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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Spurs turn King James into a pauper in Game 1

You gotta love this look Duncan shoots James; it says 'you know you want what we got, and you ain't gonna get it this year'.

Game 1 NBA Finals: San Antonio 85, Cleveland 79

GAME LEADERS: CLE/SAS

POINTS: Gibson- 16/ Parker- 27

REBOUNDS: James- 7/ Duncan- 13

ASSISTS: James- 4/ Parker- 7

The San Antonio Spurs welcomed LeBron James to the NBA Finals by showing him and his fellow greenhorn teammates what it's like to play on the game's largest grandest, most important stage.

Needless to say the experience wasn't pretty for the league's anointed savior.

The Spurs carved up James & his Cavs like butter-soft prime rib, with the Batman & Robin duo of Tony Parker, a.k.a The Luckiest Man on Earth, doing his best Steve Nash imitation, and Tim Duncan rejecting LeBron so much he must have felt like Anthony Michael Hall in a John Hughes flick.

LeBron was a miserable 4-16 from the field, tallying just 14 points, and although he did grab seven rebounds, he had only four assists and one steal while turning the ball over six times.

Those TOs were the result of poor, cross-court passes that the Spurs guards intercepted like DBs snare lazy laterals, and whenever his highness did try to go to the basket, he was met by a phalanx of security forces that cut off his path and/or shoved the ball back in his face.

While it took James until nearly halfway through the 3rd period to score his first basket, Parker & Duncan were having their way with the over matched Cavs from the get-go.

Parker, who is marrying actress Eva Longoria one month from today (7/7/07), played like a man who is about to win his third (championship) ring and then hand his first (wedding) ring to one of the hottest women on the planet. He scored 13 points in the first half, most of them on speedy, twisting trips through the lane, a-la Nash, and if he wasn't scoring then he was completing picturesque bounce passes in traffic to his teammates for roof-raising assists, another forte of the man they call Nashty.

Much like this loose ball, a Game One victory was out of James' reach

By the time James scored his first bucket San Antonio had turned a 5-point halftime lead (40-35) into a 15-point bulge (74-59), and although the Cavs didn't go down without a fight (they cut the lead to 7 with a few minutes to go but couldn't get over the hump), the fight was taken to them tonight, and they played the role of Coco jaw to Tony Soprano's foot.

Game 2 is in San Antonio on Sunday night, so LeBron, coach Mike Brown and the rest of the Cavs have a couple of days to come up with a gameplan that either forces James to be more aggressive in his game, or that will enable his teammates to make some of those shots that he can't.

One good place to start is to give electric rookie guard Daniel "Boobie" Gibson more PT.

After his coming out party vs. Detroit (31 points in Gm 6), Gibson saw limited action in this game, but did manage to lead the Cavs in scoring despite playing only 28 minutes.

Plus, who doesn't want to see more boobie? Sorry, that was poor.

Oh, and another piece of advice for Cleveland: downplay that poster-job of LeBron over Duncan.

After all, that play came during the regular season.

When the ball doesn't taste nearly as bad.

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King James ready to take the NBA Finals by storm

New school LeBron and the Cavs take on the retro, Tim Duncan-led Spurs in a Finals straight out of an ABC Sports executive's wet dream.

You can bet Tim Duncan has heard enough about this dunk already.

The popular thinking among "those in the know" is that the veteran, savvy, playoff tested Spurs should have little trouble defeating neophyte Cleveland for its fourth title in nine years.

After all, San Antonio plays smart basketball, has a 1-2 combo of Parker & Duncan that's as good as any in the league, and will have Bruce Bowen & co. will clamp down on LeBron James like Mike Vick's pit bull on Paris Hilton's chihuahua, which will force the Cavs supporting cast to help win games without LeBron having to score 48 points every night.

Or so the train of logic goes.

But wasn't that what was supposed to happen in the Eastern Conference Finals, when the bigger, badder & more experienced Pistons were going to dispense of Cleveland in quick time in order to make its predestined (according to the 'experts') date with the Spurs in the Finals?

One historic performance by LeBron later and here we are, with James doing things at his age and experience level that have not been matched in decades, besides the run of Dwyane Wade and the Heat last season.

I believe the reason the Cavs have a chance against San Antonio is exactly why they were able to knock off the Detroit despite spotting the Pistons a 2-0 series lead- that youth, hunger and determination can sometimes overcome things like age, experience and the "been there, done that" factor.

Now do I think the Cavs are going to win the series? No. San Antonio is a much more disciplined and cohesive team than the Pistons, and you can guarantee that Bruce Bowen won't allow LeBron any unchecked jaunts to the basket like Detroit did numerous times in that fateful Game 5.

But I do think that they've got a shot at winning it, and with LeBron James on the court, that one shot can sometimes be good enough to get it done.

Just ask Rashweed Wallace.

Because sometimes the upstarts are ready to unseat the higher ups.

And let a new kid take the throne.

MY PICK: Spurs in 7

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The day LBJ saved the NBA

LeBron, the hero of GM 5, congratulates Gibson, the hero of GM 6 as the Cavs head to the Finals

The San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons were both supposed to make it to the NBA Finals this year.

The Spurs fulfilled their end of the deal.

But somebody forgot to send LeBron James and the Cavaliers a copy of the script.

Tonight the James Gang flipped that NBA script right on its old guard as the upstart Cavs knocked off the 5-time Conference finalist Pistons to reach its first Finals in Cleveland history.

James (20 pts, 14 rebs, 8 ass) didn't have the monster game like he had in Game 5, but he didn't need to. With a career-high 31 points from rising star guard Daniel Gibson and another solid defensive effort that helped limit Tayshaun Prince to five points and Chauncey Billips to nine, the Cavs used a complete team effort to defeat the ultimate "team" in the league.

And so LeBron, dubbed the next Jordan, the face of the NBA, and the franchise since entering the league four years ago, will lead his team to the Finals faster than any young phenom this side of Dwayane Wade, and if the energized, youthful Cavs were to knock off the stoic, playoff veteran Spurs, when then there would be a new poster boy for in the NBA.

And his name is King James.

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Will they get off LeBron's back now?!

An incredible, amazing, fantastic, yes, even Jordan-esque performance from LeBron James elevates the Cavaliers to the brink of the Finals

Check out 'Sheed's face as Bron nails yet another clutch jumper

"One of the great performances all-time in playoff history."--Marv Albert

"Did you know that you were this good?"--Craig Sager
LeBron, smiling sheepishly-- "No."

LeBron James' Nike campaign slogan uses the brilliant subtlety of a simple word: 'Witness'.

Tonight we did.

I'm not really sure to begin describing what I just witnessed, as the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Detroit Pistons, 109-107 in double-overtime to take a 3-2 series lead, but I guess I'll start with the numbers, because they are so mind-boggling:

• 48 total points
• 25 consecutive Cavs points to end the game
• scored 28 of his team's last 29 points
• 35 points after halftime
• 18-33 from field
• 9 rebs, 7 assists, 2 steals

But numbers don't always do a story justice, and this game tonight between the Pistons and Cavs was about much more than numbers, although the Cavaliers are happy to be headed home with a 3-2 series advantage.

Because more than just put up nearly half a hundy en route to knocking off the 5-time conference finalist Pistons in their own building in double OT, King James took his custom Nikes and stomped on all the haters who have criticized his every move, endorsement deal and ill-advised pass on his way to becoming the face of the NBA.

Perhaps all the griping had to do with the fact that he was a poster boy for over-exposed high school athletes from the age of 14, or that he inked a $90 million dollar contract with the swoosh empire before he ever laced up a sneaker on an NBA court....

...or it might have been the fact that he has never given the haters reason to actually hate him; he's stayed clean off the court, has never been seen brandishing a firearm, wagering on 'roided-up Rotties, or raining bags full of his millions down on unsuspecting exotic dancers. Sure he had an incident or two, like walking off the court or snubbing a teammate or coach here and there...

...but c'mon, the kid is just 22 and in four years has given hoop fans more highlights and memorable moments this side of Dwayne Wade, and with Wade hurting and the Cavs poised to make it to the Finals for the first time in franchise history, the time is now for LeBron to silence his critics and take the league by the balls.

Tonight LeBron did something that few other players have done since His Airness exited the league-the first time: put his team on his back and willed them to victory by scoring a slew of outrageous, jaw-dropping shots from all over the court and stunning a favored team in their own crib.

He hit long fadeaways. He hit driving layups. He nailed threes. He got fouled and hit 10-14 free throws. Oh yeah, and he had three monster dunks late in the game, plus a knifing layup through four Pistons that turned out to be the game winner.

Tonight, all critics will reluctantly agree, was truly LeBron's "welcome to the NBA" moment.

I'm just glad I got to witness it.

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Patriots lineman Hill found dead after accidental drowning

The NFL and the New England sports community suffered another tragic loss when the body of Patriots defensive end Marquise Hill was found a half a mile from where he fell into the waters of Lake Pontchartrain Sunday night.

Hill, a third-year player and Louisiana native who played collegiately at LSU and won a National Championship with the Tigers in 2003, was riding a jet ski with a female companion Sunday after dark when tragedy struck. The rough waters located near a busy shipping channel contributed to the water crafts overturning, and the fact that neither rider was wearing a life vest only exacerbated the situation.

By all reports Hill, an exemplary player, role model and human being who was able to swim, made an attempt to rescue his female friend, who could not. The friend was found unharmed, clinging to a piling, but Hill could not navigate the strong current and was washed away despite rescue attempts by an alert bystander on shore and numerous search groups.

Hill's tragic death comes on the heels of the sudden passing of two Denver Broncos players this off season, corner back Darrent Williams from a fatal gunshot wound on New Years Eve, and running back Damien Nash from an apparent heart attack after a charity basketball game in February.

The Boston sports family also has endured unexpected deaths in the past eight months: Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach in October; Celtics guard & playoff legend Dennis Johnson, also from a sudden heart attack in February, two days before Nash; and former Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley, whose painful, paralyzed life came to a abrupt end in April.

Combined with the recent deaths of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock, USC kicker Mario Danelo, and former Eagle Andre Watters, and there has been more than enough disturbing confirmations that even our most physically gifted and athletically talented people cannot escape the harsh realities of the real world.

R.I.P., Marquise.

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The Sopranos: All in the Family

Episode 84: "The Second Coming"



"I can't shake it...I'm fucking depressed" --T. to Carm


Yeah, join the club Tony.


Sorry it has taken me so long to post about the show this week, but I have been realizing that as the series winds down it's getting harder and harder just to watch my former favorite drama, much less write about it.


Sadly, instead of swaggering to the finish line like a proud, grand champion, The Sopranos is staggering to the end like a punch-drunk has-been trying to scrape one more big bout together before going into syndication-fueled retirement.


The emotional-yet-cheesy death of my favorite character Christopher a couple weeks back was enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth regarding this swan song season, but this week's focus on inherited depression, the effects of drugs such as Lexapro on the minds of unstable young adults, and a look at what's to come between Tony and Phil felt like a giant mindfuck.


What is Chase trying to do now? Get us all thinking about Iraq, global warming, tainted meat and how prescription meds are becoming the downfall of our society? Look, Chase, if I want to see that kind of shit I'll watch C-SPAN or MSNBC, but all I want to see from you is colorful, creepy characters, guys getting whacked and/or jacked, and a storyline that doesn't make me want to see a shrink after the show is over.


This week we spent the better part of an hour watching Tony coming to grips with the fact that his son AJ is just as depressed and fucked up as he is. How does he know this? Because after reading the morbid epic poem "The Second Coming" by Yeats and popping anti-depressants like they're pez, AJ ties his leg to a cinder block, put a plastic bag over his head and jumps into the deep end of the swimming pool in a surefire cry for help.


It trurns out the rope was too short and AJ just flopped around there for a few minutes, but instead of being worried about what would happen to him, as AJ wallowed under that water all I kept thinking was "if this kid dies here, I'm not watching the final two shows." Luckily it seems Chase knew a lot of people might have that sentiment, as Tony conveniently comes home in the nick of time to save his sorry son.


With AJ checked into a psyche ward, Tony is left to deal with the "Soprano curse", as Carm refers to it, the specter of depression. All the Soprano men have had it, and Carm points out she is sick of Tony "playing the depression card until it's worn to shreds" and now he has passed it on to their son. An enraged Tony tells her it's a hereditary disease, and she responds with " at least we know he didn't get it from my side" of the family.


Ah it's nice to see how family crises make the bonds grow stronger.


As for the other "main plotline", the asbestos keeps piling up at random spots like roadsides and rivers while Tony tries to get Phil to come down on his demand of a 25% fee to unload the illegal materials. Pleading to Phil's human side (as if he has one), Tony makes a counteroffer and reminds Phil of the words the two shared about life and happiness when Phil was in the hospital last year.


"First off, it wasn't an offer, it's my position-25%. This is business," Phil coolly tells him, then cracks a joke about T. acting like Charles Schwab by talking about the future and investing in their families and so forth. Tony storms out and the lingering hatred in the air lets everyone know that a Tony & Phil showdown is on the menu for sure in the final two shows.


Just in case anyone had any doubt about that scenario, though, an interesting side thread this week provided more proof, and also the most chilling and entertaining parts of the ep.


Phil's two goons, the giant Coco and weaselly Butch, are enraged when a contractor tells them that Tony has pulled their jobs in retaliation to Phil's refusal to budge on the asbestos deal. After pummelling the poor guy into the dirt, Coco later happens to run in to Meadow at a restaurant in Little Italy, and he makes some drunken, leering remarks to little miss Soprano.


"You got a little cream on your mouth there, would you like me to add to it" he creepily remarks to a horrified Meadow, and he staggers out of the place laughing all the way. But Coco won't be able to laugh, or speak or eat, for a long while after that encounter.


That's because when Tony hears of the incident, he reacts calmly at first, but later flies into a rage fueled by the repressed anger over AJ's attempted suicide. Tracking Coco down at his restaurant, Tony pistol whips the behemoth into a bloody pulp, then breaks his jaw on the sink a-la Ed Norton in American History X; it was a disgusting sound & scene, yet one that hearkened back to the good old days of Sopranos yesteryear, when squabbles & insults were dealt with accordingly, not with medication and therapy.


In the end Tony and Little Carmine head to New York to meet with Phil at his home in order to broker some kind of peace arrangement, but a livid Phil calls it off as the two arrive at his door.


"Take that piece of shit and get off my stoop," Phil tells Carmine, referring to Tony, from his bedroom window. Pleading with his Uncle to hear them out, Phil replies "there's nothing left to discuss, Carmine," and with that the two walk away.


The final scene shows Tony bringing a pizza to his institutionalized son, and as the pair enjoy a forlorn embrace through the hospital doors, we see that the chain of life that connects father and son has been strengthened by the fact that both men know they are of the same mind.


Where this is all leading is anyone's guess. The show goes on hiatus for a week as HBO tries to pimp its replacement, then the final two eps will land with either a bang or a thud. The way things are headed, it looks like AJ will inherit his father's business, Tony will either be killed by Phil or incarcerated by the EPA for illegal dumping, and Carm will fly to Italy and look for her long, lost love, Furio.


Or maybe Tony will go to work for Merck.


During the scene where Tony rescues AJ, an angry & confused Tony cries out to "what the fuck did you do?! What's wrong with you?!" while alternately shaking and consoling his son.


Funny, I feel like doing the same thing to David Chase.

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NBA & Celtics fans both lose in this lotto

Portland "earns the top pick in the 2007 NBA Draft; Boston will choose 5th.

In a heart-stopping moment for NBA commissioner David Stern, stud players Greg Oden & Kevin Durant, and the fans of every team in the lottery, the two teams with the highest probability of landing the first pick (Memphis & Boston) wound up with the 4th and 5th picks, respectively, while two seldom-seen West Coast teams (Portland & Seattle) will walk away with the two best players in the college game.

Way to go, NBA.

Not only did the long-suffering fans of Bill Simmons' Celtics lose out on the opportunity to make the once-proud franchise relevant again, but the league lost its two most marketable young talents to the wasteland that is the West Coast.

Sure the Jailblazers and Sonics will now be on TV more than Leave it to Beaver reruns, but the games will still start at 10:30 and end when everyone except bloggers and night watchmen are asleep. For example, the Warriors were a great West Coast story this season, led by a charismatic star and fueled by rabid fans, yet no one knew about them until the middle of the opening round of the playoffs.

Now Stern & the league will go into spin mode, claiming that Oden & Durant will be exposed to the public just as much as every other new star the Association ushers in every year, with plenty of soda ads, sneaker deals and life-sized posters on the side of buildings trumpeting the rise of the new talent in the NBA.

Meanwhile the jilted fans of one of the game's most storied franchises, who have lost more games in three seasons than in the entire Bird era and just re-upped their putrid coach despite his inability to lead, coach or teach, are left to wonder why they should still even watch the game.

If they can just stay up until 1:00 am every other night, maybe they'll find out.

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NBA Playoffs starting to resemble the WWE

If you see this man on the street or outside a strip club at 3:00 am, please run quickly in the opposite direction

Ejections, technicals, suspensions, near-brawls, hip checks into the side boards, bloodied noses, clotheslines, name-calling, finger-pointing and oh yeah, an infamous knee-to-the-groin.

No, this isn't the Stanley Cup playoffs on Versus, it's your 2007 NBA Playoffs on TNT and the ESPN family of networks.

While the Eastern Conference semis (CLE/NJ; DET/CHI) have been about as electrifying as a night lite, the wild, wild Western Conference semis are providing enough entertainment & bloodshed to qualify as a sequel to "300".

The series between the Golden State Warriors and Utah Jazz has ranged from chippy to downright dirty. The culmination of all that jazz came at the end of Game 4, when Baron Davis threw a flying elbow smash to Derek Fisher's dome followed by Jason Richardson clotheslining of Utah's Memhet Okur, a play that nearly incited a riot at Whatever They're Calling it Now Arena.

Curiously, neither player was suspended for their gutless action, but Richardson was tossed from the game.

The Warriors certainly live up to their cinematic namesakes; every game they clang empty Pepsi bottles together off the ends of their fingers as if to say "come out to play" to any team that dare oppose them. If it's not Davis or Richardson defending their turf, it's Stephen "Action" Jackson, a man who never met a shot, or a shotgun, he didn't like, or Mad Matt Barnes, who throws his body around like a bathtowel with a rattail all game long.

I'm gonna miss these guys now that they've been eliminated. Guess I'll have to wait for the sequel.

But just because the Bay Area Badasses have left the building, that doesn't mean the bad blood and cheap shots have to stop. No, the other semi between the Spurs and Suns has gone from bad (Nash's bloody schnozz ) to worse (Bruce Bowen's knee to Nash's nether regions) to worse-er, as a late cheap shot but Robert Horry on Nash (why him?) at the end of Game 4 has resulted in three players being suspended for tonight's critical Game 5 in Phoenix.

Thanks to Cheap Shot Bob's hockey-like hip-check on the Canadian native Nash, Horry will have to sit out two games while Amare Stoudamire and Boris Diaw of the Suns will each sit one game for leaving the bench in the chaos that ensued.

The fervor over the two Suns having to sit a game for defending their captain is all for naught; the rule book says players cannot leave the bench during an on-court altercation, Stoudamire & Diaw left the bench momentarily to join the fray before being restrained by assistant coaches, therefore they must serve the one-game suspension as the rule dictates.

So as the Warriors season comes to a close the Spurs and Suns are just get heated up. It's now a best-of-three, undermanned war of attrition between the two, and the team with the fewest players eligible and most stitches should win the series.

Just don't pick the team with the player named Cyrus.

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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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NBA Playoffs taken to a ho.......nuva.......level

The play of the underdog Golden State Warriors and a heartbreaking revelation by an on-court hero has rejuvenated the NBA Playoffs

In true California fashion, the rise of the Warriors has brought out the celeb bandwagon jumpers, a sure sign of a fad waiting to happen- Warriors Fever, catch it before they get the boot!

Even though the Warriors collapsed down the stretch last night and wound up losing Game 2 of the Western Conference Semis, 127-117 in OT to the Utah Jazz, the scrappy team from the (other) Bay Area continued to do what they have done best this playoff season:

re-convert former NBA fans who had lost interest in the sport over the past few years due to any of numerous reasons, a group of which I am a founding member.

After commissioner David Stern globalized the sport, elevating it to one of the best professional leagues in the world, and maximized its earning potential to the zillionth degree, something happened to the game itself: it turned into a predictable, me-first snoozefest featuring a few bankable starts, a ton of talented-but-petulant wannabes and coaches who had no more control over their players than Eliot Mintz had over Paris Hilton.

And then along came the 2006-07 GS Warriors. A joke of a team at mid season (19-22), GM Chris Mullin orchestrated a ballsy trade that would either make or break the team- he dealt popular but underachieving players Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavey plus a couple of scrubs for Stephen "Action" Jackson, a guy who never met a strip club he couldn't riddle with gunfire, Al Harrington and a couple of scrubs back.

Although they didn't set the world on fire, Golden State finished the season on a 23-20 run after the deal and eked into the playoffs as the 8-seed with a 42-40 record.

One historic and hyperkinectic dismantling of the NBA's best team, the 67-win Dallas Mavericks, in the opening round later and the Warriors and their brand of fast & furious funball has electrified the league and brought some much-needed-juice back to the NBA Playoffs. Playing in an packed arena in front of collegiate-like crowds, these Warriors have given fans a reason to care again, even if it is only for a short time.

But like I said, it didn't matter that the best show on hardcourt lost the game last night and is facing a 2-0 deficit as it heads back home for Game 3 on Friday night; no, there was an even better thing that happened during & after the game, and it had nothing to do with points & rebounds, wins & losses.
When Jazz guard Derek Fisher stepped onto the court with just over 3:00 to play in the 3rd quarter to a thunderous ovation, you'd have thought the 11-year veteran might have been having the game of his life, yet it was the first time he had seen the court in the series; he had to leave the team suddenly late last week under the vague umbrella of "personal reasons", and no one was sure when he would return.

Rusty, tired and emotionally spent, Fisher keyed a Jazz comeback by forcing a turnover on Warrior's guard Baron Davis late in regulation and then nailing a clutch three-pointer late in overtime to ensure the win. He finished with just five points, three assists, and one rebound in 10 minutes of play, and yet he was the unquestioned hero of the day.

Why?

Immediately following the game in an emotional post-game interview with TNT's Pam Oliver, Fisher confessed to the world that he had been in New York with his 1-year-old daughter as she received an operation for a rare form of eye cancer. Having undergone successful emergency surgery & chemotherapy earlier in the day, he and his family flew back to Utah later that evening, and a man who needed a way to channel his raw emotions did it the only way he knows how, by taking the the court and thus entering into playoff history.

As he pleaded with the public to have their children visit an opthamoligist to scan for this deadly disease known as retinoblastoma, tears streamed down the face of everyone watching, and immediately the importance of the game and sports itself took a back seat to real life and the courage of this man and his family.

Best wishes to the Fisher family, and welcome back, National Basketball Association.

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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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