One of the things I dislike in films and TV series is dream sequences. They
usually run along the lines that something is happening, then the person wakes
up, and it's like the director is laughing at us:
"April Fool! It never happened!" In my eyes this is poor
storytelling.
In "The Sopranos" dreams play an important role. In most circumstances they
fit in well with the plot. Tony Soprano is a person suffering not only from
panic attacks but also from other mental disorders. The dreams give us an
insight into his inner life. In episode four we see him having an erotic dream
about his psychiatrist, Jennifer Melfi. In episode six there's another erotic
dream about her. She's become the centre of his life.
Is it the legs that do it? Probably. Jennifer's legs are prominent in his
first dream. It's interesting to see the way she sits. Her skirt isn't
actually short, but she sits in a way that it rides up her legs. She has
deniability. When she crosses and uncrosses her legs she can claim that any
exposed skin was an accident. Tony shouldn't have been looking.
Tony Soprano's 13-year-old son is called Anthony, like his father. In the
family he's called AJ, which is short for Anthony Junior. He finally finds out
that his father is in the Mafia when a fellow schoolboy chickens out of a
fight. The boy's father has told him not to fight AJ because Tony might take
revenge.
Tony's other child is 18-year-old Meadow, in her last year of school. She
already knows about her father's Mafia involvement from online searches. Did
she use Google? No idea. The search engine Google was launched in 1997, two
years earlier than these episodes of the Sopranos, but it didn't become the
most used search engine until a few years later. Meadow explains Tony's Mafia
involvement to AJ.
A few days later she confronts her father: "Are you in the Mafia?" He
answers brusquely, "There is no Mafia".
Tony is arguing semantics. He rejects the word Mafia, preferring to call it
the family or the business.
One of the main locations used in the series is the strip club Bada-Bing,
which is run by Silvio Dante. It always amuses me that only the customers
stare at the dancers. When Tony and his associates are sitting at the bar they
don't even notice the girls. Tony must find Jennifer Melfi's legs sexier than
the bare breasts.
In the fourth episode Jackie Aprile, the acting boss of the Mafia – it's
difficult to avoid using that word – dies of cancer. A gang war is
expected to name a successor, but Tony asks his uncle Corrado (nicknamed
Junior) to take over.
One of the strengths of the Sopranos as a well-written series is that all of
its characters are likeable, however many bad traits they may have. For
instance, Tony Soprano is a killer, but he's a sensitive, insecure killer that
we feel sympathy for. The only exception is Tony's mother, Livia Soprano.
She's a devious schemer, and she has no redeeming qualities.
Junior Soprano meets his crew (the captains directly answering to him) at the
Sit Tite Loungenette, a seedy little cafe.
It's easy to track down with Google Streetview. It's on the corner of Ocean
Avenue and Seaview Avenue in Jersey City, now serving Chinese American food.
Centanni's, which was only seen in the pilot episode, is on the corner of 2nd
Avenue and Centre Street in Elizabeth, New Jersey. It's interesting that the
street's name is spelt correctly.
Satriale's, which is frequently shown from the second episode onwards, was a
building located at 101 Kearny Avenue in Kearny. The building was previously
empty, and it was demolished as soon as the series finished. It's now a
parking lot.
Once more, I've written more than I intended. I hope that what I've written is
interesting. If you want to know more, please visit the
Sopranos Autopsy for detailed
reviews.
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