The Long Game of "The Sopranos"

Spoilers ahead up through the end of Season Five of "The Sopranos." I'll primarily be talking about Seasons Four and Five here.

I can add two more episodes to the growing pile of "Sopranos" installments that I really enjoyed, and if you're familiar with the show, you can probably guess which ones they are: the finale of Season Four, "Whitecaps," and the second-to-last episode of Season Five, "Long Term Parking." That's the one where Carmela leaves Tony, and the one where Sil executes Adriana, respectively.

I finally feel like I'm on the same page with the show, after sixty-odd episodes. There are still certain characters and storylines that I find unbearably tedious, and the show is starting to feel a little repetitive, but the whole mood of "The Sopranos" has irrevocably shifted as we approach the final seasons. There's a much greater sense of disillusionment now. There's no longer any pretense that Tony Soprano is not a terrible person who corrupts or damages everyone in his life, even though he feels bad about it sometimes. Friendship and family ties matter to him, but he's had to face the fact that they only matter up to a point. And he's finally suffering some major consequences for his bad actions and bad choices.

The most obvious one is years of infidelity finally catching up with Tony. "Whitecaps" is one of the most impressive episodes of television I've ever seen, paying off four seasons worth of simmering marital tensions between Tony and Carmela. And it was worth all those seemingly pointless interludes with Tony and his girlfriends and the awkward flirtation between Carmela and Furio to have the explosive confrontations and violent arguments in "Whitecaps" where all of it comes out at last. I knew that the "Sopranos" was building up to some big climaxes, and playing the long game with various character arcs, but I never expected Tony and Carmela's marriage to collapse in such a spectacular fashion, triggering so much emotional upheaval.

Many shows would have let those tensions go on forever, or made the break-up the logical endpoint of a major ongoing storyline. While the Furio and Svetlana relationships were certainly developed in Season Four, they hadn't been very prominent. They were always being overshadowed by Tony's problems with Ralph Cifaretto and Pie-Oh-My, or Junior's RICO trial, or the HUD scheme, or the Esplanade. Those were storylines we expected to be the source of the all the fireworks, as external issues always had been in years past. In retrospect that it becomes obvious that Season Four's biggest casualty was going to be Tony and Carmela's marriage, and their romantic entanglements would provide the impetus for conflict. However, the Sopranos' home life was usually all about character-building and smaller personal storylines that didn't supply the same kind of action. This time the tables were turned, and I was so happy to be caught off guard. "Whitecaps" didn't just pay off Season Four, but every affair Tony had going back to Season One, and even before that, as Carmela points out. It was fantastic, the kind of slow build I've never seen another TV show pull off that well.

Things in the "Soprano" universe will pay off. That's one of the biggest things I appreciate about it. Not everything plays out how we expect, or will be wrapped up neatly, but things cannot stay buried or out of sight forever. Junior's lengthy house arrest seems to be accelerating his dementia. Spoiled, coddled AJ keeps creating bigger and bigger headaches for his parents. The show is full of characters like Richie Aprile and Tony Blundetto, who return from long stints in prison, bringing all their unfinished business with them. And even if you kill them, they leave wives and children behind who are bound to make trouble in the future. Ignoring or putting things off just make them worse. And so we come to poor Adriana, who has been unwillingly in bed with the Feds since early in Season Four, but was probably doomed a long time before that, as she ignored every warning and kept passing up every opportunity to leave Christopher and all the trouble that came with him.

Adriana's death was one I had spoiled for me long in advance, but I expected it to happen later in the series, possibly in conjunction with the other big one coming up in Season Six. Her meetings with the Feds had become so regular and so uneventful for such a long time, it was easy to forget what was at stake. Sure, things would probably end badly, and we could all predict it coming, but actually seeing Sil driving Adriana out into the woods, and seeing her panic and break down was one of the most traumatic, gripping moments of the entire series. I'm still a little stunned that they went through with killing her off. Of course Tony and Christopher and the rest will try to bury the truth next season the way they always do, but they won't be able to ignore Adriana the way they often have. It wouldn't surprise me if she ends up having more impact on them dead than she ever did alive.

"The Sopranos" has reached a very dark and uncompromising place, and I don't begrudge it all the time and effort it took to get there. I still don't like Tony Soprano, but then neither does anyone else in his little corner of the world, not really, and he's starting to realize that. Here's looking forward to a good finale. It took me a while, but I'm very anxious to find out what happens next.
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