WARNING: (Possible) Spoilers!
Note: If you just want an opinion and don't want analysis and stuff cluttering up your experience, (which i humbly suggest, you don't, at least not the first time around), just know that i am one of those people extremely stingy with stars. Five stars, for me, means exceptionally spectacular and more importantly, useful.
I.e. not "just" entertainment.
---- “You know, you have these thoughts, and you almost grab it, and then, 'pfft'.” - Tony Soprano ----
The (presently) Most Helpful Critical Review likens watching the Sopranos as to "eating too much ice cream". In other words, filling and fattening but ultimately empty and probably not very good for you. Unfortunately i read that review shortly after i started watching the series, and having already had a similar impression, i agreed entirely too much and i watched ensuing episodes with that bias. Kind of a self-fulfilling mindset especially since i stream most of my television in bed as a means to numb my mind to sleep, and i often nod off with the tablet in my hands. Right in the middle of all this activity i'm enjoying, my lights go out.
I missed a really lot that way. Which may be a good thing, because it gives me an excuse to watch again, better.
So anyway on account of my prejudice and the way i watched, i was probably somewhere in the middle of the 4th season before i caught on that something more was going on here. The best TV shows, movies, and books do not explicitly spell out their messages but couch them in metaphor and allegory. They make you *think* or better yet, feel, which makes for an ultimately more satisfying experience. If you have to work to extract meaning from some ambiguous wiggle in your gut or itch in the back of your mind, the result is more filling and nutritious even if it remains just a nebulous, um,, feelthink?
The Sopranos is social and spiritual commentary at its very best, and the very fact that it can be superficially taken as gratuitous violence and sociopathic amorality is exactly what makes it so good. Like i said, it took me some time to catch on and when i did it was only because of those nebulous, uncomfortable wiggles and itches inside. I'd like to say that the realization made me sit up and pay attention, and it did to some extent and for some time, but i still kept falling back to my habit of nodding off in the middle of episodes, jerking awake long enough to rescue my dropping tablet and shut off the light.
This is the omnipresent theme of The Sopranos... the striving to be something more. Or at least, something other. It's about the constant reaching for something just... right.... there... and then ultimately falling back to the status quo because the reaching is so damned much work. It's about sin and redemption, it's the ancient story of good and evil with a deliciously ironic and realistic helping of ambiguity. Because the thing about transcendence is, you have to at least be self-aware enough to know that there's something more to be. Tony Soprano's amorality and human failings as compared to my own are only a matter of degree, not of quality. This profoundly evil man who leaves in his wake so much suffering and death, he reckons himself, on balance, a "good guy" because he loves his family. And you know what? By that reckoning, he is. Heck i like the guy, even if i'd treat him as i would a cute fuzzy rattlesnake. The frightening thing is that, watching from the outside, the maths clearly don't balance in his favor. So in all brutal honesty, how does my own equation resolve, and does it even? What quantity of suffering roils in the wake of my willful ignorance, how much harm have i done in my sleep, can i ever be enough to put this balance sheet in the black? Can i even remember that i should want to?
There are other themes and clever allegories sprinkled through this show but that's the big one. Tony doesn't particularly want to be something more or even something other, but his panic attacks (the extreme manifestation of a brain itch or tummy wiggle) pretty much force him on a path of reluctant enlightenment. I found myself rooting for his "aha" moment and a graceful exit from his evil ways, maybe even remorse and atonement, but i suppose that would've spoiled the story. Not to mention it would've probably entailed government intervention and with that, a whole other level of moral turpitude. Not better, just other.
At some point i will watch this series again and i will endeavor, at that point, to give it more respectful attention. I don't have anything against eating too much ice cream, i'm just pleasantly surprised to have gotten more from this than empty calories and i want to get the nutrition i missed.
I'm not saying that this television series offers much in the way of answers. Rather, its value is mostly in the big question marks it leaves hanging in the air, too big to ignore or go around. Albeit, (and whilst trying to avoid explicit spoilers), the huge emphatic exclamation point at the very end of it all is possibly the most brilliant finale i've ever seen to a television series. When i finally figured out what had just happened my confusion gave way to outrage and in turn the absurdity of it all got me to laughing and laughing until i nearly split my gut and let the light in.
Then i shut off my tablet, turned out the light, and went to sleep.
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Back when the series was originally cast on HBO ten + years ago, my Sunday nights in wintery Michigan were me and my two dogs (pictured) glued to the TV watching the Sapranos and then immediately calling mom afterwards in Vegas to carry on about what just happened with Tony Soprano and the crew!. I lost mom (pictured), Jack, and Jake all over a month and a half period last year. The series is probably one if not the BEST ever produced for television. Miss all of you. God bless.
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