The Sopranos Season 1, Episode 12, 13 - Isabella, I Dream Of Jeannie Cusamano

It's been a while since I watched these episodes, but I feel like I owe it to this project to stick it out here.  Isabella is a difficult episode of television to write about without either becoming depressed or being cliche (or more likely both).  So I've combined these all into one and am just going to throw out some things based on what I remember from 2 weeks ago.

It's disappointing how much the Sopranos leans on Freudian bullshit in the last two episodes here.  That said, this is compelling television, so I can overlook it a bit.  Tony runs into an Italian smokeshow in his backyard, a 'mother figure' who listens to him without judging.  Melfi claims this is because his brain is trying to scream at him that his mother is trying to have him killed - that his hallucinations are sort of day-dreams getting him to realize things.  I think he also flips over a glass table and threatens Melfi during these episodes.  He might not. 

Livia, meanwhile, is forgetting everything - she doesn't recognize Meadow, and she's wandering around after dark calling out for her dead sister.  This is meant to imply she's had some sort of psychic break after recommending that her son be murdered, but Livia's mental state is almost impenetrable - unless she's angry or otherwise making herself the center of attention, it's difficult to ascribe motives to her.   I'm curious to see how characters' mental states and physical states reflect one another as the series progresses - we've already seen Pussy's back injury used as a pretext to assume that he's an informant.  Tony's depression is, according to Melfi, a signal that something is amiss in his life.

Random observations -

Mikey Palmice actually uses his track suit to go jogging.  Jimmy Altieri doesn't.  They both die in it, as prophesized by Junior in the tailor's.

Tony's demeanor when he talks to the Feds is so different from when he talks to anyone else. 

It's hard to remember stuff from episodes of television you watched several weeks ago, even if you had seen them already.

The Sopranos Season 1, Episode 11 - Nobody Knows Anything

I decided to skip the writeup on the previous episode for two reasons - I watched the episode nearly a week ago, and it's not very good.  I could write a lot about Adrianna's foray into the music business but it's a slender episode, character development wise and otherwise.

Let's plow ahead with this one, which introduces Pussy as a potential FBI informant.  We haven't seen a lot of this character before now - early on, he's just one of the guys in Tony's crew.  He offered up some advice for Christopher when he was having nightmares, but he's largely been sidelined.  Here, he's accused of being a rat after he gets arrested and Tony's crooked cop gets a tip about him.  Everyone's eyeing him and acting differently around him - Tony comes over to his house and insists that he has friends that would die for him, which really means that Tony has friends who will kill him.  Paulie takes him to a spa/steam room to try to see if he is wearing a wire, but Pussy insists that his doctor has advised him that prolonged exposure to heat is bad for his already high blood pressure.

Meanwhile Jimmy, another heretofore sidelined character, also gets out of jail and goes to Tony's house to discuss some illegal things in a leading way, trying to get Tony to implicate himself in criminal activities.  It's unclear whose idea this is, the Feds or Jimmy's, but if he is an informant, it seems awfully clumsy.  Either way, Tony realizes that his cop must've gotten a bad tip, but that there is an informant.  Too bad he can't go back to that cop because he committed suicide.

I want to speak a little bit about John Heard's Vin Makazian, a character who wasn't exactly three-dimensional until this episode and then he's gone.  I never quite understood why he chose that moment to kill himself, but Tony might understand why.  It's the fact that he's still a respected member of society.  As a police officer, he's afforded special privileges.  He didn't want that - he wanted the opposite because he thought he was garbage.  When Vin's madam/therapist tells Tony after his death that 'at least with Tony Soprano, you know where you stood', he has a flash of recognition - Vin liked Tony, but Tony always treated him horribly.  It's implied that Tony might be thinking about that at the end of the episode as he stares out at a river.

Oh, and Livia's telling Junior that Tony's captains are meeting in Green Grove along with Johnny Sac and other people from New York.  The wagons are circling around Tony from Junior's crew.  How's this going to end?  I guess with the series continuing.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

"He's like the fuckin' Jonas Salk of backs."

"But when it comes to backs, nobody knows anything"

I know it's to provide exposition but I love how focused the local news is on Tony's life.   

I don't think Mikey Palmiece's wife shows up again, but that's a great one-scene performance if so.

Malapropism alert:  Bra-oon appliances.