ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/19/06 Section: Life

Thus far, the sixth season of our exulted Sopranos has been a difficult bird to identify. I've got my field guild: the collective colored knowledge of seasons past, character nuances, probable back-lashings to events and dynamics, but I still can't finger it.

I knew I was in for a ride when Tony was shot in the first episode, I mean, damn, Tony's never been shot. In season one there was an attempt, orchestrated by Junior and Tony's Mamamia, bungled by "Boyz to Men", as Chris put it, for Tony shed them as fluidly as the wine flows at Vesuvio; but never before have there been such tragic clouds looming over Jersey and York.

And then the coma? I mean, it was obvious, to a savvy Soprano viewer anyway, that Tony wouldn't fall to the gut-wound. What would they do for the dozen-plus future episodes? Cooking with Carmela? They even found a way to incorporate him through the two or so episodes in which he was unconscious: the dream/afterlife sequence of the Alzheimer's- inflicted "Kevin Finnerty", culminating with a Steve Buscemi cameo, at the gates of eternity (in the form of a "family" party), in which, uh oh, Tony might let go of his suitcase (his physical life), and enter the party and be dead, but nay, of course.

Then, in brief, you've got A.J. suddenly making death-bed vows to avenge Tony by killing Junior, Junior has pretty much breached the medium into senility, and now occupies a loony-bin, Johnny's in the clink and York/Jersey is falling apart, Paulie learns he's been living a lie, Chris is pulling together strings for a movie production, Vito's out of the closet (incase you missed the construction-site scene of season five) and is rubbing on Fin's arm at the hospital, being spotted at a gay bar, Paulie and Chris are now at odds stemming from each of their inner torments, respectively, and Tony, after having woken up and spent a spell seemingly as a vegetable, still seems about as healthy as a cigarette sandwich soaked in vodka. Long story short, we've been saturated in blatant hysteria so far, and it's a bit unsettling.

Perhaps it's just me, but the word "overkill" has blocked itself into my mind when watching the new season, as much as I've tried to fend it off. And this isn't saying the final season is no good, never will I bite the hand that feeds me, but we must wonder, what else could go wrong?

In earlier seasons some time in the beginning of them there would be presented central plots around which things revolved. Think of when Junior was indicted, and therefore Tony had that hanging over him (and the season), or when Chris is shot, and then Tony kills the shooter, and is spotted by an eye-witness, but the witness reneges when he learns the crime involves mafia members, think of Carmela's brief crush on Furio, and Furio almost pushing drunken Tony into the propeller at Atlantic City, the trouble with Tony Blundetto and NY, and perhaps the biggest of all, when Pussy was working as an informant with the Feds, and his ultimate dismissal into the ocean from the Stugots. Each of these events were huge in their context of when they fell into the whole life of the Sopranos, huge because they arose from a plane of material that was for the most part tame, as far as you could call a crime family tame.

As awkward as it's been gurgling down this boney pill of plot-line, it's understandable. Which sort of taste would the creators and writers like to leave in mouths of viewers ever more, or until we see some nauseating reunion event in twenty years? Putrid? Vanilla? I think it's spicy. Everything is coming down in a blaze of glory, like Jersey native Bon Jovi told as way back when.

So let me again harp on my probabilities: Chris, A.J., New York, maybe others (Vito) mean trouble, muy caliente!

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