"For years, most of "Sopranos" fandom has been divided into two intersecting sets: those who watch for the whacking and crude humor, and those who watch for the psychiatry and art-house storytelling."
I'm definitely in the "Both" camp. I love the goomba stuff, and I love the philosophical meanderings. Which is what makes it one of the best shows ever.
The more I think about last night's show, the more I like it, because its an investment episode. Everything that follows, the inevitable "bloody action packed climax", is going to be heightened because of the pensive and soft moments shown among the various family members, even if those moments merely reiterate or expand upon their varied and obvious flaws. When Carmella weeps over the bullet riddled corpse of AJ because he did something really stupid (or maybe he kills himself by hanging or the like when he realizes he's basically hopeless), it won't be powerful because AJ was a good kid, it'll be powerful because he *wasn't* a good kid, and the tragedy isn't so much his death as it is his life, and the failure of his parents--who love him more than anything, despite their shallowness or corruption--to raise him properly. That's what would be sad. And the scenes between AJ and Carmella last night, and next week, "You are a cross to bear", will be what empowers one of the series' inevitable climaxes.
There is a New Age faith that mixes Buddhism and Christianity in its view of the afterlife. They believe that at death, the spirit occupying the body splits in two. One half of the spirit contains the memories of this latest life, and it survives, either happy about this life or filled with regret about it. The other half, stripped of all memories, ends up in one of three places based on its latest life. It may end up in the light, merged into the greater Godhead, known to Buddhists as Nirvana or Extinguishment, and to the Christians as sainthood. Or it may end up at the Womb's Door, known to all as reincarnation. Or it may be sent to the garbage pit to be devoured and annihilated. (The lighthouse versus the fire.)
Tony says, "My whole life was in that briefcase." He has been stripped of his memories. Kevin Finnerty, courtesy of the joke from that guy in the bar, means Infinity. And a Buddhist slaps him as a karmic reward!
Tony says, "Who am I? Where do I go?" Stripped of memories, he doesn't know who he is, or why he is where he is. But he knows, courtesy of that session in the ER, that he's headed for the garbage pit.
The scenes for the next episode show an empire that is falling apart.
Chris's statement about the guy who hanged himself -- "He took the easy way out" -- will, I suspect, echo when Chris turns rat over the Middle Eastern players in the story and ends up taking the easy way out himself.
Now expelled from college, AJ is certainly going to try his hand at the family business, and he'll be no more successful at that than at anything else he's tried. He'll be the next Bevilacqua kid or Jackie Jr. He may or may not cap old Uncle Junior, but he's headed for disaster.
I don't see Tony returning from this journey. Either he dies in two weeks, or he lives as a vegatable, a mute witness to the collapse of everything he's worked for.