I liked how the episode's theme was people who are trapped in one way or another. Junior is the most literal example because of his house arrest, and his hand being stuck in the sink, and I appreciated the subtext of how older people feel pushed to the side, and frustrated in areas where they're limited or need assistance.
Melfi is trapped in her professional relationship with Tony. It's making her drink. It's making her more irritable. It's hurting her relationship with her son. But she can't stop. Her psychiatrist calls it an obsession. She feels an obligation to try to help Tony, but admits she also gets a certain lurid thrill from it that she can't set aside. I thought this was the weakest element of the episode, mostly because Melfi's acting still throws me off and I find her scenes with her psychiatrist either on the nose or baffling, but it's at least thematically interesting.
Then, Tony's trapped by having to keep a low profile and seems bored to the point of stress. There's a sense of "everyone's having fun but me" boredom that permeates the entire episode, and while in other hands it might be dull, the ticking clock clearly going off in Tony's head makes it compelling. The phone call with Tony and the boys who have uncovered the WWI memorabilia is great in that sense, as is the scene where he returns to the Bing to find everyone playing cards and talking about moisturizer. In the first season, Chris talked about how he couldn't take the regularness of life, and "House Arrest" is kind of the episode incarnate of that thought. Tony can't take regular life; even when nothing's going on, and even when it exposes him, Tony wants to be in the thick of things in his business, and almost can't stand to be apart from it.
It's interesting that the first season portrayed Tony as at least semi-tragic, as someone who might have wanted to escape the mafia life and who was basically shepherded into it by his parents' generation of the family to the point that by the time he was old enough to reflect on whether or not it was what he wanted, he was already too deep into it. But here, it's portrayed as something he can't live without, that sustains him, that being apart from it heightens his psychological issues and makes him unhappy. Those two narratives are not necessarily incompatible. Maybe in his heart of hearts, Tony does, as Melfi suggests, reflect on all the terrible things he's done when he's not active in the business and it's distressing to him at his core. But maybe he's been doing it for so long that it's all he knows and the only way he can feel like himself. It's interesting character work in a delightfully uneventful episode and sums up the conflicting impulses that tie Tony in knots.
Watched on HBO Max. I knew Tony would f*** that little blonde secretary! Other than that, I don't think anything interesting. Maybe just how the psychiatrist is turning into an alcoholic.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-07-06T16:05:17Z
I liked how the episode's theme was people who are trapped in one way or another. Junior is the most literal example because of his house arrest, and his hand being stuck in the sink, and I appreciated the subtext of how older people feel pushed to the side, and frustrated in areas where they're limited or need assistance.
Melfi is trapped in her professional relationship with Tony. It's making her drink. It's making her more irritable. It's hurting her relationship with her son. But she can't stop. Her psychiatrist calls it an obsession. She feels an obligation to try to help Tony, but admits she also gets a certain lurid thrill from it that she can't set aside. I thought this was the weakest element of the episode, mostly because Melfi's acting still throws me off and I find her scenes with her psychiatrist either on the nose or baffling, but it's at least thematically interesting.
Then, Tony's trapped by having to keep a low profile and seems bored to the point of stress. There's a sense of "everyone's having fun but me" boredom that permeates the entire episode, and while in other hands it might be dull, the ticking clock clearly going off in Tony's head makes it compelling. The phone call with Tony and the boys who have uncovered the WWI memorabilia is great in that sense, as is the scene where he returns to the Bing to find everyone playing cards and talking about moisturizer. In the first season, Chris talked about how he couldn't take the regularness of life, and "House Arrest" is kind of the episode incarnate of that thought. Tony can't take regular life; even when nothing's going on, and even when it exposes him, Tony wants to be in the thick of things in his business, and almost can't stand to be apart from it.
It's interesting that the first season portrayed Tony as at least semi-tragic, as someone who might have wanted to escape the mafia life and who was basically shepherded into it by his parents' generation of the family to the point that by the time he was old enough to reflect on whether or not it was what he wanted, he was already too deep into it. But here, it's portrayed as something he can't live without, that sustains him, that being apart from it heightens his psychological issues and makes him unhappy. Those two narratives are not necessarily incompatible. Maybe in his heart of hearts, Tony does, as Melfi suggests, reflect on all the terrible things he's done when he's not active in the business and it's distressing to him at his core. But maybe he's been doing it for so long that it's all he knows and the only way he can feel like himself. It's interesting character work in a delightfully uneventful episode and sums up the conflicting impulses that tie Tony in knots.