer from Tony’s kind of pathological narcisism.
Also, didn’t that hooker look more than a lot like Christopher’s wife?
By Whycee
May 15, 2007 1:13 PM | Link to this
Tony did yell “I GET IT” while high on Peyote. What did he get? I am still working on trying to figure it out. I am still upset at the fact he had no conscious when it came to killing Christopher. I know Chris was slipping and telling his business. But Tony has been slipping too. I think the show is trying to show that these men are really heartless. Look at how cold they have made Paulie and I also noticed how the feud between Paulie Gautieri and Christopher still goes on after Christopher is dead. Chris still gets One Up Man Ship on Pauli by having more folks at his funeral than at Pauli’s (fake) mom’s funeral. I wonder what that was all about. I must say, this final season is wonderfully enjoyable. It keeps us thinking. I think AJ is going to end up being the new DON for the new generation of thugs. I could go on an on .. but I will wait till next Sunday.
By Whycee
May 15, 2007 1:14 PM | Link to this
Tony did yell “I GET IT” while high on Peyote. What did he get? I am still working on trying to figure it out. I am still upset at the fact he had no conscious when it came to killing Christopher. I know Chris was slipping and telling his business. But Tony has been slipping too. I think the show is trying to show that these men are really heartless. Look at how cold they have made Paulie and I also noticed how the feud between Paulie Gautieri and Christopher still goes on after Christopher is dead. Chris still gets One Up Man Ship on Pauli by having more folks at his funeral than at Pauli’s (fake) mom’s funeral. I wonder what that was all about. I must say, this final season is wonderfully enjoyable. It keeps us thinking. I think AJ is going to end up being the new DON for the new generation of thugs. I could go on an on .. but I will wait till next Sunday.