[The May 13 episode of The Sopranos birthed a discussion between Jeff and Me that last all week and went off on some unexpected tangents. Anyway, here it is with the unrelated stuff about babies and Entourage edited out. Our conversation about last night's mind-blower should be up tomorrow-ish.]

Jeff Barnosky: I don’t know if it’s been said but I think subconsciously I’ve been thinking of Leave it to Beaver every time I see the name Cleaver. After all, it’s a show about family and that was one of the first and most famous shows about the American family. While the Cleavers weren’t exactly what the myth made them out to be–the kids screwed up, the dad got pissy, mom had a mischievous look in her eye and the parents clearly did it, probably Mah Jong style–they’ve come to be synonymous with the nuclear family. It’s also one of the first cases of television permeating the culture and actually directing the way people lived their lives. People thought their family should be like Cleavers. Every time that Tony saw something with Cleaver on it, I couldn’t help but think that he was realizing how much different he was then Ward Cleaver, that Chris was no Wally, Carmela’s no June and AJ’s no Beaver. While this is pretty facile, it seems to fit in with Chase’s commentary on how popular culture permeates.

Why was he in Las Vegas? It’s like he wants to escape into the movie world, flee to Nevada like the Corleones.

Did you ever read Romeo and Juliet? After Romeo dies, his father comes in and says his mother died of grief over his banishment. I’ve never understood why the death was sort of tacked on. That’s happening in almost every episode, somebody important dies and then a nothing character goes. I find it troublesome.

Matt Tobey: I think you’re spot-on with the Leave it to Beaver reference. The Cleavers are the quintessential perfect 1950s American family. Even now, people constantly talk about that show and that family as if that was ever anything remotely resembling reality. It’s the same thing with The Sopranos. The characters live to uphold facades, both with family and with the Mafia

I think even though Paulie’s aunt-mom’s character wasn’t all that significant, her death played a significant role in the episode. It served a purpose, and I think all the deaths this season have. I’d still like to know more about what happened with Hesh’s girlfriend, but I doubt they’ll come back to that.

Now, the whole Vegas thing is what really has me thinking about last night’s episode. Let’s remember back to when Tony was in the coma. He had a different life and was in Vegas on business, where he lost his wallet and identity. The Buddhist monks thought he was someone named Kevin Finnerty. We already talked about that sequence having to do with a struggle for enlightenment. So now he’s shed himself of Christopher, someone who’s become a potential liability and also someone who holds Tony up to an unattainable romanticized standard. Tony’s free of that now, and he goes to Vegas, takes peyote, goes out to the desert and “gets it.” What does he get though? Has Tony finally reached a state of enlightenment? Or was he just fucked up on buttons? I feel like I need to go back and rewatch the coma episodes.

Jeff:

I wasn’t positive that he was in Las Vegas for those first episodes. I swear the whole Las Vegas segment last night was just another dream. The whole thing seemed somnambulant, even before they took the buttons. The edits were weird too, with little if depiction of how they got from place to place, one of the hallmarks of a dream.

I’m not sure he’s reached enlightnment as much as temporary freedom. He’s acting like a real gangster should, not some tortured father figure who kills people.

A big part of me feels that Chase wants to explore these deeper questions about life and is stuck with this sadistic murderer. His yearnings to be free exclude the yearning not to be a sick fuck, just to forget about how much of sick fuck he is. The inherent paradox of the show, still best displayed in the episode from the first season where the gansters were soccer moms, is that he wants to be a sick fuck on one level and a good dad/husband/friend on another level. It’s a funny bit, but the deeper it gets the less possible it seems.

What I think we are starting to see is that Tony is capable of not giving a damn about who he kills, even Christopha, who was as much of a son to him as AJ. So, evil overwhelms. It cannot be compartmentalized, or brushed off. I’d sleep with the light on if I was any of the characters.

He’s really starting to remind me of DeNiro in Goodfellas. Push him just a little and nobody is safe, not even Hendry.

Matt: You know, you’re right. I looked back at the official episode guide and they never said for certain that the convention was in Vegas. It sure had that same feeling though. Tony alone, detached from anything we’ve come to be familiar with. And yeah, it definitely felt like a dream. Two things strike me as a I think about it again:

1. When he looked up at the bathroom light it was reminiscent of him looking up at the light on the helicopter and then briefly woke up to reveal it was a light over an OR table. And then there was the light in the desert that was so profound for some reason.

2. There were two scenes of him driving in Vegas and both were shot just like the opening credits sequence. The first driving scene was especially reminiscent of the credits, with him going through a tunnel. But the really jarring thing about it for me was the music. It was like a bizarro-world version of the opening credits, with Tony making the drive through a bright and shiny Vegas, rather than a drab New Jersey, all set to music that was antithetical to the dark and gritty theme song.

I’m not sure how I feel about your theory that Tony is evil by nature. The fact that he mentioned the car-seat repeatedly seemed to me to be him trying to convince himself that he actually did a merciful thing, even though he was truly killing Chris for selfish reasons. The guilt and humanity are there, right along with the evil. It’s essentially the paradox that you described only on a more existential level, and it’s the same as the two Tonys concept that we’ve discussed. So I guess I’m not sure how you can think Chase feels stuck with the character. Maybe the point is, even if we haven’t killed dozens in cold blood, we’ve all done irredeemable things, but it’s just easier to illustrate that side of human-nature using a gangster.

Remember when Sonya said Chris talked about a lot of sad things, but Tony’s actually sad? He’s sad because he’s aware of the paradox, if only mostly subconsciously. That paradox lives in pretty much everyone on the show, but over the past six seasons Tony’s become more and more self-aware, aware of the two Tonys. He senses the paradox, whereas most everyone else is blissfully ignorant. The interesting thing last night was AJ coming to the same realizations about good and evil, only more consciously, overtly, and at a much younger age.

Jeff:I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about Tony being in hell, but I don’t know. If that’s hell, bring it on.

I’ve actually been thinking alot about Tony’s nature–evil or not–and I think I’m really intrigued by the nature of narrative art and what it says about psychology and character. Here I’m going to give the most obvious example in all of literature and movies, which is Humbert Humbert. How do we handle the three-dimensional character who is objectively an evil-doer? He’s fascinating, but Nabokov expertly dances around psychological examination. I think Chase is doing that here. Chase and Nabokov know that they are examining the indefensible, so they don’t defend it. They challenge the reader/viewer to deal with it. Evil is human and sometimes charming.

I keep feeling that Tony knows his end. He knows that it won’t end well for him and he’s stripping away the pretense. Michael Coreleone did this at the beginning, to take power. Tony’s doing it at the end, though probably not to save himself. He’s trying to reveal his true self.

He’s been faking love for everyone–Chris, Carm, AJ, Meadow–and now he’s just saying fuck it. Kill ’em.

I’m not convinced about AJ. Tony knows about good and evil. He just chooses evil. Or compartmentalizes it.

Matt: Tony’s in hell, eh? I could definitely see it. Have you ever read The Third Policeman? After about the first half, I found it to be kind of a chore to read, but the concept is interesting enough. Without giving too much away, it’s about a murdering thief forced to spend eternity in a surreality looking for his lost loot. It’s also said to be a huge influence on Lost, but if we’re to believe Tony has left the mortal coil, I could see some connections to The Sopranos too. The last episode reminded me of Slaughterhouse Five at points too. I kept feeling like maybe Tony has come unstuck from time.

What I really wonder is if the more existential elements of the show will be explained outright or if they’ll only be eluded to, and we’ll be left with a resolution that only pertains to the real world. It could get silly and heavy-handed if they try to lay it all out, so I might prefer they keep it below the surface.

kittenpants: i think Green Gobby Jr. is a fucking sweet piece of ass. and face. just dreamy. I fucking hate that he died. I wanted him and spidey to fight crime together. In my underpants. it’s becoming a real criminal hot spot lately, what with all the minorities moving in.Wait, what?

You really should buy her book.

Jeff Barnosky: Honestly, I have no idea what to make of Sunday’s episode. Addiction stories bore me silly, especially over such a long time. Using, clean, using, using clean. It’s like Mark Leyner’s autistic kid’s description of the midwest: “corncorncorncornstuckeyscorncorncornstuckeyscorn.” I think they keep trying to link to deeper issues but get caught in the muck of Christopher’s story. Is Adrianna driving all of this? He seems more concerned about Tony.

So, Tony is surrounded by failed sons, yet he’s the most failed father. I am convinced that AJ is metamorphing like a Samsa into Michael. He didn’t explicitly reject his father’s life, but tried to go straight. Now he’s burning off people’s toes. The scene with AJ and Tony on the bed talking about blowjobs was shot almost exactly like the “I never wanted this for you Michael speech” (I’m doing my pretty kick ass Brando) Their heads were almost touching in the same weirdly intimate way. Tony just wants, like The Godfather, for his kid to be normal. Get laid, be a senator Coreleone, governor Coreleone (I’m doing it again.)

It kind of felt like Bugsy Malone, with all of these little mini-gangsters running around. And it’s funny how normal they seem to Tony. I think this is the third generation in the show. Junior and Paulie, and Livia, being the first. Tony’s people being the second…

I’m not sure. We need a four hour movie to wrap everything up.

Matt Tobey: I feel like the addiction story with Chris has always been indicative of something else. At least they intend it to be. There have been times when it’s gotten repetitive and tedious, but I think this week it definitely signified the heightening of Chris’s struggle. The drugs and the booze represent his life in the Mafia. When he was clean, he got himself a family he loves, a nice house and finally realized his dream of making a movie. But just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in. And as soon as he tries to work his way back into mob life, he falls off the wagon and blows his movie career’s brains out.

My wife and I talked about bit about what it was supposed to symbolize when Chris went home at the end and propped the tree back up in amid a yard that was torn to shit. I’m leaning toward the idea that it represents his futile attempt at sobriety, which represents his futile attempt to escape his old life.

And yeah, Adrianna has a lot to do with it. She’s both a literal sacrifice he made for the family and a very clear metaphor for the death of the dream he once had for his life, for what he thought being a wise guy would be.

I didn’t pick up on the Godfatheriness of the scene in AJ’s room, but I did keep expecting Paulie to tell Chris to go get his shinebox in the scene at the bar.

So is Blanca Apollonia? She breaks up with AJ, shattering his dream of being a father, husband and pizza-parlor mogul before his 21st birthday and steering him toward the inevitable life of crime that’s been waiting patiently for him his whole life. But will the twist be AJ getting whacked? Maybe AJ isn’t Michael. Maybe he’s Mary.
I have to think the finale will be two hours. There’s no way they can wrap it all up otherwise.

Jeff: See, The Godfather III is the elephant in the room. All of this revolves around just when I think I’m out…

What if Chase is just correcting the evil of III, what if he’s trying to undo the wrongs of that horror. Or maybe the whole show is really just alluding to The Virgin Suicides, or CQ.

I feel that we may have been on to something in the past episodes, because this one seemed fairly devoid of allusions. And tension.

So why did the guy from Wings get killed? Was it because he was disloyal or not obedient? Or because he is indirectly responsible for the career of the guy from Sideways and also Monk? Seems justifiable.

Matt: I actually think III is underrated, which is a weird thing to say about a movie that was nominated for Best Picture. It’s not of the caliber of the first two, but it worked for me as a closer to the story. Keep in mind, I didn’t see it until I was in my 20s, long after it’d gained a reputation as one of the biggest disappointments in cinematic history. But I like it. I don’t even mind Sofia all that much.

That said, the idea that Chase is trying to do a proper send off of The Godfather saga isn’t completely crazy. It’s probably at least one of his many goals with the show.

Like I said before, I think Chris getting drunk and whacking JT was a metaphor for what Chris was really struggling with. Booze is the Mafia, JT is his movie career. He gets guilted into spending more time with Tony and the guys, and then starts drinking again. Then, under the influence, he shows up at JT’s place, begging for help. But JT doesn’t like Chris. He’s never liked Chris, only feared him. That essentially represents the fact that Cleaver sucks and it only got made because of intimidation and blood money. So Chris kills JT in cold blood. He succumbs to his gangsterness and kills Hollywood.

Of course, that begs the question: Is there a larger theme here that connects to our overall discussion? We’ve already talked about Cleaver being the shit that the Mafia takes after eating The Godfather, so I’m going to say yes.

Jeff: It just occurred to me that the American directors of the seventies and the French New Wave spent so much of their time alluding to other movies, other directors, to the point where they were often accused of not having any ideas of their own. De Palma, who I think is underrated at his best but horrific at his worst, spent so much time nodding to Hitchcock, yet he was witty and pointed about it, most of the time. Nobody really has any ideas of their own, all art is just higher mimicry.

And by the way, I melt when books or movies reference other things in witty ways. Buffy, Hot Fuzz… To me it’s just as profound and meaningful as talking about tragedy or the war or whatever.

Even gangsters can’t or don’t want to get away from culture, pop or otherwise. A hit movie makes more money than they could ever dream, even a flop can be profitable if you’re a crooked movie producer. Maybe Cleaver is a reference to the Producers. Maybe the Sopranos is just playing on Curb Your Enthusiasm…

Most people who read this blog probably already got an email about this. But in case you haven’t heard, I’ve teamed up with Neal Pollack and Ben Brown on a new parenting website called Offsprung. We’ve put a lot of work into it and I really couldn’t be more proud of what we–along with several insanely talented writers–have created. Rather than describing it to you though, I’ll simply suggest you click this link and check it out for yourself.

(10:15:24 AM) matthewtobey77: I haven’t heard anything about last night’s gop clusterfuck

(10:15:26 AM) matthewtobey77: who won?

(10:15:39 AM) gogogogogoodbye: everyone who didn’t watch