The Sopranos finale: It's all over but the bitching

Episode 86: "Made in America"

"And now, the end is near;

And so I face the final curtain.

My friend, Ill say it clear,

I'll state my case, of which I'm certain."

"I've lived a life that's full.

I've traveled each and every highway;

And more, much more than this,

I did it my way."

--Frank Sinatra

With a heavy emphasis on music in the final episode of this thing we loved called The Sopranos, I'm surprised creator David Chase didn't use those fitting lyrics from one of the greatest entertainment/mob connectors in American history, for the words could have been spoken by Chase himself.

Because if there's one thing you can say following the ultimate episode of the series, it's that he certainly went out on his own terms.

In the hours since the Sopranos signed off last night, a tidal wave of heated opinions has flooded the airwaves & fiber optic cables, crashing websites and rippling office water coolers from Parsippany to Palo Alto. And the range of responses has run the gamut from the ridiculous ("I'm cancelling my subscription to HBO") to the sublime ("that was the greatest ending in television history").

But whether you loved the ending or hated it (much like with Jar Jar Binks, there is no in between) Chase found a way to get the entire nation talking about a show that may never grace our presence again.

At least without being chopped up worse than Ralphie Cifaretto by those friggin' bastards at A&E.

The finale, much like the previous 85 episodes before it, was a polarizing entity, galvanizing armies on both sides of the fence. There are both the staunch supporters of Chase's decision to use an open-ended 'conclusion', and a legion of livid longtime watchers who are disgusted with the great 'cop-out' move to end the show without significant closure.

I, for one, am on the "loved it" side of the fight.

Before I go into detail why, let me try to recap what happened and explain how we got to the point where people are ready to send a lynch mob to Chase's Malibu manse and string him up by his Lincoln Log.

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The episode begins the morning after last week's left off, as Tony wakes up in the bed in the safe house with the assault rifle next to him. (note: one of these days I'm going to re-watch this entire season and count how many scenes showed Tony in bed. Plenty of fodder for the "dream" theorists.)

Immediately we cut to Paulie & T. waiting in a van at the edge of an airport runway on a snowy winter night. Turns out Tony has arranged a meeting with Agent Harris, and when he runs to Harris' car through the flurries, Chase had everyone in the "he's gonna flip" camp thinking they had won the office pool.

The snitch that came in out of the cold, if you will.

Well, they were wrong. Yes Tony arranged the confab to exchange information, but not to turn in evidence; he tells Harris that he remembered where the Arabs who frequented the Bing had an offshore bank account, and in exchange for that tidbit he wants Harris to use his Brooklyn FBI connection to help him locate Phil, to "prevent any more members of his family from getting hurt."

When Harris, grumpy from arguing with his wife and exhausted from chasing a terrorist cell lead, balks, Tony suggests the bank account could be used for funding terrorist activities. Unimpressed, Harris responds with a curt "you're reaching", and Tony hastily exits the car, but the agent may have appreciated the info a little more than he let on, as we'll see later.

T. drives to the estate house by the beach that Carm bought where the family is hiding out at, and a soulful rendition of the tune "Keep Me Hanging On" by Vanilla Fudge blares from the van radio, another masterful use of mood-setting music by Chase. There he tries to comfort Carm, who is trying to hold it all together as she pines to return home. "I'm working on it" Tony tells her, and the notion is hatched that they might just live through this mob war.

The Feds watch closely as Bobby's funeral is attended by various members of the families, and at the wake afterwards they do what us Italians do best- eat and bullshit. Paulie, who was fucking priceless in this episode, goes so far as to unzip his pants at the table in front of everyone, including Bobby's pretty young niece, while AJ goes off because everybody is talking about meaningless bullshit like American Idol and the Oscars when their friend had just been killed and our country is at war.

"You people are fucked" he angrily tells them before going on another anti-Bush tirade, but when he's done spilling his guts to the stunned table, the niece replies "you're all over the place, I don't know what you're trying to say." Well put.

At the safe house Tony's captains keep coming back with light envelopes, due to the power struggle, and while watching an episode of the Twilight Zone (another Chase riff-read the episode guide) a mysterious cat appears and takes a shine to the crew, although Paulie is freaked out by it. "Snakes with fur," he calls them. Classic.

The significance of the cat-- was it Christopher or Adrianna re in-cat-nated, or did it constantly stare at Chrissy's picture because it was so adept at spotting rats?-- has been the subject of much heated debate as well, but whatever it represented, it was one freaky feline.

Meanwhile Phil places a call to his man Butch and tells him he's irked that Tony has escaped their assassin's wrath. "He shoulda been hit first" is Phil's response to Butch's excuses, and when the little bug eyed dude has the nerve to suggest that they might should reach out to make a truce, Phil barks "we can't go back now, are you fucking crazy?", and in his smug & heartless way, hangs up on him.

Okay, I'm starting to ramble, so I'll speed this up a bit.

While visiting his sister Janice, who's in semi-mourning ("Gotta watch my weight if I'm gonna snag me a new husband"), Tony gets the call from Harris that Phil is using a pay phone in the seaside town of Oyster Bay. Ironically, Harris had to sleep with his "source" to get the info, and as he secretly called Tony after the tryst, Chase continued to show that everyone in this show, even the FBI agents, aren't beyond resorting to illicit or immoral acts to get what they want.

As all this is happening, everybody's least favorite depressed teenager is about to consummate his relationship with the teenage 'sorta model' Rhiannon, parked in his SUV and listening to Bob Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". Except he parked his X-Terra in some dry leaves, and the catalytic converter caused a fire which resulted in the truck being blown sky high.

The near-catastrophic event conveniently shocked the perpetually depressed teen out of his funk and back to "reality", and when a brief flirtation with enlisting in the Army is met with furious disapproval from the parentals, Tony gets him a job as a development executive on a Daniel Baldwin slasher flick, buys him a new Beamer M3 and promises to fund his future nightclub venture, and suddenly the kid is riding high in the saddle with a hot car, a hot (underage) girlfriend, and not a care in the world.

See, Chase knows how to wrap things up neatly.

By now Tony has decided to reach out to George, boss of one of the NY families, to broker a deal with Phil's boys. He agrees to end everything, blaming Johnny Sack for turning Phil into the prick that he is, and when Little Carmine and Butchie both sign off on the truce, all that's left is to whack Phil.

After Paulie's nephew Little Paulie (a.k.a the one who Christopher threw out the window---boy did I miss Chris these past few weeks...) gets a bead on Phil, the Jersey boys conduct the hit in broad daylight as he's leaving his wife & grand kids to make his calls. One shot to the back of the skull, then another in the heart for good measure, and Tony's last obstacle is eliminated.

As they say, he never saw it coming.

The next part everyone saw coming, because Chase set it up for all the carnage-thirsty viewers who were tuning in tonight hoping to see an all-out bloodbath.

As the car rolls out of control with Phil's head lined up with the tire, a crowd of onlookers curiously gathers to watch the inevitable act painfully unfold as if in slow motion. When the wheel rolls over Phil's silver-cropped skull, the sickening noise and (implied) violence causes some of the gawkers to ohh & oahh with approval and others to get sick on the spot.

The implication is Chase saying, "okay, you all wanted blood & guts, well look closely cause here it is", except he didn't even give it to us then, it was off screen, a clear sign of the giant tease that was yet to come.

Now I really gotta wrap this up.

The Sopranos return home and all is right with the world again. Meadow is going to marry Pat and might already have a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm waiting for her, AJ is miraculously healed, with help from a Melfi-esque shrink, right down to the gams, and even Paulie is seeing his life improve when Tony offers him the job of running the Cifaretto crew.

Sure there are a couple of nagging issues for the boss, like the fact that his boy Carlo probably flipped on him; his lawyer Mink informs him he's probably going to be indicted on the old weapons charge, but, after all, "trials are there to be won"; and his Uncle Junior, whom he wants to hate but can't when after a visit to the hospital Tony realizes that he's just a demented old man.

But all in all life is good for the formerly fractured family, and when they all agree to meet for dinner at local hangout Holsten's , it seems, incredibly, as if a happy ending is possible after all...

...or is it?

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The final five minutes of the show is the part that has caused the most ruckus among irate & elated viewers, and the scene will be replayed, dissected and discussed for years to come. It is a tense, gut-wrenching and brilliant exercise in what it must be like to walk in Tony's shoes, to live with the constant fear that it could all end at any time, with no warning, without a chance to say goodbye.

Tony arrives first and he surveys the joint, locates a center booth and takes his seat, facing the door of course. Soon various people walk through the door, and the jingling bell and causes Tony to look up nervously each time.

As faces both familiar (Carm & AJ ) and foreboding (a shady looking Italian guy, a couple of black youths, a scruffy-looking trucker) enter the diner, the viewer is slowly filled with a sense of dread, that feeling of, as Carm so aptly described it, waiting for the piano to drop on Tony's head. I for one was ready to get sick just from the swelling of emotions, and the heart rate was in overdrive.

So when Tony peruses the jukebox and looks through the selections ("This Magic Moment", "Magic Man", "Only the Strong Survive" and "I've Gotta Be Me" are just a few of the titles high on the irony meter) and he chooses Journey's sappy feel-good anthem "Don't Stop Believein'", the whole things starts to take on the feeling of a surreal dream.

"...for a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and on..."

As the Italian gets up to use the john (yet another Godfather reference), the three Sopranos eat onion rings (representing the family has come full circle anyone?), and wait for Meadow to arrive.

...don't stop, believin', hold on to that feeellllling.."

As Meadow tries three times to parallel park her Lexus it's like a moment in suspended forever in time, and when she finally gets it parked she runs across the street, and heads into the restaurant to find...

"...don't stop."

Darkness.

As you know by now, the cable did not cut out and the final shoe did not drop. The open ending was at once confusing, irritating, shocking and aggravating, and left millions of viewers around the country either cursing, scratching their heads, checking their cable connection, or, like me, sitting back smiling and thinking:

"Chase you're a fucking genius. An asshole to millions, but a genius to be sure."

Because the ending is never spelled out, it leaves the whole thing open to interpretation.

Was Tony capped by the Italian dude, as many have argued, because of the conversation with Bobby about how it all goes black when you get whacked?

Was the whole thing a dream, as the many bed sequences, dream-related music and surreal quality would suggest?

Or was the family actually dead, and just floating through some netherworld never land, resigned to a life of dining out and going through the motions as a family, a theory that has been making the rounds on the message boards?

That's where the brilliance comes in. Chase was once quoted as saying "I don't think art should give answers. I think art should only pose questions....that create tension inside of you."

He even left a final clue as to how we should think it should end, on the "B" side of the Journey song Tony played:

Mission accomplished, David.

Thanks for the memories.

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Sopranos: The end

The show, and series, just ended, and to steal from the late, great Jack Buck "I don't believe what I just saw!"


What'd you expect, it was going to be wrapped up in a tidy little hangman's knot?


Fahgeddaboutit! says David Chase


Lights out, roll credits, and let the onslaught of debate begin.


For the record, I loved it. The wife--"HATED IT!"


There is no in-between with the biggest mindfuck of a twist since Pam Ewing saw Bobby in the shower.


I've got to sleep on it, watch it again tomorrow, and then figure out how to describe what just happened.


"Don't stop, believing, hold on to that feeellliiiing..."

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Sopranos Finale: T., minused in three hours

Three hours to go until one of the most anticipated series finales in television history.

Woke up this morning, realized one of my favorite shows of all time was coming to an end.

Not catchy, I know, but it sums up the situation as the Sopranos is set to sign off tonight after eight seasons, 86 episodes, 1,358,632 cuss words and about 4,289 killings.

Being a cable show, and a provocative, profane and un-PC one at that, will prevent the eight-year-old 'family' drama from pulling in mega closing numbers along the lines of All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Cheers or even that silly piece of claptrap Friends, but as for pop culture impact and sheer influence on how television was transformed, not many shows compare to David Chase's mob masterpiece.

One barometer of how popular a show is and how big a finale this one promises to be is the amount of media attention being given the event. Magazine articles, TV entertainment show stories, and endless amounts of Internet postings and radio chatter has elevated this thing to one of the biggest TV events since the Seinfeld gang said its farewells in 1998.

The only question remaining isn't how Tony will meet his ultimate demise, either by the Feds, Phil, one of his own men, or a fed-up family member, but will Chase give everyone the closure the American public seems to crave from this show?

Or will he just leave us with some open-ended, David Lynch-esque dream sequence, where Tony resides in a sunny, peaceful world, dropping buttons, drinking scotch, and fishing at the lake while Carm becomes a real estate mogul, Meadow a high-powered attorney, and AJ a well-paid substance abuse therapist?

And as the ducks lazily swim by Tony's boat in the lake, the crippled, gnarled hand of Livia reaches up through the placid surface and drags Tony to the depths below, where he can rest with the rest of the fishes.

At least that's one theory.

Tick tick tick........

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The Sopranos: It's going down

Episode 86: "The Blue Comet"

This expression on the train store figure best represented the whole episode

It's taken me a while to post about this episode, perhaps because I have such mixed feelings about it and what it represents.

As the second-to-last episode of one of the best television shows in history, it was a taut, emotional, nail biting affair on par with some of the best eps in the show's history.

But as a reminder that all things are not going to end well in Sopranoland, and that the end is coming sooner, not later, the show left me with a hollow feeling inside instead of being pumped up to find out how it all will ultimately conclude.

These feelings (could it be, depression?) started with the cop-out killing of Christopher. His death was not unexpected, but the manner in which he departed-with Tony's clammy paw squeezing the final breath out of Chrissy's wrecked body-was such a cheap & easy demise for such a beloved cast member that it left many diehard fans wondering what kind of cockamamie calamities were in store for the rest of the family.

Many of those questions were sadly answered this week when not one but two more key soldiers in the Soprano army bit the dust: Tony's kind-hearted brother-in-law Bobby Bacala, and everybody's favorite second banana, T's quiet & loyal captain, Silvio Dante.

Once again, no real surprises here, especially when early on we witness Phil & his henchmen meeting to discuss the destruction of the Jersey family once & for all.

Stating his utter contempt for that "pygmy thing over there", in his icy calm monotone Phil declares that he's "made a decision" regarding the situation, and that decision is to "decapitate and do business with whatever's left".

And just like that, it's on.

Tony gets tipped off to the contract taken out on him & his crew from Agent Harris after a testy conversation between the two at Satriale's. Harris reveals that Tony's "problem with Brooklyn" could be ready to flare up again, and while Tony brushes off the notion, Harris ensures him the threat is real.

T. realizes that Harris' info is legit after Sil informs him that he had to take out one of the guys in their crew, Gene Pontecorvo, because he was "playing both sides of the fence" with Brooklyn and wanted Sil to join him. Sil gave him his answer in one of his best scenes since he clipped Adrianna, choking the rat with a garrote wire in a terrific & tense intro, yet another Godfather homage.

The buddies enjoy a final moment of camaraderie before the walls come tumbling down

Tony tells Sil & Bobby that they need to hit Phil first, and orders a couple of contract killers be flown over from the mother land (no, it wasn't Furio) to carry out the hit. Paulie is given the word that's he's to run the show, but for some sneaky reason he passes off the assignment to Patsy Parisi. Hmmm...

Unfortunately Phil sniffed out the potential hit and went into hiding, and instead the zip guys offed a Ukrainian Phil look-alike and his daughter, a profound error that will come back to haunt at least one if not all of the Jersey boys.

In the meantime Tony's world is crumbling around him. Upon reading the thesis her shrink told her about regarding treating sociopaths, Melfi decides she's had enough of Tony's crocodile tears and narcissistic behavior and dumps him as a patient.

"You're cutting me loose after my son gets out of the hospital for trying to kill himself?! As a doctor I want to say that I think what you are doing is immoral," he tells her as he exits her office for the last time. Pot kettle, kettle black.

On top of that rejection, Carm & T. are unhappy with Meadow's decision to drop out of med school, and although AJ has left the $2200/day psych ward, he still displays signs of depression (like watching war footage on CNN at full volume).

All of this adds up to the stunning conclusion, as Phil's plan gets put into motion to take out the top three guys in the Jersey crew: Bobby, Sil and the don himself.

In another of the series' long line of heart-wrenching scenes, Bobby is the first to go when he is cornered at the train store buying an $8K 'Blue Comet' set for him and his son. Perhaps it was the fact that Bobby was so damn likable, or that at the time of his demise he wasn't plying hookers or doing blow, he was acting like the caring family man he is, or maybe simply that his killing was so harsh (did they really need to shoot him 21 times? message sent, Phil), but for me the death of Bobby Bacala was one of the sadder moments in series history.

As if that weren't bad enough, the next to go is the ever-likable Sil. Leaving the Bing with Patsy, the two are met by another one of Phil's hit squads in the parking lot, and although Patsy gets away and Sil is shot to within an inch of his life, the scene itself really signified more than any other that this whole thing is really about to end.

For good.

As Tony receives word that his mean are all dropping like flies, he informs Carm to take the kids to a safe place as he and Paulie head to one of their safe houses to ride out the storm. "Families don't get touched, you know that," he tells her, and if that is a whopper from the 'small consolation' department, I don't know what is.

After T. drags a regressing AJ out of bed by his head and screams at him to pack up and help his mother through this, Tony & Paulie head to the safe house where they meet Patsy & Benny. The boys order a piazza while Tony heads to an upstairs bedroom, locks the door, and lies on the bed in the dark, fully clothed, with the assault rifle Bobby gave him for his birthday across his lap, finger on the trigger, ready to shred anything that comes through that door.

And so we wait with him for the finale on Sunday, when we will get to see how this saga all plays out. Theories abound on how it will end on the internets, including Paulie the rat telling Phil where to find Tony, AJ knocking off his father for being the source of all his sadness, to a distraught Janice icing her brother just as she had coolly killed Richie Aprile because she feels Tony is responsible for Bobby's death.

The way Chase has thrown curve balls all these years, I'm not even going to speculate how it all goes down. I don't believe that Tony will be alive when the dust settles, but I do know one thing...

...no matter how it all ends, who lives & who dies, the hardest part of all is going to be hearing that theme song for the final time and realizing that at 10:00 pm EST tonight, one of the greatest cultural phenomenons in entertainment history will leave our Sunday viewing schedule forever.

And you can guarantee that it will go out with a badda bang.

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Entourage: The Boys are Back in Town!

Episode 40: "The Resurrection"

The boys rolling back into Ari's office meant everything was right with the (fake) world again

"Fuck reviews"-Vince

"Fuck 'em"-E.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me right back in.

Sorry to reference the infamous Michael Corleone quote, something that has been done a zillion times ad nauseum, but I couldn't think of a more appropriate intro for what happened on the show this week.

After suffering through weeks of titillation (Amanda), vegetation (Drama & Turtle's lives) and equine infestation ("KING!"), we, the viewers, were treated to a great episode that not only brought the fledgling series back from cultural irrelevance but also managed to not-so-subtly skewer the greed & power-obsessed Hollywood showbiz machine at the same time.

As the show opens, Vince, Turtle, and E. are waiting for Drama to wake up and cook them breakfast. His new series, "Five Towns," premiered the night before, and evidently Drama's fear of negative reviews has caused him to sleep in and avoid Variety magazine at all costs. His buddies tell him to relax, but just as he starts to do so a bird crashes through the kitchen window and lands in his eggs; a sure sign that the universe may indeed be against Johnny.

Next, we get to witness the scene we've been waiting this entire (mini) season for -- the boys walking back into Ari's office, side-by-side, as Ari & Lloyd stand outside his office to greet them, just like the good old days.

"There they are, a movie star and a TV star all in one family," Ari brown-noses, but Vince & E. aren't back to lap up anymore of Ari's bullshit. They make a single demand that must be met in order for Vince to return to Ari as a client- get Medellin out of purgatory and into Vince's hands.

"Medellin has crabs, gonorrhea, syphilis, it's an incurable super germ," Ari attempts to tell them, but their deal is final- no Pablo Escobar, no Vinnie Chase.

Now that the main players have been officially reunited, the two bumbling buffoon sidekicks finally get some meat on their story lines, too. Drama attempts to cope with the stress of the pilot by hitting a "rub & tug" massage parlor, but after an hour with no results, he reads the Variety review, then stomps out of the parlor in a huff. He bursts into the Variety office of the writer who trashed him, who breaks the sad news that he doesn't have a vendetta against Johnny, he just "doesn't think he's very good" as an actor and neither does anyone else in town. Ouch.

Meanwhile, Turtle heads over to pick up Drama's vintage Lincoln, the one from the show intro that the boys referenced in last week's ep, at a friend, Rufus', body shop. Seems as if the three of them decided to restore the old rust bucket in order to cheer their buddy up or perhaps to lessen the blow of the presumed bad reviews.

While there, Turtle meets the girl of his dreams, Kelly (Lauren London), a gorgeous sister with a nice smile who shares his passion for fancy sneakers. After a few awkward moments, like learning Kelly is Rufus' daughter, crashing the Linc because he was staring at her in the side mirror on his way out, and pleading with Rufus to let him ask Kelly on a date, he finally gets the digits of the girl who is "just like him, only with tits."

While Turtle is beaming and Drama is steaming, Vince, E. & Ari meet with mega-producer Joe Roberts (Micheal Lerner) to try and persuade him to resurrect the Medellin project. At first, Roberts is unmoved by their attempts to convince him it will be this generation's Scarface, but after Vince makes one of the most impassioned, intelligent, and well-written speeches of his life, Joe agrees to think it over.

But in the next instant Ari is on the phone with Joe, and the news is apparently not good. "I feel like you're taking a giant steel catheter and shoving it directly up my cock," Ari tells him when he hears that Joe will make Medellin only if Vince will star in his pet project, a CGI action spectacle called "Matterhorn." When Vince balks, Ari pleads with him to take the deal because if not Roberts is going to buy the Medellin script and bury it forever.

As Vince puffs on a jay and he and E. pound a couple of beers, they search for a way to make their dream project come true. "It's this town. I mean these people buy scripts they don't even want to make," Vince laments, and when E. tells him it's all about power & control, Vinny defiantly replies, "well we cannot let them control us; we can buy the script."

And thus one of the greatest plot twists in series history is born.

E. agrees to chip in his life savings-$237,642-and Vince decides to sell the house to bankroll his dream (curious side note: E. saying he thinks he has more cash than Vince), and the wheels are set in motion for what could be one hell of a ride in getting the Enola Gay of Vince's career off the ground. Ari begs Joe to let Vince buy the rights, and he acquiesces because he saw a passion that rivaled Coppola's for Apocalypse Now with Vince & Medellin that Roberts wishes he had. He even agrees to sell it to him on the cheap-$5 mil, half what he paid- just so Vince can attempt to fulfill his dream.

"Congratulations, you're the proud owner of 150 pieces of paper," Ari tells him.

But their enthusiasm is tainted because after they gave Drama the restored Lincoln, he took off on a soul-searching journey to nowhere in order to contemplate his future in the biz. Only while he is screaming through the Arizona desert headed for the Grand Canyon, blaring the Doors "When the Music's Over" and downing Jim Beam, the "Five Towns" pilot was racking up 16 million viewers, ensuring that Drama's series is officially a hit, in spite of the critics.

In another terrific closing scene, Drama wakes up the next morning in the back seat of the Lincoln to the sound of his phone; it's Vince, asking if Johnny still wants to do such menial tasks as cooking breakfast for them since he is now the star of a hit TV show. Upon hearing the news, he looks into the Canyon as the rock classic "White Room" by Cream blares across the vista, raises his arms in the air, and screams his trademark, "Viking Quest" yell:

"VICTORY!"

Yes, it is Drama, for all of us.

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The Sopranos: Say Goodnight, Christopher

Episode 83: "Kennedy & Heidi"

Spoiler alert: Christopher dies in this one, and it wasn't a pretty sight

"My friend, the guy I came in with, how is he?"

"You're friend is dead."

As one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the series unfolded, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness. Not for the passing of one of the greatest shows in television history, not for the demise of one of the series' most beloved characters, but for the way the family we've all grown to know & love despite its flaws is literally tearing apart from the inside out.

Most of us could have dealt with Chrissy being taken out by one of Phil Leotardo's henchmen, or collapsing from a drug overdose once and for all, but for the loathsome-yet-lovable Christopher Moltisanti to die from the insane combination of a rollover car accident and the pudgy hand of Tony Soprano was one of the most difficult, and disrespectful things to witness in 83 episodes of this gut-punching drama.

No offense to Mr. Chase, but the Easy-Bake solution to have Christopher near death after the wreck and Tony just evil enough to finish the job can only be classified as a world-class cop out. It was just too neat- Tony accomplished what he wanted to accomplish without having to feel all the guilt of a straight-out execution; after all, Chrissy was just a "snivelling drug addict" who was near death anyway, right?

As the Church Lady used to say, "How Conven-ient!"

But the demise of Christopher did unlock some serious insight into the twisted mind of the New Jersey boss, one that hadn't been explored this deeply since the early days of his sessions with Melfi following his freewheeling, murderous ways.

The show begins with a scene of a dump truck driver unloading some material on a New York City dock. The dock foreman screams at the driver to stop dumping, and tells him that he can no longer unload the content on his property; the content happens to be asbestos-filled tiles & other products.

We quickly learn how the thread is connected when Tony & Chrissy meet with Phil and his captain; Phil, now the new boss of New York, claims he never knew the materials Tony was having dumped was asbestos. "What did you think it was?" Tony asks Phil, smirking. "Fucking Tampax, how the fuck should I know?" he snaps back, and then tells Tony he wants a 25% cut to continue dumping the illegal waste product. Tony tells him it'll be a cold day in hell before he'll pay that kind of juice and he and Chrissy leave, abruptly ending the meeting.

On the ride home Christopher speeds his Lincoln XLT through the winding desolate roads of Jersey, and he and T. have a discussion of what they should do about Phil's demand.

"Let him have it...life's too short," Chris tells his boss, who agrees yet still thinks he would been seen as giving in to Phil's first demand as boss, thus setting a dangerous precedent.

"Whatever happened to "stop and the smell the roses?" Chris asks, and Tony ponders that thought as the truck swerves on the road. As Chris cranks up the infamous addict anthem "Comfortably Numb" by Roger Waters & Van Morrison from "The Departed" soundtrack, the two silently contemplate their lives and where the future may take them.

Re-watching the episode today didn't make what I knew was coming next any easier to view; in fact, it may have been more difficult to see the second time. Fidgety and obviously strung-out, Chris attempts to concentrate on the road and mess with the radio, and he veers into the path of an oncoming car, then swerves just in time to avoid a head-on collision. Instead, his truck clips the other car, then goes into a full-blown Hollywood action pic rollover down an embankment, flipping at least a dozen times before settling upright about 50 feet below.

The impact of the crash has left Chris with severe internal injuries, while Tony, who was wearing a seat belt, was just heavily banged-up. As Chris gasps for breath while spitting blood, he tells Tony, "you gotta help me...I'll never pass the drug test", confirming Tony's fears that the weakest link in any chain is an addicted one. When he sees that a tree branch pierced the baby seat in the back, Tony puts the two facts together and does what he feels needs to be done in order to preserve his future: he places his hand over Christopher's nose and squeezes the last breath out of one of his closest family members.

The rest of the ep deals with Tony's reaction to what he's done. Incredibly, instead of a profound sense of guilt or anguish, he appears incredibly relieved and even somewhat happy over what he did. It's as if Chase decided to dispense with all the "Tony's going soft" rumors and remind everyone what kind of guy this unforgettable character he created really is: a ruthless, brutal, unfeeling killer, someone who would sacrifice almost anyone else's life in order to keep the good times and fast lifestyle his family is so accustomed to living for as long as he possibly can.

In one of the most chilling scenes ever in the series, Tony is sitting in Melfi's office and confides in her some of his deepest, darkest secrets:

"I haven't been able to tell anyone this, but I'm fucking relieved. He was a tremendous drag on my emotions, on my thoughts about the future. Every day when I wake up I think 'is today the day one of my "best friends" dimes me out to the FBI?' And a weak, snivelling drug addict is the worst kind of bet. The biggest blunder of my career is now gone, and I don't have to be confronted by that fact anymore."

Wow. But wait, there's more:

"Let me tell ya something," Tony goes on. "I murdered friends before, even relatives-my cousin Tony, my best friend, Puss, but this..."

Even as Tony snaps awake and we realize the session is just a dream, the revelation of Tony's true thoughts provided one of the most raw, compelling, and unflinchingly nasty portrayals of a contemporary American villain ever. Kudos to Chase for that.

When Tony is forced to sit through not one but two wakes (Paulie's mother/aunt passed away suddenly, also), and after spotting former flame Julianna Skiff at Chris' wake, Tony decides he needs to get away from it all. He arranges a trip to Vegas and tries to wash away his feelings with gambling, drinks by the pool, and fancy dinners, and also by hooking up with one of Christopher's goomahs, the sexy & smart stripper Sonya. After banging her, Sonya opens Tony's eyes to the world of drugs and escapism, first by getting him high after sex with some killer green, then by granting his wish of trying the peyote Christopher told him the two did together.

Let me say, watching Tony high & tripping was also one of the more memorable occurrences I've ever seen on the show. After initially puking, Tony & Sonya hit the casino, where he is mesmerized by all the lights, and he goes on an unexpected winning streak at the roulette wheel. Suddenly, Tony smiles and mumbles "he's dead," then falls to the casino floor in a fit of laughter.

The final scene shows Tony & Sonya in the Nevada desert taking in the spectacular sunset and enjoying the feeling of not having a care in the world. Grinning from ear to ear, Tony raises his arms in the air and screams, "I get it!", and as the words echo around the canyon, we are left to ponder what it all really means.

In the thread involving AJ and his college buddies, he was forced to participate in a racially-motivated beating of a Somali student, and he is having trouble dealing with it at his therapist's office.

"Everything is so fucked up; why can't we all just get along?" he asks as his eyes well with tears.

Exactly what I was thinking, young man.

Unfortunately, we're all past that point now.

By the way, many are questioning the origin of the title of the episode. I found the answer, on my second viewing, to be the names of the two girls who were driving the car that clipped Chris' truck. Make of that what you will, too.

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HBO Sunday Night: Entourage

Episode 39: "Return of the King"

This scene of Ari & Nicky working a deal behind the temple next to the dumpster was flat-out hilarious

Now that's more like it!

After the travesty that was last week's episode, which featured unlikable storylines about Ari's frat buddy and a professional brawler, this week we got back to the meat & bones of this season, namely the (love) triangle between Vince, Ari & Amanda and the return of "Medellin".

Plus it had another killer outro scene, which is usually a hallmark of a good ep.

As they enjoy a relaxing day at the gorgeous Del Mar Racetrack, Vince is catching heat from the boys regarding his blossoming relationship with Amanda. It seems that the sexy superagent has given Vince a gift signifying their union, a "love bracelet" as E. describes it, but Vince still tries to deny that anything serious is going on between the two (yeah, okay).

ATTN: THIS WEEK'S MEANINGLESS SIDE-THREAD IS... Drama, suddenly "flush with network funds", puts $1000 down on a 50-1 longshot who may or may not be the son of a horse he won major money on at Belmont back in the day. Vince ups the ante by $5K, while Turtle & E. are in for about $15 bucks. Although the Son of King doesn't come in-he lost by a nose-Drama can't bear to let the sentimental stallion go, so he "ponies" up another $2,500 to save him from the glue factory. But after numerous costly & smelly incidents, Drama gives the animal to his new boss, Eddie Burns.

Hey, at least Pauly Shore wasn't involved.

Meanwhile it's Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holy days, which means not only can Ari not eat until sundown, he cannot conduct business until then, either. This situation proves to be a problem when Ari runs into Nicky Rubenstein (Zodiac's Adam Goldberg in a friggin' riotous cameo) at temple; he's the son of the producer who happens to be green-lighting Vince's white whale, Medellin, and he informs Ari that Benicio del Toro is officially out and his father wants Vince to jump into the part.

This is great, right? Wrong, because the deal has to happen before sundown, but Ari can't conduct any such deal because A.) it's Yom Kippur and B.) he's not Vince's agent anymore. His solution? Out of his love for his buddy, Ari will call Vince and let him talk to Nick to confirm the offer, and then Vince can call Amanda and work out the numbers.

Is Ari really being that nice as to hand Amanda a huge commission on a deal Ari has fought over for the past two years? Not so fast.

Like a high-stakes version of "telephone", Ari calls Vince who then has E. call Amanda to tell her to call Ari and work out the deal. Incredulous that he wants her to go to their temple on Yom Kippur, E. reassures her that Ari & Nick will be waiting for her out back in the alley behind the dumpster, and that everything is in place to get the deal done. She reluctantly agrees, no surprise to Drama: "she'd go to the Gaza Strip wearing a yarmulke for Vince," he says off-handedly.

But when Amanda arrives at the clandestine confab a rift occurs after she informs them that Vince's asking price is $6 mil, not the $3 million Rubenstein had thought, a fact that is backed up by Ari who says he landed the deal, so he should know. Amanda tells them that until she hears from Nick's father, there is no deal, and she drives off.

The cat & mouse game between the producers, agents and client continues as Nick & Ari sneak off to another temple to try and get the approval of the other executive producer, then play phone tag with Vince & E. in an attempt to get the deal finalized before sundown. But the whole thing goes awry when Ari pretends it's Amanda who is holding up the deal by asking for more money when in truth she has done everything in her power to get an agreement worked out.

Things come to a head when Vince & E. arrive at Ari's house, much to Mrs. Ari's chagrin, and they call Nick to tell him Vince is definitely in no matter what the price. Too late, he informs them, because his father pulled the plug on the film and now it's gone forever. This familiar bit of bad news does not sit well with the guys, and even as Vince praises Ari for not slamming Amanda for what happened, Ari implies that it was she who let his dream role get away.

"He would never have let this happen," Vince says to E., referring to the ruthless Ari Gold. "Now I deal with it. Take me to the restaurant."

And with those words we may have seen the last of the ballsy Mistress Amanda.

When Vince arrives at dinner he let's her know that the film is dead-again. She expresses that she is sorry, but Vince doubts her sincerity and admits that he believes she stalled on the deal, either because she didn't orchestrate it herself or because she didn't want boytoy Vince to leave the country for six months during filming.

Flabbergasted & hurt, Amanda calmly tells Vince that the EP called her after sundown and told her that after Nicky barged into his temple for the second time, he became so enraged that he withdrew the offer and scrapped Medellin because of all the woes that have been associated with it. However, she continues, he admitted he did want to work with Vince in the future, and she had even arranged a power lunch to discuss future project ideas for Vince.

Now it's Vinny's turn to be flabbergasted, and he barely knows what to say to her.

"What do we do now?" he asks her, not wanting to hear what was coming next.

"Now, Vince, we say goodbye," she wistfully replies, and with that she walks out of the restaurant to the melancholy thumping of the Pharcyde's (Can't keep) Runnin' (away), leaving Vince to wallow in his own foolishness and stupidity.

By the looks of next week's previews, everything is back in place with our gang: Vince & Co. walk into Ari's glitzy office and demand he gets Medellin out of purgatory, Drama prepares for the debut of his small-screen pilot, and Amanda looks to be out of the picture for good.

Well, as they say, 2-out-of 3 ain't bad.

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HBO Sunday Night: The Sopranos

Episode 82: "Walk Like a Man"

The simmering tension between Christopher & Paulie came to a head this week

"Everything turns to shit" - Tony to Carm

I'm not sure if that little slice of wisdom was meant for Carm, or if it was a warning shot fired across the bow by creator David Chase, letting us know that this family drama of ours could be turning into one giant shit storm right in front of our very eyes.

Because this week's episode was filled with more heartache, depression and dependency issues than a month's worth of Dr. Phil. Seriously, I felt like I needed therapy when it was over.

And although I applaud Chase for attempting to include as many characters as possible in this brief mini-season, the fact that so many loose threads have been introduced so far virtually ensures that some of these fibers of narrative fabric will be left dangling, possibly forever.

We open with yet another scene of Tony in bed (by my count this is about the 14th such scene this season, three this week alone). When he ambles downstairs, he finds lovesick AJ sulking on the sofa and Carm attempting to goad him out of his funk with an offering of French Toast. "I know this is hard to believe but food is not the answer to every single problem," he snaps at her.

"Well neither is acting like a whiny little bitch, " Father of the Year candidate Tony chimes in.

(BTW, obviously young AJ doesn't understand the psyche of a traditional Italian woman- food is indeed the answer to every single problem)

Tony brushes off AJ's signs of depression by telling him to take the day off, then asks Carm what they did to deserve such an attitude. Nice parenting, huh?

The other story this week involves the relationship between Christopher and the rest of the family, mainly Tony & Paulie. Chrissy's father-in-law Al is fencing the hot power tools Paulie & Tony hooked up from the Cubans down in Miami, and although times should be good, the lingering venom between the old-school tough guy and baby boomer hothead keeps things icy. When Paulie chastises Chris for not toasting with alcohol, Chris is instantly reminded how none of his so called "family" members really understand his dependency problem.

Meanwhile, Tony has turned into a rat. Okay, so he's not selling secrets about Phil Leotardo and the NY family, or revealing the whereabouts of any missing former business associates, but he does cross the taboo boundary that exists between every mobster and member of the Bureau- the bridge of cooperation.

When Tony sees his Fed buddy, Agent Harris, eating at Satriale's, he decides it might be a good idea if he piled up some federal credit, in the form of handing him the names of the two Arabs who used to frequent the Bing and who may or may not frequent a radical Islamic group, in exchange for a recommendation letter redeemable at any future Federal sentencing.

And just like that the sand in the hourglass of Tony's life as boss of the New Jersey family is about to run out.

Look, say what you will about Tony's personality, lifestyle, and parenting skills, but there is one thing that he could never be accused of and that's being a rat. Granted he hasn't crossed into Sammy "the Bull" Gravano territory here, like Christopher hints at later, and if these guys do turn out to be terrorists he might actually be doing a good thing, but a boss ratting out a potential criminal to the cops goes against everything La Cosa Nostra stands for. And something tells me that Tony is going to pay dearly for this sin.

The Christopher/Paulie situation gets cranked up a few notches when Paulie's nephew boosts some of the tools from Al's shop not once but twice. The first time it happens Christopher bangs on Paulie's door demanding to be reimbursed for the goods, which Paulie politely refuses to do ("you can suck the money out of my ass" he tells him). Enraged that Tony won't do anything about the slight against his family, after the second theft Chrissy enacts a bit of his own brand of justice: he beats Little Paulie silly and then throws him out a second-story window.

Uh-oh. That little action sends Paulie into a fit of rage, and as Christopher is apologizing to Tony, Paulie turns his Caddy into a giant Garden Weasel and shreds Chrissy's $40,000 worth of landscaping into a lot full of lavishly-colored mulch. Classic Paulie.

With an all-out war between the two looming, Tony suddenly brokers a peace treaty and they all meet up at the Bing to bury the hatchet; that's when Christopher takes the plunge back into the deep, dark end of the pool. He agrees to toast Paulie with a glass of scotch, and as soon as he takes that first sip, we know that things will end very badly for Chrissy and/or some of those close to him.

When Paulie starts to razz a buzzed Chrissy about, of all things, his little daughter growing up to become a stripper, and he sees the rest of the guys laughing at him, Chris staggers out of the place realizing that he has lost all touch with the people he once felt closest to. With nowhere else to turn, he heads to JT's (Tim Daly) apartment ready to spill his guts to his fellow AA member ("I'll give you stories that'll make your hair curl" Chris tells him), but he refuses to hear any of his sordid confessions.

"Chris, you're in the MAFIA," JT bluntly puts it, and the reality of that sentence momentarily sobers him up. He's right, and what do people who are in the mafia do when other people reject or humiliate them? They blow that person's brains out, which is exactly what Chrissy does to his screenwriting 12-Step comrade.

To wrap things up, Tony sends AJ to a therapist, and he admits that he is depressed & suicidal, so the doc puts the kid on Lexapro and sends him off to deal with his problems. AJ starts to go out more, but that means getting involved with Tony's buddy Patsy Parisi's son Jason, who is running numbers at Rutgers while getting an education in computers, strippers and booze. When the guys torture a debtor by dripping acid on his toes, AJ gets a rush from the act, and the son's indoctrination into his father's world has come full circle.

Both are depressed, tortured loners who long to be good but lean towards the bad, and both turn to vices to get through their emotional problems. There is a scene in Melfi's office when Tony breaks down, telling her "it's in (AJ's) blood, this miserable fucking existence. My rotting fucking putrid genes have infected my kid's soul. That's my gift to my son."

And that may be Chase's gift to us; in the ultimate Godfather tribute in this season full of them, AJ could take over the family business when Tony is either dead or incarcerated, ascending to the throne just as Michael, the one former innocent & unassuming member of the Corleone family, rose to power in Don Vito's absence.

Or, as some people have speculated, AJ could O.D. from a fatal mix of booze and pills, who the fuck knows.

During the scene in Melfi's office, Tony tells her it will be his last visit, because he can't see the point of therapy. "After all the complaining, the crying and all the fucking bullshit, is this all there is?"

Why do I get the feeling that by the last episode of this epic saga, we the viewers will be left asking ourselves that same exact question?

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Thursday Night TV Feast

What a night to be a couch potato.

The evening's entertainment offerings featured a little bit of everything: off-color humor (The Office), do-or-die playoff action (NBA & NHL), an epic baseball game (Red Sox/Mariners), and, if I'm not mistaken, the world's first scratch & sniff sitcom (My Name is Earl).

Hard to top that for flat-out fun without making it rain, but I'm going to try and do my best to recap it for those of you who were, like, doing something productive last night other than sitting in front of the set.

Mariners at Red Sox 7PM
The second match up of Japanese baseball gods Daisuke Matsuzaka (Boston) and Ichiro Suzuki (Mariners) got off to a rocking start when Seattle plated 5 runs in the first inning off Dice-K, but Boston answered right back with a 5-spot of its own in the 2nd to tie the score- so it's gonna be one of those games...

...Earl 8:00-8:36 NBC HD
This "groundbreaking" super-sized edition of the karma-centric comedy seemed like a little bit too much of a gimmick for me, so I abstained from partaking in the inter-active episode.

Okay, I forgot to pick up the stupid card that had all the corresponding odors on it.

Either way this show is starting to reek of repetition in its second season- I mean how many times can Earl cross something off a sheet of paper and it still be funny?- but it still delivers occasional raunchy, racist, non-PC chucklers, like when Earl is about to chainsaw a horse carcass or when Joy (big-as-a-house preggo Jaime Pressley) tells Catalina "...I've been called a bitch in every language, beyotch. That's black."

Still, I was pissed that I didn't have the scratch card, so every time a number popped up on screen and I couldn't get the full aroma of the scene it just made me want to change the channel.
Which I did, over to the Red Sox game, just in time to see Manny Ramirez blast a 2-run homer into the Monster seats to give the Sox a 7-5 lead after 4 innings. Surely Matsuzaka would hold that lead, I said to myself, so I flipped back to NBC to catch a super-sized (isn't that concept played out by now, Peacock net?) version of...

The Office 8:36-9:18 NBC HD
In what had to be one of the funniest episodes ever of the dry-but-deadly comedy, Phyllis is the victim of a flasher and it's up to Dwight, Michael and the rest of the men of Dunder Mifflin to make sure the ladies feel safe.

Well, that is after Michael sticks his finger through his zipper and reenacts the horrible event to a stunned crowd of employees. This was just the first of many below-the-belt, penis-related jokes in the show, and although many were childish and sophomoric, some of them were side-splittingly funny.

Like when Michael decides the best way to find out who the culprit is by checking everyone's junk. "Let's see your penis," he blurts out, then qualifies it with "as that was coming out of my mouth I knew it was wrong."

Later Dwight mentions that he's got "penises on the brain", and when Michael decides to hold an impromptu Women's Appreciation meeting, he let's loose with this philosophical gem:

"A penis, when seen in the right context, is the most wonderful sight for a woman, but in the wrong context, it's like a monster movie."

Even for Michael that sentence is not only apropos but oddly poetic.

Those comments plus gags about cross-dressing, homosexuality and female domination (Michael's GF/boss Jan says she'll pay him $300 to come over and service her) made for one raunchy episode, and it was the perfect antidote to the high-intensity contests that were taking place elsewhere on the dial.

After the show ended I watched the conclusion of the Sox game. Matsuzaka allowed the M's to tie the score again at 7, but then Manny Ramirez did what Manny is known for- other than faking injuries, hawking other people's grills and not granting interviews- he hit a titanic homerun over the bullpen in the 8th inning to give the Sox to a sloppy-yet-entertaining 8-7 victory.

Mavs @ Warriors 10:30, TNT HD
That game ended at precisely the right time, so I was able to catch the most intriguing playoff game of the evening, the Dallas Mavericks at the Golden State Warriors. Sure there was other playoff action on the dial, and I did catch some of Utah's win over the Houston Rockets, which forced a Game 7 between the two tomorrow night.

But in all the excitement and channel-changing I missed the thrilling conclusion of the Vancouver Canucks/Anaheim Ducks series, which Anaheim won on a fluke flip of a goal past goalie Roberto Luongo, who made 61 saves in the game, in the 2nd OT to take the series, 4-1.

Oh well, another spirited Mavs/Warriors tilt should make up for it. These two teams truly don't like each other, especially after former Dallas coach Don Nelson had the Warriors on the verge of knocking out the league's best regular-season team, and the series had more subplots than a Roger Altman film:

Nellie is suing bumbling billionaire Mavs owner Mark Cuban for $6 mil in back pay; Cuban is lobbing bombs at Nellie's questionable coaching style; probable MVP & former Nellie draft pick Dirk Nowitzki is playing like a 7-ft cream puff; and if Baron Davis & the Warriors don't win this series after blowing a late 9-pt lead in game in game 5, Steven Jackson might just go postal on the unsuspecting Bay Area.

Unfortunately the game didn't like up to the previous barn-burners in the series. After playing each other even for most of the first half, Golden State used a 36-15 third quarter scoring binge to pull away from the discombobulated Mavs, and by the time crunch time rolled around, Davis, Jackson and the rowdy Warriors fans at Oracle Arena were already celebrating the team's first playoff series win since 1991 and the Mavs were looking to jump on their latest chartered flight to nowhere.

Speaking of those Warriors fans, it was quite amusing to watch the camera scan the arena and focus on the low-wattage star power the team has dangling from the back of the bandwagon now that the team is decent again:

...none other than clueless Kate Hudson, her brainless boytoy Owen Wilson and has-been hemphead Woody Harrelson

Throw in fellow courtside club members sometime Laker fan Snoop Dogg and hard-hitting Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, plus strip club king Jackson and all I can say is boy would I have liked to have been at that after party!

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HBO Sunday Night: Entourage

Episode 38: "Gotcha"

The only reason to show this pic is because Ari's pecs and Mrs. Ari's chest were probably the best things about this ep- well, other than Leslie Bibb in a bikini.

There's a good reason why it took me so long to review this week's episode of our favorite frat boy comedy, and it had nothing to do with me being to busy to find the time to do the post. No the reason is much more simple than that:

This week's episode sucked.

There, I said it. Now I'm not going to jump off the bandwagon, like some columnists have already started to do, with the series only in its junior season, but with the shelf life of hit TV shows getting shorter than Verne Troyer's thumbs, the series is starting to get a little...stale.

This week we were treated to one of those absolutely meaningless "fluff" episodes, where nothing really happens except the boys putter about town getting into some form of high school hi jinks and Vince & E. haggle over Vinny's latest love interest. Been there, done that so many times it's already retro, ya know what I'm saying?

The hi jinks part of the ep takes place when Drama's old nemesis Pauly Shore (ooh, what a cameo, how'd they get him with his busy schedule?) shows up wanting to get Drama on the premiere of his new "Punk'd"-style show called "Gotcha"; get it-'gotcha', it's like a play on punk'd and...(see what I'm talking about?)

Anyway, Drama thinks he's being set up when he and Turtle get into a confrontation over a parking spot with UFC champion Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell, so he goes and shoots his mouth off to the bruising brawler. "Why don't you get back in your hooptie and move along...you WWF-wannabe" was one of the better blasts Drama got off on Liddell as he waited for Pauly to jump out of the background and "got" him. Alas Liddell threatens Drama and leaves, then a bunch of girl scouts show up and appear to pull the prank, but anyone with half a brain cell could see that the Liddell thing was the actual gag. Yawn.

The love story angle comes into play after Vince and Amanda have consummated their client/ agent sex pact, and the repercussions are being felt in the group. Well, mainly with E., because now he is stuck smack dab in the middle of yet another Vince schoolboy crush, and he is not too happy about it. Vince and Amanda start acting like a couple of google-eyed kids, which is totally against type for Amanda's character, and when the three meet for lunch E. immediately knows that the two have slept together.

"I can't believe you fucked her...that was like a bad Meg Ryan movie back there," E. says incredulously to an oblivious Vince, who just promises that everything is fine and nothing will change just because he's having a thing with his agent. "Just don't say anything to Amanda, that could really fuck things up," Vince instructs him. Oh like they're not already was not only E.'s response, but ours as well.

The other meaningless thread this week had Ari & the Misses hosting Ari's old college buddy for the weekend. The friend, Scott (Artie Lange- were the casting agents scraping the bottom of the barrel this week or what?) used to be a poor, obnoxious schlub but thanks to a windfall he scored from selling his website, Stamps.com, Scott is now a $65 million dollar man with a hot fiancee (Leslie Bibb, best remembered as Ricky Bobby's 'smokin' hot wife' in Talledega Nights), matching Bentley's, and a certain swagger that makes Ari sick.

Ari gets even more disgusted with his friend when he continually compliments Mrs. Ari, who used to think Scott was vulgar but now finds his comments flattering. This attitude shift causes Ari to go into full-blown rant mode, with Scott's fiance the object of his venom; "why don't we see how Scott likes it when I start drooling over the future Mrs. Siegel's soon-to-be Jewish ass."

This explosion of Ari-tude leads to the best scene of the night:

"Ever since you got here I have not been able to take my eyes off your ass. I mean it's the perfect shape. It's like God came down, hand-crafted it, and put it on a silver tray for my good buddy Scott over here!" Needless to say that went over like a lead balloon, and soon after the couple leaves and Mr. & Mrs. Ari screw and make up.

The show wraps with Drama attending a charity match Liddell is putting on, and to no one's surprise Drama ends up inside the octagon, gets humiliated by Liddell, and then everyone screams "you got got" at him as Pauly comes out of hiding. The whole thing was like so 1st season, it was kind of embarrassing to watch. Let these guys grow a little already, instead of always making Drama look like a buffoon and Turtle his lackey. The writers keep hinting that Drama's TV show is going to start soon, but why wait? I'd much rather see him going opposite the terrific Ed Burns then looking like an ass for Pauly Shore.

E. ends up confronting Amanda about the tryst with Vince, and she tells him that she's not so sure if it was a one-time thing. He responds by informing her "Vince has a hard time separating business & sex...he almost threw away a million-dollar movie...for Mandy Moore", and just the mention of the name caused my stomach to turn; that was the worst storyline in the series' short history, but this one is shaping up to be a close second.

Even as Amanda & Vince profess their intense like for each other, everyone knows this crappy story is just filling time until the real theme of the season appears- Ari & Vince's reunion. We all know that's inevitable, so instead of spoon-feeding us shitty storylines and telling us its caviar, just get to the real meal and leave these Alpo-based plots for the dogs.

Rule #1 of hit television- respect your audience, don't take us for granted. Or your show will end up lost.

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HBO Sunday Night: The Sopranos

Episode 81: "Chasing It"

T's gambling addiction, hinted at last week, comes front & center this week

" I survived a gunshot wound, so when you think of it, big picture-wise, I'm up. Way up."-Tony to Carmela

While David Chase leads us down the trail of this short, sad swan song season, we have been introduced to a myriad of potential ways that Tony Soprano could meet his ultimate fate, assuming that means either incarceration or death.

• Disgruntled captains?

Paulie, Bobby & Christopher- check.

• Trigger-happy enemies?

Phil Leotardo- check.

• Irate family members?

Uncle June, Janice, Carm- check.

• Federal indictments?

Two-year old gun charge/ 25-year-old murder case- check

Heck I wouldn't even be surprised if that hot-tempered hot tomato Charmaine Bucco came back from television purgatory and sliced Tony's throat with a bread knife after serving him a plate of bigoli.

But the idea proposed out of left field last night left me wondering if I was watching the award-winning mob drama or an episode from season 2 of Lost. As Tony's sudden, crippling gambling addiction unfolded, I kept waiting for a rotund Mexican dude and the guy from Lord of the Rings to appear and start searching all of North Jersey for a Tony-sized hatch.

As the series winds down it's become crystal clear that Chase is living up to his surname; he's leaving us a bushel full of red herrings hinting at many possible scenarios involving the burly anti-hero, seemingly so that when the time comes everyone can say "I knew it was going to happen that way, 'cause remember when Tony and ..."

Wait a minute, 'remember when' was last week's theme, when it was proposed that Paulie could be the mole that sinks Tony's ass. The week before it was Uncle Junior, hopped up on meds and carrying a grudge against his nephew for the situation he is in. The week before that it was a disrespectful Christopher portraying the boss in an unfavorable light up on the big screen that provided grist for a possible T./Chrissy showdown. And in the first episode brother-in-law/under earner Bobby Baccala certainly proved to be an enemy of Tony after their WWE match at the lake house.

Now we can add degenerate gambling to the laundry list of culprits that could topple the great Soprano empire. The episode begins with Tony & the boys at a roulette table in A.C., and Tony losing a hefty chunk of change by going double or nothing on the #23 (a slight jab at that hideous Jim Carrey flick?) Tony tries to blow off the loss, but as the episode goes on and the bad bets pile up, it's obvious that Tony is suffering from an addiction just like that poor schlub J.T. (Tim Daly), who took a beating from Christopher & Paulie back in season 5 for a mere $57,000 debt.

Tony's debts are a lot greater than $57k, though; he still owes his old friend Hesh $200k that he borrowed as a bridge loan in the scene last week that briefly foreshadowed this "sudden" problem, and he's been hemorrhaging cash throughout the ep.

Will this be the great Tony Soprano's downfall? That he can't lay off the latest line?

Meanwhile, the other thread this week dealt with Vito Spatafore's rebellious son, Vito Jr. It seems that VJ isn't handling his homosexual father's sudden passing too well, dressing Goth and tipping over tombstones and stuff. Vito's widow Marie comes to Tony begging for assistance with her problem, in the form of $100 grand so she can move the family to Maine. But cash-strapped Tony's idea is to talk to the kid, and/or get Phil, who is "a cousin or uncle or some fucking thing", to handle the problem.

At Phil's coronation dinner, as he is attempting to schmooze guest star Nancy Sinatra, Tony approaches Phil about the matter. "What, a favor already" the always-smarmy Leotardo replies, and that line alone let's you know the long-simmering fire has been rekindled between the two. Phil is reluctant to get involved- "the turd doesn't fall far from the faggot's ass" is his rationalization- but he agrees to talk to the kid; too bad his idea of a heart-to-heart talk means telling the kid he looks like "a Puerto Rican whore." Classic.

The Hesh/Tony thing takes center stage, much like Paulie & T. did last week. Tony goes to Hesh's plush suburban home and talks about his problems, but Hesh wants the 200k. Tony agrees to pay $3000 a week in vig, but it all leads to resentment by both men, and a lot of name calling & stereotyping of Jews & Italians by both sides. Yawn.

Tony's quest for the big score hits a new low when he wants to use some of the money from the sale of Carmela's spec house to put down on a 'sure thing' NFL game. You're rich, use your own money she tells him, and he makes up a reason why he can't, but she's right, isn't she? Or are we supposed to believe that all these years of lavish spending all of a sudden came up to bite him in the ass?

Anyway, the confrontation escalates to a full-blown war when the game comes in but Tony didn't bet the house on it like he wanted to. "We could've turned your bullshit into a million dollars" he screams at Carm, who is horrified at the all-too-familiar Tony Soprano transformation from loving family man to terrifying, callous beast. He drops a few more unpleasantries on her as she hurls a statue at him and stomps off, and we're left to wonder how it all went wrong so quickly.

A little too quickly in this case.

The ep wraps up with Tony apologizing to Carm and admitting he has a gambling problem that he is trying to control, but he won't let her end up like Ginny Sacrimoni (poor & no where to live.) After little Vito took a shit in the school shower (a scene more disgusting than any murder ever depicted on the show), Tony agrees to pay for the move, but blows the cash on another bad bet. His next solution is to send the kid to a reform school in Idaho, and he vows he will "never, never forget that (Phil) didn't come through here" (cue foreshadowing music please)

In the end Hesh's girlfriend suddenly passes away in their bed, and he is visited by Tony offering his condolences and the $200 grand. I guess all it took was a death in the family to let bygones be bygones, and like every other episode this season, the problem that was introduced in the beginning is put to rest by the end.

It's almost like Chase is stewing a giant pot of gravy, and he's mixing in a bunch of spices & flavors, trying to get the taste just right. A little bit of professional envy, a touch of distrust of old friends, a dash of familial issues and a pinch of gambling losses ought to make it tasty enough, right? And he's letting the whole thing simmer & bubble until it almost boils over, then he turns down the gas and let's it cool off for a little while before putting the burner on high again.

But too many chefs spoil the gravy, and too many red herrings spoil the fun of the mystery.

On tap for next week is the AJ/Blanca situation (that was set up this week by a brief scene in which AJ proposed, she reluctantly accepted, then she dumped him at a Puerto Rican festival), and towards the end of the show we also saw the young Islamic man who came into the Bing for a few scenes last season, just to make sure we have the international terrorist angle covered as well.

The good news is there are only 5 episodes left, so all these lose threads should be tied up soon.

After all, those guys have to get off the island sometime, don't they?

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