Edie Falco is a brilliant actress. The number of different shades of trapped and despondent and resolute and conflicted and forceful and beleaguered she is able to muster is nothing short of amazing. This is a great showcase for her and for her character. The scene with the new psychiatrist in particular, whom I loved as the only shrink on the show thus far who's seemed willing to deliver some straight talk here, was great, and it serves as a stellar "second opinion" to Melfi.
I also liked Carmella's frustrations bubbling up and erupting at Tony. She's clearly struggling with guilt that she tried to compartmentalized and is having kicked back in her face more and more. With her affection for A.J. and efforts to secure the donation to Meadow's school, there's a certain Cersei Lannister "at least I love my children" quality there; if she's going to be a part of all this evil, she's at least going to use it to support and protect the two people in her life that she loves the most. She struggles when faced with the moral choice of who she is and what she enables, and Falco sells it beautifully.
The bit with Junior's cancer treatment were interesting in a "ooh, we're back to some mob stuff" sort of way, but it didn't seem to amount to much. Chris and Paulie's tiff seemed like as much of a one-off bit, but it was at least a little more interesting to bounce these two characters off of each other in a meaningful way. Tony dealing with the ghost of Big Pussy, whether in the form of a Big Mouth Billy Bass (hilarious, though the actual flashback to the dream was unnecessary) or his widow is a nice reminder that it still haunts Tony. This would probably be an 8.5/10 if I could pull it off just because the non-Carmella stuff was competent but not super compelling, but the Carmella stuff makes it great.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-07-10T02:21:43Z
Edie Falco is a brilliant actress. The number of different shades of trapped and despondent and resolute and conflicted and forceful and beleaguered she is able to muster is nothing short of amazing. This is a great showcase for her and for her character. The scene with the new psychiatrist in particular, whom I loved as the only shrink on the show thus far who's seemed willing to deliver some straight talk here, was great, and it serves as a stellar "second opinion" to Melfi.
I also liked Carmella's frustrations bubbling up and erupting at Tony. She's clearly struggling with guilt that she tried to compartmentalized and is having kicked back in her face more and more. With her affection for A.J. and efforts to secure the donation to Meadow's school, there's a certain Cersei Lannister "at least I love my children" quality there; if she's going to be a part of all this evil, she's at least going to use it to support and protect the two people in her life that she loves the most. She struggles when faced with the moral choice of who she is and what she enables, and Falco sells it beautifully.
The bit with Junior's cancer treatment were interesting in a "ooh, we're back to some mob stuff" sort of way, but it didn't seem to amount to much. Chris and Paulie's tiff seemed like as much of a one-off bit, but it was at least a little more interesting to bounce these two characters off of each other in a meaningful way. Tony dealing with the ghost of Big Pussy, whether in the form of a Big Mouth Billy Bass (hilarious, though the actual flashback to the dream was unnecessary) or his widow is a nice reminder that it still haunts Tony. This would probably be an 8.5/10 if I could pull it off just because the non-Carmella stuff was competent but not super compelling, but the Carmella stuff makes it great.