Family: first, last, always.
If that message somehow escaped you in previous years, the new season of “The Sopranos” that starts tonight shines a white-hot light on the conflicting demands and loyalties of Tony Soprano’s mob family and his wife and children.
At the same time, David Chase’s award-winning gangster drama also touches on Buddhism, metaphysics, quantum mechanics, string theory and evolution in the first few episodes of the sixth and final season. But then Chase always has found a way to mix God and gore, virtue and vengeance, philosophy and philandering.
If nothing else, the highly anticipated start to the latest “Sopranos” chapters – off the air since June 2004 – demonstrates that Chase and his creative crew never do what you expect. The first 12 episodes run this year, and another eight are scheduled to begin in January 2007.
When Season 5 ended, New York mob boss Johnny Sack (Vince Curatola) was about to be arrested by the FBI; Tony (James Gandolfini) and Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) had reunited; the girlfriend of
Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) had been killed for talking to the FBI; and Tony gunned down his cousin Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi).
The new season opens more than a year later. Johnny Sack is in jail awaiting trial, Tony and Carmela have developed a fascination for sushi, and hotheaded Phil Leotardo is running the New York family.
The dilemma of family crops up early when a member of Tony’s crew comes into some money and wants to get out of the mob and move to Florida. No go, he’s told by Silvio Dante (Steve Van Zandt) Tony’s consigliere. The theme is clear: The mob is just like any other family – you can never really leave, at least not alive.
Later, talking to Anthony Jr. (Robert Iler), Tony revisits the notion: “In the end, your friends are going to let you down. Family, they’re the ones you can depend on.” Which family he means is left unclear.
At the end of the first episode, Tony walks into the house of his Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese), where we catch a brief glimpse of a movie on TV – it appears to be Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory.” It is one of those subtle pop-culture references for which the show is famous; the movie is an anti-war classic featuring Kirk Douglas as a French officer standing up for his soldiers against senior officers bent on executing them.
Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) also finds himself caught up in contemplating what constitutes family, a particular conundrum he is emotionally unsuited to handle.
Early on there is a shocking development – even for a show that has made an art of them – that makes it difficult to discuss the new season in any detail.
But without being a spoiler, Tony finds himself in a dream- fantasy sequence in which he grapples with the issue of identity, the man he has become, the man he might have been or even wished he was. A volatile, conflicted personality, he is stuck in the dream just as he is stuck in a life he can’t escape. It’s a remarkable opportunity for Gandolfini to show how effortlessly he can switch personas.
The new season plumbs deeper into the lives of Tony’s wife, Carmela, and Anthony Jr. Carmela has struggled mightily and movingly in the series with her religion-fueled guilt over the life she enjoys with Tony’s mob money.
At one point she agonizes over an insult she hurled at her husband: “It was a sin, and I’ll be judged for it.”
Guilt does not seem to be a bother for Tony’s son, who more than ever seems headed down a criminal path. A.J. seems ready to leapfrog his previous mild bad behavior and demonstrate that he is truly his father’s son. Chase, referring to A.J. and his sister Meadow, has suggested substantial character developments for both.
While none of us would likely want to be part of this family, it is hard to contain our curiosity as the “Sopranos” families threaten to shatter.
