Welcome Back, Capos

By James Poniewozik Sunday, Feb. 22, 2004
    • David Chase, creator of HBO's The Sopranos, has sworn up and down that Season 6, the season after this one, will be the show's last. Chase says he doesn't want the show to repeat itself. And the gracious thing would be to start the countdown, admire his artistic integrity and thank him for the memories.

    But on behalf of those who are greedy and not gracious, let me remind Mr. Chase that he is making a freaking TV show. TV repeats itself — that's what it's for. Bad shows do it badly, and great shows like The Sopranos do it so well that you hardly notice. Every season, New Jersey Mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) outwits his rivals and deceives his family, friends and therapist, all while remaining oblivious to his failings. His marriage to Carmela (Edie Falco) unravels as he chases anything with legs and hair spray and she pursues sad, unconsummated flirtations. Mobsters from the past return to the scene and start turf wars. The feds circle but never manage to bust Tony. People die in drolly creative ways. And when the season is over after three months, we pray for the next year or so until the next episode to pass quickly.


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    The first four episodes of Season 5 (Sundays, 9 p.m. E.T.; premieres March 7) find The Sopranos as strong as ever. As always, it opens with a shot of the newspaper on the Sopranos' driveway — except that Tony isn't around to pick it up, having separated from Carmela in the incendiary Season 4 finale. He's living in the house that belonged to his deceased, emasculating mother (on The Sopranos, you can never escape your family history). Carmela's at casa Soprano with an angry teenage son — and a wild black bear invading the backyard, a menacing inversion of the family of ducks that settled in the pool in Season 1, precipitating Tony's first panic attack and trip to therapy. (Hammering home the metaphor, an animal-control expert tells Carmela that the corn Tony bought to feed the ducks has gone bad, attracting the intruder.)

    The new episodes, however, will probably please those who complained that Season 4 overemphasized domestic drama — rather than Mob stories, the show's popcorn hook — and lacked focus. None have the Edward Albee gut wallop of last season's climax, but they are more consistent and action heavy. A bunch of mobsters arrested in the '80s get paroled ("The Class of '04," the media dub them), including Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi), who went to jail for a heist Tony Soprano was supposed to be on. Determined to go straight, "Tony B." is driving a linen-delivery truck while working to become a licensed massage therapist. It sounds like comic relief, and in a way it is, but Tony B., clinging to his modest dream, is also a poignant figure, Tony Soprano's sad-sack but decent alter ego.

    The Sopranos' comedy is inseparable from its drama, as in the exemplary third episode, in which patriarch "Uncle Junior" (Dominic Chianese) begins showing signs of senility — after faking it to avoid jail. Watching TV, he lands on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and looks uneasily at the similarly bald, skinny Larry David. "What the f___?" he asks. "Why am I on there?" (Imagine if HBO had been airing The Sopranos.) Chianese is just one example of the show's bench strength, and he gives his best performance yet as he drives to Newark and gets lost looking for his long-dead brother.

    Naturally, Junior's affliction dredges up family trouble, as he unwittingly keeps repeating an old insult to Tony. Family issues, The Sopranos tells us, are like well-executed TV story lines: they're just the same damn thing over and over again, yet each time they affect and sting as if they were brand new. Even after Tony learns the reason for Junior's repetitions, the medical explanation doesn't put him at ease. The ox-strong, confident don looks at the brittle, fading old man he has replaced as head of the family — a man, recall, who once tried to have Tony killed — and asks, heartbroken, "Why's it got to be something mean? Why can't you repeat something good?" The Sopranos does, and it is welcome to keep doing so until we're all ready for the nursing home.