The Sopranos 4/8.... spoilers?

From Norm Clarke's column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal...

 

But it would fit for a son of Janice's to try and fuck with his baby's mother over child custody.

as I said bfore, please Mr. Chase, kill Janice.

 

They did mention Bobby's other kids in the dialogue, saying one would be back (probably from summer camp) on this date, and the other a week later, something like that.

 

Maybe for New York.

But Tony has always been at ease meeting Johnny Macaroni beneath the BB... never afraid to get his hands dirty, enjoying any excuse to dip his toe back into those waters (Strangling the guy in Maine, Beating on Leotardo in the middle of the street, shooting Bevilaqua, stealing the wine .. .on and on.

 

That is a major fucking spoiler.

 

Sepinwall alluded to a part of it, but I thought the Monopoly game was an homage to both of Joe Pesci's great scenes in Goodfellas, the "Funny... how?" monologue and the Billy Batts murder.

 

How is that a major spoiler?
The fiinal scene -- shot out of sequence, as is Chase's wont --- was shot about a month ago at an ice cream parlor in Northern New Jersey.

I posted details earlier on this thread.

 

I just want to send a giant "grazie" to Time Warner Cable in NYC, who decided this morning would be a swell time to black out HBO InDemand. I'm sure there weren't any people who couldn't catch The Sopranos and Entourage last night and wanted to see it this morning before running errands and/or going into work.

Thanks, TWC. You're the best.

 

Thank god for a free HBO weekend.. I got to watch it this morning

 

Yet another replay on HBO right now.

 

That's good. Good. I'm glad there are replays now, while I'm at the office watching the Yankees take extended BP off of Mantits Ponson.

 

Yet more evidence for why I prefer The Wire.

I also should note that the first Sopranos season, which I think is generally regarded as the best, was the only one to have that conventional type of build/payoff plotting.

So, if Chase is going to continue to deconstruct the standards of modern American storytelling or whatever fancy shmancy term you wanna use... what IS gonna happen? In one sense I think the sense of unpredictability on Sopranos is good, but I think sometimes Chase is so determined not to go "with the grain", he compromises quality and satisfying the audience for an attempt to be innovative.

And you can have a show where "every piece matters", like the Wire, and still have surprises. I for one didn't expect Stringer Bell to end up dead by the end of that episode in Season 3. But, because of the context and good groundwork laid in the past, it made sense and was great.

All that being said, I did enjoy this episode. I just wish we could get Jim Ross to commentate the Bobby/Tony fight. Truly, it was a slobberknocker.

Two other thoughts...

1) Didn't see a ring on Meadow's fingers at any point. Did they write Finn out of the whole shebang?

2) We got this far with no mention of the ducks--both flying behind Tony when he sat in the chair and then the song about them that the little girl and the nanny were singing?