1. Is Tony Soprano going to die? I don't know, but people keep Googling their way to this blog looking for the answer, so please speculate in the comments.
2. Does James Gandolfini enjoy playing a reclining man in a hospital gown with a gaping wound on his mountainous belly? Or is wandering around in dream sequences without any other actors satisfying enough? Are they punishing Gandolfini with these scripts?
3. Are these scripts a gift to Edie Falco? Is the actress groveling for an Emmy with all of these harshly lit, no-makeup bedside scenes?
4. Did "The Sopranos" and "Big Love" coordinate their Episode 2s so that we could spend as much time as possible in hospitals?
5. Do you think the arsenic is coming from the mysterious liquid Harry Dean Stanton keeps delivering to Bruce Dern? I don't. It's too obvious!
6. Don't you love Harry Dean Stanton and Bruce Dern?
7. Bill Henrickson is going to get arrested, right? The questions are: When? And who's going to bring the law down upon him? Tina Majorino?
8. Do you like the scenes that show Barb, Nicki, and Margene in their intra-household strife? Or are the scriptwriters a little desperate in looking for ways to illustrate this -- what with the loud noises and open doors during sex acts?
9. How does Chloe Sevigny convey so much while looking so impassive? Don't you love to hate Nicki?
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6. I do; they are both so deliciously awful. HDS looks like satan himself in some of those scenes.
7. From what I have heard of Utah law enforcement re: polygamy, it's unlikely Bill would be arrested. Apparently they typically turn a blind eye to polygamy unless there is abuse going on.
My guess is that Bill & the wives are hiding their polygamy for the sake of the business and the older children, but only time will tell.
Is it even polygamy? What is the law? Did Bill apply for and receive marriage licenses for all three wives, or just #1? Were there three ceremonies? Did he lie on any official documents?
Is it polygamy to marry once then have open affairs with two other people and run a conjoined household?
I think the dream sequences are really the seven souls going through death of the body, per the Burroughs reading. http://www.lucaspickford.com/burrmoreroutines.htm
So I think we'll see several of Tony's souls do their thing, and then he may or may not recover. I hope it happens soon; comas are such a cliched device--unless Chase reinvents it, which is a possibility. Still, I adore the show and revere Chase as a writer.
Answering your questions in order:
1. No
2. Yes (what could be easier than heaving your belly up and down, and get paid for it), Yes (though I'm saying both are satisfying, he gets to portray a whole new character, while still maintaining a hint of 'Tony'-ness), and finally No.
3. Yes, and Yes (shamelessly)
4. Probably Not
5. Yes, and to be obvious sometimes is the best way to fake out an audience
6. Yes, but not in that way (did you see their hands in that hospital scene, impressively aged)
7. Yes, Season 4, His eldest daughter (after she becomes a committed LDS)
8. No, and Yes
9. She doesn't, but she's a cypher, you read into her face the emotions you won't her to portray despite the lack of movement (sort of like with the mouthless Hello Kitty), and yes (she's easy to hate)
Not that anybody asked, or was expecting a one for one answer to each question, I provide it anyway
I was trying to figure out who is the voice on the phone with Tony. My guess is Annabella Sciorra is the voice!
I've liked Chloe Sevigny since The Last Days of Disco. She's very understated and is willing to take unsympathetic roles. The mere sight of Bill Paxton usually pisses me off, but I've really liked him in Big Love so far.
Now that I think about it, I haven't watched a non-sports or news television program on anyt network other than Comedy Central or HBO since The West Wing jumped the shark a couple of years ago.
I don't have much to add ... wow, you and your commenters are "the nuts", as they say in Texas Hold 'em. I certainly don't agree with all of them, but everyone is so spot on, thoughtful and erudite.
By the way, I agree with the Emmy-goal thing, but I think that before he comes out of the coma, Gandolfini is going to earn an Emmy ... just watch.
And, watch A.J. This is his year. Think Michael Corleone in the first Godfather. A.J. is going to make a commitment to the family business that will stun us, this season.
My take on Big Love ... does Bill eat Viagra like grapes or what? You know, I had never thought through the polygamy thing in that level of detail, but for me, watching Bill have to pop those Viagra pills just turned me off to polygamy by an order of magnitude. What a burden (yeah, right).
And, the car chase scene, when Bill was not allowed to drive into the compound? Look for some violence in future scenes.
I don't think Tony will die, but it's a guess. The montage of HBO promos after the show included a shot of Tony and Carmella at what looks like a wedding; I don't think that's one of his dream sequences, as the voice of the wife on the phone is not Carmella's. Hmmm.
Can't get into Big Love. I'm probably oversensitive on a personal level about the same-sex marriage/pologamy association made by some. But I'm also bored by the Desparate Housewives, all in one family, plot. Too much heterosexuality for me (I'm kidding.)
The HDS character is intriguing, and the whole Morman infighting and intrigue plot is good, but the main plot of the three wives bores me so far.
The first ep had a great punchline, in the fast-food joint: Heather has three mommies!
Another thought on Big Love, I guess what the makers are saying is that polygamy can only be equitable (from a sexual satisfaction standpoint) if all the women are bisexual.
(brings new meaning to their repeated mantra of 'oral is moral', if it's a satisfactory substitute for copulation between a man and woman (even unmarried as was implied for their teenage son), why not a woman and a woman, or a man and a man?)
And I believe Marduk is on point, Tony is going through his trials and stages in a purgatory like limbo (or is that limbo like purgatory?) before his soul is either deposited in the hell he so richly deserves or slides back into his wrecked body (which given his attitudes towards infirmity would be a different kind of hell, the amount and kinds of damage they are suggesting the bullet did are permanent and will need to be addressed narratively for Tony till the series is done).
Marduk and XWL--I agree. Carmella says as much near the end of last night's ep, when she tells him he's a good man, he's not going to hell, he's coming right back here. I saw that as irony.
John R. Henry: "Ann seems to be very much against Polygamy and legalization thereof. I understand her objections and polygamy seems wrong to me too."
I'm against the official status of marriage being extended beyond two persons, as I've written about elsewhere, but I don't support the criminalization of private sexual arrangements (between adults). I certainly don't think persons who adopt a plural marriage arrangement for religious reasons should be treated worse than group of sexual libertines. It's purely a matter of private arrangement that is none of my business. If there is underage sex or abuse of children or rape or slavery, that is different. Do I disapprove of the morality of polygamy? Not particularly. It's no worse than a lot of other sexual things people do that we don't bother getting upset about when they don't directly affect us.
Elizabeth: "Too much heterosexuality for me (I'm kidding.)"
Episode 2 suggested we will be seeing sex among the women.
Marduk: Great point about Purgatory and infinity. I would add that Carmela was saying "Don't go to hell" and that sort of thing.
Cat: I agree: AJ is too stupid to take over. And why would the brilliant scriptwriters just crib the ending from "The Godfather"?
Marduk,
I think you are correct that it's not a dream but some sort of halfway point between life and death, which is pretty much the same as what Burroughs said in his voiceover in the first episode. "The Egyptians recognized many degrees of immortality."
These are aspects of Tony's soul trying to get free--the beacon is heaven (or hell). Finnerty is obviously Good Tony, and his family I bet will be new characters all together as he wanders confusedly in life's twilight. I wonder what his other souls will look like, and I wonder if he will get where he's going. We shall see.
Oh, and Big Love, I do not Big Like. The characters reveal no inner structure. It's just a giggly imagining, from the outside of a particular milieu, (like American Beauty and Six Feet Under), rendering it some sort of male fantasy: one man trying to satisfy all those jealous gals! Whoo, hoo! Oh, and lesbian footsie under the table. What next, to spice up a soap opera story line?
This is what is known in Hywood as "edgy." I would much rather see a series about people who actually believed in polygamy and lived the principle. Now, that would be edgy.
Episode 2 suggested we will be seeing sex among the women.
Hmmm. It remains to be seen whether that will mean lesbians, or heterosexual eye candy. But what the heck, I'll go ahead and set the Tivo.
I like Bill Pullman, so I want to like the show. Chloe Sevigny is compellingly creepy. That blankness she exudes runs the gamut from glamorously detached to borderline learning disabled, depending on the role.
Marduk's right, IMO.
I was pretty sure the voice on the phone was Charmaine Bucco. That would fit into the whole "alternate reality" thing pretty well.
Tony is in purgatory.
He is between the fire of Hell (Costa Mesa is burning) and The Light (The Searchlight that is seen in the distance from his hotel room).
In the hotel Tony checks in to under Finnerty's name he is given a room on the 7th floor. This may be a reference to the the seven terraces of Purgatory in Dante's Inferno. When Tony falls in the stairwell he ends on the he fell on the 5th floor. This may correspond with the Fifth Terrace, Avarice or Greed.
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