Long Term Parking (5.12)

Blundetto remains in hiding after killing Billy Leotardo.
Adriana and Silvio go for a ride.

Episode 64 – Originally aired May 23, 2004
Written by Terence Winter
Directed by Tim Van Patten

___________________________________

“Heartbreaking” is the word that kept popping up in online forums in the days after this episode aired. Probably no Sopranos episode pulled at the heartstrings like “Long Term Parking” did. I remember two or three weeks after Season 5 ended, I caught myself moping around the house, feeling kinda down. This in itself was not very surprising—I always went through a period of withdrawal after a season wrapped up. But I felt particularly raw that summer of 2004—and then I realized what it was: I was still bummed out over the death of Adriana LaCerva.

I’m not normally prone to overly emotional responses to the deaths of fictional characters. So why was I so downcast over the demise of this big-haired Jersey girl? The answer: because David Chase wanted me to be. “Long Term Parking” is a powerful, resonating hour in and of itself, but much of its resonance also comes from its connections to long-running threads, associations and images from over the course of the series. Some of the bells that ring in this hour are set off by mallets that began their swing years ago. Almost everything in this episode—every twist, every scene, every line of dialogue—is anchored to something that we’ve viewed or heard or understood in previous episodes. If we are shaken by “Long Term Parking,” it is because the hour taps so deeply into our experience of being embedded in SopranoWorld over the last 5 seasons.

Another reason why this episode works so well is its position in Season 5. Looking back at the series now, many of us would consider Season 5 to be fairly conventional, especially in comparison to the unorthodox manners of Season 6. But at the time of its original airing, Season 5 was still quite unconventional by normal TV standards. It was not typical, for example, to have so many characters enter and exit a series in the span of just a few episodes, and it wasn’t typical to have so many storylines that didn’t contribute to some sort of “larger” plot. There was: Lady Shylock, who made quite an impression in SopranoWorld but was dispatched pretty quickly; Feech, who got ushered out of the narrative more quietly than we would have predicted; Corrado’s mini-strokes which explained (some of) his assholey behavior; Hugh’s birthday party which was almost Seinfeldian in that very little happened there; a black bear that managed to represent various—sometimes contradictory—things; the list of curiosities goes on… And then on top of that, the almost avant-garde “Test Dream” came along and took a big swat at the very notion of conventionality. We didn’t know what to expect now for the 12th episode, although most of us were probably guessing that Tony Blundetto’s increasing troubles would be the main topic. But Blundetto’s story is actually Plot “C” in episode 5.12. Chase puts his primary spotlights on Adriana and Carmela instead, and he does so in a very conventional way. This, I believe, is where the hour’s power truly comes from—“Long Term Parking” is an emotionally gripping episode, certainly, but it also pulls us in with its conventionality. It represents a return to a more traditional form of storytelling at the end of a season that jolted some of us (and bored some others) with its unconventionality.

The episode begins with the FBI reviewing some suspicious footage that they’ve gotten from the camera behind the Crazy Horse. Adriana is busy planning her wedding, with no idea that serious trouble lies just ahead. Adriana’s greatest worry right now (and her mother’s too) is that her medication will give her a Jerry-Lewis-moonface on the wedding day. But when a body is found with connections to the Crazy Horse, the Long Branch police department pay her a visit. The FBI sees this as an opportunity to apply more pressure to her. (When Chief Cubitoso yells at Adriana, Agent Harris gingerly gives her a glass of water to drink—Harris was there the last time they turned up the heat on Adriana and she slimed them all with her projectile vomit.) Ade pleads to the Feds that she had nothing to do with the murder. It is Matush that is the guilty party. Chase’s decision to bring back Matush for this episode is brilliant for multiple reasons. For one thing, it emphasizes the idea of connectivity: we first met Matush in “The Telltale Moozadell” (3.09), the same episode in which Adriana was given the Crazy Horse. This early connection between Matush and the Crazy Horse comes to a head now. (This is an example of how the episode’s resonance comes partly from associations that were first made years ago.) More interestingly, Matush was first introduced to us prior to the attacks of 9/11, but Chase brings him back now as a Muslim with possible links to terror organizations. In doing so, Chase adds a vicious and bitter irony to Adriana’s story. (I’ll come back to this later.)

Adriana convinces the Feds that she will be able to get Christopher to flip against the famiglia. We might believe for a moment that Ade can succeed at this; after all, Chris has been frustrated and angry at Tony and other members of his famiglia for several episodes now. However, Chris begins to fume when Ade reveals that the FBI have their hooks in her. The rising bubbles in the fish tank behind Chris seem to mimic the emotions that are boiling within him:

I thought for sure that this was the end of Adriana. Chris takes her to the absolute brink. But he gains control of himself and releases her. And then Adriana actually does begin to flip him. In Season 2, Chris had to make a career choice: the movies or the mob. Ade now finesses his deep-seated desire to become a filmmaker/writer: “You could start writing again,” she tells him. (“I could do my memoirs, finally,” he muses.) It’s starting to look like there might be a light at the end of their tunnel.

But Chris needs cigarettes. Adriana begs him not to leave, offering her own cigs to him. He wants to drive to the store to get his own brand instead. (Ah, the perils of brand loyalty.) When he leaves the cocoon of their apartment, can we describe him as a broken hero on a last chance power drive?

The sugar-coated idea of the Witness Protection Program that sounded so good when Adriana presented it to him back at the apartment starts to turn sour at a gas station. As Christopher caresses his beloved Hummer H2, he gets a glimpse of his future in the form of a mullet-headed yokel. Chris doesn’t wanna be a mook like everybody else. He doesn’t want a life that is even more banal than it already is. He complained back in the first season that “the fuckin’ regularness of life is too fuckin’ hard for me”—and choosing Adriana and the FBI now over the mob now would essentially mean choosing a life of banality and workaday drudgery. It’s not all that difficult to imagine Sylvio or Paulie flipping (as Big Pussy did) if they found themselves ensnared in a trap set by the FBI. But Chris is very caught up in the idea of living The Life of a Made Guy, because this is where he has been building his “arc.” So we are led to wonder: Is Chris willing to forfeit his girlfriend’s life in order to maintain the relatively exciting, expensive lifestyle that is such an integral part of how he defines himself?

David Chase plays the next couple of beats very close to the vest, making it difficult for us to know for sure if la famiglia has found out that Adriana is a snitch. James Gandolfini is in particularly fine form here: when Tony calls Adriana to say that Christopher has attempted suicide, nothing in his performance tips his hand—we don’t know if he is telling the truth or if it’s all just a ruse to get Adriana out of the apartment. For a brief moment, we are led to believe that Adriana has packed a suitcase and is making a run for it. But it turns out she is only daydreaming. (For me, the image of her suitcase strongly recalls the image of Finn’s suitcase a couple of episodes ago, when he felt threatened by the mob and considered running away from New Jersey.) Chase inserts a couple of enigmatic shots of trees here as Adriana looks out the window of Silvio’s car. The trees somehow seem to portend that a horrible event is imminent…but then again, they’re just trees…I mean, what else is she supposed to be seeing as they drive through this forested area? Silvio is an inscrutable figure as he sits behind the wheel. Is he the man that has been sent to finish Adriana? Or is it a caring, avuncular Sil that comforts Ade now, much like he comforted her when Christopher lay in a coma back in episode 2.09?

The song playing on Sil’s radio may be signaling what type of man he is: it is Heart’s “Barracuda.” When Silvio pulls into an isolated area in the woods, the truth of the situation finally dawns on Ade. She tries to escape. Silvio calls her a cunt and wrenches her out of the car. We might note that her last moments on earth look a lot like Lorraine Calluzzo’s final moments:

By putting both women on their knees, perhaps Chase is making some comment about the subservient position of women in SopranoLand. Or perhaps it is just another example of echoing imagery in an episode that reverberates with echoes from the past. Perhaps the rhyme of the images are nothing more than a coincidence. (What really stands out for me in Adriana’s final moments is the presence of the slick black Seville in the background, parked at a jaunty angle behind Silvio as he pulls out his gun; if not for the terrified woman trying to scramble away from death, this would almost look like an advertisement for Cadillac. These mobsters have a luxurious lifestyle, replete with expensive cars—but it comes at a high price, paid in blood.) We are spared the sight of Adriana’s execution as the camera tilts up into the trees, and it is this arboreal canopy that we are looking at when we hear two gunshots.

When the episode first aired, I revolted at the idea that Adriana was killed. We didn’t actually see her death, we only heard gunshots, and so I grasped at the hope that perhaps it was Silvio that had been shot and killed. (By who? I don’t know, perhaps a local hunter or a picnicking off-duty cop. Hell, I even hoped that Valery the Russian might have emerged from the trees that he disappeared into in “Pine Barrens” to come save Adriana now.) Adriana LaCerva was a flawed person, at times greedy and hypocritical. But she had a vulnerability and guilelessness that we didn’t see very often in SopranoWorld. It may not be accurate to describe Adriana as “innocent,” but her relative innocence in comparison to the wickedness of the monsters that surrounded her made her death a difficult thing to swallow.

Agent Robyn Sanseverino doesn’t want to believe that Adriana is dead either. But Cubitoso and Harris know better. Chief Cubitoso orders the Nievez murder case to be taken over from the Long Branch Police because of Matush’s possible terrorism connection. (The FBI agents raised their eyebrows when Ade told them that Matush had become very religious and was sending money to a “prep school” back in Pakistan; they must suspect Matush of funding terror-teaching madrassas.) And this is how David Chase throws in a cruel, vicious irony to Adriana’s fate: Cubitoso had used the Long Branch P.D.’s murder investigation as a way to increase the pressure on Adriana, but he actually had the power to take control of the investigation all along. He could have actually relieved the pressure that was mounting on the young woman, which might have ultimately prevented her death. The Feds ended up being as heartless to Adriana as the mobsters who killed her. It doesn’t take bureaucrat Cubitoso very long at all to put the loss of Adriana out of his mind and return to his paperwork. It’s back to Business As Usual at the FBI.

I guess it is pretty obvious in hindsight, but once Adriana fell into the clutches of the FBI, there was no way she would ever taste real freedom ever again—except through death. Christopher dumps Adriana’s suitcase (that symbol of potential freedom) in a remote area, and leaves Adriana’s car (a Ford Thunderbird, one of the great American symbols of freedom and “the open road”) at an airport parking lot. And then he snorts a little H to escape the pain. Chris is going back to Business As Usual as well: heroin.

___________________________________

Carmela has wanted a man in the house ever since Tony left, but her son AJ and her father Hugh do not really fit the bill. Now she talks to Tony about the conditions of a possible reconciliation as he sets up the TV. (Is there a more effective cultural shorthand for manliness than being able to manipulate the remote control?) The duo iron out the details of their reconciliation over dinner at Vesuvio. Carmela names her price, and gets it—literally. Even after several viewings, I still snort with astonishment—and some admiration—at how Carmela reveals the cost of the lot for her spec-house with such nonchalance (a well-rehearsed nonchalance, surely): “Six hundred thousand.” What would Dr. Krakower say about Carmela’s little arrangement? (In 3.11, he told her that staying married to Tony is the equivalent of accepting blood-money.) What would Father Obosi say? (In 3.12, he counseled her to live only on Tony’s legitimate earnings.) On the other hand, who gives a shit what these losers would say—Carmela has got her groove back, that’s the important thing, right? She can once again be the Soprano family homemaker, going back to the role that she is most comfortable playing. In addition, she gets to literally be a homemaker—build a house on speculation and hopefully turn a tidy profit on its eventual sale.

For his part, Tony promises that his so-called “mid-life crisis problems will no longer intrude on you anymore.” (Prof. Yacowar notes that this is more a promise of “discretion rather than fidelity.”) The fact that Tony recently dumped Valentina, his main squeeze, after she was damaged in a fire may make it easier for Tony to make this promise to Carmela. I think Valentina’s presence in this episode is very interesting because it helps us recall a previous arrangement between Carm and Tony. It was Valentina’s acrylic fingernail which Carmela found in “Mergers and Acquisitions” (4.08) that prompted Carm to filch tens of thousands of dollars from the backyard storage bin without Tony’s permission. By the end of that hour, husband and wife had forged a nice little compromise: Carmela won’t ask about the fingernail as long as Tony doesn’t ask about the filched money. A very similar arrangement between them, larger in scale, has now been made in “Long Term Parking.” History certainly does repeat itself in SopranoWorld.

Tony moves back home. The family is feeling a little tentative and uncomfortable around the dinner table at first. AJ even describes the situation as “fuckin’ weird.” Chase heightens the weirdness by giving the scene an unusual lighting scheme. It’s all soft glow and shadows, very unusual for the Soprano dining room. But things pep up when Tony pops open a bottle of champagne. After dinner, Tony sits in front of the TV with a bowl of dessert—just like the ol’ days. The W.C. Fields film It’s A Gift plays on the television. It may be worth noting that It’s A Gift had played on Tony’s television back in “The Telltale Moozadell,” the episode in which Adriana received the Crazy Horse nightclub as a gift from Chris. Now, three years later, after the FBI try to leverage a murder at the nightclub against her, we see that this was one gift that Adriana would have been better off without.

The final scene of the episode starts off with a shot of the overhead tree canopy, very similar to the canopy that we looked at when Silvio raised his gun at Adriana earlier in the hour. We think for a moment that we’re back at that same location. (Even now, I find myself hoping that the camera would track down from the canopy to find Adriana and Valery the Russian sitting around a campfire, roasting Silvio on a spit.) But these are not the same trees—we are at a different location. For years now, Chase has been associating trees with a cluster of dark emotions and issues. Trees have been associated with death, decay, confusion, uncertainty and depression. Some examples:

While deeply troubled by Jackie Aprile’s cancer diagnosis and questions about the ultimate meaning of life in Season 1, Tony believed
he saw a rotting tree in Dr. Melfi’s “Korshack” painting:

A shot of wind rustling through the overhead trees came just before Corrado and Livia’s hired goons made an attempt on Tony’s life in “Isabella”:

The image of a fallen tree (and then the sound of another tree falling two minutes later) in “I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano” closed out the first season:

Trees were abundant in the Pine Barrens, a place of violence, ambiguity and possibly death (and I will also note that the imagery of Paulie’s Cadillac winding its way through the trees in that hour is now echoed by the imagery of Sil’s Caddy in the current episode):

In “Whitecaps,” Chase cut to a shot of overhead trees just after Credenzo Curtis and Stanley Johnson are killed, and Tony is looking up at these trees in his
backyard after his marriage to Carmela hits troubled waters:

In “The Test Dream,” we watch the wind rustle a tree just after Phil Leotardo is shot by Blundetto (and just before a man in the crowd
asks Tony about capping Blundetto):

As the Soprano couple steps into the frame now in “Long Term Parking,” we understand that these are not the woods where we last saw Adriana but the wooded lot that Tony has purchased for Carm’s spec-house. Chase’s rhyming shots of the two overhead canopies were so effective that some viewers made too literal a link: they believed that Adriana was buried in this newly purchased property. This defies logic, because Tony would never put her corpse (or what’s left of it) so close to home. But Adriana is nevertheless “in” this land: this land was purchased with blood-money, and now Adriana’s blood is in Tony’s—and Carmela’s—account. Tony has tears in his eyes as he scans their new property:

Tony knows that their lifestyle comes at a very high cost. Carmela knows it too, but she blinds herself to the details of the ledger book. She needs to keep herself blinded if she is to park herself, for the long term, with Tony Soprano.

________________________________

Blundetto’s storyline was at the heart of the previous episode, but in a totally unconventional way. We didn’t even see his attack on Phil and Billy Leotardo, because Chase was too busy giving us a tour of Tony’s subconscious. But this episode returns to Blundetto’s story in a more conventional manner. We are even shown the attack that Blundetto made in the previous episode (through Phil’s flashback) now. Unfortunately for Blundetto, Lil Carmine pulls out of the power struggle in New York, allowing Johnny Sac and Phil to take the reins. These guys don’t have very kind feelings toward New Jersey or Tony S. or Tony B. right now.

I don’t exactly remember the first movie I saw with Steve Buscemi in it. Was it Mystery Train? Miller’s Crossing? Whatever it was, I felt from an early point that this was an actor, despite his bad teeth and weathered-looking face—or perhaps because of his bad teeth and weathered-looking face—who had the ability to project the soul of whatever character he was playing up on to the screen, regardless of how mean or misfit or dimwitted that character might be. Buscemi certainly brought a measure of soulfulness to the character of Tony Blundetto. In a poignant scene now, Blundetto calls Tony to ask him to take care of the twins. Tony is irked, not so much by the request but by the entire situation. Blundetto is aware of the immense trouble he has caused and expresses his regret: “I don’t know what to say cous’. I’m leavin’ you with a real pile of shit in your lap.” Tony is moved, and finally reveals to Blundetto why he was not there the night of the truck hijacking. Tony is trying to clear his conscience so that he can do what he has to do next. He makes two quick calls—one to his man at the phone company and one to Uncle Pat—and is able to figure out exactly where Blundetto is hiding out. We wonder: will Tony divulge his cousin’s whereabouts to Phil and Johnny Sac?

Chase had used the New York mob to bring some suspense to Season 4, when the HUD scam and the Esplanade profits became thorny issues. Chase utilizes the NY guys to ramp up tensions in the final quarter of this season as well. Johnny Sac and Phil are thirsty for blood, licking their chops at the thought of ripping Blundetto apart. Tony Soprano is a reasonable businessman—he knows that his cousin must pay the price. But he will not tolerate Johnny Sac’s irrationality. Or his arrogance. John has assumed the mantle of the New York famiglia, and the ascendency immediately goes to his head. When he and Tony meet for a face-to-face in a scenic spot beneath the Manhattan Bridge, John insists that they do not ever meet like this again—it’s “undignified.” (John had no problem meeting with Tony like this before he became Boss. It was only 6 episodes ago in “Where’s Johnny?” that they met near the old Shea Stadium [a setting that reminded me of the cover of The Great Gatsby.]) Johnny Sac is being unreasonable now, and copping an attitude too, so Tony takes cousin Blundetto’s side and tells John to go fuck himself. And so we go into the season finale fully expecting an all-out war between NY and NJ.

___________________________________

EPISODE TITLES AS FORESHADOWING?
We may remember that a parking attendant mentioned long term parking in the previous episode, and now a major death occurs in this episode entitled “Long Term Parking.” In “Long Term Parking,” Rusty Millio says the phrase “all due respect” and a major death occurs in the next episode, “All Due Respect.” It seemed to many of us that Chase was setting up a sort of pattern: when an episode title gets directly mentioned or referenced within the show, it somehow connects to the death of a major character. Of course, there may not be enough examples to justify calling it a pattern, and I don’t think the “pattern” is strictly followed anyway. Chase is too interested in the concept of ambiguity to create and then follow any sort of fixed, definite pattern. But if this pattern does indeed exist, it’s intriguing what that might imply for the episode that follows “Long Term Parking” and “All Due Respect”— “Members Only” features a man in a Members Only jacket, and many viewers believe that a very major character was killed by a man in a Members Only jacket in the Series Finale.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Drea DeMatteo won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her work in this episode. (She deserves it just for the way she says “Oh you fuckin’ piece of shit” to callous agent Robyn.) I think DeMatteo took a page out of Steve Buscemi’s book for her work on The Sopranos: she opens herself up and lets Adriana’s soul glimmer through all that makeup and hairspray and synthetic fabric right up on to our screens. It was all the way back in episode 4.02 (which aired a full 20 months before “Long Term Parking”) that Adriana was pressured to become an FBI mole. During all that time, her gut told her that this was something that would not end well for her; her gut was literally sick and contorted all the time. Maybe if she was a little bit brighter and strong-minded, she would have found a way to manage the entire situation better and ultimately not have gotten herself killed in the woods. And if she was truly bright and independent, she would have left Chris a long time ago and never have gotten herself into this situation in the first place. But that’s not who she was. She was a needy creature who clung to Chris in her desperation, trusting that everything would work out fine. (Even in this hour, she physically clings to Chris just moments after he almost chokes the life out of her.) While her personal failings contributed to her ultimate destiny, there was also a sense throughout her story that Fate was setting her up for an ambush that she could not escape. Though we may be shocked by Adriana’s murder here, we recognized for some time now that SopranoWorld was becoming a trap for her. It is a dark, fatalistic sensibility that Chase is presenting to us, this idea that the Universe will serve up brutal circumstances that combine with a person’s moral and emotional shortcomings to inevitably lead that person to their doom. This sensibility becomes more and more pronounced as the series continues, from the next hour “All Due Respect” all the way through to the end of Season 6.

___________________________________

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

The deer hunter: The name “Silvio” is derived from “sylvan,” meaning of the forest, and “La cerva” means the deer in Latin. I certainly don’t believe that David Chase knew Silvio would kill Adriana LaCerva in a forest as she scrambled away on all fours like a deer when he named these characters so many years ago—it’s just one of those weird coincidences.
According to a couple of sources, David Chase wanted to include a scene of Chris giving Adriana up to Tony in this hour. But others convinced Chase to shelve the scene, rightly so in my opinion, thereby increasing the suspense and power of the episode. (Chase eventually uses the scene, to great effect, in next season’s “The Ride.”)
Adriana wears two tiger-print outfits in this episode, and tiger-prints have long been a staple of her wardrobe. For this reason, some viewers connect Ade with the orange tabby that appears in the final episode of the series.
Johnny Sac doesn’t believe that Blundetto committed murder without Soprano authorization, and he sarcastically says to Tony, “The lone gunman theory!” So this may explain the Oswald-like imagery in Tony’s dream in the previous episode:

We may remember that Hugh humorously referred to Carmela as “Virginia Mayo” in “Marco Polo,” the episode in which Tony began the process of pulling Carmela back to him. Now, as Carmela has maneuvered a $600k piece of land for herself, we see that she has once again become the gangster’s girl, the type of woman that Virginia Mayo so famously played.
Shawn Smith’s “Leaving California” sets the appropriate tone for Adriana’s last car ride on earth. And his “Wrapped in My Memory” closes out the episode. Wow. Just wow.
Chase uses shots of trees to stitch scenes together in this episode, and tree imagery is a recurring motif that creates links throughout the entire series. In The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, Manuel Lima demonstrates that tree imagery (including “tree diagrams”) have been used for thousands of years in various cultures to organize and connect information. With his use of tree imagery, David Chase is tapping into an ancient visual archetype to create connectivity within The Sopranos.

Follow @SopranosAutopsy
Facebook.com/RonBernard
Instagram sopranos.autopsy
Email: Ron@SopranosAutopsy.com
If you’d like to help support this site, please visit my Venmo or PayPal
© 2020 Ron Bernard

135 responses to “Long Term Parking (5.12)”

Garret | November 28, 2017 at 5:33 pm | Reply

I know it is “heartbreaking” that she was killed off, but in reality she was very complicit in Chris’s lifestyle.

LikeLiked by 3 people
- Ron | November 29, 2017 at 10:17 am | Reply
  
  I just searched thru my write-up and saw that I neglected to put the word “betrayal” anywhere in there… What I found heartbreaking more than her death per se was the fact that she was betrayed by Chris. She was definitely complicit, as you say. But its still tragic when someone, even someone as morally compromised as Adriana, is so betrayed by the person they care most about…
  
  LikeLiked by 6 people
  - JRH | October 14, 2018 at 8:59 pm | Reply
    
    But Chris clearly felt betrayed by Adriana. How could exposing her betrayal of him and the family be seen as his betrayal of her?
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
- Sophie | July 11, 2020 at 11:20 pm | Reply
  
  I think you’re onto something with this Valery thing. We know he’s a technological guy, so he probably saw a clip of her death on YouTube, and decided to construct a catapult to fling him around the world backwards, sending himself back in time to scare off Silvio. Adriana decided to move to the place furthest away from New Jersey she knew – Delaware – but she mis-clicked on the web ticket form and ended up on a plane to Denmark, where she ended up in a flat-share with Georgette and Tralala from Last Exit to Brooklyn, Beth March, the Iron Giant, John Coffey and the Champ, and their two rescue dogs, Seymour and Old Yeller. (Also Mufasa is there).
  
  Twenty years later, she attains minor fame playing ‘Sarmela Coprano’ in a screen adaptation of mob roman a clef ‘Fucking Regularness’ by Mhris Coltisanti.
  
  LikeLiked by 5 people
- Grouchy Sinatra | November 22, 2020 at 3:19 pm | Reply
  
  More like mildly complicit. Before the murder inside of the club literally all the FBI had on her was talking about coke.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
Dude Manbrough | November 28, 2017 at 9:10 pm | Reply

“I’ll see ya up there”…right then I assumed Ade was a goner. You can plainly see the pain on his face as he surreptitiously says goodbye to her, as he obviously always liked her, but there’s nothing more disposable in Sopranoland than a female rat. Poor Ade, always so gullible, there’s no WAY I’m getting in Sil’s car under those circumstances.

LikeLiked by 3 people
Dude Manbrough | November 28, 2017 at 9:14 pm | Reply

Oh, quick minor correction…it’s Long Branch PD, Long Branch is a Jersey shore town a bit north of Asbury Park, once a resort-type place and now a mix of yuppie hipsters and downtrodden inner city.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | November 28, 2017 at 9:52 pm | Reply
  
  Ah, thanks
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
AS | November 29, 2017 at 4:12 am | Reply

Great write up as always, been looking forward to this one in particular! A subtle detail that I missed the first time around is that Tony calls Adriana from a payphone… a pretty big hint in retrospect that Adriana’s fate is sealed.

LikeLiked by 3 people
- Ron | April 1, 2018 at 12:14 am | Reply
  
  True
  
  LikeLike
Tiago Machado | November 29, 2017 at 10:42 am | Reply

As always great analysis, you´re the man Ron! I liked when you mention the crazy horse, as the “gift” in her life that started the downward spiral, i always had the feel she looked at crazy horse as her gateway from that sick world she was in. Something similar happened with Christopher i think, in my opinion, “cleaver” is the main reason behind his death, it´s the moment when Tony starts looking at him as a serious threat , not his beloved fucked up nephew anymore, but a bittered man who could kill him . Both were caught up in their own dreams, careful what you want, seems to make sense when we look at their deaths.
Anyway, greetings from Portugal!

LikeLiked by 3 people
- Dude Manbrough | November 29, 2017 at 10:13 pm | Reply
  
  It all comes back to cleavers. If young Tony never witnesses his father lopping off Mr Satriale’s (a lovely man BTW) finger, perhaps he doesn’t end up suffering from panic attacks, never passes out after the fight with his mother and ends up going to the can along with Tony B.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
Dude Manbrough | November 29, 2017 at 10:11 pm | Reply

I think Carmela “selling out” was a sometimes overlooked moment in Sopranos lore. Carm always wanted security, a “nest egg” of her own to ease her anxiety about something happening to Tony and she finally got it, but at the price of once again burying her head in her cognitive dissonance and ignoring reality. Tony calls her on it (brutally too) in “Chasing It”, as he DID front her the money for the lot and lean on the building inspectors and she really IS a shitty businesswoman who built a piece of shit house she had to dump on her cousin to get “her” money back, as Hugh was just like everyone else in her world, doing everything half-assed and/or wrong in pursuit of a buck. Carmela is just as amoral as the rest of them only she tries harder to pretend she isn’t.

Just my opinion but the scene where Chris sees that schlub loading the wife and kids into that horrible car was JUST a touch on the nose LOL, I mean wow, that guy was just BEATEN by life. Love your write-ups and greatly looking forward to the rest, esp. 6B which IMO is the single greatest season of television ever made.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Jamie | December 5, 2017 at 10:02 pm | Reply

I thought the Blundetto murder was a bit unorthodox – a shotgun to the face, with gloves on. We are usually shown mob murders as a pistol bullet to the back of the head, but this one was quite jarring. I’m not sure you could extrapolate any kind of deeper meaning from this, though.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | December 6, 2017 at 8:52 am | Reply
  
  I think the rationale behind it was that Tony was just doing it as quickly as he could, but Chase was also able to get a lot of shock value out of the scene. That’s in the next episode though…
  
  LikeLike
Amir | December 10, 2017 at 4:27 pm | Reply

Glad to see you posting again! These are always so insightful.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Allan | December 10, 2017 at 11:09 pm | Reply

Great analysis, as always. I saw this episode just last summer. I knew what was going to happen to Adriana, I knew the trip was without return, and even then the episode completely destroyed me (I envy those who did not like Adriana), although I was shocked that the characters did not show too much reaction to her death, especially because when an important character dies in a series I love see the reactions of others characters to it, but then I realized that is what is important in this episode: the characters do not react completely because they are already dehumanized.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Jack N | December 26, 2017 at 8:32 pm | Reply

As season five heads to its endgame your write-ups have risen to the occasion. Great job, Ron, doing service to what many consider (myself included) the finest episode of the series.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | December 26, 2017 at 8:35 pm | Reply
  
  I appreciate that a lot…
  
  LikeLike
Daniel L | January 17, 2018 at 5:01 pm | Reply

“It’s not all that difficult to imagine Sylvio or Paulie flipping”

Wow, really? I find that extremely difficult to imagine. Sylvio, punisher of rats (this episode exemplifies that he hates rats more than anything), was so loyal to Tony all through the series. I honestly can picture Christopher with the FBI (out of spite to Tony, if nothing else) than Sylvio.

LikeLiked by 2 people
- Anonymous | May 7, 2019 at 11:13 am | Reply
  
  Silvio was loyal except when it came to looting the construction site with Patsy. And Paulie was ready to see Tony killed by the New York mob and take over what was left… All these guys have their limits. To me it seems the only thing they’re really loyal to is their own skins, and for all their protestations of loyalty and honor, most of them really would sell each other out if they came up against the hard reality of facing accountability for their crimes
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
Daniel L | January 17, 2018 at 5:02 pm | Reply

Nice website, anyway. Forgot to compliment you on that. Looking forward to read your entries for season 6, particularly my favorite, season 6b.

Cheers!

LikeLike
- Ron | January 17, 2018 at 6:13 pm | Reply
  
  Thanks. I get that Silvio is a very loyal guy, but I don’t think anyone in SopranoLand is above flipping. I think Chase established this idea throughout Season 2 when Pussy—a prototypical mobster and Tony’s best friend—betrayed Tony all season long. In Paulie’s case, there was a period when he thought of colluding with Johnny Sac, so it doesn’t require a too much of a stretch to imagine he could collude with the FBI. (Of course, we knew that Paulie would never actually become a rat because Tony Sirico made Chase promise him that his character would never become a rat.)
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - Steve | April 4, 2018 at 3:15 pm | Reply
    
    I felt that when Silvio gave Patsy the ok to steal from the esplanade construction site against Tony’s orders that it signaled even his loyalty had its boundaries
    
    LikeLiked by 2 people
  - Anonymous | December 30, 2021 at 9:07 pm | Reply
    
    Interesting. Nobody in SopranoLand is really loyal, with the possible exceptions of Bobby’s loyalty to Karen, and Hugh’s loyalty to his family. Everyone else is completely selfish, self-centered and looking out for #1. They constantly feel cheated, slighted, lied to, passed over, disrespected and betrayed. Probably because these things happen a lot, but also because they project their own shortcomings as human beings onto everyone else. Narcissism rules the day, so no one is above flipping or colluding with the FBI in order to save their own skin.
    Omertà is just a relic of the past.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - LK | February 25, 2022 at 8:48 am | Reply
      
      Anon – You’re correct – narcissism really DOES rule the day. But so does rage, greed, money, revenge, and so on. We sometimes forget that the brains of these characters are ‘wired’ differently than those of normal, everyday people – AND because they have no concept of what ‘normal’ IS or even feels like! Are they even capable of imagining a world where one wakes up in the morning feeling refreshed and revitalized, or knowing to limit their intake of ziti, ice cream, drugs, or women? No, of course not. They live in a world without morals or immediate consequences (for deviant behaviors).
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
Jonathan | March 6, 2018 at 3:53 am | Reply

Thank you Ron for continuing your brilliant analysis and giving us all a forum in which to nerd out!

LikeLiked by 1 person
Jonathan | March 6, 2018 at 4:36 am | Reply

My only contribution to the discussion of “Long Term Parking” is in regards to Gandolfini’s performance whilst dining with Carmela at Vesuvio’s. At this point in the season, the audience realizes the marital reconciliation is a foregone conclusion and it’s the details of said event that need to be revealed. The twist (I believe) is that Carmela has orchestrated this night to essentially be a cosa nostra “sit down” in which terms will be put forth to end a conflict. Tony doesn’t seem to realize this when the meal begins. He loves Carmela, he wants her back, and when Carmela states, “I need something else in my life…” He interrupts her and casually remarks, “You want another kid..” while stuffing his face like usual.

Gandonfini’s acting genius is on full display here as it dawns on him that he has to “buy his way back in” (as Vito Spatafore explicitly offers to do after he is outed as a homosexual) to the marriage. When Tony asks Carmela, “What’s the price of the lot?” and she responds (without batting an eye), “Six hundred thousand.” The camera captures (and briefly lingers) on Tony’s expression of absolute heartbreak as he realizes the reality of the situation. Tony’s immense emotional pain is conveyed with one wordless 1-2 second facial expression as only Gandolfini could do, and it’s breathtaking to watch. It’s a gut-punch that gets me every time. The rest of the terms are then hammered out and the business of the “sit-down” is punctuated by one of the most awkward kisses ever. And of course the kiss is awkward as hell because love had nothing to do with this reconciliation.

I love Tony’s expression/realization as just another brilliant piece of writing and acting coming together as it so often did in this show. Gives me chills!

LikeLiked by 4 people
- Ron | March 6, 2018 at 9:13 am | Reply
  
  We sometimes use financial metaphors when talking about love and relationships: “my wife is priceless” or “my daughter is a treasure,” we “invest” in a relationship, we feel “emotionally bankrupt,” we “value” friendships etc. Here, Tony and Carm’s relationship has ACTUALLY become a financial transaction. Tony would probably monetize every aspect of his life if he could, with the one exception being his marriage; to see his marriage now just become another commodity must be heartbreaking to him…
  
  LikeLiked by 4 people
- maarten429 | June 8, 2020 at 6:19 am | Reply
  
  I don’t believe that Tony truly loves Carmela. I thinks he *needs* her for some sort of emotional anchoring – as he needs Melfi. (How many times has he threatened to terminate therapy?)
  
  At this point, the marriage is transactional and little more. Each has something the other needs, but I don’t think it’s love.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
Orangeannie | March 12, 2018 at 1:32 pm | Reply

Her “Price” for giving him a comfortable life, and for looking the other way is 600,000 dollars. She is trying to make her way when the inevitable happens. He hates giving her money, and only really does it when they have a mutual interests. He still reneges on it anyway, because he doesn’t call the building inspector after he recovers, and when she doesn’t make him dinner he gets annoyed because she’s not holding up her end of the deal. When she starts talking about finding Adriana, then he calls the building inspector. He doesn’t take her seriously, really. I always wondered why she didn’t sell all the jewelry and leave him. On some level, she is ok where she is. She had a little fling…so she proved to herself that she is still attractive to men, so she got that out of the way…and when she goes to Paris in the last season, she all but tells him its ok for him to fool around….she wants him to be “true” to her in theory, but in reality…not so much, because its a big burden to her really. They do better when he has a girlfriend, because he’s happier and so is she. JUST DON”T CALL THE HOUSE!!

LikeLiked by 4 people
- Ron | March 12, 2018 at 3:38 pm | Reply
  
  I’m really enjoying your take on the characters and their motivations Orangeannie!
  
  LikeLike
Orangeannie | March 12, 2018 at 1:34 pm | Reply

Adriana was doomed from the time she went to the mall and spoke to the agent. She should have run away as soon as they took her in to the FBI office. Unrealistic ideals….Male modeling, screen writing…Music Manager…come on already. Run…

LikeLiked by 3 people
- bobsaccamanno | February 10, 2022 at 1:26 pm | Reply
  
  I don’t know why mobsters don’t have ready made business cards with a lawyer’s number ready to hand out to their various friends and significant others. And with bullet points on the back:
  1. Don’t say anything but I need to call my lawyer.
  2. Don’t say anything but I need to call my lawyer.
  3. See number 1.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
syscon | April 7, 2018 at 2:40 pm | Reply

I’ve seen this episode numerous times and I never paid any attention to the aquarium let alone the bubbles. Another thing I never noticed is exactly what Chris says while he is choking Adriana. At the 1:11 He starts to say “We’re dead” but He switches in mid sentence to”You’re dead” It’s quick and subtle. She is a dead women from that moment. The couple at the gas station just reinforces the decision.

LikeLiked by 2 people
- Ron | April 7, 2018 at 3:39 pm | Reply
  
  It may be true there are “clues” that Adriana will be killed by the end of the hour, but are we just seeing them in hindsight? In my first viewing, I genuinely thought Ade might survive, up until the moment when Silvio pulled the car into the forest clearing. Maybe I got too focused on the uncertainties produced by Chase’s style of ambiguous storytelling, or maybe I was just being naïve, I really don’t know…
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
- Deeks | April 8, 2021 at 1:15 am | Reply
  
  He also said “I Loved you,” passed tense. Which I thought interesting.
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
syscon | April 7, 2018 at 7:32 pm | Reply

I’m right there with you. I saw this when it first aired and I was taken by surprise like you an everyone else. Having forgot the lesson of the Big Pussy’s fate. I have watch the show over the years in bits and pieces and in 2016 I watched the series on Blu-ray in my perpetually unfinished attempt at a home theater. Then last year I watched the series again with my Late wife who was watching it for the 1st time. Each time I see it it elicits some of the same feelings I experienced initially. My wife’s reaction was just like everyone else’s. She didn’t believe Ade was dead at first. From my experience the deaths of Adrianna and Big Pussy seem to move viewers the most. To this day if this show comes up in a conversation between me and my sister we usually end up debating / discussing those two deaths. With all those past viewings it was only today that I noticed Chris’ little slip of the tongue.

LikeLiked by 3 people
Jim | April 23, 2018 at 4:03 am | Reply

Could Tony’s sad demeanour at the end of the episode signal he knew that Adriana died in a similar setting? Assuming he knew where Sil took her, but we knew how much he did care for her and that maybe that hit was the hardest.

LikeLiked by 2 people
Damien | May 24, 2018 at 8:37 pm | Reply

Chris didn’t betray Ade because of a regular life. He betrayed her, because he always wanted a big family with children. Something that Adrianna was unable to give him. He called her “damaged goods” before.

So when he had seen that family, he realized it’s something Adrianna cannot provide him. That sealed the deal in my opinion.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | May 24, 2018 at 9:07 pm | Reply
  
  You’re right, I’m sure that played into his decision… but remember he was planning a wedding with Adriana when this whole thing went down, so he was actually ok with spending his life with her despite her being “damaged goods”
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
Sue | May 26, 2018 at 8:33 pm | Reply

Excellent write up. Truly. Just wanted to add two things. First: as far as Adriana being associated with cats and possibly with the orange tabby in season six, another car association is in “A hit us a hit” when she is listening to that Defiler song…”Meowwwww.”
Second: the scene after Christopher chokes Ade and they are both crying and moaning and hugging each other is very reminiscent of Goodfellows, when Lorraine Brasco tells Ray Liotta that she flushed the cocaine.

LikeLiked by 2 people
Sue | May 26, 2018 at 8:41 pm | Reply

*I meant another “cat” association, not car.

LikeLike
- Ron | May 27, 2018 at 1:52 am | Reply
  
  “Meoooww” – one of the classic hits of 2004…
  
  LikeLike
Don Y | June 15, 2018 at 8:03 am | Reply

It seems that Adriana’s naivete is contagious. It was heartbreaking/ironic how the female FBI agent told her to “get her head out of her ass” after she was taken in earlier but later suggested that Adriana could’ve escaped, much to the other agents’ disbelief. Guess the agent did care about Adriana in a warped sense, much like Chris did, serving as another parallel between the FBI and the mafia.

LikeLiked by 3 people
Ray Cordiano | September 6, 2018 at 11:53 pm | Reply

I’m glad you brought up the uses of trees and wind. Before reading your analyzations, I thought maybe I was just overthinking the trees, wind, and bells that are used and mentioned throughout the series. But it became obvious that they were all a big part of the show.
I’m also glad you brought up the connection of this episode to “Telltale Moozadell”, and how Tony is shown in both episodes watching “Its a Gift”. In “Moozadell”, hes watching it while laying in bed eating cake, here hes eating ice-cream. Carm sees this while doing the dishes, and perhaps realizing that nothing has really changed with Tony, even after that promise he made. As you put it, its “back to business as usual.”

LikeLiked by 3 people
- Ron | September 10, 2018 at 1:12 pm | Reply
  
  Yes, a lot of the “connections” we may be seeing may be coincidental or reaches, but over the course of the series it becomes obvious that Chase is making a concerted effort to connect things within the episodes..
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
Ray Cordiano | September 8, 2018 at 6:57 pm | Reply

I also want to point out a small detail.. when Adriana is stalling & crying in the FBI bathroom , someone can be heard talking about a sort of dinner party and how they only have “the one leaf”… are they talking about a leaf food platter? ..if so, Adriana receives a leaf platter at her bridal shower in “Watching Too Much Television”.

I guess just too make that scene and the situation that much more depressing.. as Adriana will never be able to use that leaf platter.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | September 10, 2018 at 1:17 pm | Reply
  
  I would guess they mean a table leaf but that’s an interesting observation
  
  LikeLike
JRH | October 14, 2018 at 9:09 pm | Reply

Adriana Le Cerva was never a sympathetic character for me. I saw her as worse than Carmela in regards to wanting the rewards of mob life without the responsibilities. Carmela was conflicted, but Adriana didn’t appear conflicted at all. She didn’t seem to love “Christopher” so much as she loved what Christopehr could give her. Shoes, clothes, support for her music management and finally, Crazy Horse (another connection since Chris was becoming “crazy” about “horse” at this time). I saw no innocence in her in any form and certainly not relative “in comparison to the wickedness of the monsters that surrounded her”. She was complicit in Chris’s rise, knew where he wanted to go and what it took to get there and wanted to be comped a 1st class seat for the ride. She was anything but innocent, but she was naive. She thought she could ride for free, thought she was somehow immune from any consequences. Right up until that day she took her dog for a walk and the FBI showed up. The stress affected so severely (projectile vomiting, IBS, etc.) because it was totally unanticipated. She started grasping at straws, taking her legal advice from TV shows and thinking that marrying Chris would solve all her problems. What might have solved her problems was being more cooperative with the FBI and going into Witness Protection. But that life did not promise the glitz and glamour she wanted. Her choice was predictable, and once she made it—forcing the FBI to increase the pressure—so was her fate.

LikeLiked by 2 people
- Ron | October 14, 2018 at 10:10 pm | Reply
  
  A lot of your points are true and correct, but I think that just because Adriana took into consideration all the glitz and glamor that Chris could provide her doesn’t mean that she didn’t really love him. Literally billions of people have taken lifestyle and material considerations into account when they made their long-term romantic commitments. (And we should note that Ade threw her lot in with Chris even before he became a Made Man, before there was any guarantee he would be able to bankroll a very glitzy life.) She compromised herself morally, certainly, but I think that she was primarily motivated by love, or at least by her understanding of love. Her understanding may be paltry and misguided, but I believe it is genuine — and that makes her very human and relatable to me.
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
  - JRH | October 14, 2018 at 11:45 pm | Reply
    
    I didn’t say she didn’t love Chris, just that she didn’t love him as much as the glitz and glamour. Chris had similar thoughts as he said in the following episode, “She was willin’ to rat me out because she couldn’t do five fuckin years? I thought she loved me.”
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - Ron | October 15, 2018 at 9:22 am | Reply
      
      Ok, but didn’t Chris say that primarily to justify his role in killing her? He can’t tell Tony the truth: that he was seriously considering flipping along with Adriana. Chris may genuinely believe that Ade, if she really loved him, should have opted to serve prison time. But I think (though Chris may disagree) that it would be unreasonable to expect her to voluntarily serve time for a drug charge and/or accessory-to-murder charge which the FBI cruelly trumped up just to get her to cooperate. Instead of refusing to cooperate, she tried to get Chris to turn — which would have meant a life without glitz and glamor but with the man she loves. Of course, by that point in time, none of her choices would have allowed her to continue her posh life. Chase fashions an almost perfect (perfectly absurd and perfectly inescapable) trap for Adriana, and to me it seems very likely that Chase did this in order to get us to sympathize with her.
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
      - JRH | October 15, 2018 at 10:19 am | Reply
        
        Well, she was facing 25 to life, not 5, but did Chris know that? 5 years might be a reasonable expectation for someone in the mob, but not 25. Big Pussy flipped facing 30 and he was not the only one. Ade was not even inside. Chris’s first reaction was “We’re dead, you know that?” and then he almost killed her himself. That’s how Chase left them. When we come back, Ade is trying to flip him. She describes an idyllic scenario. He considers that he could finally write his memoirs. Then he leaves for cigarettes, he sees they guy with his family and knows he can’t live like that. And he probably also realized that writing his memoirs or doing anything that brought attention to himself like a book or a screenplay was just a pipe dream. In other words, he had nothing to look forward to and nothing to live for except life as a schnook (channeling Henry Hill). That is what made the suicide plausible. I think Chris realized that Ade was looking out for herself when she tried to flip him; trying to hang on to what she could. Her vision of WP would be fine for her. He could write his memoirs? For what if he couldn’t publish them. And if he did, Chris would not be working from a trailer office in the Maine backwoods. He wouldn’t be in hiding anymore . He would be exposed, vulnerable. So would she. And he knew that from the moment she told him about the FBI. “How could you fuckin’ do this to us?”
        
        In hindsight, your interpretation is certainly valid, but it requires having developed sympathy for Adriana, and I never could generate any. From the beginning, she just always struck me as being selfish and self-centered. Tragic a figure as she is, it’s still hard for me to have any sympathy for her at this point.
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
        
        Ron | October 15, 2018 at 1:25 pm | Reply
        
        It all comes down to the issue of sympathy. I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot as I watch my country get fractured along political lines. So many of the divisions in the U.S., I believe, stem from our different understandings of what sympathy actually is. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna go deep into politics here, but I’m troubled by how both the Right and the Left practice sympathy. I know that I don’t have the right to insist that you should feel sympathy for Adriana or for anyone else (the insistence to feel sympathy is one of the things that troubles me, particularly how this insistence manifests itself on the Left). But I think it has become necessary in this country for us to find a way in which we can be critical of others while still having a sympathetic understanding of their situation and background. Criticism and sympathy cannot continue to be mutually exclusive concepts.
        
        I’ll go deeper into the issue of sympathy for SopranoWorld characters in later writeups, especially in relation to Meadow who gets far more hate than she deserves…
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
        
        JRH | October 15, 2018 at 3:48 pm | Reply
        
        That will be an interesting examination. I look forward to seeing it. Regarding the larger national issues, for some, empathy can get in the way of sympathy.
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
        
        jetais1 | December 15, 2018 at 3:05 pm | Reply
        
        Adriana was facing 25-life after the Mateuch murder; conspiracy to obstruct or something. After the first charge, possession, she was facing only 5 years. She could have ‘fessed up then, and the mob probably could have helped her. Don’t you think?
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
        
        Ron | December 15, 2018 at 3:13 pm | Reply
        
        Hmm I genuinely don’t know.. the mob will probably always see you as a potential liability once they know you’re caught up in drugs…
        
        LikeLike
        
        LK | December 14, 2021 at 7:58 pm | Reply
        
        Ron – If, as you put it, ‘the mob will probably always see you as a potential liability once they know you’re caught up in drugs’, why the HELL would Tony continue to both berate and coddle Christopher? I mean, it seemed like everyone in the world knew about Chris’ addictions, but the only one who ever mentioned it was Tony (the ‘intervention’ was only a one-shot deal)! And he never did put the fear of God into Chris! 😣
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
        
        Anonymous | December 30, 2021 at 8:06 pm | Reply
        
        Especially if you’ve unwittingly brought an undercover FBI agent into the bosses house
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
        
        LK | February 4, 2022 at 1:32 pm | Reply
        
        jet – I just watched this episode (again). You know, I wonder what would have happened if Adriana told the FBI to f*k themselves and arrest her? I don’t think that they would have tried to hang her for 25 years. They really couldn’t possibly justify that long of a term in prison, especially since she did NOT ‘obstruct justice’ (she did tell them the truth about the murder in her nightclub)! Maybe jail time for drugs, but so what?
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
Paul | November 28, 2018 at 12:15 pm | Reply

The rise of the internet has reduced people’s empathy/sympathy toward others in general. People are numb and that is when mass shootings started taking place. We text, email, and facebook to communicate instead of communicating directly, causes humans to be disconnected.
Adrianna should have known the suicide story was phony, why would they need to drive her and not tell her what hospital he is in. Surely she could drive herself. I thought she would have left the apartment and surrendered to the FBI knowing she was in danger.
They didn’t show what they did with the body, maybe they mention it later. We were shocked when we initially saw his episode.

LikeLiked by 3 people
rob thomas | December 20, 2018 at 3:35 pm | Reply

An extraordinary episode, as you say. One plot hole for me: I can’t believe the Feds would let Ade go and spend the weekend with Chris and not keep the house/her/Chris under surveillance. It does feel like a major oversight and dents the credibility of the ensuing action. Still, it’s a total masterpiece of an episode!

LikeLiked by 3 people
- Paul Giulekas | December 4, 2019 at 4:22 pm | Reply
  
  The chief FBI man said we cannot surveil unless you wear a wire, and she refused so basically she did herself in. If should had the wire the could have rescued her when she was being choked.
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
  - rich | July 22, 2021 at 1:18 am | Reply
    
    Cubitoso does indeed say this–it strikes me as dialogue inserted expressly in anticipation of this otherwise valid critique raised by viewers. I practice criminal law and am aware of no law or FBI protocol that would actually prevent the FBI from keeping an eye on the condo, observing who goes in and oujt, etc.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
G Stone | January 3, 2019 at 5:47 pm | Reply

Never get the lack of sympathy for these characters, though a big part of watching tv is judging the people on the screen from the comfort of our living rooms. Do people really imagine they’d make different choices confronted with the quandaries in The Sopranos? The thing I love most about the show is how there’s no escape from the tracks you’ve laid down — and that were laid down for you at birth — in this life. You were spit out of the Holland tunnel and propelled down the turnpike without any choice.
Then again, these characters resonate at a very deep level for me, the compromises, the addictions, the intolerableness of suburban America. And the love of old movies and ice cream as an escape. With the last shot of this episode, I realize Tony and Carm are my parents, their values, their materialism… but most of all their strength.
I love them. Also, I moved far away and now live the regularness of life in the witness protection program.

LikeLiked by 2 people
- Ron | January 3, 2019 at 5:50 pm | Reply
  
  Chase is critical of these characters but he couches his criticism in a very humane and thoughtful sympathy…
  
  LikeLike
  - LK | November 9, 2021 at 6:49 pm | Reply
    
    Ron – A blog on reddit.com suggests that Adriana was buried ‘up by Ramapo, NY’. I sincerely doubt that she was buried on the spec house property, as considerable digging would be done. Too much risk involved! Also, I don’t think that anyone (other than Silvio) knows the location of her body.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
- James Schultz | November 13, 2021 at 4:04 am | Reply
  
  “Never get the lack of empathy for these characters…”
  
  No kidding! Ron mentioned Meadow getting much more hate than she deserves… seems like every female character gets much more hate – from male fans in particular – than they deserve… they hate Carm supposedly for being complicit in Tony’s crimes, while hating Charmaine for being a prudish ball-buster, constantly trying to keep her juvenile husband from criminal activity.
  
  At what point is this just barely-concealed misogyny???
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
FThatParakeet | January 9, 2019 at 1:20 pm | Reply

Regarding Tony leaving her corpse so close to home, it isn’t as illogical as you make it seem. Several times throughout the series (well, at least once…perhaps I’m thinking of the Goodfellas scene as another instance) a body had to be moved because the land in which it was buried was being sold. Tony was against Carm’s spec house…and now he’s suddenly relented. Wouldn’t purchasing that property ensure that Adrianna’s remains would not be found by others? Sure, she was building the spec house to ultimately sell; but, Tony could–and has–derailed her on numerous occasions. I’m not saying it’s a brilliant plan, but this is not someone who has never made a mistake in judgment. Buying the land for Carm appeases her AND gives Tony control over the land in which Adrianna is buried. Again, not to say that is the case here–it’s just that it is “logical” enough, at least to a character like this, to make sense.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | January 9, 2019 at 2:18 pm | Reply
  
  Ok fair point
  
  LikeLike
Liz | February 2, 2019 at 9:00 pm | Reply

What is up with that thing moving behind Carmela’s right shoulder right before Tony pops the champagne? It’s a person or something? I just watched it twice and it freaked me out so bad I got goosebumps.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | February 2, 2019 at 10:22 pm | Reply
  
  Hmm you intrigued me so I went back and looked at it. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation, but it is definitely creepy…
  
  LikeLike
  - Liz | February 2, 2019 at 10:56 pm | Reply
    
    Somehow it feels intentional. There are so many shots of the Soprano house in this season that feel conspicuously dark and ominous. Meadow entering with her laundry as a dark figure in the background before she joins the conversation in the kitchen. Tony shown as a dark silhouette before he starts a conversation with Carmela in the kitchen mid-season. The final shot of the season shows Tony entering the house, and it should feel like he’s coming in from the cold but instead the house itself looks cold and vacant. All this in such sharp contrast to that champagne celebration and Carmela’s remarks about how much she loves their house and hopes the one she’s building with her father is as good. Carmela seems so blind during this season. I think back to Livia’s funeral, the figure descending the stairs in the background and then going back up. Was that while Carmela was talking? She’s oblivious to how haunted the place is.
    
    LikeLiked by 2 people
    - Nancy Kelley | March 12, 2019 at 3:38 pm | Reply
      
      How about the quick vision of Pussy we see in the mirror when Tony opens a closet during Livia’s funeral after party? That was freak worthy.
      
      LikeLiked by 2 people
- toilet water | August 11, 2020 at 1:08 am | Reply
  
  It’s Tony’s reflection in the glass as he pulls away from the table.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
Nikki | February 10, 2019 at 7:22 pm | Reply

I am so into reading these posts. Thank you so much for your in-depth and incredibly insightful analyses. I feel like I could read an entire book of your analysis of this episode alone. It’s so cold and crushing and expected (but expected in a way that adds to the brutal, existential/nihilistic feel of the whole series, and of the last two seasons in particular).

LikeLike
- Ron | February 10, 2019 at 8:00 pm | Reply
  
  Thanks Nikki. I remember I was kind of pissed off at how cold and brutal the universe is while I was working on this one, but maybe that benefitted the writeup because the universe really shows how cold and brutal it can be in this episode…
  
  LikeLike
  - Anonymous | December 30, 2021 at 7:17 pm | Reply
    
    …and Tony, Sil, and Chris show how cold and brutal they can be.
    I appreciate the tone of the writeup. Just perfect, Ron. A good place for Adriana’s mourners to congregate, sing a song, tell a joke, maybe scarf down some macaroni and gravy…
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
KathyC | February 25, 2019 at 10:51 pm | Reply

I’m rewatching Season 5 and noticed for the first time that when Chrissy is late for a meeting with Tony, he smartassedly gives as his excuse
some of the lyrics from Springsteen’s Born to Run: “The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.”
Very funny, as Silvio is sitting there next to Tony.
But if you recall the lyrics to Born to Run, almost ALL of them apply to this episode ….and foreshadow what is about to happen to Adriana
and the rest of them in the upcoming Season 6:
Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rear-view mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I want to die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss
The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight but there’s no place left to hide
Together Wendy, we can live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don’t know when we’re going to get to that place
Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun
But until then tramps like us, baby we were born to run

LikeLiked by 2 people
Nancy Kelley | March 12, 2019 at 3:54 pm | Reply

I’m rewatching the whole series after many years – and finding it just as fascinating as it was back then. What stood out to me in this episode was the scene when Adriana tells Christopher about the FBI. Christopher’s initial moaning and wailing that came from the absolute depths of his soul – it was exactly like what the essence of true grief feels like. Then when it was overtaken by his raging fury, unleashing and throwing that punch that knocked her back to the couch. The two of them holding each other after he almost strangles her with his bare hands. They were two lost souls right there, it was never clearer than that scene. The murder scene with Silvio was really chilling, perhaps the most chilling murder I’ve seen so far. Because it was a main character killing another main character. The way he just pulled suddenly into that woods, stopped and hopped out of the car. That expression on his face was frightening and how he called her a “cunt” as he just yanked her out of that car. Until that scene, Silvio was the only character that I consistently felt was “playing a mobster”…Steven Van Sandt never truly inhabited his character of Silvio in the way all of the others did with theirs. I was always aware that he was acting the part. Until that scene.

LikeLiked by 5 people
- Ron | March 12, 2019 at 6:48 pm | Reply
  
  I love Van Zandt in this episode, but there may be an interesting question about his performance here. I think his most memorable scene this hour is when Silvio is driving Adriana and we don’t know for sure what his intentions for her are. But: do we not know Silvio’s intentions because Van Zandt does a brilliant job of conveying to us the various possibilities? Or is it because Van Zandt is an unseasoned actor who is unable to convey to us what he has in store for Ade?
  
  Either way, his performance serves the story and the scene perfectly…
  
  LikeLiked by 2 people
  - gruffywinters | December 10, 2019 at 11:24 am | Reply
    
    (Just finished my first rewatch and SO glad for this site!)
    During the drive the camera cuts to Silvio three times. Could just be imagination but to me each time it does Sil’s face gets more hardened, like he’s becoming who he needs to be for this. He starts out telling her to stop crying, Chris’ll be okay, and by the end his face is calling her The Word before he even says anything.
    (finished my rewatch yesterday and still sad. Ade was such a pitiful creature.)
    
    LikeLiked by 4 people
    - Ron | December 10, 2019 at 8:33 pm | Reply
      
      That’s a good take, I don’t think it’s your imagination..
      
      LikeLike
    - rich | July 22, 2021 at 1:29 am | Reply
      
      The drive to the Ramapo woods, i.e. Adriana’s demise is one of my favorite scenes of the entire series in part precisely because of the transformation of Silvio that you’ve identified. And Drea De Matteo plays it so amazingly that you can see her process of gradually figuring out what’s going on, beat-by-beat. Not just that she’s about to be murdered by the old family friend next to her, but that her imminent demise will be the result of Christopher having just sold her out. That realization–and her tears–coincide with Sil’s sinister double-entendre about what a tough kid Chirssy is, i.e. he was resilient enough to choose LCN over her life.
      
      LikeLiked by 2 people
Gavin | April 5, 2019 at 8:32 am | Reply

It’s a Gift – from IMDB “A henpecked New Jersey grocer makes plans to move to California to grow oranges, despite the resistance of his overbearing wife.”
Johnny and Livia?

LikeLiked by 2 people
- Ron | April 5, 2019 at 9:31 am | Reply
  
  Farmer Johnny Boy 😉
  
  LikeLike
- Meredith Eliot | August 10, 2022 at 4:46 pm | Reply
  
  I can’t ever think about oranges the same way after seeing Godfather.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
Gavin | April 5, 2019 at 8:59 am | Reply

The FBI wall chart of the mafia hierarchy also mimics the tree diagrams.

LikeLiked by 2 people
Damien | April 7, 2019 at 3:10 pm | Reply

Unfortunately Shawn Smith, responsible for “Leaving California” and “Wrapped In My Memory”, passed away on 5th April this year. We’ll see him up there.

LikeLike
- Ron | April 10, 2019 at 12:15 pm | Reply
  
  So sad, only 53…
  
  LikeLike
- Aaron David Hernandez | September 9, 2021 at 10:47 am | Reply
  
  I saw Shawn Smith live almost a decade ago, and he was amazing. Just him and his piano, and he brought the entire house to tears with Wrapped In My Memory – then he got the party started back up by leading the crowd into a drunken singalong of Prince’s Purple Rain. The man was a truly talented musician, and while he may have had limited chart success (though the one single he did chart on – singing for Pigeonhead’s Battle Flag – was also featured in S1 of Sopranos). His departure and Adriana’s both hit me deeply (I just rewatched LTP last night, so I’m sure that’s the reason for this lump in my throat as I type this.)
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
pamelahenry88 | May 13, 2019 at 4:40 pm | Reply

The torment of the damned. I’m saturated with it.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Terremotito | July 8, 2019 at 9:30 am | Reply

Certainly one of the biggest examples of foreshadowing comes in Season 6 with Pink Floyd…’nuff said, I’ll leave it to you to break it down.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Brooklyn Parrot | October 9, 2019 at 3:51 pm | Reply

The trees, the trees! Not sure when the first overt cinematic nexus between trees and death was made, but the dominance of trees in Ade’s death scene brings to mind similar treatment in “Miller’s Crossing” (in which the corpse in the woods belongs to the character played by Steve Buschemi), and, of course, throughout Twin Peaks. Trouble-giving trees soon make another Sopranos appearance (as wood studs), when it turns out that Carm’s father used low-quality pine studs — instead of sturdy Douglas Fir studs — in the construction of her dream house in the woods (Douglas Firs were, of course, the trees dominating Twin Peaks’ fictional setting). Maybe I’m reading this tree thing too closely but suffice it to say that some corners may never be safely cut!

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | October 10, 2019 at 4:23 pm | Reply
  
  Hmm that’s a very interesting connection between Ade, trees and Hugh’s lumber—and it all comes together next season when Carmela dreams of Adriana standing in the framework of her half-finished house…
  
  LikeLike
- Jordan | December 28, 2020 at 3:07 am | Reply
  
  With Twin Peaks, the trees stuff is great because it’s actually story-driven: the Lodge and the “Ghost Woods” development and Log Lady and the lumber mill and Josie’s face in the wood, the WOOD in Twin Peaks is haunted. When Cooper gets so interested in the trees in Twin Peaks it’s a cue to us to pay special interest as well. I believe the wood is infused with the black lodge energy or something like that, souls can get trapped in there (again, Log Lady’s log and Josie.) A deleted scene from Fire Walk With Me all about a misunderstanding about a 2 x 4 piece of wood seems pretty significant too (it’s also very funny.) When Lynch introduced the FWWM Missing Pieces in recent years the only thing he said on stage was “tonight, I would like to speak about wood. There are many times in the world when the phone rings and someone is inquiring about wood. This happens primarily at lumber yards and in this case, it’s necessary to have a phone. It is only natural that trees are growing and that they are made of wood. Much happiness can come from observing a tree and the same can be said about observing the many shapes fashioned out of wood. Quite often when when we are talking about beauty, we are talking about wood. Thank you very much!”
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - Rob Thomas | December 28, 2020 at 9:04 am | Reply
    
    Kant: ‘the crooked timber of humanity never did run straight’
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
regan | October 22, 2019 at 5:17 pm | Reply

“On the other hand, who gives a shit what these losers would say—Carmela has got her groove back, that’s the important thing, right?”
— This made me LOL almost as hard as when Tony inquired as to “what that fag Wegler wanted.” haha.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | October 22, 2019 at 8:10 pm | Reply
  
  lol
  
  LikeLike
Anonymous | November 6, 2019 at 7:15 pm | Reply

When do you plan to analyse the episode when Tony Soprano is working as a cop in Detroit but his pal gets killed so he decides to go down to Beverley Hills and be a cop there?

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | November 6, 2019 at 7:30 pm | Reply
  
  Right after I analyze the one where T goes back to 1955 in a DeLorean and young Livia tries to get stanky with him
  
  LikeLike
Lee E | November 8, 2019 at 5:29 pm | Reply

Kind woodsman, spare my life

The huntsman then led Snow White deep into the forest. But as he was drawing his hunting knife to kill her, Snow White cried, “Please spare my life! Let me run away into the forest and I will never come home again!”

Snow White was so young that the woodsman took pity on her. He said to her, “Run into the woods, dear child!” Then he killed a deer and took its heart to the wicked Queen as proof that Snow White was dead….

Silvio = sylvan = woodsman. La Cerva = the deer.

Because of these names, I thought (hoped) that Chase was hinting that Adriana survived. I held onto that tiny hope until the episode where she said (in Carmela’s dream), “Look, I found Cosette!”

David Chase, you are one cold mofo.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | November 8, 2019 at 11:22 pm | Reply
  
  Interesting connections…
  
  LikeLike
Paul Giulekas | December 6, 2019 at 12:02 pm | Reply

Usually when a person of importance is killed the disposal of the body is shown, it is never alluded to here. You just never see her again and it is not mentioned where her body is, did they dump it in the ocean? What did Sylvio do throw her in the trunk and ???? Did he leave her there? They never find the body and its never mentioned. Just not the norm in Soprano land. Very emotional episode!!

LikeLiked by 1 person
Scottie Walnuts | December 16, 2020 at 1:13 am | Reply

when syl pulls off the highway to deal with adrianna there’s a big FOOD highway exit sign. food and firearm connectivity

LikeLiked by 1 person
Bobbo | March 1, 2021 at 1:14 pm | Reply

Thanks so much for this amazing write up. This episodes is one of my favorites. I saw it again recently and for the first time caught Adriana say that the man Matush killed had accused him of selling him laxatives instead of whatever drug he thought he was buying. I wonder if he was right and the stress/inner conflict is only partly to blame for Adriana’s bathroom issues.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | March 1, 2021 at 11:47 pm | Reply
  
  Ah interesting thought
  
  LikeLike
R.K. | March 25, 2021 at 4:12 am | Reply

I have read something that might be interesting in a novel, ‘Citizen Vince’ by Jess Walter. The action of the novel is in 1980, pre-Sopranos, but it was published in 2005, post-Sopranos. The author doesn’t copy or imitate ‘The Sopranos’, but as one reads it one feels sure that he has watched the series.
In an episode in the novel, Vince, the protagonist, is forced to accept a lift from a mafia man. As they drive away he is sure he is going to be taken somewhere and killed. He is wrong, and at his destination he tells the mafia man what he had been thinking, They both laugh, and the mafia man says, “And just so you know, if I was gonna do that, we always send two guys for that. It’s really hard to do by yourself.”
But in ‘The Sopranos’, as we see in this episode, one man does it. Similarly, in ‘Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist’s Office’, Philly Parisi is killed by one man.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Rising Damp | April 4, 2021 at 11:18 am | Reply

I am certainly sympathetic to Ade. She was flawed, naive, and desperately in need of a strong male anchor, but she truly loved Chris. The Crazy Horse was her demise and Chris is completely responsible. It was in Tell-tale Moozadell that he won’t allow drugs to be sold, “X is federal territory now” he says to Jackie Jr. But that doesn’t last and he never considers this is jeopardizing the safety of his fiance if it draws the attention of the feds. I never forgave him for his role in this.

Carmela has grown her hair out by the last scene in this episode – Tony prefers it this way. Growing your hair back takes time. Did she start (at the very least subconsciously) when she realized the reconciliation was her only option? I also noticed that Carm (Edie) is more tan, toned, and svelte at the beginning of Season 5. Very common when you become single again after a long relationship to get in shape for potential suitors. By this episode she appears more like the Carm we knew in the first 4 seasons.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Gina Marie | May 18, 2021 at 10:25 am | Reply

I think she realizes before Sil even stops the car what is happening. When he is telling her Chrissy will be fine, he’s resilient….. he is telling her he will be fine without YOU.
also it is the Long Branch PD, not Long Beach
…….

LikeLiked by 2 people
- Ron | July 6, 2021 at 3:03 pm | Reply
  
  Thanks, fixed it now
  
  LikeLike
Kozhy | July 29, 2021 at 2:14 am | Reply

the ending scene in the forest could also tie in the bear symbolism, since this is the episode where Carmela and the Black Bear (Tony wears black as seen in the picture above) are once again reunited, only this time, in peace. rotting tree metaphore is much more plausible, but it works for the Bear, too. also, the tree rotting is present in 06×01 opening scene, in Carmela’s dream of Ade, and also, her real life scene with her father who choses low grade wood for the house (“a rotten house”, “rotten foundation” and such, also work as an American Dream critique that Chase is prone to).

LikeLiked by 1 person
Kozhyleus | July 29, 2021 at 2:44 am | Reply

The end of the episode can also be read as a Black Bear resolution of a kind: Carmela and her Bear are reconciled (Tony wears all black in that scene, as seen in a picture above), shown in the middle of the forest, although, the rotten wood metaphore is much more plausible, I consider it a closure for the bear motif that opened the season, too.

LikeLiked by 1 person
HerbOf4 | October 10, 2021 at 10:13 am | Reply

Wire or no wire, the FBI does a really crappy protecting their informants on this show and an even worse one doing any sort of investigation or follow up after they disappear. They’re always just like “welp, that person (for which we have numerous leads, information and known mob connections) is dead. Guess that’s that!” They KNOW that Ade is going to tell Chris and try to get him to flip. Then she’s just gone. Nope, no suspects for this crime, right?

Which doesn’t make a ton of sense. How hard would it be to nail down who killed these people (Pussy, Ade, Parisi) or at least look into several VERY solid leads? I mean, they KNOW what these characters are up to, the sort of crap they’re wrapped up in and who might want them dead for crying out loud. Obviously, they don’t have to concern themselves with possibly tipping anybody off to the investigation since clearly the mob knows about it. Hmmm….who could have ever killed Ade or Pussy? How could they be in any danger? Who has the motive, means and opportunity?

It is a mystery!

Also, I think it’d be interesting to look at the ways the show might unfold differently in a modern context with the advent of constant texting, smart phones, GPS, true crime podcasts and stuff like that. You wouldn’t even have to wear a wire if you work your smart phone and a GPS location for a known informant would add a whole dimension I would think.

LikeLiked by 1 person
LK | November 7, 2021 at 6:37 pm | Reply

R.I.P. Frank Pellegrino (aka FBI Chief Frank Cubitoso), 2017

LikeLike
LK | November 7, 2021 at 7:06 pm | Reply

R.I.P. Joe Santos (aka Angelo Garepe: Class of 2004), 2016

LikeLike
LK | November 11, 2021 at 9:58 am | Reply

Many years ago, we were lead to believe (and were deluded enough to actually believe) that the ‘mob’ was under orders not to kill civilians, especially women and children. The Sopranos opened up our eyes to that lie fairly quickly. Children (under the age of 18) weren’t killed in this series, but lots of civilians (innocent and not-so-innocent) were. By the end of season 5, the women killed – in cold blood – were Tracee (Ralph), Minn (suffocated by Paulie), Lorraine (Phil Leotardo), Heather, along with Joey Peeps (Tony B), and Adriana (Silvio). In season 6, ‘only’ Yaryna was killed for witnessing her father’s murder (Italo). (And here we are, debating whether or not their deaths/murders were justified.) Let’s face it, those in the Sopranos’ realm have never had any qualms about murder, period. Noteworthy is that 85 people died on this series – 86 actually (counting Tony). Hmm … 86 episodes, 86 deaths. Odd, don’t you think?

LikeLiked by 1 person
Matthew Robertson | November 29, 2021 at 3:19 am | Reply

Wrapped in a Memory is an elite song choice. That and the Moby song in S6P1-E2 get my vote for “most perfect song of the series.” I know you said a few write ups ago you liked the Likin Park one from In Camelot and If I were a Carpenter from UBM but the aforementioned two always punch me in gut. Perfect ending songs.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Ron | November 29, 2021 at 9:59 am | Reply
  
  👍
  
  LikeLike
LK | December 8, 2021 at 10:22 am | Reply

While I felt heartbroken over Adriana’s death, I also expected it – but not the way it happened (I thought she’d OD). She was a low-life addict, just like Christopher. What’s worse about her addiction is that she was actively using – and drinking heavily – when Chris was clean! He even made a comment about that in a previous episode. She and Carmela have one thing in common – they’re both ‘complicit’. And neither one of them takes responsibility for their devious behaviors! 🤐

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Sue | December 8, 2021 at 10:48 am | Reply
  
  If you consider addiction to be a disease, then a derogatory term like “low life” would be inhumane. You might want to check that.
  Adriana was more of a dabbler then a full blown addict. She did not experience withdrawal. It did not interfere with her life of make it unmanageable. Also, she ran a club so…it’s part of the lifestyle. No, the drug she was truly addicted to was Christopher.
  Maybe she should have abstained in order to support Christopher, but had he actually been working a program, he would have communicated this to her. I feel she would have complied, as she loved him but, more importantly- was stuck in the cycle of abuse, which meant she would do anything not to lose him.
  Yes she was complicit, but somehow more naive, more innocent than Carmela.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - LK | December 9, 2021 at 8:45 am | Reply
    
    Sue – You’re correct. I should have used the term ‘low class’ rather than ‘low life’. As far as Chris ‘working the program’ goes … he wasn’t attending AA meetings (that we know of), but he was remaining ‘clean’! Also, if Adriana would do ‘anything’ not to lose Chris, she would not have been an enabler (12-step programs always advise addicts not to get involved with other addicts)!! Naive … okay, I’ll grant you that, but more innocent? Hmm … she knew ‘things’ about Chris’ illegal activities and behaviors, plus, she knew exactly what to do with the knife! 😉
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
Jon | December 29, 2021 at 1:02 am | Reply

I was interested in the decision to have Christopher watching ‘Three Amigos!’ at the Bing at the end. The scene has the 3 (Chevy, Martin, and Short) wandering the desert aimlessly, making foolish decisions that would hasten a terrible fate. In the film, the 3 manage to get lucky, and survive – despite themselves. In the Sopranos episode, Christopher does heroin as he (sort of) watches; Tony arrives, and the situation devolves, as both are obviously upset by the day’s events. Given that Chase could have found numerous movies with desert survival scenes, I wonder why he chose this one? Perhaps Christopher wanted something light while he got high, but maybe there’s something to a film about actors/filmmakers who are crushed by reality. The Amigos probably wished they’d maintained the illusion, because it’s easier than the real world, but in the movie, they eventually adapt and win the day. Christopher couldn’t find enough solace in the fantasy provided by a potentially relatable 80s comedy, and turned to heroin.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- Anonymous | December 30, 2021 at 5:33 pm | Reply
  
  Maybe Three Amigos references the two Tonys and Christopher and their trip to uncle Pat’s.
  This episode is one of the powerhouses of the series for me, gripping and seemingly headed inexorably towards something momentous, especially since we know big things tend to happen in SopranoLand in penultimate episodes. Something about Tony’s call to Ade didn’t sit right with me, and for a moment I was relieved to see her making her big escape. But as soon as we see her in the caddy with Sil we know things do not look good. Drea de Matteo is so brilliant in this scene, conveying the slow realization of what was happening. Her murder was heartbreaking to me, because I saw her as flawed, but good hearted, trusting, naive, needy, and, as Ron says, guileless and (relatively) innocent.
  In the final scene, it is the rustling of the leaves as well as the shot panning down from the top of the trees that cause the viewer to half expect to see Adriana crawling through the woods, but, alas, it’s just Tony and Carm on their new lot. Gandolfini’s expressions are perfect as we see his sadness at the loss of Ade, and my favorite episode-closing song, Wrapped in my Memory, begins. What an emotional wallop!
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - Jon | January 5, 2022 at 3:36 pm | Reply
    
    I wondered about this as well (re: Tony/Tony B/Chris), but seeing as how Chris appears to despise any scenario with all 3 of them present, I don’t think he has any fantasies about them being good friends. But maybe it’s a “We could have been the Three Amigos!” wistfulness that’s collapsed and ended with everyone’s lives destroyed. By the end of the series, Tony S. gives Tony B. too much slack, leading to the no-win situation for S. that gets B. killed, strains Tony S.’s relationship with New York, and eventually (we think) leads to Tony’s fate in the diner. The dinner with the two Tonys has Chris relapse (one of several reasons, of course); Chris’s life ends when his dependency issues prompt Tony S. to put him out of his misery. I feel like a lot of character deaths in the Sopranos, to us, the viewer, seem so easily preventable – but that’s easy armchair quarterbacking. Why would Tony B. not clear his work for New York with Tony S.? Why would Christopher choose the mob over someone who loves him? Why would Tony S. feel safe going out in public so quickly after the mob war has supposedly ended? They’re just wandering in the desert, I suppose, drinking from what must be a bottomless canteen.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - Anonymous | January 8, 2022 at 8:30 pm | Reply
      
      Well said!
      
      LikeLike
      - LK | February 15, 2022 at 6:28 am | Reply
        
        Tony’s in the hospital room with Valentina, who has a magazine on her lap. This magazine appears – and then disappears – 7 times during this scene! In spite of her pain and misery, he tells her not to hitch her wagon to his star?! This is narcissism to the nth degree! 😖
        
        LikeLiked by 1 person
    - LK | March 4, 2022 at 2:09 pm | Reply
      
      Jon – Your questions are excellent!
      ▪ Maybe Tony B didn’t ‘clear’ his work with NY with TS because he still resents him. Like, TB ended up serving in the military (TS was deferred for medical problems with his knee) and Tony B ended up in prison because TS got ‘jumped’ (yeah, right).
      ▪ Christopher chose the mob over Adriana because Tony basically took the fatherless kid ‘under his wing’ and indoctrinated him into believing that the mob comes before anyone – and everything else.
      ▪ Tony feels safe because there’s no longer a threat hanging over his head.
      
      LikeLike
Kevin | January 26, 2022 at 1:02 am | Reply

Looking back on this episode honestly the biggest tell is Tony making that call to ade from a pay phone

LikeLiked by 1 person
- LK | March 30, 2022 at 9:32 am | Reply
  
  Kevin – I’m sure that Adriana was used to receiving calls from any number of people using many different phone numbers.
  
  LikeLike
Kiture | December 25, 2022 at 7:28 am | Reply

To me, the most subtly darkly humorous part of that car ride was Silvio telling Adrianna, concerning Chris, “He’s gonna be alright.” I always subconsciously hear him follow up with “But you ain’t”, and chuckle a little bit at the comedy by omission.

LikeLiked by 1 person
Matt | February 9, 2023 at 2:19 am | Reply

You mentioned Tony S. coming clean to Tony B. but somehow missed that afterward we see that Tony S. was trying to keep him on the phone long enough to trace the call, which is significant. It’s ambiguous whether he was truly opening up or cynically making a ploy to trap him.

LikeLiked by 1 person
The Dude | April 8, 2023 at 1:42 am | Reply

I agree, Steve Buscemi is sorta funny looking (Fargo reference)

LikeLiked by 1 person
Padrote | November 17, 2023 at 3:36 am | Reply

In retrospect, it was pretty obvious that things would be over between them when Chris tells Adriana “I’m gonna go get cigarettes” — a kind of common American(?) idea that a man could one day “go get cigarettes” and leave his wife and family behind forever.

It’s happened at least twice, but I’d like to believe more times that Adriana asks Chris if he wants eggs when they’re coming down off an argument. Maybe this is a reference to their conversations about having children.

LikeLiked by 1 person