Episode 84 revealed to us how both of Tony's families are starting to fall apart.
Immediate Family
Tony gave Carmella a beautiful, engraved watch to appease his guilt about leaving her for a meeting in Las Vegas. You might remember that meeting as a tryst with Christopher's ex-fling/prostitute. He did peyote, had sex and gambled to help get over the guilt of having killed Christopher, which he didn't really feel guilty about in the first place. Maybe he was trying to get over the guilt of not feeling guilty about killing his surrogate son. I'm always so disappointed at how easiliy Carmella goes along with the lie. She must know by now that Tony gives her expensive gifts when he's been with someone else. I guess in a way, his giving Carmella the watch was another way for him to appease his conscience. Is there anyone out there who still believes that Tony Soprano is a good guy?
AJ tried to kill himself. He tried to kill himself in the pool where in the first episode, Tony had fatalistic dreams about ducks and water. He sat on the diving board with a concrete block tied to his ankle and a plastic bag over his head. Once he got into the water, he realized he didn't want to die after all. His father arrived home just in the nick of time to pull him out of the pool. For a fleeting moment I thought Tony was going to let his son die, rather than deal with his son's pain and any responsibility he bares for causing his son pain, but I guess even Tony Soprano isn't that cold and unfeeling. When Tony returned to BadaBing the day after AJ's suicide attempt, his friends tried to comfort him with stories of their troubled children. This is when we learn about Patsy Parisi's other son. We already met Jason in two previous episodes when AJ joined his band of merry men in violence and book making. Patsy described his other son as having been a hyperactive kid. I only mention this because of Meadow.
Meadow, in a tete-a-tete with her mother finally revealed the identity of the man she's been secretly dating. And of course, it's Patsy Parisi's other kid. In that same conversation she also told Carmella that instead of going through with med school she's decided to go back to studying law, because after all, her new boyfriend is a lawyer. When she was with Finn she switched from wanting to be lawyer to wanting to be a doctor, because Finn was studying dentistry. Now that she's with a lawyer, she wants to become a lawyer.
Extended Family
With the exception of Bacala's marriage to Tony's sister Janice, Christopher's death effectively cut any personal relations between Tony's immediate family and his mob family. But when Tony Soprano's children started dating and palling around with the children of his mob associates, effectively they brought back together the ties that had been severed by Christopher's death. And I think ultimately condemning his children to a dismal future as either criminals or accessories to criminals or victims of criminals.
Phil Leotardo continued to bust Tony's balls over the 25% he wanted for dumping the asbestos. But Tony continued to refuse him. So, some things happened with some guys. Tony pulled a couple of no-show jobs from Phil's crew on some project or the other they're corrupting which combined with Phil's utter lack of respect for the Jersey family mob boss, led to one of those guys who was pissed about the cancellation of his no-show job, to mess around with Meadow. I don't know where this guy COCO came from but I knew he wasn't long for this show when he started making lewd suggestions to Meadow while on a date with Patsy's son. Once Meadow told Tony that Coco wanted to cream on Meadow's face, Tony really lost it. He went to see Coco at his restaurant, beat the crap out of him, then stomped on his head knocking out his teeth.
After Tony knocked out Coco's teeth, the new overlap between the two families was even more obvious. During AJ's family therapy session, while AJ was expressing his disappointment in both life and his parents, Tony was distracted by one of Coco's bloody teeth in his pant cuff.
Little Carmine tried a little family therapy of his own when he attempted to broker a peace agreement between Phil and Tony to no avail. Phil refused to meet with Tony. We all know what this means - War. There is going to be a war between New York and New Jersey. Granted it will be a short war but it will be a war none the less. Phil just can't get over the death of his brother and is still holding Tony accountable for his cousin Tony's actions (Steve Buscemi) several seasons ago. He still wants revenge for that. Which is why I think AJ is going to end up dead at the hands of Phil.
Dr. Melfi
When Dr. Melfi met with her therapist, Dr. Kupferberg (who continues to be smug, superior and sanctimonious) he told her about a study that was done on the effectiveness of talk therapy on sociopath patients. He told her the study proved that not only did talk therapy NOT help heal sociopath tendencies but it made sociopaths even better criminals providing them with a platform to work out their crimes and hone their lying skills.
What will Dr. Melfi do? Will Meadow just give up on school entirely so she could be the perfect mob wife like her mother? Will AJ grow a pair and find some meaning to his existence and direction in his life? Will we ever see Artie Bucco again? Will Uncle Junior die a lonely and pathetic death? Will Tony finally confess to Carmella that he had Adrianna whacked? Will Janice be the person who brings down Tony in the end? Will Tony kill Phil or will Phil kill Tony?
We won't find out for two weeks. After waiting as long as we have for this series to conclude I think it's unfair that we haven't to wait for another two weeks, but what choice to I have? I'll just have to wait it out, like everyone else?
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