Sopranos - 5/13

Ughhh. I couldn't imagine how awful it would be to be inside a Vegas casino, tripping your balls off. God, the paranoia would be unreal. That whole scene made me uncomfortable, how the dealers and pit bosses were looking at Tony and how obviously gorkled he and his companion were. And then to drive down the Strip while tripping...talk about dangerous.

 

I think people are creating a false dichotomy here.

Tony wanted him dead.

It was still a mercy killing. The two are not mutually exclusive.

 

I don't think Tony was feeling mercy towards Chris at that point. Unless you are saying that because Tony knew having to kill him later would be messier and more painful, then it was a mercy killing.

Tony's guilt and subsequent portrayal of Chris afterward indicated that he did it more for selfish reasons. That and the stone-cold evil look on Gandolfini's face during that scene.

 

Zeke, don't you think Tony would have called 911 (while Christopher was still alive) had Christopher not admitted to the drugs?

 

If this was Show 6 of a normal 22-episode season, with maybe more to come, I could see developing the theme of Tony going into harder drugs -- picking up Chris's addictions after he is gone. Probably not enough time to really get into that now.

Not for nothing did they show Tony ogling Kelli's bare breast while feeding the baby, the brief meeting with Julianna Skiff (Marguilies) at the funeral home, then the bedroom hijinks with Chris's former hooker/ semi-goomah in Las Vegas.

My guess is Tony tries to bed Kelli before the show is done, but whether they can get around to it, who knows.

Another thought I had was that they might try to pair off A.J. with Kelli, but again, probably not enough time.

 

i figured he was dead as soon as he said he'd never pass a drug test. i thought tony was thinking the feds could possibly convice chris to flip in return for letting a DUI slide....tony's been so paranoid this season that it was not surprising (though i was in shock as i was watching it)....

 

How about AJ - after last week's episode, I thought he was really turning around and getting a taste for the game. But once and for all, it's not for him.
Also, that was no mercy killing. No freaking way.
And at this point, I think Leotardo wants it more than Tony. Tony's slipping, for sure. That life gets old. Being the boss is lonely, that's the oldest theme in the show.

 

A couple of things.

The car lights passing by on the road while Tony was dispatching Christopher.....

and the sunrise peyote sunburst .... both evocative of the Finnerty dream sequence.

Great performances all around... Paulie, Carmela... even snotnosed A.J. showed some range.

Carm's great line on Julianna "She's a good looking woman....." figuring that Tony already banged her.

And I don't know if it's worth arguing whether or not Tony "gets" anything, or what that might be.... he was on peyote buttons, after all. After a couple of days, that shit wears off and all the supposed insights you gain are slowly supplanted by the return of real life.

Or, so I've read.

Oh, and Paulie is gonna snap, now. The funeral snub was the last straw.

And damn, wouldn't it be a hoot if Tony winds up going down for "asbestos."

one final thought, Chrissy's vegas gf showed some real acting chops in that bedroom scene. Yowza.

 

Don't forget him looking up at the light in the casino just like the one on the operating room table.

For the first time, those Kevin Finnerty episodes didn't seem entirely wasted.

Oh, i'm sure Tony won't get that much but I certainly "got it" at that point. I don't know much about peyote but other psychedelics' impact don't really fade away that much. Ask Ram Dass.

 

ha. good point. Or Syd Barrett, for that matter.

hey, and one more thing. Tony scoping out Kelly breastfeeding. Priceless.

 

I like how that woman they called "3 to 5, 7 to 9 (she never misses a wake)" randomly appeared in the background at Paulie's mom's wake while Paulie was blowing up at Tony. Nice touch.