Sopranos May 13 Spoilers

[Slow Play Ray]

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I was surprised by the apparent complete 180 in AJ this week. Where do you think they're going with him now?

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bipolar disorder FTW

[Mike Gallo]

Sopranos Rewind: Kennedy and Heidi
Posted by Alan Sepinwall May 14, 2007 12:12AM
Categories: The Sopranos
WARNING: This column contains major plot spoilers for last night's "Sopranos" episode.

It's not Vegas. It's Hell.

It may not seem that way to Tony right now. He's high on life, winning big at the casino tables for the first time in forever. He has a gorgeous stripper on his arms and an even more beautiful desert vista before him. When he collapses on the casino floor in a fit of giggles, it's the happiest we've ever seen him, and even that's quickly surpassed by the image of him giving a victory salute to the desert sun.


But all that joy comes with the roughest butcher's bill of the series. Tony's this ecstatic because he just killed Christopher.

Coming as suddenly (and as early in the episode) as it did, Chris' demise at Tony's hands was one of the series' most stunning moments, but it was also foreshadowed throughout last week's episode. Tony was separating himself from Chris, Chris was falling off the wagon and getting into his revenge fantasies again, and Tony was even singing the lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." The same song happens to be playing on Christopher's car stereo at the moment of the crash that inspires Tony to murder him. (The lyrics as Tony realizes Chris is high: "I cannot put my finger on it now / The child is grown / The dream is gone.")

"Comfortably Numb" might have made a better episode title than "Kennedy and Heidi" (a joking reference to the two girls whose car Chris nearly ran into, causing the accident), as that sums up Tony's attitude throughout it.

His eyes are flat and lifeless as he smothers Chris to death, taking advantage of a golden opportunity to remove a threat to his freedom. His only reaction to the grief of Carmela and Kelli and Chris' mother -- grief he created directly -- is irritation, and after he gets taken on one guilt trip too many, he packs his bags for Las Vegas and floats through the rest of the episode, self-medicating with wine, pot and, eventually, peyote.

Surprisingly for an episode that spent half its time with Tony staying in a hotel and had him taking hallucinogens, the only actual dream sequence appears early on, as Tony imagines confessing his past killings to Dr. Melfi. (The dream turns out to be a useful rehearsal, as he later recreates most of his dialogue from it in less self-incriminating fashion.) But the entire episode had the air of a dream, or of alterna-Tony's trip to the Purgatory (or fantasy, or alternate universe, or whatever it was) of Costa Mesa.

Only this time, the imagery wasn't of Limbo, but the hotter place. After Tony vomits up the peyote, he and Chris' old stripper friend Sonya (Sarah Shahi from "The L Word") head down to the casino floor, where he's transfixed by a cartoon devil's head on a slot machine. (It's a smiling devil, of course, because right now Tony's enjoying his descent.) After breaking his losing streak at the roulette table, Tony takes Sonya for a trip into the desert where the rising sun casts everything in a crimson glow. When the red sun flares at Tony for a second, it resembles the white Costa Mesa beacon, which seemed to signify Heaven.

Moments before the crash, Chris reminds Tony of the "every day a gift" talk he was throwing around after emerging from the Costa Mesa coma. Turns out Tony really has changed, but not for the better. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, he's grown colder, more paranoid, quicker on the trigger. When Tony felt he had to kill Pussy and Tony B. -- for reasons far more pressing than here -- he stalled as long as possible. When he realizes Chris will forever be a drug-addled liability to him, Tony barely hesitates before clamping his hand over Chris' nose and mouth.

Everyone is a threat to him now, garbage to be disposed of just like the asbestos one of Tony's guys spent most of the hour trying to unload. Asbestos, of course, is hard to get rid of completely, and Chris' presence in Tony's life no doubt will linger, even if it's just as evidence of how little humanity Tony has left.

In contrast to Tony's non-response to Chris' murder, we have A.J. retreating back into his depressed shell upon realizing what he was becoming by hanging with the Jasons. He could go along with being a budding sociopath for a while, laughing at the misery of the kid whose toes got amputated after Jason Parisi's acid bath. But deep down, A.J. still has a conscience, something his old man said goodbye to a long time ago. Tony responds to hitting rock bottom as a human being by going to Vegas, having sex and getting high. A.J. responds to the same by going about in pity for himself and raging against the meaningless violence in the world. (A.J. being A.J., though, he quotes Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along?" like it's the most profound thought he's ever had. In fairness, it probably is.)

Several times in the episode, Tony makes reference to the smashed infant car seat in the back of Chris' car. Privately, he's trying to justify the murder of his surrogate son as something other than nuisance-removal. Given how Tony has been behaving all season, I believe he would have killed Chris, car seat or no. But it wouldn't be the first time Tony's thoughts have turned to murder at the notion of innocents being killed. See his reactions to Ralphie and Tracee, Ralphie and Pie-O-My, Chris sitting on Adriana's dog, etc.

And yet the innocent creatures he has always felt most protective of are his damn ducks, and I distinctly heard a quacking sound as the asbestos was being dumped in the water at the end of the episode. Tony probably had no idea where exactly the stuff would get dumped, or what wildlife would be affected, but at this point I don't think he'd care. He's in Hell, and Hell is no place for happy ducks.

Some other thoughts on "Kennedy and Heidi":

-Chris wasn't the only significant death, as Paulie's mother/aunt Nucci died of a stroke (on the way back from seeing "Jersey Boys," of course), giving Paulie the unusual opportunity to act jealous of a dead man. He went so far as to clock the amount of time certain people visited Nucci's wake before heading over to Chris's.

-The only people who seem happier about Chris' death than Tony were Phil and Butchie, who were practically giggling as Phil gave Tony his condolences. These guys are like predators toying with their weaker prey.

-Wiseguys are no good with natural death (or what they think is natural death), are they? The small talk around Tony's bed was beyond clumsy.

-A side benefit of the Vegas trip for Tony: for a few days, he gets to become Chris, taking drugs and sleeping with one of his women, when he could never seal the deal with Adriana or Julianna, for one reason or another, when Chris was alive.

-Does anybody in the business play grief better than Edie Falco? Carm's reaction to Chris' death was almost as devastating as her hallway crying jag in the first Costa Mesa episode. Almost as brilliant, in a different way, was her delivery of the line about Julianna -- who reeked of mistress to Carm -- being a good-looking woman. (Imagine how cold Carm would have been if she knew Tony almost slept with Julianna, too.)

Alan Sepinwall can be reached at [email protected]

[Los Feliz Slim]

Lots of comments here I agree with, the first half was absolutely incredible. I'm not sure how believable the Vegas trip was, or at the very least it was rushed - what would the "I'm going to Vegas" conversation with Carmela have been like? And wouldn't Chris have needed to be replaced as a Captain pretty quickly, wasn't there a lot of business to take care of? And Tony just takes off?

I think when Tony's in Melfi's office in his dream talking about being relieved that Chris is gone, he's speaking in part for David Chase. Everybody's theories of how the show ends were tied in to Chris in one way or another, and now we can stop wondering - Chris doesn't kill Tony, he doesn't tell Carmela about Adriana, etc etc. The weight of Chris's supposed importance is off, and now it's a free-for-all.

BTW, Sarah Shahi was in "The L Word".

[Snafu'd]

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This was one of the best episodes of TV ever.
The first 10 minutes were stunning television. This is the Sopranos, you can't just look at the surface.

Did Tony kill Chrissy because he was going to fail the drug test, or because he was in such bad shape he knew he was going to die anyway and made it quicker?
...and...
When Tony looked in the backseat and looked at the kids seat, and still followed through...
cold.

I mean seriously, are you that shallow? Despite all of Tony's declarations that Chrissy is like a son, when Chrissy stops producing and starts to be a problem again, he becomes expendable, so he kills him. It's just that simple for Tony.
And looking at the carseat in the backseat provided an easy way for Tony to rationalize Chrissy's murder -- as if he is doing it to save the kid from Chris.

i feel like tony's need to get rid of christopher and the impossibility of doing so would've made for some great tension through the rest of the series.
There was no need for Tony to get rid of Chris. But it was expedient, and it was easy. Tony will do anything to serve his own needs, damn the consequences.
Even before the crash, Tony sees that Chris just doesn't have it anymore.

Also, Chris' music choices (Comfortably Numb, Departed soundtrack), attitude, and line about calling him a taxi are all subconscious ways of telling Tony he's ready to go.

Couple other things:
-- Chris drowned in his own blood, both literally and metaphorically.
-- Chris saw a beacon of light, just like Tony did when he was in the coma. You don't see it from his perspective, but the headlights from a car sweep across the screen as Chris is dying.
-- Tony thinks his good luck at the roulette table is based on Chris' demise.

What an awesome show.

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Spot on IMO. Nice post.

[JuntMonkey]

While the car was rolling down the hill, I remembered Chris's mantra, "I would follow that man into Hell..." and the car was indeed descending, leading them to a dark place where bad things wind up happening.

[Dids]

Fantastic Ep.

The looks on Tony's face were awesome, especially when he was snuffing Chris. I thought that whole sequence was fantastic.

If you like Vegas girl, she's all naked and making out with other chicks on The L Word (or was, wasn't on the last season). She's staggeringly hot.

[RiverFenix]

JuntMonkey,
Your response to Murph was awesome.

[burningyen]

That Star-Ledger essay was meh. IMHO the point of the devil imagery wasn't to show that he's in hell, it was to show Tony's final self-awareness that he really is purely out for himself, evil and unredeemable. He was given a second chance at becoming a better man after his near-death experience (alluded to by the bathroom light and the flashing sun), but instead he has succumbed to his worst impulses and is now beyond the point of no return. The funny thing is, now that he knows who he truly is, he is at peace with himself and appears to be one with the universe in his sick way. To the extent that he was cursed by a guilty conscience, his roulette rush proved to him that the curse has been lifted.

BTW, I like how after getting all indignant about his portrayal in Cleaver, Tony is now lusting after Kelly. Chris' case looks like an open-and-shut accident, but I wouldn't be surprised if the plotline of Cleaver (the protege's revenge after death) somehow gets reflected in the ending of the Sopranos.

[rbdog]

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When Tony looked in the backseat and looked at the kids seat, and still followed through...

cold.

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You think if David Chase reads stupid posts like this he wants to just bang his head off his keyboard for about 20 minutes? I mean, he takes these scenes, makes them plain as day (obv. he's trying to say that Tony realizes that if Crissy lives he'll be a liability not only to the Family but to Chris' own family as well....so even MORE reason to kill him), and then people STILL take it the wrong way. Chase must be thinking, "Why do I even bother?"

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I think Chase must bang his head on the keyboard when viewers insult the art by looking at the work in only one way - without properly deconstructing the scene and its implications.

First, Tony is in shock, as all of us in even the most minor of fender-benders will attest, you're freaked out. He and Christopher just rolled a half-dozen times or so, so even though he is not hurt badly, he is not thinking clearly, but perhaps in the most basest of terms.

Second, we've seen several opportunities for Tony to rid himself of nuisances but has refrained because of a 'humanitarian' instinct (ref: shoving Paulie off the boat, but didn't because of their history and simple affection).

So - for someone who believes in the power of family and parents, even though his family history above and below him is so clearly dysfunctional, he had hope that a child would push Christopher toward sobriety.

I concur that seeing the tree limb across the car seat was a realization that the kid could have been killed by Christophers addiction (because Tony brought it up later), but it is cold to know that Tony killed his favorite nephew and father of the kid because it was easier to do it then, not with a gun later. Stunning. The most base thinking in a moment of shock and stress accurately portrayed.

Tony knows what he is doing, man. Don't doubt what is going on.

[Triumph36]

that was a great shot - tony strangling chris.

again i still think this could've been done better, though we haven't seen relief in someone's death done quite this way - tony really wants to tell someone how free he now feels, but he's still trapped. Hence his trip to Vegas and why he finally shouts at the mountains. However, he has to be high on peyote to do that - that felt very forced to me, that he needed some sort of new experience to completely express himself, and even then, it doesn't make much sense to the girl he was with.

Tony knew Chris was becoming a liability - had in fact been a liability ever since his drug problem and Adrianna. Still, for him to get Christopher killed would've been very difficult, and could've laid the basis for the rest of the show.

The Phil-Tony showdown just seems to be going nowhere because Phil and Tony both know that Phil is tougher, that Phil doesn't care about anything except getting his way - money is just a means through which this occurs. Tony actually values money, so he's weaker.