10+! (Spoilers ahoy).
I watched this show last night, and I can't get it out of my head. It's one of the major reasons I say some of the feature shows on HBO are not only better than most movies in the cinema, but FAR better. Jennifer Melfi's refusal to seek Tony's assistance made me forgive her all her questionable calls, such as continuing to see a rage-prone client sexually attracted to her just because she's intrigued by the lion-and-tamer interplay between them. In just about any movie you'd pay $10 for, Jennifer would have sobbed out the story of the rape to Tony, and of course he'd more than happy to take a grisly and extended revenge on the scumbag. We'd all cheer, go home, and forget the movie once we finished our post-cinema hamburgers. Instead we see what we rarely see in movies: a person making a correct moral choice when she has every reason in the world to get it wrong. And the correct personal choice too: we know, if Jennifer does not, that Tony's 'favors' always come at an extravagant price.
The seriousness of the episode counterpointed well with the preceding one involving Livia's death and funeral, which had almost rolling on the floor with laughter. Not that this show was all morality, either. Absent justice served on the rapist, I was grimly pleased to see Janice, Tony's New-Age-phony sister with more than a little of their mother in her, get roughed up for stealing Sventlana's artificial leg. We all know someone like Janice.
I watched this show last night, and I can't get it out of my head. It's one of the major reasons I say some of the feature shows on HBO are not only better than most movies in the cinema, but FAR better. Jennifer Melfi's refusal to seek Tony's assistance made me forgive her all her questionable calls, such as continuing to see a rage-prone client sexually attracted to her just because she's intrigued by the lion-and-tamer interplay between them. In just about any movie you'd pay $10 for, Jennifer would have sobbed out the story of the rape to Tony, and of course he'd more than happy to take a grisly and extended revenge on the scumbag. We'd all cheer, go home, and forget the movie once we finished our post-cinema hamburgers. Instead we see what we rarely see in movies: a person making a correct moral choice when she has every reason in the world to get it wrong. And the correct personal choice too: we know, if Jennifer does not, that Tony's 'favors' always come at an extravagant price.
The seriousness of the episode counterpointed well with the preceding one involving Livia's death and funeral, which had almost rolling on the floor with laughter. Not that this show was all morality, either. Absent justice served on the rapist, I was grimly pleased to see Janice, Tony's New-Age-phony sister with more than a little of their mother in her, get roughed up for stealing Sventlana's artificial leg. We all know someone like Janice.