This episode was firing on all cylinders. It doesn’t shy away from the kind of people this cast is, but it treats them like people anyway. I got choked up with everything around Michael, but especially Tony’s tenderness, the softness Gandolfini puts in his face. The clash between Tony and Melfi is electric, both actors giving it their all. Tony brutally executes a man and has a heartfelt talk with his son in the same episode. Existential grapples with death, the guilt of executing a man for a man you love who doesn’t know you’re a rat, darkly hilarious moments like Carmela buying Tony’s Jesus story… this is The Sopranos distilled.
Watched on HBO Max. A little bit disappointing, because of some "miracles", and expected events, like the killing of one character, and in the end, that did not make much sense, when Carmela and Tony do certain things. Like why? If she was mad. And Paulie is not acting rationally.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-07-02T02:05:47Z
This is an episode about life and death. Tony and Carmella talk about Tony getting a vasectomy, about his ability to create more life. And Tony berates and then makes peace with A.J., the life that he created. At the same time, Christopher experiences a vision or a dream or something that makes him think he saw hell, and it prompts everyone to think about what comes next, even Paulie, who takes things so literally that he has his sentence in purgatory calculated and is trying to pay the priest protection money.
It's also an episode where everyone's justifying what they do and what they have to do. Tony sees himself as a soldier and "soliders don't go to hell." Paulie imagines his time in purgatory in relation to eternity. Even Melfi is justifying to herself continuing to see Tony even though she seems to know on some subconscious level that it's a dead end and compromises her "ethically and professionally."
And Tony and Pussy have their "Avon and Stringer on the Balcony" moment together. That and the scene with Tony and AJ were very affecting. Not to mention the looks exchanged by Tony and Carmella where nothing really is said, but despite her moral reservations, Carmella is grateful that Tony avenged Christopher. There's something hanging over the episode - Christopher coming close to death seems to pull the fragility of everything into focus for the lot of them, but it's not enough for any of them to really change. At the end, Carmella implicitly endorses her husband's lifestyle, and the angels are watching, and maybe waiting.