Word: sopranos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...taste of their favorite New Jersey mobsters. It has been 16 months since the last new episode (a delay, says Chase, caused by cast illnesses and the long shooting schedule necessary to give the show its cinematic look). That's 16 nail-biting months since mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) had his daughter's ex-boyfriend killed; his wife Carmela (Edie Falco) began studying for her real estate license and worrying about her complicity in her husband's crimes; his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), was recovering from her rape; son Anthony Jr. (Robert Iler) was challenging Tony's parental...
...those starving Sopraniacs, relax. Cheesy tie-ins aside, judging by the first four episodes of the upcoming fourth season (9 p.m. E.T., starting Sept. 15), the only sharks in the Soprano family's immediate future are the kind that wear pinstripes and tracksuits. In most respects, the episodes easily equal last season's, 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...
...times are no better for the Sopranos than for the rest of us. The Mob's economy is in a pinch, despite Tony's CEO-style fulminations that the Cosa Nostra is supposed to be "recession-proof since time immemorial!" New York City Mafia underboss Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola) is undermining Tony with his own people, and the feds have planted a mole in the heart of the Soprano family. Tony is back in therapy, but so are his sister Janice (Aida Turturro) and daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler). Most perplexing for Tony, his marriage may be unraveling; Carmela...
...classic populism--we're making TV for the people, not for the pointy-heads--and as The Sopranos demonstrates, it is a load of crap. The show's highest-rated episode drew an audience of more than 11 million (not counting viewers of its repeat episodes), though only a third of American TVs (about 38 million) even have HBO. Not only will ordinary folks watch a show that demands constant attention, resists easy closure, relies on subtext and is rich with metaphor--they will pay near usurious subscription fees for it. In one new episode, Tony sees squirrels eating...
...Sopranos' debut date also launches the show into the publicity wake of the bout of national scab-ripping that is the Sept. 11 anniversary. Ironically, Chase has told the story of how, when he shopped around The Sopranos to the networks in the '90s, executives would ask if Tony could do an occasional good deed--like, one suggested, help the FBI catch a terrorist. And after Sept. 11, the question arose whether the terrorists might have done in Tony Soprano--whether Americans were now less willing to accept dark dramas about morally suspect characters...