TV-Reviewed

Editor’s Note: This review was written during the season’s initial run. Keep this in mind when reading the following review.

I have to say season two of The Sopranos has really been disappointing so far. It’s missing the violence and the inner-working’s of the business that made last season so interesting. This episode was a bit awkward, because it almost did nothing to advance the story further and nothing too important really seemed to happen, but it was still a pretty interesting episode overall.

This episode saw Tony, Paulie, and Christopher go to Italy to meet another family to discuss business concerning importing of cars. The language barrier between Tony’s crew and the crew based out of Italy was pretty interesting, because Tony’s crew speaks broken Italian, but very little. The Italian crew seemed pretty rude.

It was interesting seeing how the Italian mob works. Watching how mean the Italian crew is, it really makes Tony’s crew seem like angels. The way they treat this boy who was playing with firecrackers and his mother was unbelievable and really brutal. Another difference between the two mobs and one that Tony had a problem with the most was the fact that the crew was run by a woman. AnnaLisa basically runs the crew with her father mentally ill and her husband in jail for life. Tony is immediately attracted to her, but in the end, he actually manages to stop himself from sleeping with her which is pretty unusual for Tony.

Paulie’s lines are always great, because for the most part he’s the comedian of the crew. He was so happy being in Italy and acted like a little kid in a candy store. It was one of the first times that you see Tony get annoyed with his second in command.

Christopher, unfortunately, did nothing in Italy, but do drugs even though he seemed set on seeing a volcano. Christopher continues to be a disappointment and still has a long time before he’ll ever get made.

Back in America, the big news was Pussy’s wife wanting a divorce. In reality, divorce is one of those things that is fairly common, but in the mob, it’s a huge thing, because of how the church frowns on divorce. Even though it’s a shame we saw such little of Janice, she actually brought up some great points of interest by wondering why Mob wives put up with all the crap that they have to go through with the affairs and how they expect the wives to be perfect. Basically she talks about how the relationship between the husband and wife when it comes to the mob isn’t balanced.

It’s pretty interesting, because she has a huge point. Pussy’s wife had the right idea seeking a divorce and it was quite disappointing to see Carmela possibly talk Angie out of getting the divorce. Janice’s talk with Carmela apparently got through, because Carmella’s face when Tony walked through the door was somewhat priceless.

The one thing that was interesting, but not given a lot of time was that it looks like Pussy is now an F.B.I. informant. While it wasn’t confirmed the way he acted when he ran into someone he knew was suspicious and practically made him look guilty when he killed the guy he ran into. Even though it didn’t look like the guy was going to out Pussy anyway. Pussy has been different since he got back and it’s going to be rather interesting to see how this plays out and if Tony and the crew will find out.

So in a way this was kind of a useless episode with only minor scenes that possibly impacted future episodes. Aside from that it was still rather interesting. Italy’s scenery looked great. It had well written dialogue and managed to keep my attention for the episode. There’s only so many times though that an episode like this will keep my interest. The Sopranos need to get back on track; it’s a shame when there’s nothing from the previous episode brought up here. We need Dr. Melfi back, we need to focus more on the conflicts. This season has just been too mellow and has really lost the excitement that season 1 has. Hopefully the writers get back on track soon.

Rating: 7.0