Editor’s Note: This review was written during the season’s initial run. Keep this in mind when reading the following review.
I was hoping something big was going to happen on this episode, but nothing did. Whatever the big thing is coming, I’m going to assume it’ll happen on the season finale. Big things aside, this episode was a good one and it kept with the building that this season has been doing.
What was most surprising about this episode was possibly the amount of focus we got on Dr. Melfi. Treating Tony is affecting her very badly causing her to drink in between sessions when she’s treating Tony. Her drinking is affecting her personality and other facets of her life outside of treating Tony. She describes treating Tony as a trainwreck, but she has to look. Her obsession with Tony is rather interesting and Tony has no idea of the effect he has on her. We don’t usually get to see this side of Dr. Melfi, this vulnerable and highly flawed side of her. Lorraine Bracco does a splendid job playing the flawed Melfi, and then able to make herself into the calm collected version that Tony knows.
Tony on the other hand is trying to step away from the business by letting his soldier do a lot of the work. It’ll keep him out of trouble with the F.B.I, but might give him more time to spend doing other things. Unfortunately the stress actually seems to get worse with him away from the business as he has to deal with Richie and Junior’s new drug trade. When Tony has to tells Richie in a not so nice way not to deal drugs through the organization’s people, the look on richie’s face says it all. You can tell he’s totally fed up with the way things are and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him make another move. We even see his defiance as Tony is told that Richie is still dealing, even though Tony told him not too. It seems hard for Tony to slow things down and Dr. Melfi even diagnoses Tony with having an obsession with always having to do things. It’s also been a couple of episodes since Tony suffered a panic attack, but it seems to find him this episode. Every time it seemed to be whenever he was around Richie. In the end Tony can’t stay away too long and it seems like he’s back to doing things the way he’s always done them.
Uncle Junior also managed to get a lot of time this episode, something that he hasn’t gotten most of this season. He’s feeling the loneliness of house arrest. You’d think that he’d be able to handle something as simple as house arrest, but that just goes to show you that loneliness can affect everyone. Junior finds company in Katherine Romano, a neighbor he knew along time ago. Katherine seems nice and doesn’t care that he’s on house arrest even though Junior made a big deal about it. This is one of the cuter relationships to see on The Sopranos. Maybe it’s because they’re two old people just looking for company. There was an interesting scene with Livia calling Uncle Junior. Livia almost seems jealous to find about Katherine and tries to talk bad about her (how’d she find out anyway). Livia is always great in the time she gets, it can be easy to mistake her old and forgetful nature with her being manipulative which is what it seemed like she was trying to do with Junior. Junior apparently can’t stand her almost as much as Tony and realizes that Livia tricked him into trying to take out Tony. At least he didn’t listen to her.
There was a lot to like with this episode. It seemed to focus more on the characters then anything happening around them. Sometimes it seems that’s what’s been happening the entire season. It’s weird to be not too excited about the next episode with only two episodes left in the season. Last season you were always awaiting the next episode and this season the episodes aren’t getting you super hyped for the next one. Aside from it all, this was still a good episode.
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