How do you talk to a person who has authority over you? I suppose that's not a particularly fraught thing for most people, as most of us do it every day. The question of how do you talk to a person who has authority over you and can also have you killed for insubordination is a much thornier issue. Tony tiptoes around the issue of his uncle's decision to 'tax' Hesh all episode - he tells circular stories about Augustus Caesar, he tells Livia in coded language that some people need to learn to listen to other people. But Hesh himself has this great moment where he too needs to tiptoe - he expects that Tony will pay him back his share, but he's not entirely certain. He can't ask for it. Everything has to be said in this roundabout way.
Likewise with Tony and Melfi - it was Carmela, not his mistress, who burned him with the candle. Why is Tony not owning up to having a mistress? This is the episode where he confesses his love for Melfi, so perhaps he's trying to portray himself as a one-woman man to her. In a loving gesture, he steals her car and has it fixed. When I first saw this episode, I didn't quite understand what a ridiculous violation this is - if you can steal someone's car to have it fixed, you can also steal it to have it sabotaged. The crooked cop is still watching her house. He's still having dreams about having sex with her. Gandolfini nails how creepy it is for a person like him to start talking about how gentle a woman is.
This is juxtaposed with the fact that he can't seem to sexually perform for either his wife or mistress. What's interesting is that this does not seem like it was a problem for him in the past - we don't have his mistresses' take, but Carmela implies that this has never been an issue in their relationship, even though he's always had women on the side. By the end, he's reconciled with Carmela by lying to her about how much she means to him, while we see that shot of the empty pool. I doubt it gets much better.
Random Thoughts
Things escalate so fast with his Russian mistress - he insults her by laying $200 on the bed and she throws a candle at him.
Carmela talks with Father Phil about how she always viewed his dalliances with mistresses as a form of masturbation. He doesn't really seem equipped to talk about life in this way.
Again, I should write these up right away, but I don't think either of the children have a scene in this episode. This is adult stuff in this episode.
Whose Little League game are Junior and Tony at, anyway?
The irony in this show is often hardly worth documenting, but the fact that Junior acts indignant about a drug dealer selling to minors while not realizing that that man works for his organization is pretty high up there.
Nancy Marchand's line reads are phenomenal. 'Water, water, always with the water! It's like living next to Gunga Din!' 'Bring the cookies!'
Love that they just get a Sikh to play this auto mechanic in one scene. Why not?
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