TV

The 'Sopranos': so many loose ends, so little time

After a season of colorful characters but lackluster storylines, Tony and friends wind things up tonight. With a bang? A whimper? Or just a whack?

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published December 8, 2002

[Photo: HBO]

Edie Falco, left, plays Tony’s (James Gandolfini) wife, Carmela Soprano. Will tonight’s season finale shed more light on her relationship with Federico Castelluccio’s Italian bodyguard, Furio Giunta?

Now that we're one episode away from wrapping the second-to-last season of TV's most popular and critically acclaimed drama, it's a question worth asking:

What the heck has happened to The Sopranos?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those weenies carping about how the show has been boring and aimless and unsatisfying.

But lately, The Sopranos has felt like a collection of wonderful characters searching for a story to hang on to.

When the show's fourth season debuted in September after a 16-month delay, all of the ingredients seemed to be in place: the burning, barely repressed desire between Edie Falco's crime boss wife Carmela Soprano and Federico Castelluccio's Italian bodyguard Furio Giunta; the pathological duplicity of capo Paulie Walnuts; the drug problems of rising Mafia star Christopher Moltisanti and more.

At the center of it all stood James Gandolfini's cagey, unpredictably charming gangster Tony Soprano -- a mob boss with old-school values, new-school psychological problems and a predator's taste for the easy kill.

The show has brought us some incredible moments: the darkly hilarious intervention, in which a roomful of thugs and killers tries to confront Moltisanti about his drug use; Furio nearly tossing Tony into a helicopter rotor to clear his path to Carmela; Tony's emotional decision to walk away from therapy with his longtime analyst, Dr. Jennifer Melfi.

And the season's biggest scene: the messy, furious fight between Tony and Joe Pantoliano's Ralph Cifaretto that ended with Ralph dead and Moltisanti hacking off his head and hands for later disposal. All over an argument about a dead race horse, no less.

But this season has also highlighted The Sopranos' biggest weakness -- creator David Chase's reluctance to tie up loose ends.

It wasn't always that way. In the first season, much of The Sopranos' action unfolded against the powerful backdrop of Tony's slow realization that the mother he doted on was actually arranging his own murder.

Given a surprisingly vivid life by the late Nancy Marchand, who had been better known for playing upper-crust types, Livia Soprano was the true psychopath of the Soprano family. Incapable of showing affection or love, she used a one-two punch of brutal criticism and ceaseless self-pity to bend everyone to her will.

When Tony finally headed to Livia's nursing home room in the first season's final episode, pillow in hand, to take out the woman who pushed her brother-in-law to kill her son, you felt the weight from 13 shows worth of foreshadowing and character development sliding into place.

But in successive seasons, Chase has grown more enamored of reflecting the randomness of life. In the world he has built, events aren't always resolved neatly, and characters rarely betray their exact thoughts.

Often that results in brilliant asides (we're still waiting for the return of that Russian mobster who stranded Chistopher and Paulie in snowy South Jersey during the classic "Pine Barrens" episode last season).

Still, viewers need some reward for hours spent paying close attention to a show as dense as The Sopranos.

In a series as finely crafted as this one, in which every episode feels like a mini-movie, it almost seems criminal that Chase doesn't connect more of the dots to a bigger picture. Too many of these plotlines seem to be going nowhere.

[Photo: HBO] Though some critics complain that the show’s fourth season has been boring and uninspired, The Sopranos has had some incredible moments thanks to a colorful cast.

And when the episode itself lacks sparks -- remember the recent show that seemed to consist mostly of Christopher using drugs and Furio mooning over Carmela? -- the results can be deadly dull.

Some critics raved that those problems were solved by the episode featuring Cifaretto's violent death. (It's an amusing irony that the kind of explicit gore that so many have criticized on shows such as C.S.I. and ER got compliments when it surfaced on The Sopranos.)

But it felt more like a splash of cold water, shocking viewers into remembering that Tony is, after all, a ruthless mob boss who does, after all, occasionally kill people. And unlike mob epics such as The Godfather, death on The Sopranos often comes over the pettiest of issues, in a flash of anger or passion rather than calculated strategy.

No doubt, some of my own disaffection comes from a growing familiarity with the series, the writing and the characters. Once you get the pacing, the jokes and the creator's style, it gets easier to take it all for granted -- consider Law & Order and The West Wing.

So fans head into tonight's finale with loose ends that could never be resolved in 75 minutes.

Will Tony help New York pal Johnny Sack by clipping his intransigent boss Carmine? Will Paulie's treachery in blabbing about Tony's business to Sack finally get him clipped? Has Furio really moved back to Italy to distance himself from Carmela? Will Uncle Junior get convicted of something? And will Tony's role in axing Ralphie Cifaretto come to light?

Thanks to Chase's intricate web of compelling characters, I'll be parked in front of the tube just like everyone else, waiting to see which bits the executive producer will deign to wrap up for us. (HBO was far too smart to risk the novelty of its season finale by releasing review tapes to critics.)

But part of me will be wishing it all added up to more. Because when you care this much about a show this good, anything less than the best feels like a major disappointment.

To reach Eric Deggans call (727) 893-8521, e-mail deggans@sptimes.com or see the St. Petersburg Times Web site at www.sptimes.com .

Preview

The Sopranos' fourth season concludes with a 75-minute episode at 9 tonight on HBO. Rating: TV-MA (Mature Audiences).

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