TONIGHT'S "SOPRANOS": GOODBYE, VINCE
The Vito-in-New England subplot is mercifully over and the Vito-Back-In New Jersey subplot is just beginning. Oh, joy.
Tony is dealing with his sibling rivalry issues again, this time after Janice confronted him about his emasculation of Bobby and Bobby's subsequent mugging while collecting from a Newark bookie. He solved it by making Janice owe him for a good deed (muscling Johnny Sack into selling his house out from under his wife to Janice at a discount). He also solved his Carmela problem by lying to push her into selling the Montville house she was having problems with. OK, so Tony'll get laid a little more. Great.
Most of the episode was Vito-centric, with plenty of gay kissing and bed sequences, plus Vito/Vince helping rescue a pastor and a tender dinner after which Vito, bored with working construction and longing for the Jersey lifestyle (and who doesn't?), hit the road, managing to rear-end (cough) a guy's truck on a back road (and how did Vito go from I-95 to some ice-slicked country road? Was he obligated to do so under the no-freeways rule of Hollywood?) and shoot the guy when he insisted on calling the cops. Good news: the interminable Vito-being-gay-in-New-Hampshire subplot's over. Bad news: according to the coming attractions, we're in for a load of where's-Vito subplot. Enough Vito.
Johnny Sack copped a plea- 15 years, lotsa money- which appalled his fellow mobsters, to whom admitting he was in the Mob is a short step away from being a rat. A sub-subplot involving Tony trying to muscle a pair of New Orleans brothers-in-law (one being William Katt!) into cashing Johnny out of their business was fairly useless. Maybe they're setting up something that'll loom larger in subsequent episodes, but it's more likely that they'll forget it. Meanwhile, the feds are rounding up Johnny Sack's assets, which is how they got Christopher into this week's episode with minutes to spare- he'd bought his car from Johnny Sack's wife and the marshals seized it off the street. (Moral: park in the garage) Oh, and Paulie has prostate cancer. That was HIS only scene.
The episode dealt with a lot of stuff but really seems only to be wrapping or advancing subplots. For an episode with a lot going on, there seemed to be not much forward momentum. I'm still waiting for a breakout episode this season.
Next week: everybody's looking for Vito. Where's Vito? Has anyone seen Vito? Got Vito? O Vito, Where Art Thou? If he's looking for a hiding place, may I suggest "Big Love"? Nobody'll see him there.
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