The Sopranos - Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

I resolved never to turn this into a television blog, but The Sopranos is worth making an exception for.  There's no real reason to make this presentational - 3 people and several dozen bots will read this, and the bots will probably get more out of it, as they will know what products to advertise to me.  Nonetheless, this is not the best opening to a Sopranos blog, but it is some great misdirection - Tony uses misdirection a lot in this episode.

There are undoubtedly pilot episodes better than that of The Sopranos - pilots that suggest a series birthed directly out of a showrunner's head like Athena from Zeus - The Sopranos pilot is not that.  It is messy and fussy and there's voiceover and it's still brilliant.  For the one or two of you who might need a full refresher on the plot, Tony begins therapy with Dr. Melfi because he's been having panic attacks.  He explains the day that led up to the panic attack via voiceover - his voiceover almost always ironically contrasts with the on-screen action.  He does some mob stuff, more on this later.  He visits his mother, gives her a CD player, and is generally made to feel like garbage for doing so.  It's his son's birthday, something which doesn't seem to register completely with him; he doesn't forget, but it's also not very important, either.  He has a panic attack after the ducks which have taken up residence in his pool fly away.  Melfi and him discuss these events, but he walks out when he is repeatedly asked whether or not he's depressed.  He comes back after another panic attack and he's prescribed Prozac, and after taking it he feels better.  I think he skips his next appointment; things are back to normal except that his pool is empty, and it will remain empty for the rest of the series.

The characters are what carry this pilot - they're mostly fully realized.  Carmela Soprano is perhaps the one major character who is slightly different when we come back for the rest of Season 1, but Meadow, Tony, Junior, Livia, Melfi - they're all here, and they're all miserable.

What struck me most about watching this pilot episode for maybe the 4th or 5th time is that the mob stuff that drives the plot is not particularly compelling.  We get Tony running a guy down in broad daylight at a crowded office park and Christopher shoots some guy involved in the garbage business.  But the main problem Tony has is that his uncle is going to make a hit at his friend Artie Buco's restaurant, which will drive business away.  He conspires to try to get him to take a vacation in order to close down the restaurant when the hit is scheduled to be made, only to have his wife shut that idea down - instead, unbeknownst to him, one of Tony's associates starts a fire at the restaurant.  It's a fine bit of symbolism and a good foreshadowing of what's to come - Tony seems very proud of himself that he's resolved this difficult situation, even though he's temporarily ruined his friend's life.  The insurance will pay for it, he says.  This plot really doesn't make a goddamn bit of sense - it drives the action of the first season and indeed the rest of the series, but it's never quite established why this hit has to happen here or why even this guy has to die.  I suppose that makes more sense than explaining it. 

 I never realized that Dr. Melfi is given an out here.  She asks Tony if he ever has any qualms about what he does.  He says yes, that he thinks he has to be the sad clown.  She mistakes this for introspection, and perhaps it is, but it's a hilarious sidestep of the question - she's asking him about whether he has any moral quandaries caused by his work, and he basically says it sucks that he can't express his emotions.  Then she writes him a scrip for Prozac.

Random observations -

Love the location work here, obviously.  Great scene atop Paterson Falls where they threaten that guy (again).  Playing golf in the shadows of the Pulaski Skyway another terrific choice.  There's also those two scenes next to the trash pile where he talks to his Triboro Towers connection who drives a Mercedes convertible and also chats with Artie Buco - maybe a bit on the nose, but hey, he's in waste management.

Have always enjoyed that little exchange between the priest and Carmela when they're talking movies and they get interrupted right when he asks her how he feels about the movie Goodfellas.  I never realized it gets called back when Tony talks about Henry Hill with Christopher.

I love how they nail Christopher right away - he's eternally disloyal, lazy, and vainglorious.  It makes me think that a Sopranos prequel show, as has been rumored, really wouldn't work for Tony in his late 20s - I bet he was the same way (he might hint at this with 'I've had offers too, you know').

That AK-47 that Carmela pulls out is unfortunate.  As are some of the music choices.     

Robert Iler is not asked to do very much in this episode, but his line reading of 'What, no fuckin' ziti?' is exceptional.  I'm now imagining 50 tween boys trying out that line in auditions.

There's a great little moment at the very beginning when Tony comes in for therapy and there's two chairs there and Tony isn't sure which one to sit in.  That's not something his character is used to.

God, Nancy Marchand was incredible.  There's this great little moment when Tony leans in to kiss his mother and she just does not move or change the expression on her face.  It is expected that she is kissed but she makes absolutely no movement in his direction.

Another bit I think I always missed - Tony goes to a restaurant with his mistress, then goes to that same restaurant in the next scene with his wife, and the maitre'd says 'We've missed you, Mr. Soprano'. 

I'm not sure any dramatic series I've watched calls back the pilot as much as this one does.  The ducks and the pool are recurring motifs, Pussy Malanga comes up again much later, I think Tony throws his conversation with Carmela in the MRI back at her when they might be getting divorced. 

Malapropism alert:  Luther Brasi, Hannibal Lecture