The Sopranos: Season 6, Part 2 (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)So much of what's said abut the final season of The Sopranos refers to the last five minutes, as people unfortunately overlook the best nine episode string of the entire series.David Chase's last season of television's finest program is full of all the qualities that attracted viewers and critics for the past decade. Characters live in a world where death is a possibility each day, but aren't shown to be gods or royalty. Rather, viewers see in them all of the emotions experienced in every family, as Tony, Carmela, Christopher and the rest of the cast share their memorable loves, hates, dreams, failures...and meals.
Season 6.2 has three distinct parts.The first four episodes are "last moments in the sun" for some of the more important characters. Bobby and Janice retreat for a weekend on a lake with Tony and Carm; Johnny Sack battles a new enemy in prison; institutionalized Uncle Junior spends his last moments of sanity running a card game and mentoring a young killer; and Hesh fears for his safety when Tony owes him money and seems reluctant to pay.
Next, the season moves to the difficulties of AJ and Christopher and how both problems affect Tony. Tony takes a backseat to other characters in the opening episodes of the season, but he's never been more laid bare than in how he deals with his literal and figurative sons. As with the ambiguous nature of the show, Tony at times appears to be a heroic, thoughtful and brave, while other times, he's a monster.
Finally, the last two episodes end in the much anticipated war with New York, as successful and unsuccessful hits are targeted at the show's biggest players. A sense of closure is reached with Tony's relationships with his rivals, his crew, his family and the FBI, but as everyone in America knows, nothing concrete is declared about his future. Does he live? Does he go to prison? Will his crew survive? Those questions aren't answered, Chase`s last gift to his viewers, as people can continue turning this show over in their heads for years.
I wasn't there when The Tempest first played at the Globe, and I didn't see The Beatles at Candlestick Park. But Sunday Nights at 9pm on HBO, I saw my generation's finest contribution to pop culture and to literature, with the final season providing a closing act worthy of such a masterpiece.

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Last year, Tony Soprano cheated death when he was shot by his now institutionalized Uncle Junior. While Tony continues to muse about his second chance at life, he faces a myriad of immediate, stress-inducing crises at home, at work and from the law. Tony's wife Carmela plans for a future she's not sure will arrive, and son AJ and daughter Meadow find that adulthood holds its own surprises. Meanwhile, at work, Tony comes to doubt the allegiances of many of those closest to him ¿ no one, not Paulie, Bobby, Silvio or even Christopher is above suspicion. The clock is ticking. Time is running out. But on who?

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The Sopranos: Season 6, Part 1 (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)It's lonely in the ranks that believe that season 6 of The Sopranos was as good, if not better, than the seasons before it, but I am convinced that the first 12 episodes of season 6 are amongst the bravest, best written, and most telling episodes of the series. The Sopranos has long been a show with the most complex, multi-layered characters on television, but by using the mantra of "Who am I, where am I going" as a rallying point, season 6 probed the nature of what drives its family, and gets in intense focus of who each of them is. The problem, I think, was that it did its job TOO well this season - it's not that there wasn't action (the death count this year was as high as any other, and Tony does, after all, nearly die himself), but that because the show wanted so much to get the specifics of the ordinary right, it's easy to overlook the rather consternated implications of their everyday events. What I mean is that in showing each character at his/her essence, we get what really drives them, but we don't necessarily get that explained to us - we, for example, identify with Carmela's sense of longing and uncertainty staring off at the Eiffel Tower, or we register that Paulie is adrift in guilt and anxiety over his actions in life, but we get it in the details of their everyday action and, these characters experiencing these implications alone, get little of that wrapped up for us. To me, that speaks to a level of characterization and examination that doesn't exist in television and barely exists in film - it probes the specifics of its fictional characters so precisely, it winds up speaking to the heart of what drives Americans and the materialism of American culture that makes things like mobs possible. In that, it brings forth insurance agent, real estate claimsmen and salesmen, actors, and (in one unforgettable shout-out) Dick Cheney - comparisons of the same urges. Yet this season does more than critique the impulses, it allows them to exist, allows all of their very real virtues to be present, and lets them arise from its characters distinct, full-bodied personalities - money helps keep AJ out of jail, gets him laid, repairs Tony's relationship with his sister, keeps Carmela from probing too deeply into Adriana's murder, gets Tony reasonable health care, and nearly spares Vito's life and stops a cross-river gang war. I may be alone in the level to which the Sopranos makes me think, but I do think David Chase's intentions are to use his astonishingly vivid characters to go into depth about the American mentality (or, they're not, and it's just a product of three dimensional writing). However, even if it weren't, the season gives you extraordinary moments to savor - Paulie's confrontation with mortality ("The Ride"), Carmela crying at Tony's bedside ("Join The Club"), Christopher's gut-shaking relapse ("Kaisha," with a fearless guest turn by Juliana Marguilles), AJ's inability to carry out his "big plan" against Junior ("Johnny Cakes"), and, unforgettably, Philly's cold stare as his machinations to kill Vito are achieved ("Cold Stones"). They're moments of magnificent acting that fulfill characters even as it surprises you with their humanity and personality. And, in the premiere, "Members Only," it gives you it all in an hour - a suicide, heart attack, and gun shot that seem to tell you everything you've ever needed to know about the mob life, about why they - if not you - do what they do.

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Several crises threaten Tony and his crew; for starters, rival boss Johnny Sack (Vince Curatola) is in prison, and the always-tense relations between the New Jersey and New York families are strained through the unpredictable behavior of Sack?s surrogates. Then there are the inevitable power struggles that ensue when certain family members are eliminated, by natural and other causes.DVD Features:3D Animated MenusAudio CommentaryFeaturette

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