Posted by Alan Sepinwall
The Newark Star-Ledger
May 14, 2007 12:12AM
Categories: The Sopranos
WARNING: This column contains major plot spoilers for last night's "Sopranos" episode.
It's not Vegas. It's Hell.
It may not seem that way to Tony right now. He's high on life, winning big at the casino tables for the first time in forever. He has a gorgeous stripper on his arms and an even more beautiful desert vista before him. When he collapses on the casino floor in a fit of giggles, it's the happiest we've ever seen him, and even that's quickly surpassed by the image of him giving a victory salute to the desert sun.
But all that joy comes with the roughest butcher's bill of the series. Tony's this ecstatic because he just killed Christopher.
Coming as suddenly (and as early in the episode) as it did, Chris' demise at Tony's hands was one of the series' most stunning moments, but it was also foreshadowed throughout last week's episode. Tony was separating himself from Chris, Chris was falling off the wagon and getting into his revenge fantasies again, and Tony was even singing the lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." The same song happens to be playing on Christopher's car stereo at the moment of the crash that inspires Tony to murder him. (The lyrics as Tony realizes Chris is high: "I cannot put my finger on it now / The child is grown / The dream is gone.")
"Comfortably Numb" might have made a better episode title than "Kennedy and Heidi" (a joking reference to the two girls whose car Chris nearly ran into, causing the accident), as that sums up Tony's attitude throughout it.
His eyes are flat and lifeless as he smothers Chris to death, taking advantage of a golden opportunity to remove a threat to his freedom. His only reaction to the grief of Carmela and Kelli and Chris' mother -- grief he created directly -- is irritation, and after he gets taken on one guilt trip too many, he packs his bags for Las Vegas and floats through the rest of the episode, self-medicating with wine, pot and, eventually, peyote.
Surprisingly for an episode that spent half its time with Tony staying in a hotel and had him taking hallucinogens, the only actual dream sequence appears early on, as Tony imagines confessing his past killings to Dr. Melfi. (The dream turns out to be a useful rehearsal, as he later recreates most of his dialogue from it in less self-incriminating fashion.) But the entire episode had the air of a dream, or of alterna-Tony's trip to the Purgatory (or fantasy, or alternate universe, or whatever it was) of Costa Mesa.
Only this time, the imagery wasn't of Limbo, but the hotter place. After Tony vomits up the peyote, he and Chris' old stripper friend Sonya (Sarah Shahi from "The L Word") head down to the casino floor, where he's transfixed by a cartoon devil's head on a slot machine. (It's a smiling devil, of course, because right now Tony's enjoying his descent.) After breaking his losing streak at the roulette table, Tony takes Sonya for a trip into the desert where the rising sun casts everything in a crimson glow. When the red sun flares at Tony for a second, it resembles the white Costa Mesa beacon, which seemed to signify Heaven.
Moments before the crash, Chris reminds Tony of the "every day a gift" talk he was throwing around after emerging from the Costa Mesa coma. Turns out Tony really has changed, but not for the better. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, he's grown colder, more paranoid, quicker on the trigger. When Tony felt he had to kill Pussy and Tony B. -- for reasons far more pressing than here -- he stalled as long as possible. When he realizes Chris will forever be a drug-addled liability to him, Tony barely hesitates before clamping his hand over Chris' nose and mouth.
Everyone is a threat to him now, garbage to be disposed of just like the asbestos one of Tony's guys spent most of the hour trying to unload. Asbestos, of course, is hard to get rid of completely, and Chris' presence in Tony's life no doubt will linger, even if it's just as evidence of how little humanity Tony has left.
In contrast to Tony's non-response to Chris' murder, we have A.J. retreating back into his depressed shell upon realizing what he was becoming by hanging with the Jasons. He could go along with being a budding sociopath for a while, laughing at the misery of the kid whose toes got amputated after Jason Parisi's acid bath. But deep down, A.J. still has a conscience, something his old man said goodbye to a long time ago. Tony responds to hitting rock bottom as a human being by going to Vegas, having sex and getting high. A.J. responds to the same by going about in pity for himself and raging against the meaningless violence in the world. (A.J. being A.J., though, he quotes Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along?" like it's the most profound thought he's ever had. In fairness, it probably is.)
Several times in the episode, Tony makes reference to the smashed infant car seat in the back of Chris' car. Privately, he's trying to justify the murder of his surrogate son as something other than nuisance-removal. Given how Tony has been behaving all season, I believe he would have killed Chris, car seat or no. But it wouldn't be the first time Tony's thoughts have turned to murder at the notion of innocents being killed. See his reactions to Ralphie and Tracee, Ralphie and Pie-O-My, Chris sitting on Adriana's dog, etc.
And yet the innocent creatures he has always felt most protective of are his damn ducks, and I distinctly heard a quacking sound as the asbestos was being dumped in the water at the end of the episode. Tony probably had no idea where exactly the stuff would get dumped, or what wildlife would be affected, but at this point I don't think he'd care. He's in Hell, and Hell is no place for happy ducks.
Some other thoughts on "Kennedy and Heidi":
-Chris wasn't the only significant death, as Paulie's mother/aunt Nucci died of a stroke (on the way back from seeing "Jersey Boys," of course), giving Paulie the unusual opportunity to act jealous of a dead man. He went so far as to clock the amount of time certain people visited Nucci's wake before heading over to Chris's.
-The only people who seem happier about Chris' death than Tony were Phil and Butchie, who were practically giggling as Phil gave Tony his condolences. These guys are like predators toying with their weaker prey.
-Wiseguys are no good with natural death (or what they think is natural death), are they? The small talk around Tony's bed was beyond clumsy.
-A side benefit of the Vegas trip for Tony: for a few days, he gets to become Chris, taking drugs and sleeping with one of his women, when he could never seal the deal with Adriana or Julianna, for one reason or another, when Chris was alive.
-Does anybody in the business play grief better than Edie Falco? Carm's reaction to Chris' death was almost as devastating as her hallway crying jag in the first Costa Mesa episode. Almost as brilliant, in a different way, was her delivery of the line about Julianna -- who reeked of mistress to Carm -- being a good-looking woman. (Imagine how cold Carm would have been if she knew Tony almost slept with Julianna, too.)
Alan Sepinwall can be reached at asepinwall@starledger.com
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