Word: melfi
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...episodes, heavy on domestic drama, may frustrate fans of the Mob story lines, and several major characters (Uncle Junior, Dr. Melfi, Paulie Walnuts) are absent or on the sidelines. While there are a couple of nasty whackings, the most physically and emotionally brutal scene is sparked by a drunken game of Monopoly. (Tony, unsurprisingly, palms $500 from the bank and believes in the Free Parking--jackpot rule.) But Tony's personal crises--getting older, trying to break his family's cycle of dysfunction--mirror his business problem: figuring out who will lead the Mob family after him. Consigliere Silvio (Steven...
...comic relief. ("It was f___in' mayham!" Paulie blusters after a holdup gone awry.) Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) is slipping deeper into senility, believing that he's being harassed by a long-dead enemy. ("We'll get J. Edgar Hoover right on it," says Tony.) Fans of psychiatrist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) will be disappointed by her small early role, though she has key, dryly funny scenes with both Tony and Carm...
Many psychotherapists consider Dr. Melfi, the leggy shrink who counsels murderous mafioso Tony Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos, one of television's most realistic depictions of their work. Now the actress who plays her, Lorraine Bracco, is ready to discuss a real-life mental-health problem of her own. In TV spots launching next month and on a website for Pfizer, the Brooklyn-born actress will describe her struggle with depression. Bracco is just the latest celebrity to go public with such a personal admission. Last summer Jane Pauley spilled the beans on her bipolar disorder, and this spring...
...Sopranos. You have, in DSM-ese, "recurrent, unexpected panic attacks." You also have "persistent concern about having additional attacks," and you fear you're "losing control, having a heart attack, 'going crazy.'" You aren't on drugs (other than all those bottles of Vesuvio's wine), so--presto--Dr. Melfi gives you a diagnosis of panic disorder, DSM No. 300.01. By the way, if you truly think you are Tony Soprano, see No. 295, schizophrenia...
...which in turn surpassed the show's 1999 debut for power, popularity--and controversy. Last season established The Sopranos as cable's highest-rated series ever, but it also drew renewed criticism for its unflinching violence, especially against women, in episodes showing a stripper's brutal murder, Dr. Melfi's rape and Tony's beating of his mentally ill mistress. Italian-American groups and some women complained, and the president of NBC sent a tape of one episode to other executives, asking how the show's envelope-pushing would affect TV as a whole...