The Sopranos Season 1, Episode 8 - The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti

I'm going to focus on Christopher for this writeup because by and large, this episode does as well.  There's plenty of other critical Tony stuff, but we don't really see a very new side of him.  The episode opens with a dream, and we're pretty sure it's Christopher's dream because we only see things that relate to him - the Czech man he killed and Adriana are featured.  The Czech tells him that he didn't properly dispose of the evidence and that the wrong people will find out soon.  A hand grabs him from inside the meat case.  Christopher wakes up with a start next to Adriana.

Christopher mentioned selling his story to Hollywood in Episode 1 and now he's working on a screenplay.  Meanwhile, indictments are supposedly coming for the North Jersey crime families.  Christopher is upset that Brendan is mentioned on TV in relation to these indictments but he is not.  He pulls a gun on a bakery clerk who doesn't respect him enough.  He spirals into a depression over this non-recognition, claiming that he has no identity.  This seems like an absurd claim - he's part of a crime family and spends most of his time employed in that regard.  Since we see him writing a screenplay and he talks about how much he loves movies - we don't see criminals in movies going about anonymously.  Henry Hill in Goodfellas claims that when he became part of 'the crew', the bakery owner would serve him first even on busy days.  Meanwhile Christopher has to wait for cannolis even for a guy who wasn't there when he came in. 

Thankfully Christopher has his other criminal associates to keep him from getting too down.  First in this list is Paulie, who consoles him with this great exchange:

CHRISTOPHER:  You ever feel like nothing good was ever going to happen?
PAULIE:  Yeah. And nothin' ever did.  Who gives a fuck?

Paulie's a pragmatist or a complete sociopath.  He never had aspirations to anything more than what he's got already, and it doesn't really matter to him whether life is good or bad.  He's a great foil to Christopher as we'll see in the coming seasons.

Next up is Pussy, who informs him that it gets easier to murder people the more people you murder.  He seems to at least have some idea of what Christopher is going through.  Plus he explains to him that the logic of his dream doesn't make sense - why would his killer want to help him? 

Third on the list is Tony, who sees Christopher's behavior for what it is - a sign of depression.  He mentions how he's seen people who are obsessed with appearing as gangsters and who end up in jail because of it.  Tony starts talking around depression and therapy and suicidal ideation, but Christopher pretends to be above it all.  Tony is, after all, his boss, and showing weakness in front of the boss isn't the best career move.  Still, Tony seems genuinely excited to try to discuss these things, but after Christopher says he's never thought about killing himself, he has to turn it into a joke.

This depression doesn't get resolved until his mom calls him to wonder if everything's okay.  He lets the answering machine get it - she thinks everything isn't okay because his name is in the paper.  Vindication.  Depression over.  He's a real somebody now.

Sprinkled around this in the episode is the idea that gangsterdom is thrilling.  The Melfis discuss how gangster films featuring Italians are now part of classic cinema.  When they go in for family therapy, their therapist leads them on a big aside about how in part of his (Jewish) family, there were also gangsters.  The episode itself seems to speak to why gangster content is compelling - there are always so many things left untold.  Plus we don't pull guns on retail clerks.

Random Observations

I must be loyle to my capo.

Questions I will never get the chance to ask:  Was the choice of having the papers blowing around in the dream sequence influenced by Bela Tarr's Satantango?

I feel like this shot lived on in DVD menus and promos for the show, but when Tony is standing against a barbed wire fence as the camera pans across his face with a train in the background - that's amore. 

I really like how it's established that Jennifer's ex-husband is still a part of her life.

I think it's really challenging to write plausible bad jokes and so I have to commend whoever wrote the bits for the nursing home stand-up comedian.

Malapropism Alert:  Tennessee William, Antichrists (instead of Anarchists)