I rank the 86 episodes of The Sopranos. #60 is Second Opinion, the seventh episode of Season 3. Named after things Carmela and Junior are going through at around the same time — spiritual and health-crises alike, sometimes call for guidance from the experts of the field.
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INFLUENCES
- The scene in this episode where Junior fucks up his smoothie, is one of the things I was keeping in my thoughts as I wrote a chapter of Ice Road wherein a guy tries to make coffee with a coffee-maker that’s so familiar to him that he could do it with his eyes closed. He thinks.
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Check out these cool rare photographs whose purposes I know nothing about at all! It just says the name of this episode, and I’ve never seen these anywhere until somebody posted them in a Facebook group. It’s just as mysterious to me as I’m sure it is to you, now. It does feel somehow nostalgic to look at, though.
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There’s a feeling I have solemnly attached to the experience of watching Season 3. It’s somewhat incredible to me that I’ve never gotten to talk about it, despite having four writeups from the season before this.
That feeling is Autumn.
The death of Pussy is still fresh when this season rolls around, and the event colors much of the tone of how things get restarted, in my opinion at least. Even Livia’s death in Proshai, Livushka (S3E2) isn’t as big of an earth-shattering event for Tony. The heartbreaking depth of betrayal is still felt and while there’s no sudden shift to all-out, rampant depression such as in Isabella (S1E12) when Pussy disappeared… there’s a new feeling in all of the stories. A looming feeling.
Meadow has grown up suddenly — further expanding the subtle notion of the autumn of one’s life when you see massive, quick developments in other peoples’ lives and while it may not leave you feeling wistful to any devastating degree… it still colors your life. In a way.
I thought of all of this as I sat down to watch Second Opinion and take my notes from it. Just a minute before that I had been looking at the list of songs this episode uses. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Nils Lofgren’s wonderful live-rendition of Black Books, Al Green’s Take Me to the River.
Some underhand has taken us in, to a really dramatic place… a place where people are contemplating change, and I think this episode’s key song-choices all reflect that.
Now of course, this is just my array of interpretations that I personally to attach to the middle-episode of this season. none of this is apparent and I’d consider it fair enough, if somebody read that and didn’t have the first clue of what I was talking about.
I’m far enough down the line of this countdown, to speak candidly about how each episode intrinsically makes me feel, and I’m glad you just read it.
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Junior contemplates turning on Tony in his hazy state as he’s on his way to his operation; if not for anything else then for the show to shock us with the thought. He even wonders on the purity of Tony’s intentions; his isolation is clearly affecting the state to-which he trusts people.
Carmela is at the hands of a bigger moral dilemma than we’ve ever seen her have… even if her issue hasn’t changed much from the show’s beginnings. Such a moral dilemma it is, that through festering for these three years, it has turned into a spiritual one.
Something as small as an aptly-timed Rock & Roll song triggers a physical reaction out of her, and if something that small can trigger something that big in Carmela, who we’ve seen more or less be a rock through her first 2½ seasons… how volatile is this world, really? How safe is anyone, really?
Tony is feeling those questions irk him more and more, but comes off the most relieved when he has to sort out the smaller, less significant messes of other people like Paulie and Christopher. It relieves him (momentarily) from living with himself, and living a life where his best friend betrayed him, and even had to be killed.
This has been the biggest preamble I’ve probably written about any episode so far, but the bottom line is this:
Nobody can look out to the sea anymore, like the could before.
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One last quick thing to mention: this is the last episode I’ll be writing about that is on the second disc of the Season 3 DVD. The other two episodes on this same disc are Another Toothpick (S3E5) and University (S3E6).
I won’t be making a note on my blog every time I get past writing about an entire disc’s contents — there are 28 discs in-total, so that might just become… too unimportant to report.
The reason I felt this is important to report, though, is that back in my early years of watching The Sopranos, I had actually lost Season 3’s second disc and for over a year, couldn’t find it from absolutely anywhere in my parents’ house. Eventually when they were moving some stuff out of a room into some other room, this disc was there under I’m pretty sure, a school-notebook.
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The episode commences at an operating-room where Dr. Kennedy is overseeing an… he’s overseeing an operation, believe it or not.
Anyway, Junior has an amusing hallucination just as his sedatives are kicking in and he’s getting ready for a cancer-surgery.
Even watching observantly, it’s hard to point out whether this whole sequence was dreamed up by Junior Soprano or not. Where did the dream-portion begin? With Dr. Kennedy saying something about the operation to his co-worker? With the Federal agents coming to harass Junior on his way to surgery (my belief is before that), or was all of this real and the rest of the show’s events just a dream like a small — but oh, so real — portion of the Sopranos-fandom wants to think because simple ambiguities are too hard for them?
Y’know, I believe the encounter with the Feds wasn’t real, but if it was, eh. Wherever reality ended and dreams began, the trick was just as effective of making us believe these are real-world situations until this magnificent screengrab came upon the screen.
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Tony, Bobby Bacala and some of Junior’s older friends get the news that he’s in-remission and everything went fine.
With the good job Dr. Kennedy’s doing and has been doing, Tony wants to give him a token of gratitude. Kennedy kind of impresses him by not accepting it, but really mostly just leaves Tony biffled.
The general consensus for Dr. Kennedy seems to be that he’s a really pompous and arrogant guy, but I don’t see it. Seems as regular as can be. The fact that not wanting anything unnecessary to do with a family of known criminals… the fact that it sticks out to some people as being pretentious… yeah
It’s no wonder Tony’s the quintessential TV antihero still, ’til this day. His gravitas is something really special when people side with him this hard, and see something as regular as what Kennedy’s doing, as pretentious for having the supposition woven into it, that he is above Tony.
Is he not above Tony, then?
I’m also happy they’re returning to perhaps the most intriguing (less-important) minor characteristic about Junior: his Kennedy-obsession. Or maybe obsession’s a hard word.
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Paulie does a strip-search on Christopher.
“I said everything!”
“Go fuck yourself, Paulie.”
“Before I was breaking balls. Now you’re beginning to worry me.”
Paulie Gualtieri & Christopher Moltisanti
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ONE OOF MADONN SCENE
Mother-daughter, father-son dinner
Mary and Hugh are eating at the Soprano-house and AJ’s upcoming field-trip comes up as a topic. His class’s going to the nation’s capital.
What’s important about this conversation in my opinion is this little moment AJ and Tony have, when the boy says to his dad “we’re going to the FBI headquarters“, and anticipates a response to it — something like Tony feeling less of a way about AJ’s thoughts of skipping the trip. AJ’s just lazy, and doesn’t wanna go through the trouble. I’m gonna spoil a little bit of this episode’s ending to you now, and reveal that AJ will return from this field-trip still just as ignorant and generally uninterested as he was before being made to go.
I will spoil a little bit of this whole show for you now, in advance, and say that for Tony to be the one that rags onto him about that very thing, is one of the peaks of this show’s wonderful irony.
Like, remember how in D-Girl (S2E7) Pussy told AJ (when talking about the scratch on Carmela’s car’s door) he needs to appreciate the value of things, and then in the same breath gives the kid $20 for doing absolutely nothing?
There’s something to that effect happening here too. Tony’s the person teaching him to appreciate things like culture and history, by example, as little as he does. And whenever Tony’s trying to step in and do the opposite of that, his underhanded ways of living in this world always come up in some kind of way. AJ will grow up from here and have a little bit more of an attitude at home, and that will lead to moments where he dares question this profoundly imperfect moral foundation. That’s when Tony gets violent with him.
AJ has one moment when he resists this threatening atmosphere Tony created. He gets called a disgrace to Tony’s lineage for even having the thought.
Oh, and also one time, years before that – before this current point in the timeline too, actually – AJ gets called a disgrace to Tony’s lineage for dropping a tray of lasagna on the floor by accident.
Appreciating the value of things, 101.
How the fuck AJ did not attempt suicide earlier than in The Second Coming (S6E19), is way beyond me. This kid’s strong as a bull mentally.
Anyway, this moment when AJ kinda presumes that Tony will have an outward reaction just at the mere mention of the FBI… only to then see the way Tony lies by means of acting clueless thru-and-thru…
I believe The Sopranos didn’t start with the intentions of setting up so many upsets, as it ended up doing. I don’t believe this show got started, with the idea in Chase’s mind that he’ll do the level of subversions as he pulled in Employee of the Month (S3E4) or Made in America (S6E21). I don’t believe there were plans to be as ambiguous as the ending of Pine Barrens (S3E11).
I believe this show arrived at the ambiguity it eventually went on to achieve.
If you’ve watched more than three David Chase interviews in your life, you’ve probably heard him state that one of his absolute favorite things about doing The Sopranos, came from Pilot (S1E1) and that was the fact that he now kinda had the opportunity to “psychoanalyze” his own ideas, as a writer. “The ducks in the pool, what did they mean?” Melfi asked Tony, and now Chase has to ask what did they mean? They were just an idea.
The Sopranos arrived at the level of subversive story and ambiguity, that they ended up mastering, as they went. Not saying it wasn’t natural, but it was… well I like to believe it was something that happened incrementally.
You know why I’m talking about all this while still covering this simple scene where AJ said something about the FBI and expected a reaction from his pathological liar of a father, only to get a bunch of faces?
Well because I just can’t get past the fact that the extent of “what AJ knows, what AJ doesn’t know”, was such a big concern back in Down Neck (S1E7), but we get absolutely 0 answer to that question now and the show seems to be just fine, not answering that question. The fact that he even mentioned the FBI to Tony in that kind of way, means that he knows something. But what?
There’s no answer.
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With all that being said and all that being covered, here comes the real kicker of this scene. After Tony has to leave mid-dinner and AJ excuses himself too, and we’re left just watching Carmela interact with her parents. This is the meat of this scene.
Mary brings up an old conversation — that is news to us as there’s never heard this talked-about before — about how Tony was the wrong man for Carmela, how she had a perfectly fine admirer back when she chose a husband; one that Mary would’ve think suited her much more.
Carmela’s just as fed up with this conversation as she is about justifying her actions and decisions to her own mother over and over again.
Mother-daughter relationships are a hella interesting subject to me. Obviously one I as a dude don’t know much about. A peculiar division of expectations exists in those dynamics — I believe I understand that much just from movies alone. Still, I don’t believe TV or movies tackle them enough, at least not as seriously as other family-dynamics.
Father-son relationships are the backbone of many a traditional tale. Mother-son, Father-daughter, those are ones that the Freud-enthusiasts love studying for Christmas. But a mother and her daughter… Mary and Carm in this scene, as they take their plates out to the kitchen from the dining room… say so much about a storied relationship with just a conversation that goes over a mutually annoying small chapter in the past.
I’m really lucky I have very empathetic parents for myself. To me personally it’s unbelievable that anybody’s parent talks to their kid this way. Their own offspring. Like they’re a commodity and their life-choices are a to-do list just so mom can be slightly more satisfied with them.
It’s alien to me that a part of a post-dinner chat would be that a mother just reins down on her daughter with “you made a huge mistake with your life marrying this man”, telling her she’s “worried” about a decision (marrying Tony) which Carmela has made twenty years ago. Really? You’re worried about this now? I dunno, I feel really out of touch with the things women go through today.
Some people out there with demanding parents, are strong as bulls mentally. It should take less than a brilliant Sopranos-dinner-scene for me to actively appreciate that fact.
Second Opinion outranked some heavy fan-favorite episodes in this countdown of mine, and I’m sure some people who saw this 10 spots ahead of the neighboring — much more lauded — episode, were surprised and probably disappointed. But being reminded again of how deeply this episode explores Carmela’s dilemmas and difficulties, reaffirms that choice for me as the right one.
Carmela Soprano gets a whole new dimension to her characterization from this episode alone. I believe that the truth this episode exposes, is way more profound than the excellent social/societal commentary of the previous episode — or even the soul-seeking journey of the one before that.
Her relationship with her mother is just another layer of her that we get to see, but it’s been something that nags at her somewhere in her mind, all along. How conflicting must that be, having a parent you’re tired of justifying your choices to, only to actively wallow in the Catholic guilt of those very choices, like Carmela does? How much that must make you feel like your life is a hopeless cycle?
Fucking Angelo Stamfa and his fucking pharma-corporation.
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At the Bing-backroom Tony sees a cute little new toy that Georgie brought in.
It’s Big Mouth Billy Bass the singing fish, singing fun silly songs, haha.
Doesn’t take long into the fishsong for Tony to remember the bane of his existence this year has been the memory of his former best friend Pussy who betrayed him more deeply than anybody else ever has, who was like a brother to him and who he had to murder.
It’s fairly rare that The Sopranos flashes back to past episodes. Meadow asking Tony if he’s in the mafia in College (S1E5) re-appeared as a flashback on Down Neck (S1E7), Tracee walking all innocently by the Bing-counter in University (S3E6) reappeared in He Is Risen (S3E8).
Shit like that.
But even with my good memory of events in this show, I can’t for the life of me remember any other episode than Funhouse (S2E13) that was called-back-to multiple times. The other time I’m thinking about is in Remember When (S6E15) when the callbacks are… more extensive.
Anyways, Tony beats the shit out of Georgie with the Big Mouth Billy Bass.
Furio — who so far only has shown feelings just for Richie’s Cadillac and nobody else — is once again, just confused by this. What happened? What was that?
Silvio doesn’t even wanna go there.
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I love what this episode does for the character of Carmela so, so so, so so so, so much.
Did you know that she won a “Best Actress” Emmy for her performance in this episode? So deserved.
Carm has been having joint-therapy sessions with Tony ever since Another Toothpick (S3E5). Now she’s here to go through one alone.
I love this scene specifically for the choice to open up on the shot mirroring Tony’s first shot – first shot of the whole series – where in Pilot he’s sitting like this in the middle of this statue’s legs. It symbolizes the great accomplishment of this episode’s Carmela-storyline, which (I firmly believe) is to have her come out of this episode a way more fleshed-out character than she was for the first 2½ seasons.
Think about it. There was a point when Carm turned from this morally questionable mob-wife who had a healthy amount of attitude and surely came across as whiny and bitchy to the Melfi-skipping crowd. The “hits n tits fans” as Ron @ Sopranos Autopsy called them. There’s a point when those things stopped defining her and she changed into a deeply sympathetic character whose struggle with faith — the one at the very core of her characterization — is something that ought to speak to the humanity in anybody.
Second Opinion is the episode where the pathos of Carmela Soprano starts being seriously addressed. The turning-point.
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Junior wanted somebody to join him for his doctor-visits that would ask some questions that actually matter instead of some dumb shit about his diet. He brings Tony.
Tony’s not fanboying for Kennedy the cancer-doctor quite as much as his uncle.
Junior really trusts Kennedy. I cannot express it in words how much Junior trusts him.
I should let Junior explain it instead.
“You say sign, I sign. You tell me to take a crap on the deck of the Queen Mary, an hour later they’re hosing it down with disinfectant.”
Junior Soprano
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Carmela sees Angie at the grocery-store and Pussy’s widow has all kinds of troubles — only starting with how she’s gonna take care of her sick dog (according to her).
Oh Angie, I hates to see you down and out, but the reward will be worth all of that in seasons 5&6. You’re the real hero of The Sopranos.
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Christopher brings Adriana hilarious sasquatch-size shoes. I don’t really think that the fact these are size 10’s — and that’s Paulie’s goumar’s size — is cause for any conspiracy-theories. I don’t think that. It is, however, a poignant moment when Christopher thinks out-loud about how he could’ve forgotten his fiancées shoe-size, and Ade says “yeah, how?”
If either of them were smarter characters than they are, she would realize that it’s because Christopher also buys gifts to other girls when he’s not at home, and he would consider himself busted for this Freudian slip of-sorts.
Neither thing happens, and instead Christopher promises to go trade these shoes for ones that are Ade’s size, tomorrow.
The two start making out, relishing in the new luxury of Christopher being made back in Fortunate Son (S3E3).
Little sidenote: That episode’s writeup is coming very soon (two spots higher from here) and I can’t wait to get delve into that. It’s definitely one of the episodes I’ve been most eager to analyze ever since starting this blog.
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Tony comes home and asks what’s there to eat, to which Carm answers that the food from dinner has already gone cold.
“Well, that’s why they invented microwaves. For inconsiderate husbands.”
Tony Soprano
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Christopher and Adriana compare past sex-experiences.
Why? Why would you want to have this talk?
Why would you do it with somebody like Adriana who men have wet dreams about smelling her hair? You don’t think she’s got stories?
Well they’re just done with fucking and she feels a little bit of levity. She feels a trust and a closeness, and in what I believe to be a totally innocent moment, just remembers this one sexual encounter with a notably famous comedian and YOU FUCKING CUNT WHORE GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SIGHT!
I have to reiterate: why? Why would you want to have this talk?
In the middle of their sudden fight, there’s a knock upon the door.
Christopher goes to see who it is.
I really love that shot’s composition. The lava-lamp is just a touch upon it. There’s something so immediately appealing and artsy about the thin color-palette going on, and there’s clearly a big expression intended with Christopher’s framing here. It’s a really different, really intentional shot that really says something but it’s not quite sure what it’s saying. And it doesn’t really have to say anything meaningful. It can just stand there to be admired.
I also absolutely feel I have to point out how viscerally it resembles this other haunting shot from an episode I already mentioned. Fortunate Son (S3E3). I think this visual rhyme is definitely here to evoke this episode’s Christopher-storyline. Maybe because the three episodes didn’t make time for showing how he’s doing? Maybe because this is Paulie that Christopher is about to meet yet again, with more bad news and humiliation yet again? Maybe because the famous crow from the window in his making-ceremony back in Episode 3, actually represents the fleeting innocence of him, and how this ceremony for Christopher, very much just meant a formal / soul-bounding induction into a lifestyle of bad choices he was already in too deep to ever try anything else?
Or maybe Christopher IS the crow at the window in some interdimensional, time-travelin’, hold-the-door kind of way?
I’m lucky I still have that whole crow-bit waiting for me. Just that whole entire episode. I can’t wait to write about it.
I think those were all good questions that I just asked. My personal interpretation about the visual rhyme’s significance is simply that it is showing us, that not much has changed since that episode; Christopher still doesn’t command respect.
If anything, the sudden change in life is preparing him for a lifetime of that. He’s way younger than other made men such as Patsy and Paulie. They don’t think he deserves his success and he’s not wise (experienced) enough, to have any legitimate introspection about that fact. So this never changes. Instead, with every promotion Christopher will receive he’s gonna have to play a more defensive game with other people, who he just sees as jealous of his success.
Christopher really needed to get made like he needed a third nut.
Paulie however, forcefully assumes all the authority. “And put that piece away”, he says like he’s merely annoyed by Chrissy holding a pistol, instead of letting the instinct of fear come even remotely close to even being a talking/thinking point.
Patsy and Paulie load up the new shoes, and Christopher has to go into his own kick now to get Adriana new ones tomorrow.
But that’s not even the worst part:
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The scene that follows Chris and Paulie’s shenanigans is something truly special. It’s a silent moment with Carmela.
Carmela, at Meadow’s dorm where she (more pointedly) doesn’t know where she is and (more practically) feels without-guidance… well while there she hears an appropriate slow Rock song by Nils Lofgren (who is former bandmates with Steven Van Zandt in the E. Street Band), a live cut of his track Black Books whose lyrics really bring to mind her dilemma of whether she should leave Tony or not.
“She wants new shoulders to cry on
New backseats to lie on
And she always gets her way
She wants to see other guys
Get lost in other eyes“
Even though I find a bunch of meaning woven into this moment, it’s still a silent moment. It’s just another day, she just comes in and just happens to find Meadow isn’t at her room at this moment, so she has to wait a while. Wait, and zone out to a song that she might not ever be able to hear the same way again, if she were to make the decision she is thinking of at this point in her life.
Or maybe that’s not what she thinks about as Lofgren sings “sometimes true love will just die”. She might be hearing the lyrics and think they’re condemning women that make the kind of decisions she’s thinking about making. i.e. Condemning her.
Her inner Christian conflict is just about that. Fear of being condemned. Here she is, alone with that song.
This really might get crowned as my favorite dialogue-free scene out of the whole entire show, once this is all said and done.
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But anyways, it turns out Meadow was just napping, and after a moment (with Lofgren) passes she opens up her dorm-room’s door and Carm comes in, bringing her some ziti just how she likes it. With sweet Italian sausage along with the ground beef.
This bit here, this interaction, is what most feels like Autumn to me. Meadow’s so adjusted to college-life — something that was totally new when this season began, and she hasn’t had time to solemnly focus on with all the drama that has gone on inside these walls — that a nap in the middle of the day — while making her justly grumpy — is nothing out of the ordinary, so she doesn’t even seem like someone that’d just woken up.
Something about this sudden progress she’s made, I guess. Or maybe the longing Carmela expresses and the show finally gives time and coverage to, for the first time in the timeline.
I still can’t explain it, though. It just always happens. That feeling of Autumn.
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Junior makes himself a nice little smoothie.
Tony comes in and breaks Junior’s balls, jokingly telling him he “looks better”.
“If you’re gonna lie to me, tell me there’s a broad in the car waiting to tongue my balls!”
Junior Soprano
Junior’s really a quote-machine in this scene. And yeah, I already announced in my Wall Of MVP’s that Dominic Chianese was this episode’s star. But it was equal-points to Dominic the actor and Junior the character.
His storybeats throughout the hour — merely starting with the Kennedy-obsession* — are a joyride of entertaining antics that I could just watch all day with only the occasional pee-break.
“Think about it. Anthony is a cunthair away from owning all of North Jersey. And I am that cunthair!”
Junior Soprano
*Or maybe not obsession… maybe obsession’s a hard word.
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Carmela meets with the dean from Columbia. She’s legitimately curious about her chances and ins-and-outs of the student life; he’s legitimately curious about her wallet.
“It seems like she sleeps an awful lot.”
“They all do.”
Carmela & Dean
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Tony really doesn’t like that Angie Bonpensiero went and talked to his wife like that about finances and financial worries and issues and stuff of the like.
He’s been trying to control his anger lately, however, so he tries to mitigate the conflict peacefully upon-arrival.
OK, OK, that bit of sarcasm wasn’t all thait fair from me.
Because y’see Tony didn’t know, when he was coming here, Angie was actually driving a Cadillac the whole time she’s been complaining about her sick dog that needs medicine which she can’t afford.
So in my judgment, this is a beef in which Tony has a legitimate standing.
Cars — a specific car — will come back to symbolize Angie’s financial well-being in Members Only (S6E1); but in a totally inverse way.
For now, she has to take shit from Tony. She doesn’t even know if it’s a form of threatening when Tony is nice to her reportedly sick dog. We who know Tony, know that it isn’t – Tony legit loves animals and can’t get enough of them. Actually, I heard a story once that it was totally in some of the early plans of The Sopranos that Tony would have a dog or a cat, but the maintenance (and possible replacing) of one would have been such an inconvenience for a TV-show that spans years and years, that the idea was quickly discarded.
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At dinner, Carmela promises the Dean of Columbia $50,000 as a donation from her family. She supposes authority to do so. At first this might seem nonsensical, but assuming authority over Tony’s money will also prove later-on to be effective for Carmela’s agendas. In Season 4 the sum’ll be $10k less than this, however, and the means of acquiring it will be more underhanded.
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Later that night, Carmela breaks the news to Tony about the money she’s promised to the dean. Absolutely no fucking way, insists Tony.
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Tony and Junior go ask for a second opinion from another cancer-doctor. Everything’s going fine with Kennedy, he’s preferring the surgery-way which is agreeable to Junior too, as less pain and suffering comes from that option.
Absolutely no complaints.
Tony just doesn’t want Junior to be taking every little thing from Dr. Kennedy’s mouth as gospel. A second opinion is good. Always when you’re so sure of an solution, that you go around not even questioning your options… often that is just the time to question your solution.
Anyway, Junior hasn’t changed his mind at all.
This is still about some imaginary allegiances, to him.
Was obsession such a hard word for this afterall?
Something cool that Sopranos Autopsy pointed out: There’s actually some cool work of office-artwork narrating Junior’s decision to us. Junior has come to respect Dr. Kennedy as a straightforward, un-complicated man (not mutually exclusive to the image of John F. Kennedy he has, having been alive in the camelot-era). Dr. Kennedy has pictures of his travels on the walls of his office. Those walls tell their story with very little ambiguity. The second doctor Junior just saw (Dr. Mehta), has more abstract, non-figurative artwork, requiring more effort to be understood, if that’s what they’re intended for at all. Mehta’s solution is less straight-forward and more complicated to Junior, which is why he doesn’t buy into it.
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Carmela has a smoke outside.
Carmela has a smoke outside?!
No time to wonder about that now, something more pressing is happening.
There is orange juice in the fridge.
I know that might not sound like much, but not just any orange juice. The WRONG orange juice!
Hell hath incinerated with the fire of Tony’s infernous disappointment, when he found out that CARMELA BOUGHT THE MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMN FULL-PULP ORANGE-PEEL-HEADASS FRUCTOSE-SUBSTITUTE-LADEN WRONG FUCKING ORANGE JUICE
What I just said I like it more when it says some pulp.
Women! Always making a big deal about everything! Geez!
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Christopher tells Tony about Paulie sniffing Adriana’s panties.
In a way this moment, was a good one for Christopher. Tony finally straightens Christopher’s semi-jaded expectations; how the recent making feels to have brought on more headaches than satisfaction.
“You’re coming up quick, why do you think that is?” Tony asks Christopher, and this is probably the best favor Tony could’ve done to his nephew, who seems to be conflicted between being a soldier and being on a power-trip.
We saw in Fortunate Son (S3E3) how Christopher’s way of conducting himself with other mobsters isn’t that of a really mature and experienced gangster. In this episode Chrissy is seen at highs and lows and I think that only serves to enrich the bigger picture of what is happening with him. How much of a kid he is still, relatively speaking. Yeah, Tony’s given him a lot of lessons about being a gangster, and Chrissy’s not even close to as bad as he was at the beginning of this show… but he couldn’t navigate it without Tony. He’s more in this together with his uncle, than he might realize when he’s riding the high-times of the mob-life — bringing his girlfriend rare mystical sasquatch-footwear and other great crossroads of a young made man’s life.
He doesn’t command respect. But what’s even more detrimental, for Chrissy (at this point of the timeline anyway), is he lets all these things get to him too much. This magnitude of highs and lows is a regular part of any grown-up’s life. People will always be disappointing. Christopher isn’t desensitized enough — nevermind for a mobster’s life — for any life where you gotta deal with people at the workplace.
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A board of cancer-doctors — Kennedy included — have a meeting about Junior’s ailment, wherein they’re supposed to come into a unified conclusion about it. Cool fact: Ilene Landress (Sopranos‘ executive producer) plays one of the female doctors! In the meeting, most doctors advice for chemotherapy, and while Dr. Kennedy doesn’t, he more or less washes his hands clean of this whole affair, when he hears about the other doctor Tony and Junior had been seeking opinions from. It just happens that this particular doctor is one Kennedy doesn’t like; more specifically, he’s not gonna do anything under the watchful eye of Mehta, so it’s more than likely the two share a history of the latter being Kennedy’s superior at the workplace. He never ever wants to have that guy breathing down his neck again, and with that bit of personal friction, the only major surgery-option-supporter of this meeting, withdraws and Junior is more or less sentenced to having to take chemotherapy.
Which is just such a bit of tragic, cosmically bad luck. It sticks in our groins that this happens to Junior just because of some petty grievance he could’ve never in a hundred years have known anything about… that because of all of this, he’s now got a future of vomiting and hair-loss and hard medicine ahead of him.
Well, I don’t mean to put it as black and white as to say if Kennedy had maintained his ground, he wouldn’t eventually have caved in to the chemo-route himself. I just think he’d have been able to draw the other doctors’ to his POV, seeing as they all knew he’s the one who has been treating Junior for all this time.
Still, for Junior (essentially) to be sentenced into chemotherapy because he chose the wrong doctor on nothing else but a whim…
Well I’m somehow really thankful on his behalf that he never found out about this.
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Bobby answers a phone-call at Junior’s place which comes after the meeting. He gives Junior the news.
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Junior goes to chemotherapy.
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Tony confronts Paulie about sniffing Adriana’s panties.
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Junior throws up while Bobby tends for him, the following night.
Tony happens to be visiting and has a hard time enjoying his slurpee, what with the noises from the bathroom and whatnot.
A significant bit of dialogue — I feel — comes from Junior. He asks Tony is his pain is “a source of entertainment for you?” This is the second episode in a row where such a question was asked (Caitlin, Meadow’s roommate had a similar thing to say in University (S3E6) after going to a movie).
Before I got started watching Season 3 this-go-’round, there was a distinct memory I had, of people saying that sentiment in one way shape or form, a lot in this season. So much so that I went into this season, expecting to crack the code about “pain as a source of amusement” as this season’s (subtler) overarching theme.
I wasn’t entirely wrong, and something like that is gonna be discussed when I eventually get to write about this season’s finale.
The final four episodes of this season are gonna be very late entries in this countdown, but it’s cool to think that quick comments like this one by Junior, are kind of presaging the way in which this season’s dynamic final-stretch, is gonna have some serious shrapnel come out of its’ explosion; all the while providing some of the most unique episodes of this show’s whole entire run.
So anyway, back to this smaller scene we have going on right now:
Junior informs Tony of a problem. Dr. Kennedy has stopped answering his phone-calls. They’re not even getting through when he calls the receptionist.
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Christopher gets into his car after fucking some whore.
Hears a toot from behind him just as his car’s engine is started.
There is his dear old friend, Paulie, with something very urgent on his mind he wants to speak about; so urgent he had to park his car in the driveway to ensure Chrissy doesn’t back up and duck him.
Christopher gets into Paulie’s car. Whilst there, Paulie informs him that he’s only here to say one thing: you ever go whining to the big man again about shit between you and me, we’ll have a problem, pally-pal.
After the most serious bit of business is discussed Paulie shows Christopher the second thing he’s here to tell ‘im about.
Look at this hilarious wall-decoration toy thing! We gotta have one of these at the Bing!
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Tony and Furio arrive at the golf-course where they’ve been informed that Dr. Kennedy is playing.
Nevermind us, just having the greatest entrance in the Television history.
Did you know that this was the second time Furio used the fake name Mr. Williams? The first time was in season 2.
Besides that tidbit I don’t really have a note about this scene, strangely enough. Yeah it includes the immortal, evergreen Furio-line YOU GOT A BEE ON-A YOU HAT! But besides that it’s business as usual for every party involved. Dr. Kennedy’s a smart guy, he knows what to do. Tony knows how little he has to do to hammer home his message of the urgency that Dr. Kennedy does not pick up the habit of avoiding Uncle Junior. And Furio… again, only needs to be Furio, for us to know what’s going on.
I don’t even think it’s true when he says “there are worse things that can happen to a person, than cancer”. Like I don’t know if that’s factually true or not. But when FURIO says it to me, I 100% believe it. He’s got such a poignantly established intimidation-factor to him, which totally precedes him whenever he enters a scene. When FURIO tells me that there are worse things than cancer, I simply agree, say “yes sir Mr. Furio sir” and thank him for being so kind as to protect me from that bee on my hat.
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The golf-course scene did, however, make me think about something. Isn’t Tony’s ability to pull strings — a very loosely definable, talent-demanding ability — kind of the “motif” that makes everything within this episode work? I mean Second Opinion covers a lot of ground! I’ve talked about a big variety of things so far, haven’t I? There’s a lot of material here. This is the longest episode I’ve written about so far (at 56:57) and throughout this time, Tony:
- sets things straight with Dr. Kennedy who thinks he can start avoiding Uncle Junior
- gets a mention from Carmela to Hugh about some dark extents to-which he’s secretly helped his father-in-law with an urban development-plan in the past.
- is the one that has to settle Christopher and Paulie’s petty squabbles before they kill each other over panties and high-heel shoes.
All the major-storylines end up somehow being about Tony Soprano the problem-solver.
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ONE OOF MADONN SCENE
Dr. Krakower and the second opinion.
Carmela has her appointment with Dr. Krakower (A little part of me wishes I hadn’t already crowned Burt Young’s appearance in Another Toothpick (S3E5) as the best 1-timer because this is that damn good).
There’s a darker side to Tony Soprano the problem-solver. It’s not unfair to assume he’s solved the most problems for his wife Carmela in the past, and look at the grueling state of spiritual despair she is in, just (I believe) out of a Catholic fear of being judged in the afterlife. Her telling Tony “you’re going to hell when you die!” in Pilot (S1E1) communicates that as her status quo ‘ere.
As far as the rest of this scene goes, it’s better to just watch it because it is one of the most memorable Carmela-scenes for good reason.
It’s interesting that when I searched “dr. krakower” on YouTube the top 2 search-results were “a dose of reality from dr. krakower” and “Carmela moralised by her Jewish therapist”. What two wildly different connotations to present the same clip with.
Sad fact: Sully Boyar who played Krakower, died before this episode aired. This role was the last he did in his life.
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Junior’s at chemotherapy, and Dr. Kennedy makes probably the smartest move he could’ve.
He simply gives his blessing, by the power invested in him by his last name, to whoever that guy is that’s treating Junior at this moment in chemo’.
This way he can keep his hands clean of Junior’s treatment and not have that guy he hates, breathe down his neck, because he realized the key detail about Junior and these men threatening him:
To them, this is all just about Junior’s superstition and Kennedy-obsession. Tony even said as much — “now, you know how old men are with their superstitions”.
So he just decides that for Junior to be treated by a guy Kennedy gives his “official blessing” to, satisfies the superstitious man’s sense of closure just as much as if the man himself was treating him.
It’s an underrated brilliant maneuver in my opinion. Dr. Kennedy doesn’t have to treat Junior now that he’s pretty much handed the reigns down to somebody else — now that Junior’s family has already come down to threaten him at his leisure-time — and he can get out of this predicament by doing something as meaningless as calling some other doctor a “top of the line guy”.
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This episode ends pretty similarly to The Knight in White Satin Armor (S2E12).
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REFERENCES
- Dr. Krakower urgingly recommends Fyodor Dostoevsky’s book Crime and Punishment to Carmela. Red, black and white are quite prominent colors in the various issuings of that book’s cover as well — just as they were in most Sopranos-apparel and products around the time the show was on. A famous quote from that book: ”To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”
- Adriana tells Christopher she performed oral sex on Penn Jillette in a public restroom.
- Big Mouth Billy Bass makes its’ return! Don’t worry, there’s a good reason that Funhouse hasn’t been talked about yet, by the time you’re reading this.
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PROGRESS
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