OTH: The Sopranos- "Full Leather Jacket" / "From Where to Eternity"
In which Christopher goes from Hell to back... Maybe. He forgot about Purgatory.
Season 2, Episode 8
Aired March 5, 2000
Directed by Allen Coulter
Written by Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess
Synopsis: Meadow is dreaming of going to Berkeley, which Tony and Carmela resent as they want her to stay on the east coast. Carmela is hellbent on Meadow making it to Georgetown and remembers that Jeanie Cusamano’s sister Joan is a graduate, so she corners Jeanie as she’s working on her garden and asks if her sister can write Meadow a letter of recommendation. Jeanie has no choice but to agree, although Joan shoots the idea down, partly since she already wrote a letter of recommendation, but also because she despises the idea of bringing a gangster’s family into her alma mater. Jeanie thinks this is the end of that matter, but Carmela won’t take no for an answer, especially after finding a letter from Berkeley asking Meadow for more information from her transcripts. Carmela hides this in the trash and finds Joan’s office, bringing her a ricotta pie and attempts a personal plea, asking Joan to reconsider. While she doesn’t officially threaten Joan, she definitely reads the implication from Mrs. Soprano and she soon hears about the letter from Jeanie.
Richie is given a rude awakening when Paulie and Silvio stop by and tell him to make a ramp for Beansie Gaeta, his former partner who he mercilessly ran over earlier in the season. Richie hates the implication and finds Beansie at his physical therapy and lets him know in person how he resents this, but Beansie doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It turns out that this was Tony’s idea, and while Richie isn’t happy, he still tries to make peace with his new boss and offers him an impressive leather jacket he stole from a big-shot mafioso. Tony appreciates the gift, but Richie keeps noticing that when he sees Tony around, he’s not wearing the jacket. He’s later dismayed to see the husband of Tony’s cleaning lady wear it when Richie stops by to have coffee with Carmela.
After his outburst in the previous episode, Christopher attempts to do right by Adriana and barges over to her mother’s house with an engagement ring. Chris insists that he’s serious about staying and starting a life with her, and Adriana says yes. With the Adriana issue resolved for now, he has another problem with his lackeys Sean and Matt, who feel underappreciated in their lower rankings in the family. This is compounded by an awkward meeting the two have with Tony at the Bada Bing men’s room, where they talk a little too loudly about the business, and further so when Furio comes by the two’s apartment to collect Tony’s share of their latest heist, as well as a bonus for himself. Tired of being treated by garbage, Sean and Matt decide to ambush and shoot Christopher the next change they get. The episode ends with him at the hospital in critical condition.
It’s clear that Richie Aprile is struggling to some extent as he returns to society. His brother is no longer running his old front and Tony has much less patience for his bullshit. He has a steady relationship with Janice and is able to make his way from his old spots, but it almost seems like he was thriving better behind bars.
“Full Leather Jacket” has Richie try to improve his standing with his boss and potential brother-in-law, first by reluctantly agreeing to build Beansie Gaeta a ramp for his house and by offering Tony the titular jacket, a trophy from past ventures. While these attempts seem genuine, they end up all but moot as Beansie and his wife reject Richie’s offer and Tony appears disinterested in the jacket and what it represents, eventually gifting it to his maid’s husband.
While Richie appears hurt at the rejection, his disappointment turns to fear and anger when he learns about the attack on Christopher supposedly done in his name. I haven’t talked much about his wannabe henchmen, Horace and Jasper Sean and Matt as they haven’t figured too heavily into previous episodes aside to remind us that Chris has spotty taste in friends, as they’re just as pathetic as Brendon from the beginning of the series, although Chris treats these two less as equals as he did Brendon.
It takes a few episodes of being straddled around by Chris and awkward meetings with Tony and Richie for the two to realize that they’re not only on the bottom of the family’s totem pole, but they’re so below that they may never rise up unless they prove their worth in a blaze of glory. They settle for a blaze of stupid by aiming to kill the only person who doesn’t want to strangle them in the family, and it doesn’t even work. If this was a Coen brothers movie, the two men would be hiding until one of them goes crazy and tries to rat them out in hopes for a lighter sentence, but that would be almost too clean for The Sopranos.
Meanwhile, I enjoy Carmela’s storyline, as we see her try to use her connections to her advantage, combining the luck of being neighbors to an established Georgetown alumni with the pressing convenience of being married to one of the most noted mobsters of the Tri-State area. It’s an interesting balance for Carmela, who has tried to assure of her innocence over the course of the series but has no problem using her name to get what she wants when the opportunity arises. Is it hypocritical? Absolutely, but that’s a look Carmela pulls off as wonderfully as Edie Falco rocks those bangs.
Season 2, Episode 9
Aired March 12, 2000
Directed by Henry J. Bronchtein
Written by Michael Imperioli
Synopsis: Christopher remains in critical condition at the ICU, with everyone sticking around, worried for him. Later that night, his heart stops and the doctors do their best to revive him. While they succeed, Christopher was considered dead for over a minute, and he asks for Tony and Paulie when they arrive next. He tells the two that he was taken to Hell (or maybe purgatory), where he saw his father and was told that this is where he will go when he dies. He also ran into Mikey Palmice, who wanted to tell the two gangsters “3 o’clock”. What he meant by this, Chris doesn’t know, and Tony doesn’t care, while Paulie is spooked as he tries to discover the meaning. After a couple of nights of uneasy resting, his girlfriend Michelle suggests that Paulie checks out a psychic in New York who she’s heard about, but he rebuffs Paulie after seeing some more of the men he’s killed over the years.
Tony, meanwhile, remains disinterested as he has something else on his mind- when Carmela hears about one of the men in his group’s side women having a child with him, she insists that Tony has a vasectomy. He’s angered at the suggestion, and brings up the notion to Dr. Melfi, who, if anything, appears to take Carmela’s side. This causes the two have their own argument, as Tony doesn’t like the direction his psychiatrist is leading towards and lashes out. Later, Jennifer meets with Dr. Kupferberg where she regrets her tone with Tony, noting that she’s wrong to judge him. Dr. Kupferberg asks what she hopes to achieve with seeing Tony, if she thinks she can save someone she clearly thinks is beyond redemption, and Jennifer doesn’t have an answer. At the end of the episode, Tony tells Carmela that he agrees to have a vasectomy, but Carmela has changed her mind and wants Tony as he is as the two embrace and make love.
Pussy, meanwhile, continues to struggle with his double-cross and thinks that Tony is catching on. When he receives a tip on where Matt is, however, he gladly informs Tony as the two find and kill the person who pulled the trigger on Christopher. They end their escapade at the steakhouse the two headed to after Tony’s first kill and reminisce over good times.
We’ve dealt with the mortality of the mafioso lifestyle many times during The Sopranos’ run thus far, as many members of the DiMeo family lose their lives, from Mikey Palmice getting shot while on a run or Brendon Filone getting shot in the bathtub by Mikey as an act of vengeance. Hell, despite the two not liking each other, apparently they can become bffs in the afterlife.
Even members of the family who we’ve become closer affiliated to, like Tony and Christopher haven’t been safe from meeting an early end. They may have survived their assassination attempts, but this only appears to be fate saving them for another day. When you become a soldier, you sign up for a potential early grave, and working long and hard enough on the battlefield will guarantee one or two close encounters.
In “From Where to Eternity”, Christopher comes close to his end, but it’s clear that whether it’s God, Satan, or something else, his time isn’t up just yet. What is really interesting is how this doesn’t seem to be affecting Chris as much as it does other people in his life. If anything, he seems apathetic to seeing his father in Hell. I get the impression that he’s ready to go back to his lifestyle and marry Adriana already. Paulie gets the best material, as he’s understandably antsy about Mikey’s ominous message.
Michael Imperioli gets behind the typewriter this week, although surprisingly not the director’s chair, even though Christopher’s lack of action would have given him ample opportunity to do so. I don’t think he’s the sharpest writer on staff, but he delivers a solid teleplay that works to build off of the exciting previous episode and will help to build into the rest of the season. I’ll have to cut this brief as I busted my laptop’s charger, but good stuff.
Dr. Melfi’s Notebook:
I had a pretty bad cut at work, so I had to type this without using my middle finger.
What would AJ even want to do at Harvard?
“He’s been jerking you around for three years.” Didn’t we see Chris and Adriana meet in the pilot? But then again, Adriana is the niece of the Apriles…
Back in the first season, Livia considered Christopher like a son to her, but she doesn’t go to the hospital to see him. In fact, I don’t recall the two ever interacting.
Paulie’s girlfriend Michelle is played by Judy Reyes, aka Carla from Scrubs. I didn’t remember that!
Tony’s lament that AJ is his male heir is harsh… but valid. He is kind of disappointing, isn’t he?
Next Week: Richie’s frustration towards how Tony runs thing hits an all-time high, and Tony’s panic attacks return. Are the two related?