The Sopranos Season 2, Episode 3 - Toodle-Fucking-Oo

The past comes out in fits and starts on The Sopranos.  Seldom do the writers resort to flashbacks to tell the story of these characters' pasts - it just all comes out the way it does in life; in arguments, in drunkenness, in good times and in bad. 

We get reams of the past in this episode - it begins with Richie Aprile's release from prison.  The Sopranos would do this several times over the course of the show and it would feel forced except that Aprile fits so seamlessly into the preexisting world.  He once dated Janice and he's a loyal member of Junior's crew.  He's immediately a huge thorn in Tony's side.

Meanwhile Meadow hosts a party that wrecks her grandmother's now-vacant house.  Tony pretends to be upset, but for some reason he's not - maybe because he knows what kind of agita it will cause his sister and mother.  Maybe because he's aware of his own teenage misdeeds.  It's not really explained, but either way Meadow manages to manipulate her parents into barely punishing her.  Janice helps with this lenient stance until she actually sees what Meadow did, then she reverses her position - this disagreement nearly leads to her expulsion from the Soprano home.  Meadow overhears all of this.  Still, when Hunter asks what her parents did about this transgression, she gloats that they gave her the punishment she suggested.  Hunter says her parents did nothing; they're too worried about her becoming bulimic again.  She suggests to Meadow that she 'start purging'.  In the final shot of the episode, we see Meadow on her hands and knees cleaning up the mess she helped make in her grandmother's home.  Tony seems to have no idea what to make of this, and I as the viewer didn't really know either - I didn't remember this scene.  Meadow's pangs of conscience appear to come from nowhere.  Then I thought about the scene with Hunter -

They're making hot chocolate and singing 'No Scrubs' by TLC.  I don't know the lyrics exactly, but the song's main thesis is that these women are tired of men who act like children and have the finances to boot.  It's about men who don't take responsibility.  That's generally what we see in this episode - adults not taking responsibility.  Tony and Janice argue, but no one talks about who's going to scrub away the mess.  Carmela and Tony discuss how punishing children essentially means punishing themselves - to make sure the child stays home, they have to stay home.  They're unwilling to do the ostensibly hard work of trying to set a good example.  Meadow is perceptive and after some off-screen reflection, she's trying to be different.  She does indeed start purging, but only (voluntarily) in the Christian sense.

Random Observations -

I didn't even talk about Beansie and Richie and that stuff - but that's kind of Sopranos by rote.  I do love the phrase 'good earner'.

James Gandolfini is so good at bad acting.  It's something I used to talk a lot about on here was when actors have to add another layer of acting in a scene, and he's brilliant at it.  We usually know Tony's real thoughts even if he's trying to conceal them, and we have to ask - is he really trying to conceal them, or does he know what he's doing?

Is this the first scene with Elliot Kupferberg, Melfi's therapist?  Probably not.  I know he exists as a device for Melfi to express her thoughts, but he's also imperious and smug.

Christopher's late again.

One thing I love in the dramatic arts is when a character appears to have values we would agree with, but it's quickly revealed that he doesn't - like when Richie Aprile remonstrates Christopher for hitting his girlfriend.  But he quickly adds that if Christopher were married, it would be 'none of his business'.  Old school, indeed.

This episode is the first one where Janice's estranged son is brought up.  Tony is not (yet) heartless enough to use him as an example of Janice's poor parenting.

I didn't catch a malapropism in this episode.