OTH: The Sopranos- "Toodle-Fucking-Oo" / "Commendatori"
Welcome to Naples University.
Season 2, Episode 3
Aired January 30, 2000
Directed by Lee Tamahori
Written by Frank Renzulli
Synopsis: Meadow throws a party at her grandmother’s abandoned house that gets out of hand. Ecstasy is handed out and one of her friends can’t stop vomiting on the floor. Luckily Tony is friends with one of the police officers at the scene of the crime, who does him a favor and doesn’t put handcuffs on his daughter. Tony drives Meadow home, furious but surprisingly quiet after a short round of yelling, and even lets her go to bed when Carmela wants to start her turn of investigation. That morning, Meadows tries to explain her side of the story and talks her parents into punishing her by taking away her Discover card for three weeks, and she walks out with a smirk in her face. We later learn that this was Meadow’s idea. Janice is initially on her niece’s side, but after seeing the mess Meadow left behind at the house, she becomes incensed and demands that Tony and Carmela punish her further. For once, Tony and Carmela are in agreeance and tell Janice to stay out of their parenting, which Janice takes as a sign that she isn’t welcome at the house. Later, she and Carmela apologize to herself, with Carmela insisting that her sister-in-law stays, while Janice agrees that she was out of line to call out hers and Tony’s parenting. Meadow, meanwhile, heard their fight from earlier and seems particularly dismayed that Janice thinks her parents are being too soft on her, and she’s later seen cleaning up her grandma’s house herself.
Jackie Aprile’s brother Richie returns from a decade in prison and tries to meet with his former partner, Beansie Gaeta, who’s largely gone straight and runs a pizzeria. Their reunion doesn’t go well, as Richie accuses Beansie of disrespecting him and attacks his him at his shop. Richie tries to catch up and resume business with Tony and Junior, but quickly learns that he can’t just easily meet up with them. Richie meets with Junior at his doctor’s to reclaim his loyalty, while Tony asks to meet Richie at the mall to tell him to back off on Beansie, which he ignores and runs him over the following night. Richie returns to other old habits as he runs into his old flame at yoga- Janice. Or Parvati, I forgot her name change too. After meeting up with her at Livia’s hospital bed, he tries to give the two of them another chance, insisting he’s changed, but Janice remains skeptical. Tony later meets with Beansie and after seeing how badly he’s damaged, he tells Richie that he needs to back off and show Tony the respect he showed Jackie, or there will be trouble.
Dr. Melfi has a girl’s night out with her friends at the same restaurant Tony is at with some of his crew, and she tries to make small talk with him. After realizing that he’s not interested, she says “toodle-oo”, which she later regrets. She recalls the experience with her own therapist, Dr. Kupferberg, who suggests that this was Jennifer letting herself out with her former patient, rather than Dr. Melfi. Jennifer asks, colleague to colleague, if she did the right thing by dropping him as a patient, which he states that it’s up to her to decide why she joined the profession in the first place. She later has a dream where Tony passes out on the road and falls out of his car.
We meet two noteworthy characters this week. First is Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, Dr. Melfi’s colleague and personal therapist, played by legendary director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich’s early praising of The Sopranos helped to legitimize the series as a pioneer of the increasing push for feature-quality television, and his work on camera further cements this. We’ll see more of Kupferberg as the series goes on, and right away he proves to be an interesting alternative to Dr. Melfi’s practice. He’s more direct and cutthroat than Jennifer, although part of that may be because she’s also in the profession and knows the score.
Dr. Melfi’s scenes help to bring her back into the fold after her initial dismal of Tony in the premiere. She’s still a professional, one who agreed to take on someone who needed her professional help, even if he is a violent person. Her concern over failing Tony when he hadn’t finished treatment is apparent, but also complicated as he is a violent person who nearly had her life in danger due to his actions. Additionally, her need to hide made one of her patients take their life, something she can rightfully blame Tony on. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The other new character who appears this week is Richie Aprile, Jackie’s brother who returns after a decade of hard time. David Proval joins the main credits with his debut, which implies that he’s here to stay as he struggles to adjust to life outside bars.
Richie’s attempts to return to normalcy is something that I find interesting. His initial instinct is to check on old friends who are divided on how to take his return, while Tony’s attempt to ease Richie back into the family’s new balance isn’t quite effective. Right away, we see that Richie isn’t quite like Jackie, as he has a harsher mean streak and refusal to compromise, which is not a good fit for Tony. He can tolerate Richie’s harsh words towards Christopher, who frankly deserves it, but his attack on Beansie Gaeta is uncalled for.
We do see a sweet side to Richie when he tries to woo Janice back into his life. It’s nearly effective, as her initial rebuffs turn into a sort of appreciation as he tries to prove sincerity and change to her while reminding her of his admiration for Janice’s mother. Livia, meanwhile, has her mentality diminish as she can’t tell the difference between Richie and his late brother. Still, Livia appreciates the attention, and Richie’s unprompted visit does spark some joy from even the show’s most stone-hearted character.
Directed by New Zealand filmmaker Lee Tamahori, best known for the James Bond feature Die Another Day, “Toodle-Fucking-Oo” juggles a couple of worthwhile stories around for another satisfying hour. Oh yeah, and Meadow’s a bitch, but whatever, she’s a teenager.
Season 2, Episode 4
Aired February 6, 2000
Directed by Tim Van Patten
Written by David Chase
Synopsis: Tony, Christopher, and Paulie fly up to Naples to meet with a part of the legendary Camorra family that he’s distantly related to. Tony has a supply of luxury sports cars which he’s willing to sell at a discount to the European family. They meet with Furio Giunta, a member of the family who speaks the most fluent English, as he offers to translate for them throughout. While Tony hopes to meet with Don Vittorio, he’s disappointed to learn that the Don is seldom active and instead does business with a made man named Nino. The disappointment turns into surprise, however, when Don Vittorio is wheeled into their dinner by his daughter, Annalisa. Tony’s attempts to communicate with the Don are moot, as he’s only able to list the names of streets in New York. Annalisa reveals in private that her father is going senile and that his heir, her husband Mauro, is serving a life sentence in prison. It turns out that like Tony and Junior, Annalisa is running the family in secret. Realizing this, Tony talks to Annalisa about business and attempts to convince her to bring Furio across the pond, which she balks at, refusing to give up one of her best men for little in return. Additionally, she doesn’t approve of the price Tony wants to sell the cars to her for. Tony isn’t happy with Annalisa, finding her to be a ball-buster and confused by a female Don, but he’s fascinated by her all the same. He eventually strikes a deal with her, lowering the price for the cars in exchange for Furio, and she accepts.
Back home, Carmela is upset that Tony couldn’t take her to Italy, but a bigger dilemma comes up when she discovers that Angie Bonpensiero hasn’t been happy since Pussy came home and has been considering divorce. The thing that broke her is his disinterest in a potentially scary lump she found, which makes it seem like he doesn’t care about her at all. In actuality, Pussy has his own problems as we learn that he’s working with the FBI to give them dirt on the DiMeo family, and his cover may be potentially blown up when he runs into Jimmy Bones, a made man who doubles as an Elvis impersonator, with his agent at a party store. Pussy realizes he has no choice but to kill Jimmy, and later tries to reconcile with Angie by bringing home a bouquet of roses. Angie hits Pussy with the roses, though, making his attempt seemingly futile. Carmela, who has been mulling over her own relationship with her husband, tries to talk Angie out of divorce, and while that works for the moment, Carmela finds herself conflicted when Tony comes home from Italy.
Italy has always read as a pipe dream of sorts to Tony and his gang. It’s the motherland, the home of their business, the dream. So it’s a dream come true when some of the Soprano family gets to make the trip abroad. Not Pussy, who’s likely still on probation (we’ll get to him in a bit), nor Junior, who’s still under house arrest. Silvio, meanwhile, I think is kept in town just to keep up with the family’s activities.
The Sopranos does a good job of taking the romantic and removing artifice, but I think that “Commendatori” does a fine job of making Naples look as gorgeous as I’ve presumed it to be. Luckily, we don’t spend too long in rooms or lobbies when we return to the A-story and get to see a lot of exterior. Tim Van Patten proves to be one of the show’s key directors as he paces spoken scenes as smoothly as possible outside by including motifs like golf practice or even a beachside lunch. The show has clearly proven to be a hit by this point, and it has the budget to take Tony and co. out of town to prove it.
The scenery is beautiful, but there’s more to Tony’s trip than showing the Jersey boys the wonders of western Europe. His ego and perspective is challenged by meeting a female capo, something absolutely unheard of back home, with Annalisa. She proves to be a worthy contrast to Tony, being his equal in intellect and strategy, even hinting at the same kind of temper he faces. This explains both the sexual tension, and Tony’s eventual reluctance to advance on it. The fact that Annalisa is technically his cousin doesn’t help things, either.
While the Naples material is what I think will stick out to most viewers, the rest of the episode is notable itself, as Angie Bonpensiero’s marital issues with Pussy feels comparable to what Carmela is going through with Tony, who finds his lack of transparency with work and his potential affairs upsetting. The scene where Carmela tries to convince Angie to stay reads just as much as Carm trying to convince herself to stick around with Tony, even noting how her kids are younger than Pussy and Angie’s. Wisely, the episode doesn’t end with big decisions made for either couple, as separation, let alone divorce, isn’t something to throw around as a possibility.
Pussy, meanwhile, reveals something that the show has been coy about answering- he is, in fact, a mole for the FBI. Maybe not a clean one, as he lies about Tony and Junior’s relationship, but he’s clearly looking for a way out of the lifestyle, or at the very least avoiding jail time. His big scene this week has Pussy kill Jimmy Bones when he becomes a liability to his front. I read the murder of Jimmy Bones to have a double-edged meaning- Pussy is still a violent mobster, but one who knows that the only way to save face is to continue doing dirty work. This won’t be easy for him going forward.
But hey, we’re not done yet! The events in “Commandatori” will follow the show for some time to come. Luckily it’s a memorable episode all on its own.
Dr. Melfi’s Notebook:
$10 a week for gas, I can’t imagine.
We’re really getting closer to classic Paulie, with him retelling the joke he made a second ago.
I love Tony’s indifferent response to Janice dropping an f-bomb- “I thought you didn’t swear”.
Also something we learned this week- Janice has a son named Hal, who she formally named Harpo. I, too, would change my name if I shared one with the Marx Brothers.
The show’s love with The Godfather appears once again as “Commendatori” starts with the crew trying, and failing, to watch a bootleg copy of Part II on DVD. This also allows Tony a moment to wax poetically about Italy before arriving.
Angie Bonpensiero and Gabriella Dante, Pussy and Silvio’s wives respectively, are recasted this week, the former by Toni Kalem and the latter by Steven Van Zandt’s wife, Maureen.
We can definitely use a little more Rosalie Aprice in the series. “She’s gonna shit when she hears this.”
Fun fact- you know who gave Paulie that weird look when he shouted “commandatori” across the table? That was David Chase.
Did Paulie fuck his cousin? This was my interpretation the first time I saw the scene with him and the prostitute, and I can’t seem to find any evidence one way or the other.
Tony is right- Italy is renowned for its shopping, yet Christopher doesn’t think of buying anything for Adriana until they return home. Ah well, he was too busy sampling Italy’s finest drugs.
Next (Two) Weeks: Furio comes to Jersey and causes a divide between Tony’s crew, followed by Tony creating a divide in his friend group when he invites someone outside of the business to his poker nights.