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 March 12, 2000 EPISODE 9: Mortal Sins First: this was the best episode of the season. Second: Paulie is easily the funniest character on TV. Third: I like numbering. Fourth: see Third. Fifth: if you followed instructions, you'd never get out of the infinite loop created between Third and Fourth. Sixth: you're still cheating. Seventh: made you look. There's a great moment in the opening scene of this week's episode: Christopher's lying in a hospital bed the camera pulls in and we see over what looks like his wounds -- a small locket with a picture of the Pope. Naturally, Carmela's the first to point it out: "Look, he got his Holiness right here he got shot and survived too." You have to smile at the comparison the Pope and a mobster but it really sets up the theme of the episode (drumroll for the thesis, please): what spiritual toll does all this mob-killing take on the lives of these observing Catholics, and how can one reconcile the two worlds? It's a question each of the characters faces, and as with any good writing the response for each is markedly different. For the most-religious, Carmela, her answer is a bold-faced acknowledgement of the evils they commit. As she says when she prays for the wounded Christopher: "We have chosen this life in full awareness of the consequences of our sins." It's a hard moment for Carmela she has to ask herself: which is more important, being the good wife or the good Catholic? and the question doesn't have an easy answer. In fact, as she faces the reality of her own life (where mobster husbands are known to keep lovers on the side), the first decision she comes to is that she wants Tony to have a vasectomy. For her, it's her first attempt at battling her family's sins, and for us, it's a great allegory for the real problems of her husband's lifestyle (Take it away, Freud: penis = manhood = mob = sin; vasectomy penis = good = heaven). And lest you doubt my analysis (c'mon, she's reading Memoirs of a Geisha throughout the episode!), check out this exchange between the happy couple when Tony points out that a vasectomy meddles with God's work: "Isn't it a sin to undo the work He's done?" Tony asks. "You should know you've made a living of it," Carmela shoots back. It's not the first time Carmela's faced the consequences of being a mob wife, but with religion mixed in, it truly becomes a crisis of faith. Consequently, it only gets worse when Christopher "dies" on the table, then is brought back to life. Filled with morphine, he swears he had a vision as he stepped into the afterlife: "I'm going to hell," he tells Tony and Paulie. "I saw my father in hell." "Get the f**k outta here," Paulie shoots back. But Christopher's serious: a bouncer at the Emerald Piper told him he was going to hell. And what's the Emerald Piper? An "Irish bar where it's St. Patrick's Day everyday forever." So Christopher says, and so it goes, dragging both Tony and Paulie into the religion self-analysis mix. The only problem is, Paulie doesn't like that version of hell (especially when Christopher adds that on his brief layover he saw Mikey, a guy Paulie killed years ago). Determined to set Christopher straight, and to convince himself that he's not going to hell, Paulie starts quizzing him about the visit. "Was it hot?" he asks. ŒCause "the heat is the first thing you notice. That's not been disputed by anyone." In the end, Paulie decides Christopher didn't go to hell he went to purgatory. And as Paulie figures it (with a mathematical equation!), he owes about 6,000 years in purgatory which is easy since "that's like a coupla days here." Problem solved, right? Not when Paulie's own dreams are haunted by the people he's whacked. And when a psychic confirms that his victims are following him, Paulie concludes, "There's no denying it I'm draggin' a buncha ghouls around with me!" Tony's logical rebuttal: "Think about it you whacked a buncha heavy hitters in your time you think they're gonna join together and follow that prick, Mikey?" It certainly makes for hysterical TV, but to focus only on the laughs is to ignore the deeper meaning. (Play it again, Freud). However twisted his logic is, Paulie takes his religion seriously even if he's missing the entire point (when a priest tells him his problems are spiritual in nature, Paulie responds, "I shoulda been covered by my donations!"). The sad part is, even that's better than Tony's initial reaction, where he doesn't see a single snippet of contradiction (re: his girlfriend on the side: "Hey, I had her tested for AIDS whattya think I am?"). Indeed, when Dr. Melfi asks him who goes to hell, Tony (a man who spends the entire episode plotting the death of the guy who shot his nephew) responds, "The worst people twisted and demented psychos who kill people for pleasure." And when she asks if he thinks he's going to hell? "No, for the same reasons. We're soldiers Soldiers don't go to hell. It's war Everyone involved knows the stakes." It's a great rationalization for blowing people's heads off (especially when he shores up his theory with the fact that Italian immigrants had such a hard life in the last century), but what you have to admire most is the way it pulls apart Tony as a character. Always the mobster, but never the villain; Tony knows he's full of it which is why, halfway through the episode, he tries to spend quality time with his son and erase the mistakes his own dad made (avoiding his own personal hell). For once, he's gonna finally shed the mob lifestyle. All is well and then suddenly (oh, c'mon, like you didn't see this one comin'), it's like Silvio doing his Pacino-impression: They keep PULLIN' HIM BACK IN!!! Christopher's shooter is found, Tony's dinner with his son is interrupted, and that new leaf that Tony turned over? Well, like any religion found in a foxhole when the dust finally clears, it's pushed aside for another day (Or as Tony says to Carmela, "You're only religious when it suits you."). "You don't have to do this," Pussy says when Tony asks for a gun so he can kill the guy himself. "I wanna do this," Tony replies. And that's why Melfi calls it "a moral Never-never Land." The Lost Boys indeed. In the end, all we're left with is that same dangling question you ask yourself at the end of most movies: What about the vasectomy? For David Chase and the writers, they know they've got a good thing going (see above: penis = sin; vasectomy penis = no sin). So what's Tony's answer when he crawls into bed after a night of hard killing? "I'll do it," he says. "You'll do what?" Carmela asks as she gets up to rub his back. "Snip, snip." "I don't want you to do it, Tony." [They start edging towards each other, sexy-style. I miss some dialogue.] "I may wanna have another baby," Carmela says. "Maybe." [The camera moves in closer .] "Now you don't want me cut?" Tony asks. "Tony, all I want is you. That's all I've ever wanted. And I want you to be true and to be mine. I want you to not cheat." Eventually, Tony asks, "What can I do?" Carmela's answer is simple: "Prove it to me." As she says the words, Carmela and Tony embark on what I believe is their first and only sexual scene EVER in the history of the show (it's been almost two years, and this is the married couple's first kiss!). So what's more important, the good wife or the good Catholic? Here's our answer. As the crises of faith pass, it all comes together (but doesn't it always at the end of these reviews?). Like Carmela says at the beginning, "We have chosen this life in full awareness of the consequences of our sins." If the vasectomy is to be the emasculation of her family's lifestyle, she's not ready to give it up just yet (in fact, she's ready for more) which is why, in her supposed search for faith, all Carmela asks for is proof (see her last words to Tony) the antithesis of faith. LAW-BREAKING MOMENT OF THE WEEK: There's only one (really): giving Matt a diet soda, then shooting him in the chest. © Brad Meltzer Previous Episode | Next Episode