The Sopranos Season 1, Episode 4 - Meadowlands

The day for it has long past, and a keen-eyed viewer doesn't need it, but I'd like to see The Sopranos without Tony.  I don't mean, what if he's dead, I mean, what if we just see everyone else in his life without him around.  Dr. Melfi's life, as demonstrated by this episode, seems quite mundane - besides the confrontation with the police officer, which we got to see, there wouldn't be a whole lot there.  We'd get to hear more jokes by Junior Soprano ("Did you hear about the Chinese Godfather?  He made them an offer they couldn't understand.").  We see how Meadow's life is altered here - Christopher picks her up at school and demands that she tell him whether or not her father knows that he sold her drugs.  Anthony's would-be schoolyard fight is thwarted because his enemy's parents are terrified of his father.  What were these weeks like in the Piacosta household?  We only get a glimpse when Tony runs into the father at the local gardening center.  It's an interesting idea that I don't think ever came to pass in the series (except when Tony is in a coma, and even then, it doesn't happen).

We start here with a dream and we end with Tony talking conspiratorially to his captains at Jackie's funeral.  Let's begin with the dream - This is the first dream sequence in the Sopranos, and there's a lot to unpack, but why bother - I think it's less important to consider the contents of this dream but rather if the images from it recur in future episodes.  I also think it's important that this dream comes when Tony is sleeping at his mistress's apartment.  But yeah, we get Tony lusting after Melfi, we get Melfi as Livia, we get his crew hanging out in Melfi's waiting room. 

We see his crew later in a medical setting, but they're with Jackie at the hospital.  He didn't die yet, I just misinterpreted Junior in the previous episode.  He dies in this episode.  Jackie's death is a sad time for Tony and his crew, it appears, but it seems like it's always interrupted - their mourning is about to begin at the Bada Bing when Christopher comes in and demands that they begin a war.  Tony gets angry and then drives off to meet Junior, but the show does a nice 180 as Tony makes a temporary peace with Junior.  At the funeral, the talk is all strategy.  Perhaps as Jackie grew sicker in the previous episode, Tony had already buried him - thus the supposed 'acceptance' in episode 3's title. 

I'd talk about Christopher's arc in this episode, but I don't think there's a lot to it.  Does his anger drive Tony to make peace with Junior?  And what of the fact that Tony makes peace with Junior and decides to keep coming to therapy?  It seems as though Tony takes the lessons that Melfi is trying to impart about his mother and uses them in his business, and that this is what provokes his hilariously insincere sounding reason for continuing with therapy.

Random observations -

Jeremy Piacosta.  Jennifer Melfi.  Meadow Soprano.  Brendan Filone.  Hunter Scangeralo.  What are we to make of these non-traditional first names coupled with Italian names?  Something to consider as the series moves along.

There's so much buried in this show that I feel like I'm seeing things.  Tony says to Melfi that his mother always told him never to answer a question with another question, but Livia does so twice in their conversation that occurs shortly after.  Is that deliberate?

I always thought it was funny that they picked Mario Kart 64 as the N64 game that Tony and his son would play, but I never noticed until this viewing that we only hear Wario, Mario, and Luigi, the 3 ostensibly Italian characters speaking in ridiculous stereotypical voices ('I'm-a Wario, I'm-a gonna win!', 'Mamma mia!').  Paulie's rant about Italian culture being stolen came to mind.

Anthony Jr. would absolutely choose Mario as his Mario Kart character.

There's a lot of talk of urination and defecation - Christopher's fear-induced soiling is brought up twice, Tony mentions pissing on someone's head when he's talking to his mom.  Things just recur in this show without really having to have a point.

I don't remember ever seeing any live TV broadcasts of local mobsters' deaths.

I have to finish these writeups the night I see the episodes.  I forget too many details and things get so squirrely.  Maybe I have to at least write down the critical parts and then fill in the blanks.  And christ, I didn't even talk about John Heard's character beating up Melfi's date.