Monday, June 04, 2007

The King Must Die - Or Why I'm Worried About Tony Soprano

Since the episode early in The Sopranos when Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano talked about failed attempts at college before his segue into organized crime, or waste disposal as the case may be, I've felt he was a Shakespearean character.

Now that the series endgame is going full throttle, if that's true, I don't think things look good for T.

On message boards, and in living rooms, viewers are rooting for Tony to take down rival boss Phil Leotardo.

Dramatically a showdown would certainly satisfy. Phil's just mean, after all. But I'm afraid like Macbeth and Lear, Tony's going to have go down one way or another either by the sword or under the wheels of justice. There is that lingering gun violation after all.

His psychiatrist's determination that he's a sociopath would also seem to further charge the tragic flaw notion, and the fact that he's drained the show's heavily symbolic swimming pool does not make for a sunny outlook either.

I just don't think Tony can live happily ever after, but the show's writers are always full of twists and surprises.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens next.

6 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Man, this show seems to have attracted a hell of a following. I've almost started to watch an episode or two but figure I'll be completely lost. Gonna have to rent the first season or something,

Sidney said...

Yeah, you need Wikipedia to keep track of all the minor characters and the internecine conflict, but it's definitely worth viewing.

Like "Lost" it's really a long novel in television form.

Anonymous said...

There's something about 3 o'clock, I think...I remember something about three o'clock when Christopher got shot...Pauly woke at that time??? It's been awhile but I think that's going to come up. Maybe?

Sidney said...

I hadn't noticed it in "The Sopranos" but that's a good point.

I've seen various references to 3 a.m. being a dark hour - it's mentioned as "the soul's midnight" in Something Wicked This Way Comes, and in The Exorcism of Emily Rose there's some dialog where the priest notes it's an evil time because Christ died at 3 p.m. and is thus sort of the satanic opposite of that.

Anonymous said...

There is a religious undertone in the episode that I referring to...Christopher (interesting name, now) says that he was in hell. He was going to meet Pauly and Tony there at 3 o'clock. Pauly woke at 3AM during another episode during that season.

For some reason, this sticks with me but now I'm questioning my memory.

We'll see.

Sidney said...

There may well be some significance to that.

As for now, I'm kind of worried about A.J. - you know they had Meadow saying how important to son is in an Italian family, and Phil lost a brother and blames Tony.

That would be equally Shakespearian.

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