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 February 6, 2000 EPISODE 4: Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing, Baby It takes a special kind of person to subscribe to TV Guide. So if I subscribed (which I don't), I'd not only be entitled to the world's best crossword puzzle, and that dichotomy of opinions --Cheers & Jeers, but I'd also have all those little descriptions that accompany the listings of current shows (i.e., Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., Greatest American Hero: "Ralph and Bill find the instructions to the suit, but quickly lose them... again"). So imagine my surprise when I went online and checked out the first six words of this week's TV Guide Sopranos snippet: "Tony travels to his ancestral Italy..." Tony in Italy!? That's all I needed! Better than Mork going back to Ork; better than Gary Coleman on The Facts of Life (you know, the one where they reestablish the fact that he knows Mrs. Garrett); and even better than (dare I say it?) the Bradys in Hawaii—this is what great TV is made of! Within minutes, I had it all figured out in the advance team that is my brain: Tony walking through the Old Country, Paulie meeting the actual people who inspired The Godfather, and Christopher chatting with his ancestral killers. The thing damn near writes itself. I mean, I could already hear Tony slurping real, good-as-it-gets, homemade fettuccini. I practically smelled the basil and danced in the olive oil. What a brilliant guy this David Chase is! And then, a funny thing happened (cue ominous music here). The episode opens with an old favorite: Tony and his boys are getting ready to watch the DVD of Godfather, Part II. Paulie's giving his favorite Godfather line ("It was you, Fredo."), and Tony says his favorite part is the Italy scene with the crickets. It's all falling into place... and then... the DVD won't start. Something's wrong with it. How do you fix it? Paulie walks up and give it a good Fonz with his shoe. Bam, bam, bam! But it still won't go. It's a fun scene, but as it happened, its point was lost on me. Indeed, it wasn't until they got to Italy that I realized what was going on. Or more precisely, what was not going on. Sure, the mobsters all go to Naples, and sure, they sit down for a big Italian meal, and sure, they meet with the big Italian godfather. But unlike the movie I prescreened in my head, the people in Naples are rude, the Italian food is just okay ("Lots of fish," Tony says), and the godfather whose ring they can't wait to kiss? He's an invalid—a broken figurehead whose only words are American streets ("Wil-shire Boo-lee-vard...Jorje Wash-ing-ton Bridge...Major Dee-gan Ex-press-way (Major Deegan Expressway!)). It gets so bad, Paulie orders spaghetti and tomato sauce (or "gravy," as he calls it). For that alone, the Italians think he's trash. And in a quick cameo, series creator David Chase (playing an Italian stranger at a café) lets Paulie tell him off American style. What's the point? Well, if I wrote the TV Guide (imagine that job!), I would've written, "The Sopranos go to Italy...and hate it!" Is that bad? No, that's the best part! For two seasons, we've watched these men live their lives, actors in their own Godfather-powered fantasy of what they think the Old Country is really like. And when they finally see it (as inevitably happens with all of our personal myths), it never lives up to expectations. It can't. If it did, it wouldn't be real. And if it's not real, why bother watching? The best part is, Chase uses all this disillusionment and disappointment to make us love his characters even more. When a young boy sets off firecrackers near the old godfather, the Italian thugs beat him up and even punch his mother in the face. It's brutal mobster violence—just like in the movies—but Tony and Paulie are disgusted ("Just a kid...!"). It's pure Sopranos—and it highlights the hard truth of seeing the mobster in the mirror (who is, by the way, no relation to Man in the Mirror, by Michael Jackson). Add to all of this a wonderful subplot (or is it the whole plot?) about the ways women are treated in the mob world, and you get the full picture. Between the Italian setting, Tony's and Pussy's wives, and the female crime boss in Naples, we see that expectations—especially with love—always risk falling short. (Can that thought possibly be more depressing? How do I cheer the reader up now? Just think of the scene where Paulie sees a public restroom in Italy for the first time. Oh, boy, the comedy of toilets!). In the end, we can't help but feel like Paulie as the weary mobsters drive home from the Newark Airport. The scenery is drab, the Jersey landscape is dotted with garbage dumps, and dozens of smokestacks are coughing black soot into the air—but Paulie's got a wide-ass smile across his face. Sometimes, it's good to be home. © Brad Meltzer Previous Episode | Next Episode