Paulie and Feech battle for turf.
A lost and confused Corrado is escorted
home by the police after being found in Newark.
Episode 55 – Originally aired March 21, 2004
Written by Michael Caleo
Directed by John Patterson
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Initially, it might seem that “Where’s Johnny?” is continuing the trend of the first two episodes of the season, directing our focus to mob concerns rather than Tony’s domestic issues. Tony’s nuclear family is so off the radar right now that Carmela—in a Sopranos’ first—doesn’t appear even once in the hour. (Meadow is not here either, while AJ makes only a tiny appearance.) Tony is getting plenty of agita, however, from his extended family. In the first scene of the hour, cousin Blundetto comes in to the Bing to pick up dirty linens. Tony calls him “Mr. Clean” in a reference to his new job at the drycleaners, but it also reflects Blundetto’s desire to stay out of the mob, to stay clean. As the two men discuss the night that Blundetto got arrested, it becomes clearer that Tony is suffering from some deep guilt about his cousin’s lengthy prison sentence.
Blundetto is in a class of his own—no one else from the “Class of ’04″ is making even the smallest effort to stay clean. Feech LaManna, for example, is getting his hands dirty as quickly as possible. He brings grotesque violence to a leafy suburban street, bashing and beating landscaper Sal Vitro in an effort to muscle him out of the neighborhood. Feech seems to be this season’s obligatory rabble-rouser, following in the footsteps of Richie Aprile and Ralphie Cifaretto from previous seasons. He is a hothead, exploding at Paulie who tries to defend Vitro. Paulie escalates the violence, putting the hurt on Gary LaManna as he tries to reclaim the neighborhood for Sal Vitro. Of course, Paulie is a much better advocate for himself than he is for Mr. Vitro: he maneuvers to get a few points off of Vitro’s profits, and he keeps half of the $1000 that Tony awards to Vitro. And by demanding 10% from Gary LaManna on all his earnings, Paulie is actually working against Sal Vitro’s interests. (Paulie is making out like a champ—perhaps he really is learning something from that “Sun Tizzu” audiobook.) It’s funny how much of the action surrounding Chase’s mobsters don’t involve big-time criminal activities, like high stakes gambling or prostitution, as we find in most gangster films. SopranoLand concerns are often far more mundane affairs, like garbage routes and landscaping contracts.
As tense as the situation is becoming between New Jersey mobsters Feech and Paulie, the situation in New York is even more jumpy. One significant way that Season 5 intensifies dramatic tension is by exposing us to the stuff that’s going on across the Hudson River. In one New York scene, Chase uses several NY signifiers to let us know that we’re not in Jersey anymore: a Brooklyn street-scape, a New York radio station ID, a bar owner reading the New York Post. The power vacuum in the NY mob has put everyone on edge. Phil Leotardo tries to persuade Lorraine Calluzzo, with the aid of a handgun and a phonebook, to kick up to Johnny Sac instead of Lil Carmine. Lorraine and Angelo Garepe seek counsel from Tony and Corrado. Tony gives sage advice, recommending a triumvirate power-sharing setup. (Corrado has little to add to the conversation other than a comment about Tony’s failure as a varsity athlete.) Angelo Garepe understands that the ascension crisis in the NY family means that “There’s a lotta potential for bloodshed.” This almost seems to be a meta-comment on what to expect in Season 5, and is sure to get all those “hits-and-tits” viewers grinning from ear-to-ear with anticipation.
Tony meets Johnny Sac in front Shea Stadium (which has since been demolished, but was once an instantly recognizable signifier of New York). Back in Season 3, we had seen John become unreasonable and lose his temper over Ralph’s Ginny-joke, but now he loses his cool over actual mob issues—he is infuriated by the triumvirate power-sharing idea. (Tony smoothly passes the idea off as Angelo’s suggestion.) Something about the way this scene is shot reminds me of another New York story: The Great Gatsby. The blue background behind John and the red and yellow ferris wheel behind Tony and the blurred bokeh lights all manage to evoke, for me, the famous cover art of Fitgerald’s novel:
I don’t think the scene is intentionally meant to evoke Gatsby, but the novel is set only about 10 miles to the northeast from where Tony and John now stand. (Many scholars believe Fitzgerald’s East Egg and West Egg to be modeled on Sands Point and Kings Point, NY.) I think a comparison between The Great Gatsby and The Sopranos can be aptly made: The Sopranos is arguably The Great American Novel of the 21st century much as Gatsby was the Great American Novel of the 20th century. Of course, The Sopranos is actually a TV series, not a novel. But perhaps the paradigm has shifted over the last several decades such that the Great American Novel should no longer be sought in literature, but on television. Outspoken novelist Norman Mailer said this very thing in an interview for Tampa Bay Times on February 1, 2004, about 7 weeks before this episode aired:
Tampa Bay Times: In The Spooky Art, you said a communication of human experience, of the deepest and most unrecoverable kind, must yet take place if we are to survive. Do you still have hopes that the Great American Novel can be written?
Mailer: The Great American Novel is no longer writable…You can’t cover all of America now. It’s too detailed…People didn’t get upset if you were a little scanty on the details in the past. Now all the details get in the way of the expanse of the novel.
A contemporary audience may find that television is a more viable medium than literature in its ability to be both detailed and expansive simultaneously, in large part due to the very nature of a successful TV series—hours and hours of material spread out over a period of years. In the same interview, Mailer cites The Sopranos as a prime example of this new paradigm, a work that can “loop into a good many aspects of American culture.” I am more optimistic than Mailer in believing that the literary world can still produce the Great American Novel. But I also genuinely believe that in the last 30 years or so, there has been no work created in the United States—in any medium—that communicates the experience of being American, and even the experience of being human, more powerfully than The Sopranos does.
Arguably, one of the most significant characteristics of being American is our carelessness. This is certainly a prevailing theme in Gatsby:
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
You could almost replace “Tom and Daisy” with “Paulie and Feech” or any other two characters from SopranoWorld and the sentence would still ring true. In this episode, Sal Vitro begins his tenure as an unfortunate victim of SopranoWorld carelessness. He gets caught in the middle of a “turf war” between Paulie and Feech when all he was trying to do was literally care for the turf. And then, after Chris fucks things up with his big-mouth during the New York negotiations, Tony comps Johnny Sac by sending Sal Vitro to work in his massive yard. (This is no small task—we might remember that at Johnny Sac’s housewarming party, in “Employee of the Month” (3.04), Silvio remarked how expensive the landscaping and lawn upkeep must be.)
___________________________________
Despite all the emphasis so far this season on mob issues, the beating heart of The Sopranos has always been domestic concerns. There are already a host of family issues that are popping up: Bobby, who is now Tony’s brother-in-law, is sick of buying stool softener for Uncle Junior—he wants a chance to earn; Janice is a dysfunctional wife and mother, much like Livia was; and Bobby Jr. has started wetting the bed again. (I probably would too if Janice became my evil stepmother all of a sudden.)
Most troublesome for Tony, though, is Corrado’s increasing dementia. We’ve had hints of his deterioration since “Whoever Did This” (4.09), and it’s getting more obvious this year. The Sopranos occasionally plays Corrado’s senility for laughs, and the most hilarious example is when he mistakes Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Larry David and Jeff Garlin for himself and Bobby Bacala. As some viewers have noted, Chase cuts from this scene to the Bada Bing, where Bobby is wearing a shirt just like the one that was at the center so much hilarity in another Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, “Chet’s Shirt”:
In his confusion, Corrado goes to the old neighborhood in search of his brother Johnny (or perhaps some other Johnny). Some faint spark of memory leads him to a church where young kids are being instructed in the art of fundraising. This scene once again makes a connection between Food and Faith, as boxes of candy sit before the cross:
The men conducting this meeting are far more concerned with sales strategies and profit margins than they are with the confused senior citizen that stumbles into the building—they turn Corrado away most ungraciously. Corrado continues his quixotic quest on foot after forgetting where he parked his car. He gets further befuddled by a hooker’s come-on, and eventually has to be brought home by a couple of policemen.
Tony doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his uncle’s strange trip to Newark, he’s still smarting over Uncle Jun’s comments about his limitations as an athlete. (We’ve known since the Pilot episode that this is a criticism that really bugs Tony.) Janice and Bobby try to share their concerns about Corrado’s mental health with Tony, but long-held frustrations and bitterness rear up and wreck the conversation. Tony baits Janice with a blowjob reference. (This is not the first or last time he refers to her oral habits.) A fight ensues and Artie Bucco takes an elbow to the eye:
There’s no shortage of civilians that get hurt in SopranoWorld, particularly this season, whether its Artie Bucco in the middle of a familial spat, or landscapers trying to ply their trade, or an an Atlantic City waiter trying to get a fair tip on an $1184 bill.
After learning from a doctor that Corrado’s behavior might be caused by mini-strokes, Tony gets over his anger toward his uncle. We’ve seen Tony forgive his uncle before. In 2.02, Tony came to assist Uncle Junior after he slipped in the bathtub—and this was not long after Uncle Jun tried to have him killed.
“Do Not Resuscitate” had a relatively happy ending, with Tony carrying Uncle Junior while Ella Fitzgerald’s cheerful “Goodbye My Love” carried us into the credits. The reconciliation—and music—that close out “Where’s Johnny?” is more ambiguous, less upbeat; there is no happy ending here. Mitch Coodley’s “Earth, Wind, Water” is a sparse, elemental track, and it has an Eastern flavor that recalls the music that backed Paulie’s Sun Tzu audiobook. The Sun Tzu recording itself recalled the earlier Tony Robbins infomercial—both are essentially forms of self-help. I don’t necessarily think that Chase is making a conscientious link between Coodley’s song and Sun Tzu and Tony Robbins, but I’ve compiled the three scenes in which they appear in order to illustrate a point:
Tony Robbins is a self-help guru. Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese general whose writings have been co-opted by the self-help industry and the corporate world. Both Robbins and the co-opted Sun Tzu provide us with easy-to-follow instructions for success and clear answers to our questions. (For example, “There are 5 essentials for victory,” Paulie’s audiobook assures us.) David Chase, in contrast, never provides us easy recipes for success or clear answers to all of our questions—nor all the questions of his characters. In the final scene of the hour, Tony tries to have a serious conversation with his uncle, but Corrado tries to change the subject: “There’s the coyote,” he says while looking at a nature program. Tony doesn’t back down: “Don’t you love me?” Director John Patterson racks focus, pulling our attention from Tony to Corrado who has real difficulty answering the question. But we don’t know why it’s difficult for him. Is it because he really doesn’t love his nephew? Or is he unable to formulate an answer due to his increasing dementia? Or is he simply not in the mood to get into such a touchy subject right now? The self-help industry is built upon easy solutions, but art—good art, deep art, the type that Norman Mailer once said must exist if we are to survive as a species—often does not give us answers, but only helps us to articulate the questions that need to be asked. The Sopranos routinely poses difficult questions, and just as routinely leaves us to search for the answers on our own.
WHERE’S JOHNNY? (TITLE SIGNIFICANCE)
The episode title obviously references disoriented Corrado’s search for his (dead) brother Johnny Boy. A little less obviously, the title can also refer to Johnny’s Sac’s uncertain place within the New York food chain. What I find most interesting about the title, however, is that this is the second time that Chase has generated the name of an episode by replacing the word “Here” with the word “Where” in a well-known phrase from popular culture, and in doing so, turns the well-known phrase into something more ambiguous and uncertain than it originally was. The first time he did it was for episode 2.09; the title “From Where to Eternity” underscored that we cannot know just where it was that Chris Moltisanti went during his coma: was it hell, purgatory, or just a dream? In the current episode, the title transforms Ed McMahon’s well-known catchphrase into a similar existential query: where is Johnny Boy Soprano now? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory perhaps? Maybe he’s nowhere. Or perhaps he’s everywhere. Nobody really knows.
THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE
The series became more overt in exploring issues of patriotism and consumerism after 9/11. Sometimes the issues were touched upon with just a quick insertion of certain images. One scene this hour, for example, is introduced with a quick shot of the American flag behind Christopher’s Hummer which looms massively in the foreground:
The image of the American flag is not in itself noteworthy; after all, displays of patriotism skyrocketed around the country after Sept. 11 and our subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The juxtaposition of the giant Hummer against the patriotic flag creates a notably ironic image, however, because the terror attacks and the subsequent wars might never have occurred if we weren’t so addicted to our gas-guzzling toys and consumerist ways. I’m not trying to “blame the victim” here; there is no cultural behavior that could ever justify such a horrific attack. But as the series continues, Chase does increasingly investigate the link between American social norms and the constant threat of terror that we live under. This quick image of the flag and Hummer here is one example of how The Sopranos, in Norman Mailer’s words, can “loop into a good many aspects of American culture.”
CLEVER CUTS
The series has always been characterized by clever editing from scene to scene. While there are probably several excellent examples in this hour, there were two that immediately jumped out at me.
Tony finally approaches Artie to repair their relationship, and then—almost in passing—offers him a discount on his linen cleaning. Artie wonders if this was the real reason behind their reconciliation. CUT TO: Bob Villa talking about a restored façade. It’s as though Tony’s effort at reconciliation was nothing more than a façade to get some cleaning business for Blundetto. (No one on The Sopranos can make me laugh like Artie does, with his little facial expressions.)
Tony yells at Chris that the best thing for business is to “keep your ears open and you mouth shut.” CUT TO: Adriana who is definitely NOT keeping her mouth shut to the FBI. (Definitely not the best thing for business.)
__________________________________
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- When Corrado goes missing, Bobby Bacala calls Bobbi Sanfilipo in his effort to locate him. Ms. Sanfilipo, of course, is the woman whose face received a pie (and whose pie received a face) in Season One’s “Boca.”
- The American Way of Life: Our society is awash in advertising, and this is reflected on The Sopranos. In this hour, commercials for cleaning products and Tony Robbins are shown quite conspicuously, but oftentimes on this series, the commercials play inconspicuously in the background. They’re just a part of the white noise of daily life.
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Sopranos Autopsy 
I agree with you the Where’s Johnny title references Ed McMahon’s catchphrase introduction on Johnny Carson, but I wonder if it’s also meant to reference Jack Nicholson’s call back to that phrase when he axes his way into the family’s living quarters in The Shining. I may be reading too much into this (or perhaps I’m not), but it’s possible Chase is showing us the dichotomy between two different interpretations of who Junior is. When McMahon says, “Here’s Johnny!” we’re being welcomed to a familiar, safe environment. When Nicholson says it, it signals that someone we saw as being (relatively) safe is now a cause of alarm. Much like Junior’s behavior (“Never had the makings of a varsity athlete”) could be seen as an older relative’s familiar crotchety nitpickings, or could be seen as a descent into dementia. That heartbreaking final scene: “Don’t you love me anymore?” Tony asking Junior, Are you still you, or have you passed away into an enfeebled pod who only resembles you?
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I’m late to the party here but I just wanted to correct the final quote that you referenced, which I think is significant. Tony doesn’t ask Junior “Don’t you love me anymore?” he asks him “Don’t you love me?” In other words, he knows he’s suffering from dementia and becoming less himself, but he considers that the fact of whether his uncle loves him or not wouldn’t change despite his dementia. The mystery isn’t so much the nature of Junior’s malady, which the neurologist more or less confirmed for Tony, the mystery is whether he loves him or not. He already knows he tried to kill him, so he knows that he’s capable of doing mean things, just like his mother did. But he faces the ambiguity of whether despite this meanness his mother and his uncle loved him. Faced with his uncle’s enfeebled condition he feels comfortable enough to ask him directly if deep down he actually loves him, and i suppose he’s also asking himself if his mother loved him, and of course we the viewer get an ambiguous answer, but he feels that the enfeebled meanness almost indicates that deep down neither love him, which crushes him.
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One of my favorite Uncle Junior moments of the series comes in this one (an episode filled with great Uncle Junior moments, actually) when he remarks proudly that ‘I have cable’ during the meeting with Lorraine and Angelo. Just the look of absolute pride on his face that he is a part of this bold and exciting decades old technology gets me every time.
I thought this was a very strong episode overall, and that final scene is just all kinds of brilliant.
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That joke (Junior beaming with pride and declaring, “I have cable.”) has roots in another episode. I forget which episode it was, but there is a scene (earlier in the series) where Tony and Furio visit Junior and he is sleeping. Tony sits to chat with Svetlana (I think it’s while she is creating a website) and Furio announces, “I am going to watch-ah da Bloomberg.” Maybe ten seconds later, barely audible on the audio track, Furio says from the other room, “No cable!”
Then, while Junior goes missing in this episode, Bobby Jr. is bored out of his skull and complains, “Dad, he doesn’t even have cable!”
These two nothing bits of dialogue show that Junior’s prideful boast (regarding the possession of cable TV) is either an outright lie, or Junior is so damn old and out of the loop that he thinks his free local programming is actual “cable”. I tend to think it’s the latter, but either way, it’s a great joke that is set up long before this episode.
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Yeah! It’s also funny cause in other episodes it gets noted to us that he doesn’t have cable, both Furio and Bobby’s kids mention it. And when he finally does get cable (HBO too apparently) he thinks he sees himself on TV and has a mini-stroke)
Notice in the last scene with Tony he is back to watching squirrels and nature stuff, which I think is basic channel stuff…or maybe I’m wrong I dunno. It’s just that usually when you have cable you’re watching cool shows and movies etc…
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Of course, after posting this I realize I am wrong. Tony must’ve bought Junior cable early in the episode, because they Junior says “Tony says the cable box has to be on.” Then, Junior watches the scene from “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, so he now gets HBO. Oh well, I am glad he finally got cable.
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I always thought East egg and West Egg were the Hampton’s on Long Island.
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I don’t think anyone knows for sure. I seem to remember the Hamptons connection was that Fitzgerald modeled Gatsby’s house on a house in the Hamptons, or something like that…
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Ron – According to several websites, East Egg was the Sands Point end of the Port Washington peninsula, while West Egg was the Kings Point end of the Great Neck peninsula. Both were separated by a body of water. They’re part of the Hamptons.
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Sands Point and Kings Point are NOT part of the Hamptons. They are on the North Shore of LI, just past Queens. The Hamptons are all the way east on the south shore. In Gatsby, the Eggs cant be the Hamptons, they would have been too far away from NYC for the scenes where they drive into the city to check into the hotel. The area that Sands point is in was known as the Gold Coast, there were many many mansions there.
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Another good continuity bit in this episode was junior telling the cops to go shit in their hat. Which is what Livia said to AJ back in Season two D-Girl during her big speech of the world is a jungle. Ironically Livia was the one who warned Junior about going senile back in season one and now he really is going senile at this point of the show.
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Yup… Junior faked senility to try to get out of going to trial earlier but ironically does go senile now (sort of like Livia faking a stroke to avoid getting punished by Tony and then later she does have a stroke…)
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Ron – It’s kind of like calling in sick when you’re not, and then actually getting sick. I admit to doing both!
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The “fucking regularness of life” is illustrated in a couple of minor scenes not really relevant to the main plot. Bacala leaves Jr’s house to search for him shortly after the arrival of Janice and his children. On his way out the door he scolds Bobby Jr ( who has been bed wetting) to lay off the Snapple. When Jr is escorted back to the house by the police, two empty Snapple bottles can be seen on the living room table.
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All those little details…
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For the record. Phil Leotardo’s first homophobic comment is heard in this episode.
When he and the others are holding Lorraine Calluzo and her companion Jason down on the floor, Lorraine offers to suck all their cocks.
Phil looks at Jason and asks with mock interest, “Is she any good?” Then adds, “What am I asking you for? You probably showed her how.”
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It’s funny how tony lets his love for Christopher and Corrado blind him. Christopher was moved up too fast, and is not really smart enough to handle being a “Made” man. Tony knows he has a drug problem, he knows he’s not that bright and he knows he carries a chip on his shoulder that gets him into trouble. He also can’t follow directions. Yet he lets him get away with all kinds of stuff. We all let our families get away with a lot of things, but these are life and death situations, and Chris is not up to the task. He should have stayed a hitman. Every season we see more resentment and more trouble brewing ahead.
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Carol – I completely agree with your comments about Christopher. In my previous analysis of Chris, which was probably deleted by World Press, I noted that he apparently suffers from a severe emotional illness (likely bipolar disorder), which is likely exacerbated by his significant substance abuse. Additionally, he appears to be in a state of arrested development, given the premature death of his father and his mother’s alcoholism/failure to provide a stable home for her son. Chris’ obvious instability leads me to question Tony’s ability to properly guide him in making correct/adult decisions in his (Chris) ‘career’ in the mob.
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The argument between Feech and Paulie is one of the few times I sided with Paulie on anything. Feech was intolerable.
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They are both awful. I despise Paulie. Disloyal, cheap, shitty to everyone he see’s as under him in status ( the finger-snapping at servers), bad earner, as much a troublemaker for Tony as Chris is IMO. Tony Sirico is incredibly funny but Paulie is the Soprano’s character I would least like to be around.
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Emmanuel – Tony Sirico (aka Paulie) was not a very good person in real life. He was arrested around 28 times for various offenses, including assault and armed robbery. Smokinggun.com (2020) published a 15-page transcript of his court appearance. It notes, “[T]he defendant is an anti g-social character, and is unworthy of any consideration by this Court … [he] has been virtually unemployed for the last couple of years, yet he drives in expensive cars, wears expensive clothes. There is nothing in his life which would indicate he deserves any conversation by the Court “. Ouch. I wouldn’t want to be around this guy, even if he is allegedly ‘reformed’.
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You didn’t mention that this is the first time it is revealed how Tony and Chris are related. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think it’s ever been explained before why Tony calls him his nephew, and I find it really odd that the show waited until season 5 to do it.
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I find it most interesting that you chose that particular moment to bring up Gatsby. In the novel, Tom Buchanan’s mistress, Myrtle, lives in “The Valley of Ashes”, an area that later became Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (and part of it remains a blighted industrial area nicknamed “The Iron Triangle”), all quite literally adjacent to where Shea Stadium stood.
And re an earlier comment: East and West Egg are on the near North Shore of Long Island, inspired in particular by Sands Point, and the Fitzgeralds lived for a time in nearby Great Neck. Enough of the action takes place in New York City that the location of the Hamptons is an impossibility–it took hours and hours to get out there from the city back then (still does).
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The scene where Tony asks Corrado, “Don’t you love me?” is a heartbreaker. It moved me to tears.
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Paulie’s comment to Fetch – “In my book, you get points for *staying out* of the can,” now really reminds me of a certain man’s words about John McCain – “I like people who don’t get caught.”
Funny how life imitates art…
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-A great illustration of Junior’s increasing dementia: the way he’s out of focus the entire meeting with Lady Shy and Angelo. His face is impossible to read in this scene, and I try to every time. He’s not really there. And that subdued grin when he says “I have cable,” like he’s already on those Remember When pills.
-I wonder how many OV fans had kept up enough and remembered, for instance, Chris calling Carmela his cousin after already being established as Tony’s nephew. What else do we get in-between? A lot of it happens hereafter, like Tony B calling Chrissie’s mom “cuz.”
-Ah the peripheral Gigliones. Barb’s “Here we go” can be translated as “This BS is why I’m not in this show.” As always, this show is better at subtle realism than anything else on television; as the baby of the family, of course adult Barbara would still casually call Tony “big brother.”
-Rewatching the show with a friend, and holy shit the varsity athlete thing starts in the pilot.
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Karen – Christopher’s father, Dickie Moltisanti, is Carmela’s first cousin once-removed. Chris is only a cousin through marriage to Tony. As Tony was close to Dickie, he took Chris ‘under his wing’, and considers him a nephew. A great resource for the characters’ family tree can be found on zubindoshi.com.
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” Ms. Sanfilipo, of course, is the woman whose face received a pie (and whose pie received a face) in Season One’s “Boca.” ”
Wow, nicely done. Corrado’s very own “Pie of Mine.”
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lol
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I noticed that Bobby tells Bobby jr. to “lay off the Snapple’, yet there are several open bottles shown later once Junior’s returned.
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It’s interesting to note that the American flag – pictured above – is displayed incorrectly. The blue rectangle with the 50 stars is always supposed to be in the upper-left corner, even when vertical (making it so you cannot rotate it). Do you see this as the show making a mistake, a character making a mistake, or as a representation of something?
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It’s probably someone making a mistake. I think the rectangle on the right side when vertical somehow feels right even though it isn’t proper flag etiquette..
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That’s not entirely correct–the position of the canton (“blue rectangle”) depends on the way the forward movement of the flag (as if being carried into battle) is viewed. Because the canton is always next to the staff, the flag is sometimes depicted with the canton in the upper right hand corner. This is why, if you see an American flag patch on the right shoulder of the member of the military or a law enforcement officer, the flag appears backwards
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Pingback: The Soprano Onceover: #50. “Where’s Johnny?” (S5E3) | janiojala
I always felt Uncle Junior’s hesitation to tell Tony he loves him is caused by his terrible sadness at being asked the question, and the fact that he absolutely does love his nephew… you can see he’s trying not to cry. People can underestimate how frightening it can be to love another, and the way it opens you to hurt. He couldn’t deal with the emotion that overcame him just being asked that… Tony seemed to understand that.
What’s going on in that scene, between two magnificent actors, is so beautiful.
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Yeah, Adriana is speaking with her FBI handler, but she never really tells them anything of value about the Soprano family. Throughout her tenure as an informant at sufferance, Adriana never willfully revealed anything substantive or helpful to the FBI and did whatever she could to sabotage her usefulness as a snitch. She took steps like trying to avoid the Soprano family home so that she would not have anything to give back to the Feds. She tried to keep her “ears shut” whenever possible. In the episode “Watching Too Much Television,” she pressures Christopher to get married because she thinks it will prevent her from ever having to testify (until a lawyer explains spousal privilege is not nearly as helpful as she thought). And she just never told the FBI about real stuff which she did happen to know about Chris and Tony. She told the Feds trivial stuff about peripheral people, or sometimes tried to sick them on people she didn’t like (like that other girl she was jealous of). In “Long Term Parking,” when the FBI agents confront her about the murder she helped cover up at the club, the supervisor yells at her “You’ve been giving us shit! And I’ve had it!” It was only after she got caught helping dispose of a body and faced decades in prison that she was finally willing to play along, but that ended quickly before she could ever bring them anything.
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Megalodon – Technically, Adriana didn’t help dispose of the body, but did dispose of the knife (as witnessed via surveillance). I seriously doubt whether she was ‘finally willing to play along’ with the FBI, especially since she refused to wear a wire.
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Yeah, I doubt that “technical” excuse was going to fly in court. And “technically” Adriana didn’t “snitch” on Tony or the family because she never told the FBI anything incriminating about them, but Tony and Chris didn’t appreciate that distinction. Though I’m sure Adriana would rely on this kind of “technical” excuse to deny blame (at least to herself). It didn’t work with the Feds or the mob.
When Adriana described the murder to the FBI, she said “We had to wait til later, to get out the mops and stuff, after we closed up.” So it sounds like she provided supplies and materials for Matush and Kamal to dispose of the body and clean up evidence of the murder. She probably kept other employees or patrons from going into the office area while the club was still open and she probably provided the garbage bags and duct tape used to wrap up the body. She disposed of the knife and also a towel used to wipe up blood. If somebody provides materials to clean up a dead body, provides space to do so in secrecy, disposes of the implements used to kill the person, disposes of implements used to clean up the body, and tries to lie about what happened after the fact, then I think that does count as helping to dispose of a body.
Yes, Adriana refused to wear a wire. Part of this may be because she was just too terrified to wear a wire in Tony’s presence. But I don’t think it was just fear for herself. Adriana put herself at great risk when she revealed her informant status to Chris (which ultimately spelled her doom). Chris very nearly killed Adriana with his bare hands when she told him. Once Adriana told this to Chris, that was crossing the Rubicon for her. There would be no way she could return to her old life once Chris knew she had been talking to the Feds. From there, it was either witness protection or death. When the FBI demanded she wear a wire, she came up with the counter-proposal of getting Chris to join her in witness protection and turn state’s evidence. Part of her reason for doing this may have been her devotion to Chris. But a bigger reason for this course of action may be that it would allow Adriana to pass the buck to somebody else. Adriana’s counter-proposal was “I’m not going to snitch on the family myself, but I can persuade somebody else to snitch on them.” If Adriana wore a wire and provided valuable incriminating information to bring down Tony, then she would be the indisputable “rat” who betrayed the family. By having Chris join her in witness protection, Chris would be the one who would have to provide the evidence to bring down Tony instead of Adriana. And Adriana could rationalize to herself that she was not really the one who “snitched” on Tony, she just persuaded and facilitated the person who would snitch on Tony. And then she and Chris could live happily ever after under new identities…but that was not to be. Despite whatever evasions or rationalizations Adriana might have fed herself, once she asked Chris to join her in witness protection and become an informant against the family, she was taking irrevocable steps in a course of action that would have betrayed the Soprano family, that is, if things had gone the way she had planned.
So I think there is a parallel in how Adriana tries to evade blame in both the club murder and in snitching on Tony.
“I didn’t really DISPOSE of a body. I just provided stuff to help the people who did dispose of a body.”
“I didn’t really SNITCH on the family. I just persuaded the person who did snitch on the family.”
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I like your analysis, but let’s be very clear about this. The entire point of Adriana’s character was to show how naive and dumb she was when it came to the mob life. The feds originally had nothing on her, but they still managed to scare her into cooperating. She should have told Chris right away about the drug charge. He might have been mad about it, but surely he would have had her back on that…and with the right lawyer, those charges would be dropped or reduced to probation or something. She had no priors right? She is just extremely naive and THAT my friend is the entire basis behind the tragedy of her character, and also why she was so beloved by fans.
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Questions:
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• Corrado goes ‘missing’ and it takes hours before he’s brought home by the police?? Why didn’t the FBI immediately go looking for him?
• Bobby Jr puts chocolate syrup in a glass of milk and Janice dumps it out. As overweight as she is, she’s ‘worried’ about the kid’s weight?
• Why would Tony suggest a ‘power sharing plan’ with Johnny Sacrimoni?
• Given Corrado’s decompensation from dementia, why didn’t his attorney discuss this issue with the FBI?
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I wonder if the writer’s idea of Tony suggesting a Triumvirate for New York is inspired by the real situation with the NJ mob? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Palermo#Power_struggle
There was an hour documentary on “The Real Sopranos” that went into the way the NJ mob was influenced by the show, oddly enough, although the documentary gets a lot Sopranos details wrong so I don’t know how much is accurate on the NJ mob either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_WtIeeSuO0
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