The Sopranos Season 1, Episode 3 - Denial, Anger, Acceptance

What binds us to anyone we know?  Family, old friends, business partners - how do these connections sustain one another, and will they mean anything when tested?  I suppose those are two large questions, but Tony Soprano himself is asking 'What if this all means nothing?' to his therapist as his 'friend' wastes away from cancer.  Back to the ties that bind, then - this is a theme covered by most of the so-called 'prestige dramas' that I've seen, and perhaps it's trite to postulate that when circumstances change for people close to us, most of us are ill-equipped to deal with a friend or family member going through something traumatic.  What complicates things about The Sopranos is that often we're watching a bunch of murderous sociopaths failing to connect with one another - are we supposed to relate to this failure, or are we supposed to think this is mostly a result of the rest of their lives?

Jackie Aprile is dying of cancer.  Tony goes to see him three times, and I suspect those three times relate to the episode title here (albeit this is in the nascent DVD era when we couldn't be certain if show creators put a lot of thought into titles beyond what might look intriguing in 'TV Guide').  The first time, he and his crew chase out Mikey Palmice who is trying his hand at empathy and failing.  They talk about work with Jackie as this is the context in which they know him, but he's not really enjoying the conversation.  The second time, Tony comes in with a stripper dressed as a nurse as a prank, and leaves the two of them alone.  He tells Melfi that 'I came back in, we had some booze' - but we're not shown that scene, and so I wonder if Tony is lying.  I doubt it, but I had never considered it until writing this.  The final time, Jackie is visibly ill, and Tony is trying to talk about business and Jackie is not even pretending to listen at this point.  It's implied at the end of the episode that Jackie is dead, but Tony has spent the episode in denial.  His anger comes at Melfi, and I suspect his acceptance comes at Meadow Soprano's recital.

Ah, Meadow - I haven't talked much about her yet.  Then again, the show hasn't established a ton about her either - she's a sullen and rebellious teenager, she uses Online, and she has a friend named Hunter Scangarelo.  She seems quite aware of how her family is different from other families.  I love her code switching in this episode - it's established that she's a good (and diligent) student, but she can also talk to Christopher and Brendan in their language. 

Since this is a show primarily about one family, they do a great job of establishing prior relations - Meadow and Christopher talk like knowing cousins whereas Livia and Junior talk like co-conspirators.  I was going to point out in Episode 1 how out of place Junior and Livia's conversation seemed, but I forgot that they spoke like this frequently - did Johnny Soprano talk with his wife like this?  I should look for parallels between this relationship and the one that Tony and Melfi are developing.

Random observations -

Three great details I noticed in this one - the half-empty Jolt Colas in Meadow's room, the Garfield card in Jackie's hospital room, but the piece de resistance was during choir practice when one of the teens was singing with her arms folded across her chest.  Did anyone tell her to do that, or was it just unconscious?   It's a great choice.  And there's only one of them doing it too despite there being 20 kids there.

I do enjoy that 'All Through The Night' montage at the end - I can't call it on the nose, but it's certainly close - but I also like the connection to Meadow's study habits and meth needs.

I also enjoy the Hasidic Jews meeting Tony Soprano outside a pork store.  Another thing I'd never put together and no one says anything about it - nor does Ariel mention it when he's tortured there.

What a brutal own on the Masada story by the Sopranos writers here - Jews may tell this tale to emphasize Jewish pride and stubbornness, but as Tony reminds Ariel, the Romans didn't go away, either.

It took this long to reveal that Tony Soprano has a cellular phone.  In the last episode, Junior Soprano managed to track him down at Green Grove - it's implied he didn't have one.  I would've liked to have seen some seasons of The Sopranos where he didn't have one.

Haven't managed to talk a lot about Carmela yet but that 'come here' gesture is so perfectly demeaning.  These are too long and I have too much to talk about with them.

Malapropism alert:  To Tony, the psychological exam involving a patient saying what they think of when they see an inkblot is the Horshack test.