THE SOPRANOS
Reviewed by Brad Meltzer
(These reviews originally appeared on e.findlaw.com, and the best part of the deal was, Brad got to watch each episode a week early!)

Go to Episode Review: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

January 16, 2000
The Sopranos Premiere: Is This Really Worth My Ten Bucks A Month?

So why is a law-related web site devoting this space to The Sopranos? Is it because the show focuses on the legal profession à la Law & Order, Ally McBeal, or NYPD Check Out My Butt Shot? Is it because you, the reader, have requested—nay, demanded—it? Is it because we're begging HBO to do some sort of banner-ad cooperative crossover deal? No, no, and maybe. There's only one reason to devote time and space to a show like The Sopranos... because it's just that good.

Okay, you've heard enough hype—even Saturday Night Live was making fun of the critics' ultra-effusive reviews ("...The Sopranos is so good, if I had to choose between watching The Sopranos and breathing, I'd pause...think about it...then watch another episode of The Sopranos..."). So the question remains, after almost a year of waiting for the second season to premiere, did it possibly live up to the hype? The answer: sure—otherwise, we'd all look like dopes for talking it up in the first place.

Being honest, though, it wasn't a wham-bam-bullet-in-your-head-ma'am type of episode. It didn't have me ripping apart my pillows, shouting, "Oh my God, she's gonna have sex with the priest!" But, like it has so many times before, The Sopranos never fails to amaze. Examples? Within two minutes of the start of the program, we get the overused, but always effective, montage set to music. From anyone else, it'd be a quick way to catch us up. But in the hands of David Chase, it's...y'know what? Enough blabbering—here's what we get: a shot of mobster Paulie having sex (while still wearing his shirt!) with an over-endowed lady-friend...cut to family Tony teaching his daughter how to drive...cut to Tony's wife Carmela cooking dinner...cut to mobster Tony having sex with his own lady-friend. Sure it's crass, sure it's free nudity (okay, it cost us $9.95/month), and sure, it's somewhat gratuitous...but it's also what's so real about the show.

It's not just sex, guns, and mob hits. It's sex, guns, mob hits... AND real life family—what to eat for dinner, the worries of applying to college, the headaches of driving lessons—that's what makes these characters feel like more than just rejects from the last Scorsese flick. These aren't strangers we'll never encounter—they're people—just like us. But with cooler accents and more vowels in their last names.

Indeed, one of the best moments in the premiere is that one thing we all do when we're alone in a car—no, not picking your nose, Rosebud—I'm talking about our real national pastime—singing along with a blaring song on the radio. And so it begins for Tony Soprano—while cruising along, he's smiling that mischievous smile, enjoying the meatball hedges that dot the suburban Jersey landscape, and thinking that all is well. Within seconds, though, his CD starts skipping. Unable to fix it Fonz-style with a quick hit to the dashboard, Tony starts working himself up, and within moments, in one of those scenes you know they save for the Emmy clips, he's raging like a frothy pitbull, slamming the dash with his sausage-shaped forearms, ready to rip someone's ears off. It shows the quick dichotomy (did I just use the word dichotomy?) between Tony-the-man-we-love and Tony-the-venomous-killer. And that complexity is not what you're going to get on this week's Friends (or Law & Order for that matter).

Inevitably, of course, the show's brilliance sometimes sagged. There were some cheesy scenes with young daughter Meadow and her grandmother ("...I won't let them keep us apart, Grandma...!"). As viewers, we know Meadow's smarter than that—and that her allegiance is more likely to be with her dad. But the moment we start to groan—the moment we think "Oh, God, it's not as good as I remember—why am I spending ten bucks a month on Goodfellas Lite?" they hit us with the best of the best: mobsters barbecuing, mobsters doing their favorite movie lines from Godfather, Part III ("...the moment I get out, they keep PULLING ME BACK IN...!"), and my personal favorite—in what can only be described as pure Sopranos—mobsters waxing eloquent on the virtues of frequent flyer miles, yammering on about their love of Shelly Hack (Shelly Hack!), and singing the old jingle from Charlie perfume ("...and they call it...Charlie!").

Add to that the intelligent new casting of Aida Turturro as the hippie/free-spirit/con-job (I told you the characters were complex) sister of Tony, a few new plotlines that are slowly being set up (check out the mobsters trading stocks and using the brokerage house to push their top picks on all of us), and the usual fantastic acting that's delivered every single episode, and you see all the makings of another great season—one that may even be worth the hype that prompted me to sign up for HBO in the first place.

Added Legal Feature (highlighting the finest example of law-breaking on each particular episode): Look no further than the very first scene of the show, where Gen-X mobster Christopher is cheating his way through the SEC broker's exam. The proctor asks for "Christopher Imperioli," and a young Asian man answers, "Here!" That's the real way to break the law. Oh, man, those SEC proctors are suckers!

© Brad Meltzer