TV-Reviewed

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

This episode continued the trend that’s been through out this whole season and it was more to build up to whatever is going to happen by this season’s end. Episodes earlier in the season weren’t so obvious, because nothing much honestly seemed to be happening. With this episode, big things happen and it’s just a matter of time… before the shit hit’s the fan.

This episode all around was pretty good and almost every storyline came off pretty well. The most interesting one involved Carmella, who hasn’t been given much to do this season. With Meadow applying for college, Carmella finds out that one of them is Berkley. Meadow’s other college is Georgetown, but you have to have more then good grades to get into that school. Carmella decides to ask Jeannie Cusumano from next door if her sister would write a letter of recommendation for Meadow. Jeannie is apparently a huge pushover and after finding out that Tony is a gangster from last season, she’s practically scared to say no to anything the family asks of her. When she goes to ask her sister though, the sister refuses. This is when things start getting interesting, because Carmella goes almost as far as threatening her sister to write Meadow a recommendation form

It was interesting to see Carmella use some intimidation tactics which is something we’ve almost never seen. Apparently Tony has rubbed off on her, only her intimidation tactics are a bit more friendly. Carmella’s need to keep Meadow close to her is also interesting as we see her attempt to throw away Meadow’s letter from Berkeley only to give it back to her. In the end when Jeannie gives Carmella the news that her sister did end up writing the letter, it looked like she was lying or making things up, but that wasn’t said. So we’ll assume that the letter was written. Edie Falco really does a great job in this episode with the intimidating people, but being nice about it. While we haven’t seen Carmella in any storylines this season, this was a nice story to give her.

Richie Aprile and Tony’s relationship has been on the rocks since Richie came back into town. Every time these two are in a scene together you can just feel the tension coming from the scene. You’re just waiting for one to shoot the other. Richie gets pretty pissed when he’s told to build a ramp for the guy he paralyzed some episodes ago. Richie of course doesn’t like taking orders, especially with Tony who’s younger then him. He seems to be suffering from Uncle Junior syndrome, only we felt a little for Uncle Junior due to how long he’s been working. In an ass-kissing move Richie gives Tony a jacket which he got off a tough mob guy. This jacket seems to be the thing to really set him off as Tony pretends like he loves the jacket, only for Richie to see the maid’s husband wearing it. A pissed of Richie doesn’t sound very good and we’re just waiting to see what he’s going to do next exactly.

The last and most important storyline by the episodes end involved Christopher’s soldier’s, Sean and Matt. Both of these guys are a lot like Christopher was last season with being over ambitious and not really thinking. Actually they’re a lot like Christopher’s soldiers from last season. Christopher just has bad draw with these guys. Anything they can do to try to get ahead the two will do it. Realizing that they haven’t moved up in the organization, they take it upon themselves to make a move by attacking Christopher out of nowhere. It came as a total surprise, because usually Christopher’s soldiers are never that smart or stupid (depending on the way you look at it) to do anything this crazy. Christopher put up a hell of a fight, actually killing Sean in the process and at least he’s a good shot. The shit has just hit the fan and we can bet that Tony won’t let this go and is going to hunt Matt down. Richie might have to take Matt down himself though, because according to Matt they tried to kill Christopher for him.

One thing that was left out this episode was Pussy, but we still have plenty of episodes for him. It was nice to see more action and more intrigue from The Sopranos. This episode kind of embodies what season 1 was about. There was great buildup and something big happened at the end. This is probably the best episode so far in the season.

Rating: 8.0