,

The Sopranos, Season 6: "The Ride" [recap]


So Season 6 is almost over, and we've gotten 2 marriages already. The first was Johnny Sack's daughter, Allegra, and now we are introduced to Christopher's new wife, Kelli, who is also with child. She thought he was going to whup the shit out of her ass, but he instead held her close, rubbed her belly, and wanted to "make a day" out of a trip to Atlantic City to get hitched. We know this is something he wanted but could not have with Adrianna, due to her plumbing, so there should be NO surprise that he jumped at the opportunity. Speaking of Adrianna, she does come up a few times this episode... let's get it going.

On a trip to PA, Tony and Christopher stop off somewhere so Tone can drain the lizard. Out of their Escalade, they see a few guys, who we find out later are members of some Vipers biker gang, jacking some nice boxes of wine. They figure, why not pilfer from the pilfering? They load up when all of the sudden, the fucking Vipers roll out of the spot with an ATM MACHINE! Chrissy quickly pulls out his piece, and when the Vipers ask if they are cops, they play along. Right before they decide to leave, Chrissy squeezes a cap out, and all hell breaks loose. One of the Vipers reaches for his ratchet, and shots are exchanged... by the time Chris gets back in the window (he was hanging out, bucking like a wild man), one of the Vipers is down, and Tony's ankle is sprained. They get a great dinner, and Chris even drinks some of the wine that Tony is getting lit off of. Funny thing about this scene is, Chrissy is championing the 12 steps, how his son will be his strength, but then gives in when T pours him a glass... now, wasn't this the same Christopher who was sniffing coke off the hooker's chest back in Hollywood? Why is that OK but drinking WITH TONY some kind of crazy idea? Anyways, they spend some time drinking more wine outside, when Chrissy and T share an intimate moment, talking about how much they have been through, and such. We are treated to a scene from the past, where Chris comes to T and tells him that he found out Adrianna flipped to the Feds. We sense the hostility in Tone, grabbing at Chris to check for the wire, probing him for information. We get to see Chris at his lowest, balling over Ade, telling T he can't pull the trigger, and he won't let T make him. It's very touching, and a scene many fans have wanted to see for some time now... later on, we see Christopher again with his homeboy, the smackhead who arranged the hit on Rusty. Christopher pays him his money, which is a little less than what was discussed, but he drops some H in there for good keeping. The dude gets worked in the whip, asking Chris if he wants. Chris first "toots" some, but then decides to go balls deep and mainline. We are treated to a pretty nicely done sequence of Chrissy making nice with a dog, all the while strung out, watching the sky, nodding off in the fair, etc. Some help REHAB did for him.

The fair, the fair. The St. Elzear's fair was held by cost cutting Paulie, which ended up biting him in the ass. We knew it was trouble when the new parish asked for an increase in his pay, from $10K to a cool $50Gs. Paulie was none to happy, so St. Elzear did not get a new hat. He cut so many corners, he almost endangered Janice, Domenica and lil Bobby on the fucking teacups. The ride gives way, and some kid gets smacked in the face by the equipment. Janice hams it up at dinner, saying Bobby didn't do shit to help, so what's he do? He finds the operator, asking for $25K for his wife, who is now sporting a new neck brace (yawn). The operator snitches on Paulie, saying he was the one who scrimped on the funds. Bobby causes a scene at the fair, calling Paulie out, saying he owed him scrilla for the medical bills. Paulie, of course, wants no part of that @ all. Later on, they sit down to eat at Christopher's party, but Bobby bounces when he sees Paulie. Tony asks Paulie to make it right with Bobby, but Paulie has been going through some things of his own. He is tripping about this biopsy that he had, due to the possibility of his having prostate cancer. Sad story, but loot is loot. Paulie wouldn't let anyone else cut corners for personal reasons, so he has to not be surprised when folks are mad at him for his usage of funds. We see Paulie’s portion close when he gets out of a restless sleep and strolls down to the Bing at 3AM. There’s a shot of him walking past the dance floor, and all of the sudden, a quick cut to a huge Virgin Mary statue standing on the dance floor! As soon as it appears, we get a shocked look on Paulie’s face (and a jolt in the heart, if you are like me), and then a shot of the Virgin gone… spooky. He goes to his mother/aunt’s house later that night, probably for some comfort. She asks him if he wants some cookies and they sit, together, watching a rerun of the Lawrence Welk show. He needs that compassion, and he will not get that sympathy from anyone but the woman he knew as his mother.

Now back to Adrianna for a mite. At the fair one night, Carmela sees Adrianna’s mom, Liz, who seems to be very distraught. She says that she KNOWS that Christopher killed her, mainly because the FBI had come to her house asking all types of questions. Carmela thinks she has been drinking, but Liz says what Carm is seeing is depression. A day or so later, Carm presents this info to Tony, who has to lie to protect his boy. In the end, that’s wrong, but he has to think of his family first. He told Carm the usual malarkey, even downplaying the domestic violence angle (“First and foremost, there is always a body”). His story for Christopher is tight, and Christopher really didn’t pull the trigger (Sil did), but Carmela left that convo still distraught and perplexed.

Now, that’s the main meat and potatoes of the episode. There are some odds and ends that I noticed, and wanted to share:

The whole scene where Tony is asking Phil Leotardo if he wants to knock off that truck TONIGHT was a big set up for next week. Phil makes his sly “spare John the stress of having to hear about this” comment, like he really gives a fuck about Johnny’s well being. He wants to live well, and be the big man.

The scene towards the end, where baby Domenica is at the fair one morning with Tone, Carm and her parents, and Domenica runs to the fence surrounding the close-down teacups ride. She starts balling, and all Janice wanted to do was to show everyone how her baby wants to go on the teacups again. Tony, who is maturing in every episode, shows his softer side, picking Nica up and twirling her around in the air. Touching scene, and a good play on where T and Janice’s heads are at.

Next week’s preview played up the whole THREE EPISODES LEFT thing, which doesn’t make me happy going into this summer, but what can you do. There was some interesting shit going on with Vito, it seems:

Phil Leotardo looks to be getting cut out of things. Ginny Sack’s brother was seen talking to Tony, basically saying Phil should be kept out of some deal or scheme. There is a picture of Phil’s face looking kind of shocked (shook?) about SOMETHING. In that arc, there was a man in Johnny’s cell also making references to Johnny talking/ratting on his homies. We’ll see how that plays out… it’s not in his nature to be a rat, unless he can manipulate the situation his way.

Bacala seems to be getting shit on by Tony, probably involving money. Bobby has been taking an odd turn this season, from a lovable oaf to a sneaky bastard. Don’t be surprised if he turns up the heat, his temper seems to be unruly at times…

The other main chunk was seeing Vito again. He looked to be talking to the Johnny Cakes firefighter biker guy about his family coming to get him?!?! Then there’s a scene were a gang of firefighters are around SOMEBODY on the ground, and the body is getting hit/cut with an axe?!?!

3 episodes left… stranger things have happened.

Do you guys have any theories on how this will play out? Scream at me.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent recap.