[TV] The Sopranos: A view of the future

[Guest Emperor]

For Immediate Release

March 15, 2007

 

THE SOPRANOS RETURNS FOR ITS FINAL NINE EPISODES

STARTING APRIL 8, EXCLUSIVELY ON HBO

 

Having survived a close call with death, Tony Soprano struggles to remind himself that each day is a gift, but challenges new and old make that all but impossible. At home, Carmela plans for a future she's not sure will arrive, while Anthony Jr. and Meadow find that adulthood holds its own surprises. As for his other "family," Tony comes to doubt some of his oldest and most trusted allies and makes some hard choices that will shape his own destiny as boss.

 

HBO's Emmy®- and Peabody-winning series THE SOPRANOS returns with its final nine episodes, starting SUNDAY, APRIL 8 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT), followed by other episodes on subsequent Sundays at the same time. Series creator David Chase will write and direct the final episode of the show.

 

The drama series stars three-time Emmy® winners James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano and Edie Falco as Tony's wife Carmela, plus Lorraine Bracco as therapist Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Emmy® winner Michael Imperioli as Tony's nephew Christopher Moltisanti, and Dominic Chianese as Uncle Junior. Other regulars include Robert Iler as Anthony Soprano, Jr., Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano, Tony Sirico as Paulie Walnuts, Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante, Aida Turturro as Tony's sister Janice, Steven R. Schirripa as Bobby "Bacala" Baccalieri, John Ventimiglia as Artie Bucco, Vincent Curatola as Johnny Sack, Frank Vincent as Phil Leotardo and Ray Abruzzo as Little Carmine.

 

Guest stars for the sixth season include Sydney Pollack ("Eyes Wide Shut"), Daniel Baldwin ("Homicide: Life on the Street"), Tim Daly ("Wings"), Frank John Hughes ("Catch Me If You Can"), Jonathan LaPaglia ("The District"), Ken Leung ("Inside Man"), David Margulies ("Law & Order"), Julianna Margulies ("ER"), Geraldo Rivera and Nancy Sinatra.

 

April's episodes:

Episode #78: "Soprano Home Movies"

Debut date: SUNDAY, APRIL 8 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT)

Other HBO playdates: April 9 (9:00 p.m.), 10 (10:00 p.m.), 11 (11:00 p.m.), 12 (midnight) and 14 (10:00 p.m.), and May 29 (8:00 p.m.)

 

HBO2 playdates: April 8 (1:35 a.m.) and 13 (8:00 p.m.)

After a close call at home, Tony and Carmela head to the Adirondacks for a weekend with Bobby and Janice.

Written by Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider and David Chase & Matthew Weiner; directed by Tim Van Patten.

 

Episode #79: "Stage 5"

Debut date: SUNDAY, APRIL 15 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)

Other HBO playdates: April 16 (9:00 p.m.), 17 (10:00 p.m.), 18 (11:00 p.m.), 19 (midnight) and 21 (10:00 p.m.), and May 29 (9:00 p.m.)

 

HBO2 playdates: April 15 (1:40 a.m.) and 20 (8:00 p.m.)

Tony finds art imitating life at the "Cleaver" premiere; in prison, Johnny Sack copes with more bad news.

Written by Terence Winter; directed by Alan Taylor.

 

Episode #80: "Remember When"

Debut date: SUNDAY, APRIL 22 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)

Other HBO playdates: April 23 (9:00 p.m.), 24 (10:00 p.m.), 25 (11:00 p.m.), 26 (midnight) and 28 (midnight), and May 29 (10:00 p.m.)

 

HBO2 playdates: April 22 (1:25 a.m.) and 27 (8:00 p.m.)

With the heat turned up in Jersey, Tony and Paulie head south to cool off. Meanwhile, Junior rekindles some of his old fire in a poker game.

 

Written by Terence Winter; directed by Phil Abraham.

 

Episode #81: "Chasing It"

Debut date: SUNDAY, APRIL 29 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)

Other HBO playdates: April 30 (9:00 p.m.) and May 1 (10:00 p.m.), 2 (11:00 p.m.), 3 (midnight), 5 (10:00 p.m.) and 30 (8:00 p.m.)

 

HBO2 playdate: April 29 (1:15 a.m.)

Tony hits an unlucky stretch; AJ makes a life-changing decision; Vito's widow Marie (Elizabeth Bracco) turns to Tony for help with her troubled son.

[Guest Yveva]

I'm looking forward to seeing where the story ends.

[Guest Emperor]

Spoilers for the first two episodes... I mean details and all that. Do not read if you do not want a recount of the entire first two episodes...

 

Hey Harry, et al. I've sent you guys stuff before, most recently a review you posted last month for Blades of Glory. Well, I got a chance to see the first two episodes of the final season of the Sopranos last night when MoMA had a screening/party for David Chase. What follows isn't really a review as much as a recap of the two episodes they showed. Beware, it's one giant spoiler.

 

The first episode starts with a “flashback” to 2004 with the Feds making the raid on Johnny Sack. We see Tony bookin’ it wicked fast through the woods making his getaway. Only this time we see some kid in the upstairs window of a nearby house witness Tony ditch his gun in the snow as he stumbles through their backyard. We then see the kid go retrieve the gun. The whole thing seemed a little weird as I can’t recall this show ever doing the old “show an old scene but this time with a twist we weren’t shown originally” before. (Kind of like the second time we got to see Gandolf fight the Balrog. You geeks know what the hell I’m talking about.)

 

Cut to present day, as a newspaper with a headline about 2007 budget cuts lands at the edge of the Soprano’s driveway. Tony and Carmella are asleep in bed when suddenly the doorbell starts ringing up a storm accompanied by some very heavy banging on the front door. Tony looks out the back window to see cops all over the place. Camella screams “Is this IT???” And thus begins the final season of The Sopranos.

 

Turns out that it’s not “IT”, but Tony’s in some trouble all the same. He gets taken downtown by the cops in his bathrobe and slippers. Turns out the kid who found the gun 3 years ago has gone and gotten arrested with it and claims he saw Tony ditch it way back when. Tony’s out of the pokey in no time, but not before we get to see him sitting amongst the dregs of humanity in the holding cell, staring off into nothing. This is the first of many times over the next two hours that we see Tony simply sitting and thinking.

 

And now for a quick update on the rest of the family: Meadow’s living at home, her lame boyfriend Finn is long gone, and she’s studying to be a pediatrician. Nobody’s making offers on the house Carmella’s built and Christopher looks and acts like he’s on heroin. Turns out it’s only cause he’s still with his hot Dominican girlfriend with the kid and she’s turned into a complete harpee. Sounds like the perfect time for Tony and Carmella to take a little getaway to Bobby Bacala and Janice’s house on the lake, up near the Canadien border. Oh, and Tony’s lawyer calls while they’re en route and tells him the cops have dropped the case against Tony involving the gun. Things are looking up.

 

Jump ahead a few hours to the lake house where Carmella and Janice are knocking back the wine like a couple of pros while Tony and Bobby shoot guns, fish, and discuss the “good old days”. Tony mentions that Bobby’s been earning well and that he’s lucky that he never had to pop his cherry by killing anyone. Then Tony does some more staring.

 

Pretty soon the four of them are shitfaceed and playing Monopoly. After a brief discussion about whether or not the Chance and Community Chest money is supposed to be collected by the person who lands on Free Parking (Official Monopoly rules say that money is supposed to go in the bank, duh), a drunken Tony starts making fun of Janice. Bobby gets pissed. Tony crosses the line when Janice lands on Boardwalk and Tony starts singing about how Janice used to spend her summers underneath the boardwalk sucking dick. (You know she totally did.) Bobby loses it and slugs Tony. Soon the two of them are in one of those classic Sopranos fights where heads are getting smashed against walls and glass is shattering and tables are breaking and balls are getting kneed. The ladies stop the fight that Bobby was clearly winning and they stumble off to bed.

 

Next day Tony does more staring, this time sitting on the dock with a black eye and fat lip. We can tell he’s pissed that Bobby kicked the shit out of him, but he’ll probably forget about it soon enough cause totally Tony’s not vindictive or anything like that. Anyway, Tony and Bobby tell the ladies they’re going to meet some guys to play golf. When they say “meet some guys to play golf” they really mean “meet some crooked Canadiens to buy illegal prescription drugs to sell back home”. During the course of the conversation one of the Canadiens gets a call from his daughter about how her ex-boyfriend won’t leave her alone. Tony says he’ll have the boyfriend taken care of if they lower the price of the prescription drugs. They agree. Tony, still obviously pissed about getting his ass handed to him, turns to Bobby and tells him to take care of it.

 

Tony and Carmella leave the next day and head back to Jersey. We then see Bobby pack a bag and tell Janice he’s got to take care of some business. In a rather sad scene we watch Bobby follow a young guy into the basement laundry room of an apartment building and pump two shots into his chest and one into his forehead. Bobby’s finally broken his cherry. The episode ends with Bobby returning to the lake house and holding his daughter as he stands by the water and does some staring/thinking of his own.

 

The second episode episode started immediately after the first and in this one we get to find out what everyone else has been up to since last season. It starts with Johnny Sack in the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. He smoked for 38 years before he quit and started eating healthy, but apparently he didn’t quit soon enough, cause cancer’s eating at his whole body and his doctor tells him he has 3 months to live. He looks pale and walks around with tubes in his nose pumping him oxygen. His enormously rotund wife and shockingly fatter daughter come to visit him but he doesn’t tell them about the whole 3 months to live thing. Instead he starts smoking again.

 

On the flipside good old buffoon Paulie Wallnuts is now cancer free, Silvio is still rocking that sweet hairpiece and Christopher is about to release CLEAVER, his “Saw meets Godfather II” horror movie. He’s been clean and sober for a few months now (his sponser is Shooter McGavin) and he’s not hanging around with the gang very much anymore cause it’s too tempting for him, though they all mistakenly think it’s cause he’s too good for them now.

 

Meanwhile Phil Leotardo’s doing some soul searching of his own. Turns out that no one has stepped up to take the reigns of the New York family in the whole time that Johnny Sack's been away. Phil says he doesn’t think he’s got the heart, literally, to take control since he’s just back on his feet after his heart attack/quintouple bypass surgery. It looks like his younger brother Billy is likely to be the next head of the New York contingent.

 

Then it’s time for the big CLEAVER screening and the whole gang shows up. (Of course, Paulie wallnuts is the guy who doesn’t shut off his phone during the screening.) Daniel Baldwin plays the mafia boss in the movie, who is a complete carbon copy of Tony Soprano, right down to how the character walks around in his robe and boxers all the time. Tony is quite proud to be the inspiration for the movie's main bad guy until a few people note the fact that Baldwin’s character gets killed at the end by his right hand man.

 

By now Tony’s had enough sessions with Melfi over the last few years to make him start to wonder about Christopher’s intentions, even if they are probably just in his subconscious. Tony does some more staring/thinking and ends up in Melfi’s office, eventually crying like a baby about how he’s done everything for Christopher and now this is how he’s treated? Tony then gets a call form his lawyer saying that even thought the local cops have dropped the gun charges against Tony, the feds have decided to follow up on it instead.

 

Then we’re treated to some more grisly violence as Silvio sits down to meet with Billy Leotardo to discuss business. Just as their big titted bimbo dates sit down to join them someone walks up to their table and unloads an entire clip into Phil’s brother. Silvio and the ladies make it out ok, but things are certainly heating up in the whole “who’s gonna lead the New York families war”. Especially since we then get word that Johnny Sack’s gone and kicked the bucket way earlier than anyone expected.

 

We get a quick scene of Phil saying a eulogy for his brother at a restaurant. He goes and sits at the bar and does some staring/thinking of his own. Looks like maybe he’s gonna have to take charge after all...

 

The episode ends with Christopher’s kid’s christening. Tony’s the godfather of course and as he and Christopher hug on the alter, the look in both their eyes says that things aren’t right between them.

 

David Chase and company have a lot to wrap up in the next 7 episodes, that’s for sure, but it looks like they’re gearing up to go out with a bang and not a whimper. A lot of the characters seem to be taking stock of their lives. Something I’m sure a lot of people do once they feel their mortality slipping away to old age. But when you’ve done some truly horrible things in your life like most of these characters, I’m sure it’s a lot harder to come to terms with.

[Guest Emperor]

Tony has to either retire or die. If the Family is taken over by someone other than a Soprano, then the show has an ending.

[Guest Emperor]

BO says:

 

With the heat turned up in Jersey, Tony and Paulie head south to cool off. Meanwhile, Junior rekindles some of his old fire in a poker game. Written by Terence Winter; directed by Phil Abraham.

 

After tonight, only six episodes left. The next four:

 

6.16 - APRIL 29 - "Chasing It" - Tony hits an unlucky stretch; AJ makes a life-changing decision; Vito's widow Marie (Elizabeth Bracco) turns to Tony for help with her troubled son. Written by Matthew Weiner; directed by Tim Van Patten.

 

6.17 - MAY 6 - "Walk Like A Man" - AJ (Robert Iler) struggles with depression; Kelli's (Cara Buono) dad (Dennis Paladino) is the unwitting catalyst of a new feud between Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Paulie (Tony Sirico). Written and directed by Terence Winter.

 

6.18 - MAY 13 - "Kennedy and Heidi" - An asbestos-disposal impasse raises tensions between Jersey and New York; Tony (James Gandolfini) has a revelation; Paulie gets upstaged. Written by Matthew Weiner and David Chase; directed by Alan Taylor.

 

6.18 - MAY 20 - "The Second Coming" - Phil (Frank Vincent) turns down Tony's offer of compromise; AJ despairs about the world and his future; Tony takes umbrage over an affront to Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler). Written by Terence Winter; directed by Tim Van Patten.