Janice Soprano comes to New Jersey.
Big Pussy comes back too.
But Dr. Melfi is not around when Tony really
needs her help to combat his panic attacks.
Episode 14 – Originally aired Jan 16, 2000
Written by Jason Cahill
Directed by Allen Coulter
___________________________________
The Season Two opener sets us up for a laugh even before it begins—its episode title is the generic first line of a joke. The first scene of the hour gives us a different joke, however, one that plays on the stereotype of “the smart Asian”: a test proctor calls out “Christopher Moltisanti” and it is an Asian guy that responds. (The proctor may not suspect the man to be an imposter but the woman sitting next to him ain’t buying it.)
This scene does more than just provide a punchline, it shows that the NJ Mob is diversifying its criminal activity. Tony has been at the helm for several months now and his gang is getting into securities fraud. And this points to an important Sopranos convention—the passage of time between seasons. Season Two does not pick up where Season One left off. The next scene firmly establishes this convention. A montage of snippets from the daily lives of the characters, scored with Sinatra’s “It Was A Very Good Year,” whisks us through the off-season months. The montage shows some characters in new or short-lived situations, and other characters in circumstances and behaviors that will continue all through the series: Tony has become Street Boss, Carmela is slaving away in her kitchen, Corrado is in jail, Melfi is working out of a motel, Meadow is an imperfect driver, Chris is interested in movies and cocaine, Tony cheats on his wife.
Another season-opener convention is continued here: Tony comes out of the house in his bathrobe to pick up his newspaper. But he doesn’t just find the newspaper at the end of the driveway this time—Sal Bonpensiero is also there waiting for him. Big Pussy has returned. David Chase has spoken about the quandary he was in after the first season ended. The major conflict in the initial season was centered around Tony’s troubles with his uncle and mother. Chase needed newer, fresher tensions for the sophomore season. The reappearance of Pussy, as well as the introduction of Janice, fill this need perfectly. With their similarities to Corrado and Livia, the characters of “Pussy” and “Janice” allow Chase to continue the model of tension that was established last season, but in a reimagined way.
Pussy
Pussy shares some similarities to Corrado in his relationship to Tony. Both men are part of Tony’s professional life, but they are also a very important part of his personal life. Any betrayal by them would not only devastate Tony professionally but also personally. Although Pussy’s explanation for being AWOL seems to check out, Tony is not entirely convinced. At a backyard BBQ, Tony has an intuition about his friend’s disloyalty. We are led to the same intuition when Silvio quotes a line from The Godfather, “Our true enemy has yet to reveal himself” and the camera quickly cuts to a shot of Bonpensiero.
Janice
Livia Soprano will play a smaller role in Season 2 as she has become persona non grata to Tony, but Janice will function as a Livia-substitute in her absence. As is the case with Pussy, Tony is unsure at this early stage just how toxic Janice really is, but he has his suspicions. When his kids go with Aunt Janice to visit their grandmother, we see that Janice is drawing lethal Livia back into Tony’s life. Tony has a second backyard-intuition—similar to the one he had about Pussy—but this time about Janice: the Creepy Crawly pool cleaner seems sinister and reptilian when proximate to her, seeming to underscore Janice’s snake-like persona.
I think the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni must have had a strong influence on David Chase. (A clip of Antonioni’s Blow-Up even appears in Chase’s feature film Not Fade Away.) Like Antonioni, Chase is very interested in using the physical environment to reflect the psychological states of his characters. In one scene, as Tony drives through New Jersey, he looks out his passenger window at environments that become progressively more distressed and unhealthy:
Moments later, Tony has one of his anxiety attacks and crashes his Suburban. His mental state is distressed and unhealthy, there are new stressors he must cope with. Other stressful figures, in addition to Pussy and Janice, have emerged in Tony’s life. Matt Bevilaqua and Sean Gismonte are hotheads that Chris Moltisanti and Tony can barely control. Most disturbingly, all these characters have appeared while a major figure has disappeared from Tony’s life: Dr. Melfi. The therapist is unwilling to treat Tony, after her life and career have been threatened by her dealings with him. She cannot even meet patients in her office anymore, she has to see her appointments in a motel room. Tony goes to see another therapist instead, but this guy chickens out of any future meetings with the gangster—he has seen Analyze This. The quick scene where he rejects Tony as a client is pretty funny and, of course, it is the scene that the episode title humorously refers to: Tony walks into this new psychiatrist’s office. But it is not very funny (and actually may be a little heartbreaking) when Tony tracks Dr. Melfi down at a roadside diner and desperately tries to reconcile with her only to have her refuse his pleas. She has banished him from her care at a time when he fiercely needs it.
___________________________________
OF TIME AND TELEVISION
In my final write-up for last season, I noted that the season finale did not end with a cliffhanger. In this season’s opener, we see the implication of Chase’s decision to not use a cliffhanger last year: a cliffhanger dictates that time must “freeze” during the off-season, and then magically resume when the new season begins, but—as we see in the current episode—time has not stood still in SopranoWorld. I think this is part of the “fucking regularness of life” that Chase has committed his series to portraying. Nothing in life is more regular than the passage of time—the clock ticks inexorably. What television show has the right to “pause” time while on hiatus? Chase doesn’t hit the pause button, and his strategy certainly adds to the realism of the show. It allows characters to age just as the actors portraying them do. It allows the series to incorporate real-life events which occur between seasons into storylines and conversations very naturally (as we will notably see after the September 11 attacks). By not picking up the new season precisely where the old season left off, The Sopranos just feels more believable.
The montage early in the hour is able, through its artful craftsmanship, to evoke the sense of time having passed. Its little snippets show characters gaining new interests or reaching milestones or continuing business as usual. The Sinatra song that scores the montage, “It Was A Very Good Year,” conveys the flow of time by its title and its lyrics as well as through its flowing aural quality. The slow, steady flow of the music is matched by the slow, flowing camera that pans without cease through the montage. The soft dissolves that blend one snippet into the next also evoke the uninterrupted, smooth flow of time. (If you really want to be impressed by The Sopranos’ attention to detail, note how the song’s bassline begins with a descending 4-note thum-thum-thum-thum just as Meadow drives the Suburban over some traffic cones, which might make a similar thum-thum sound.)
At the opposite end of the hour, just before the final credits, Chase takes a completely different approach to depicting time authentically. In this final scene, which is about three minutes long, TV-time plays out in real-time. A static, unobtrusive camera is used in order not to take away from the life-like-ness of the scene. There is no music magically scored over the scene, only the realistic sound of birdsong coming in through the open window. The little bit of conversation between Carm and Tony is quotidian, and the two sit down to do undramatic, real-life things: Tony eats a bowl of pasta while Carmela checks the mail. The song that finally comes on to close the episode is “Time Is On My Side,” which is quite different in timbre and tone from “It Was A Very Good Year,” the Sinatra song which played over the opening montage. The narrator in Sinatra’s song is looking back over his life, evoking a sense of time having passed, which is precisely what the montage is meant to evoke. “Time Is On My Side,” however, evokes a sense of being within time, like being in a river—the past is behind us, the future is up ahead somewhere, and the current moment is simply where we are right now in the river’s flow. This is closer to how we actually experience time in our daily lives:
A television series, being dozens of hours long, has a great ability to portray events in real-time, especially in comparison to films, which must condense events into two hours. “Real-time” was the central concept/gimmick of 24, but Kiefer Sutherland’s show, for the most part, refrained from using any valuable minutes to render the banal aspects of life. TV shows have the latitude to depict everyday events in real-time, but most lack the courage to do so, fearful that any true rendering of the banal will cause viewers to lose interest. By bracketing this episode with two very different scenes that each depict the authentic passage of time, Chase is able to show how television can excel at simulating the surface reality of life—no matter how mundane that reality might be.
Unsurprisingly, many viewers get completely bored by such realistic depictions of the banalities of life: Jeffrey Goldberg at the Slate.com forum wrote that this episode almost put him to sleep. But I am thrilled to find a show that finally has the guts to explore tedium and banality. It’s almost like the thrill you might get seeing candid shots of celebrities or supermodels in their street-clothes with no make-up on. Chase will occasionally strip his narrative down to its most basic fundamentals and lead us to recognize that beneath all the hype and excitement and drama of his mob stories, there is something underneath that is simple, irrepressible, often beautiful, but always real.
ONE MORE THING ABOUT THOSE TWO SONGS
Even though Carmela alluded to Tony’s philandering in her very first scene of the Pilot episode, it never developed into a major issue in Season One. Tony’s disloyalty takes on greater proportions from Season Two onward, and we get a hint of this here. A couple of snippets in the montage show Tony’s cheating and its attendant behaviors, and the accompanying “It Was A Very Good Year” is a song about a man who dates different types of women over the course of his life. Our knowledge that it is famously philandering Frank that is singing predisposes us to identify the song’s narrator with philanderer Tony. In direct contrast, the final scene of the hour is all about Carmela’s stoic loyalty. Tony returns to the comforting domesticity of Carm’s kitchen just after Dr. Melfi has refused her care. The narrator of the closing song, “Time Is On My Side,” is sure that her cheating lover, given enough time, will return to her. (“You’ll come runnin’ back,” is her repeating refrain.) The decision to use Irma Thomas’ version of the song, rather than the well-known Rolling Stones cover, gives the song a female voice, allowing us to further identify the singing narrator with steadfast Carmela.
___________________________________
A FAMILY AFFAIR
Several new members of Tony’s family are seen for the first time in this hour, signaling that family issues will continue to be important as those of la famiglia in Season 2. Although we had seen Tony’s sisters Janice and Barbara as children in flashback scenes last season, they appear as present-day adults for the first time now. Additionally, we meet Tony’s brother-in-law Tom as well as Carmela’s parents.
___________________________________
ADDITIONAL POINTS:
-
Moltisanti is set up in the Webistics scam as a “compliance officer.” Christ, what is the world coming to?
- Hahaha: “Parvati? She’s a cheese now?” Parvati is actually a powerful, sometimes chaotic but usually benign Hindu goddess. I tend to think of this “Parvati” persona as the Janus-face of Janice. We already begin to see how two-faced Janice can be in pursuit of her agendas: though telling sister Barb that mother Livia is “all there,” she describes Livia as “confused” to brother Tony as she tries to prevent him from selling Livia’s house.
- Hahaha: At one point here, Carmela refers to Livia as “Mommie dearest,” obviously alluding to the book and movie of the same name. (As crazy as Livia can be, I don’t think she would ever have such an insane response to “wire hangers” though…)
- I was not very impressed by Aida Turturro as “Parvati” in this episode. It’s especially torturous watching her try to handle a cigarette—she has obviously never been a smoker. But in a strange way, her stumble works here. It doubles our suspicion that Parvati is not a genuine person, that she’s a false front for a much darker character. Ms. Torturro settles into the character as dark Janice emerges, and she becomes one of the best, most consistent performers of the series.
- Bocelli’s “Con Te Partiro” is heard at the Sopranos’ BBQ. This song will be used with great significance later in the series.
- A year ago, in the Pilot episode, Dr. Melfi cited the possibility of passing out behind the wheel as one reason why Tony needed to continue therapy. Here, she is unmoved by news of his accident—she refuses to resume her role as his therapist.
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Sopranos Autopsy 
I don’t know if the deteriorating environment before Tony has a breakdown is merely a cinematic construct for the viewers benefit. Sometimes people get depressed just by seeing something they associate with some issue they have. The scenery is a reflection of Tony life, this triggers his collapse.
I noticed how Adriana kisses Chris in the brokers office. He is sitting with his legs up and eyes closed and there is an extreme close up of his face and then a kiss from someone out of frame. It reminds me of ‘Rear Window’ because this is how Grace Kelly is introduced. There was a genuine love between Stewart and Kelly and maybe this is how Adriana feels about Chris.
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Actually, he had been driving along quite happily, grooving to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”, (repeated in season 6 as the first song played by Carmela when Tony is in a coma). What triggers his attack is rage overload, the result of pounding on the sticking CD player. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M56pv310KsI
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Love the sign that’s above Tony’s car once he’s crashed it. Summit people find answers, not excuses!
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I always thought that the final scene shows Tony attempting/considering to open up to Carmela, in light of his rejection by Melfi, and failing to do so. The scene is almost awkward, him seeming to want to connect but her being dodgy and insistent on doing something “productive” rather than sit and really be present with Tony. He seems to be waiting for a cue from Carmela, but it never comes. She can tell that he needs something, but does not consider offering anything beyond food. As soon as she sits down, she starts going through the mail while he hesitantly eyes her and eats his pasta in silence. It’s tragic.
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Exactly my thoughts. First time commenter, but have been reading this autopsy as I’ve recently been rewatching the series from the start.
I feel as if this scene was actually very crucial to the series. Tony can’t open up to any of the women in his life: his mother, his sisters, his daughter, his wife and has needed to use Dr. Melfi as a way to compensate this (even though he can’t even get into the whole details with her). I think that because Tony has to always keep all these things bottled up inside him, as his position in the mob requires him to, it is what keeps him under constant stress and influences his own behaviour. Imagine a reality in which he and Carm could talk to each other openly – maybe Tony wouldn’t have his list of goomahs? Maybe if Tony and Carm had an actual loving relationship with one another, he would be happy? Maybe the reason Tony relies on goomahs and Dr. Melfi is to satisfy the sexual and emotional needs that Carm, as his wife, is supposed to be satisfying?
I feel as if in that final scene, if Tony and Carm had begun speaking, maybe things could have actually started to be different for Tony and his marriage. If they had spoken, and Carm was able to satisfy Tony’s emotional needs, maybe Tony would actually want to redeem himself as a husband and many of the issues between the two, coming up throughout the series, could have been avoided altogether. But, they didn’t speak – and I’m so glad that they didn’t. Sopranos continues to maintain that realistic tone throughout the series, as not all marriages or relationships are ‘perfect’ and some are destined to keep both in misery. And I think the real time of the scene, and the ‘regularness’ of the scene really emphasises this message.
Please keep up the good work Ron and thank you so much for your efforts.
Ryan
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You’re right, it’s a crucially important scene, there is a comfortable familiarity but also a kind of tragedy in the silence between husband and wife…
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He always returns to Carmela when he is upset or lost. She the one constant in his life. She always looks better to him when one of the women in his life disappoints him. Or maybe he becomes more appreciative of her in those times. She loves him, and even though he hurts her, she will be there. She even looks at him like she knows something is wrong, but will wait til he tells her or not. They are in tune.
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This is the real answer
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The final scene gave me the idea that Tony was a child and Carmela the ‘caring mother’.
He is walking around with his hands in his pockets, doing nothing. Carmela even mentions it “I thought it (Tony) was AJ, home from school.”. Then he just follows her around and waits for her to take care of him. She brings him his pasta and cutlery, ask him if he needs anything else and eventually pats him on his back. While he is eating with a fork, she is taking care of the mail/bills.
Andrea is also mentioning the ‘cue’ that Tony is waiting for. Tony seems to need a caring person, specially since Melfi is refusing him as a patient.
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The girl I was watching this with interpreted actually Melfi’s rejection of Tony as a play, in that she was secretly hoping that Tony would press her further to take him back; and that she was disappointed when he left. Though she is watching this for the first time.
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girls do like to interpret things
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Tony puts his mother’s house on the market, which his sister Janice clearly doesn’t want to have happen. Living under Tony’s roof gives him some control over her, but if she were able to live in Livia’s house, she’d have an independent base of operations. Tony finds the For Sale sign for Livia’s house in Janice’s car, which made my wife wonder if the vandalism by “neighborhood teenagers” to Livia’s house (broken windows, messed-up toilets), wasn’t really done by Janice, to force Tony to take the house off market long enough for Janice to get her mother, and therefore herself, back in the house.
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At 18:34 Tony is thanked by his lawyer for getting him some on the stock fraud shares (Webistics) “I sold off some of my Disney to get it” Is tony screwing his own lawyer here or setting him up for a big payout. In this scene Tony says “the only way to run a family these days is bunker style – you peer out through the slits” and then Hesh says “mumses” What does that mean? I’ve been wondering about that saying since I first started watching the sopranos 6 or 7 years ago.
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I just rewatched this scene and I don’t know what Hesh means. It’s interesting, though, that it is right after this exchange that Tony gets a call and finds out Janice has come into town – he may be peering out through the slits but he didn’t see this one coming…
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He says “Momzers.” The word is MOMZER. It’s a Yiddish word that means “bastard” or any type of really contemptible person.
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ממזר is the Hebrew spelling.
מאמזער is the Yiddish spelling.
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I’m sure that Tony as smart guy never screw such useful person for him. In future episode Tony will give him a bag of money for Carmella in case he will be forced to go on a lam. They have a lot of trust between each other.
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I know I am way late in answering this, but he is setting his lawyer up for a big payout. The scheme involves artifically inflating the stock’s price (a small stock of which the Family owns a significant amount), then dumping it when hey can inflate it no more. I am sure they will include the lawyer when it’s time to dump. The unconnected investors who bought the stock will not likely be so lucky.
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Mumsers: The Yiddish spelling is ממזר but the meaning is either a bastard, a child born as a result of an adulterous or an incestuous relationship, or a stubborn, impudent person, also bright (said admiringly). I don;’t think he would cheat the lawyer, although that’s what I thought at first., he’s probably letting him in on the deal.
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“Mumses” is Hesh’s lazy pronunciation of the Yiddish “Mumzers”: bastards.
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I thought Hesh said “Mumsies”, as in “Mum’s the word”. Keep things quiet & locked down.
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Where you say:
Tony has become Street Boss, Carmela is slaving away in her kitchen, Corrado is in jail, Melfi is working out of a motel, Meadow is an imperfect driver, Chris is interested in movies and cocaine, Tony cheats on his wife.
That part about Tony cheating on his wife, I’m fairly sure that is actually Paulie – correct me if I’m wrong!
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There’s a snippet of Tony in bed with Irina… but Paulie is definitely getting some action too!
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This season and episode is where it all begins to come together. A more complex, multiple story line with more interesting characters in the mix. I could list 10 reasons why this is a standout season to me and maybe my personal favorite. Not sure because season 5 was tough to beat. The first few scenes of this episode sure give us a lot of entertainment and information and it has some boring parts. The Sinatra montage, the return of Big Pussy and the Gigi “big mouth fuck” hit happen all within the first 6 minutes. One of my personal favorite hits of the series. Not that I know shit about it, but quite possibly the way a number of mafia hits could have played out. With the introduction of Janice we see Tony’s stress level immediately increase, and after all who could blame him? In this episode we see Tony have a panic attack, flip out due to Janice having the sign in the car, and trying to reach out to Melfi. He is still sliding down hill. I remember the wait for Season 2 and this episode did not disappoint. Good write up and I especially like how you discuss the fact that time went on between season 1 & 2. Things have changed and it may take a bit of time for the viewer to catch up. Another good example I can think of is Bobby and Janice being married into season 6 (poor prick). And Chris as the SEC Compliance Officer, wow. Up until this point in the series, I thought Chris was a total fuck up. After seeing the Sean and Matthew characters, Chris didn’t seem so bad.
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I felt like the Sean and Bevilacqua characters were introduced to make a point that some people are too damn stupid to even make it in the Mafia. We get quite a few laughs at their expense as the series goes on.
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Tony depends on Carmela for comfort and stability. Whenever another women in his life does something crazy (Gloria) or hurtful (Melfi) he looks to Carmela for comfort because shes the one constant in his life. He would be bereft without her, even though he would never admit it. There is some happiness in knowing someone for years who knows you better than anyone else and still likes you anyway.
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haha that would make a good marriage vow – “…for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, I’ll still like you anyway…”
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It’s true in most cases.
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Glad to have found this site. I’m watching The Sopranos for the first time and loving it, and I just watched this episode. Nothing useful to add to the discussion but will be back as I work my way through the show’s episodes.
To contradict myself, one point: When Tony met with Melfi the constant stream of traffic outside the diner was both visible and noisy. After she rejected him he went and stood by the roadside. Did anyone else feel, as I did, that he momentarily considered walking into the stream of traffic at that point? (The next we see of him is his early return home, morose and uncommunicative.)
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Welcome to the site Steve, I hope you don’t mind spoilers…
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Thanks Ron.
I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but almost 20 years since the show was first broadcast and given its huge and deserved reputation and press/media coverage I’m ok with any I stumble across (and probably already know a lot of them).
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Yes, the thought that he might step into traffic did cross my mind. I wouldn’t go so far as to say TONY had that literal thought, but the point that he was feeling lost and with little hope was well conveyed.
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Yes I don’t think the thought would have crossed his mind either. He seemed lost but not devastatingly depressed…
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Steve – Nah … Tony’s too much of a narcissist to kill himself. I see his ‘look’ as one of befuddlement; how could his shrink reject what some women gravitate toward – his charisma, ego, and ability to manipulate others! 😉
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We meet Carmela’s parents this season. I forget what episode it was, but I think it was back in Season One when they were rescheduling AJ’s party, and Carmela mentioned that Livia was going to pick up her parents. Ooops. I think that demonstrates how fluid the storyline can actually be rather than every detail being planned ahead. Of course, Carmela’s parents were never a huge part of the show, but Livia obviously was, and it’s always stuck out that the relationship was presented about as backwards as possible.
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wind – I always questioned why Carmela’s parents blamed Livia for negatively affecting their relationship with their daughter; it’s not like they were ‘prevented’ from visiting her! Not only that, but Livia rarely visited the family anyway, so what was the real issue? I don’t think that Mary really enjoyed her visits to the Soprano’s home. In fact, she seemed to be as malicious and ballbusting as her nemesis! [Note: Suzanne Shepard also played Karen’s (Lorraine Bracco, aka Dr. Melfi) overbearing mother in ‘Goodfellas’.]
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Livia is such a toxic woman. When Carmela’s mother tells her “you’re wasting your time, he will get bored of you” on her wedding day – how can they not tell Meadow how awful she is?
We also see Melfi reference on her her patients took their life because of Tony. And later on with another woman… (sorry for spoiler). I love re-watching the series over and over. You really savor the details.
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I know I’m late to the party but I always got the impression that the reason Janice handles the “cigarette” the way that she does, and the reason Tony asks for some, is that it’s a joint!
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Maybe so, but it’s still a bit clumsy 😊
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When Hesh Rabkin and Neil Mink sit down opposite Tony, it is quite a sight. They look like the embodiment of a pair of worldly, corrupt, duplicitous Jewish crooks. And yet Hesh, who we often meet, is a genial man and, as I wrote in a comment on another episode, many Jews would be pleased if he were our grandfather or great-uncle.
– – – – –
In this episode we meet Carmela’s father for the first time. He is presented as a comically hen-pecked husband. He is smoking, and with a wordless look his wife makes him stub out his cigarette. He stands looking out at the garden and flexes his knees, but does not dare to go out. When his wife summons him, “Hugh!”, it sounds as if she is contemptuously saying, “You!” Of course, if you’re a husband yourself, you might feel sorry for him.
Later, his character is changed, strengthened, somewhat for the sake of the story, and he plays a part in a sub-plot.
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Tom Aldredge was so great as Hugh…
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Who would argue with Carmela’s mother? He picks his battles.Like a lot of men married for a long time.
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Ron, I’ve read through your recaps at least five or six times as I re-watch the series. It’s absolutely excellent. Thanks for posting it.
Can’t believe I’m finally commenting. The Sopranos has so many fantastic characters: major and minor. Carmela’s parents are among the best. Referenced in R.K.’s post, the look Mary DeAngelis gives Hugh, and his frown, is gold. She steals many scenes throughout the series.
Artie, with his hand gestures.
Neil, the scummy attorney.
The Polish maid and her hilarious husband.
For me, The Sopranos never gets old.
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Thanks Chuck. Suzanne Shepherd was great as Carmela’s mom. (I wonder if she got the role because of how good she was playing Karen’s mom in GoodFellas…) The secondary characters bring so much to The Sopranos, they are essential to the show. I think Seinfeld may be the only American TV series that got more mileage out of its minor/secondary characters (Poppie, Puddy, Newman, Lloyd Braun, Jack Klompas, Uncle Leo, the Soup Nazi, The Maestro, the Close Talker etc etc..)
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Such a fabulous analysis, loved it. When I watch a sopranos episode, I check out sopranos autopsy, I am watching for the second time and gosh I would have missed so much had I not gone through this. This is such a brilliant detail sneak into the episode🔥
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Thanks!
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While I usually find The Sopranos exquisitely accurate, I did notice several errors in the “Dr. Melfi” part of the opening montage.
– She touches the female patient on the shoulder as the patient leaves. But psychoanalytic therapists are trained to never touch their patients.
– As soon as the female patient leaves, the male patient enters. But actually, therapists try to leave a little break between patients.
– I doubt Melfi would have continued seeing patients while she was trying to keep a low profile to keep from being murdered.
By the way, it is also unrealistic to have Melfi socializing with the Kupferbergs at the regular therapist dinner parties. It is against professional ethics to have patients and therapists socialize with each other. Also, I think it was unrealistic for a patient to have killed themselves while she was in hiding, since she obviously kept seeing patients so presumably continued having telephone contact with them.
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Watched – You are mostly correct; it IS unethical for patients (‘clients’ actually) to socialize outside of the office AND psychiatrists do not touch their clients. Doctors allow around 10 minutes between clients for two reasons: (1) to allow time for writing case notes and (2) so that clients won’t see each other (privacy concerns). It was definitely inappropriate (actually unethical) for Melfi to blame Tony for her client’s suicide, as she (client) could easily called Melfi during her crisis. Additionally, Melfi’s refusal to allow Tony to return to therapy calls into question her competence as a licensed professional. In the ‘real world’, Tony could have sued her for malpractice!
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In the Sinatra montage, the first shot of Tony (the first we see of him since the end of season 1) is him sitting in the backroom of the Bing…playing solitaire. Seems to be another nod to Tony’s loneliness and solitude, which is portrayed with wonderful subtlety in the final scene of the episode and throughout the series.
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Fantastic note
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Pingback: The Soprano Onceover: #54. “Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist’s Office…” | janiojala
Livia’s ‘conversion reaction’ is better known as a conversion disorder, a condition in which one has physical symptoms of a health problem, but there are no illnesses or injuries. It may be brought on by stress or other mental health issues/illnesses. Basically, the bitch is nuts. 🤨
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Small world:
Sopranos actors Max Cassella (‘Benny Fazio’), Elizabeth Bracco (‘Marie Spatafore’, Vito’s wife, and Lorraine Bracco’s real life sister), and Tony Darrow (aka: Anthony Borgese, ‘Larry Barese’) all had roles on ‘Analyze This’!
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Stray thoughts:
I’m surprised to see Tony continue to slob-out (displaying underwear in full view of the neighborhood), which is far worse than wearing shorts! The wind is blowing only 3 or 4 trees around when Tony and Janice converse, but all the others are still. Chris makes a snorting sound (he’s supposed to be snorting cocaine), but the ‘line’ is still there. And he seems more strung out on heroin than on cocaine. Livia’s favorite saying is “Girls are better at taking care of their mothers”, but both of her daughters ditched her as soon as they could. Carmela jumps down Tony’s throat for ‘self-medicating’, and then tells him to have a beer at their party. Wow. Talk about being an enabler. (P.S. Tony’s airbag finally deployed!)
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The very last song we hear in season one is from Bruce springsteen and the first we hear in season two is Frank sinatra, both New Jersey natives. coincidence? David Chase doesn’t do coincidences
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Excellent write up as always Ron ! When you come to Croatia, you’ll get a free drink of choice in any bar, caffe shop and restaurant , this is the 4th time i read all your analysis , all of them in the last 4 years, you should be made already, as far as this July books will open and you’re the first to get in famiglia !
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I hope I can take you up on that offer one day, cheers Mario!
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Good point on the opening and closing songs. Sinatra implies Tony’s cheating has reached an end game. He’s done it all, and can only repeat his exploits, clinging to the prowess he once had. Midlife crisis might be another term. “The Thrill is Gone” might have worked for this montage too, but could have come off as aping Scorsese’s use of the song to score Nicky Santoro and Ginger’s soulless, primitive affair in Casino.
Meanwhile, Carm is just getting started. If we’re to summarize the use of Sinatra to score Tony’s infidelity then we have to summarize Time Is On My Side to score Carmela’s. This is foreshadowing because Carmela does have an affair this season with Vic Musto, planting a kiss on him then later catching up with him at paint store to promise reuniting with him when she leaves Tony.
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