It took forever for the new episodes to arrive, but it feels like the show’s creators put the time to good use. This will almost certainly prove a minority view (at least for the moment), but I’m already thinking this third season of “The Sopranos” is the best of the three. It’s especially gratifying to see the show’s willingness to embrace new characters while altering our perceptions of established ones. Last week’s episode, with Burt Young as the dying goodfella, was packed with enough memorable incident for six episodes:
*Tony’s hilarious rejoinder after Melfi tells Tony and Carmella that they both have a lot of anger.
*The poor defenseless bastard who got golf-clubbed to death on the street for talking to a girl.
*Burt Young’s suspenseful and sloppy final hit.
*Junior fretting over whether Burt Young’s character was killed by cancer or the impact of the crash.
*Tony’s unexpected willingness to help Charles Dutton’s cop character.
*Tony’s astonishment at Artie’s desire to go to war with Christopher over Adrianna.
*The seemingly limitless depths of Janice’s self-absorption as she and Tony discuss Junior’s cancer.
*Ralph Cifaretto’s willingness to casually mock higher-ranking wiseguys.
*Tony’s inability to avoid giving Meadow grief about the black guy who stole her bike.
*Meadow casually wandering off with that lamp the feds went to so much trouble to plant in Tony’s basement at season’s start.
Add to this Melfi’s rape, the Russians who forced Janice to surrender Svetlana’s leg, Paulie’s treatment of newly-minted “made man” Christopher, the half-black boyfriend Meadow won’t part with, Cifaretto’s suspect courtship of Jackie Jr.’s mom, and the bizarro wake for Livia, and realize that “The Sopranos” is humming along as never before. One can feel excitement building as Sunday evenings near…
Tonight, we get to see Cifaretto mistreat a “crowd favorite” at the Bada Bing, and Meadow deal with her out-of-control roommate.
Take up valuable bandwidth with your predictions and reactions!
