The Sopranos Finale

The thousands of imaginary people who regularly ask for my opinion on one issue or another are now demanding to know what I thought of the Sopranos finale, which apparently a lot of people hated.
I thought it was the perfect ending: Tony is a more effective sociopath, thanks to therapy; Meadow is joining the dark side and A. J. is bought out of his incoherent idealism with a job in the movie industry; Carmela, of course, has been fully complicit for a long time, to the point that many were speculating about her taking over the business after Tony; and the rest of their lives will be exactly like the last five minutes, full of tension and dread, never knowing which of several swords of Damocles might happen to fall at any given moment.

Jody reminded me of another movie with a similar ending (that similarly divided viewers): Limbo, John Sayles' slice of life in Alaska. A plane approaches; the people on board are coming either to rescue or to kill our protagonists. The screen goes white before we find out which it is. It's frustrating, yes, but that's the point: what matters is not the result but the choice they make in that moment.

Which of course takes us back to TV land, and another series finale. The latter half of Angel's final season is rushed, the plotlines unduly accelerated, a result of its untimely cancellation. The final episode, though, is great...and the ending is perfect: the surviving heroes in an alley, about to do battle with an army of demons. The result isn't what matters; it's the battle, the act of doing battle, that's the point. It's about the choices.

Which is what Angel was always about. The whole series is summed up in a bit of dialogue from the final episode, an exchange between Gunn and Anne¹:

GUNN: What if I told you it doesn't help? What would you do if you found out that none of it matters? That it's all controlled by forces more powerful and uncaring than we can conceive, and they will never let it get better down here. What would you do?

ANNE: I'd get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here. Wanna give me a hand?

And The Sopranos, too, is about choices--destructive, life-shattering, selfish, soul-killing choices, the flip side of Angel, but choices nonetheless. (I can hear Dr. Melfi saying "we make choices".) And so it ends as it had to end, with the characters having made their choices; it's not about the result. The sardonic vision of a dysfunctional family finally united by their limitless corruption--it's a nice touch, a grotesque parody of a happy ending, but it's not the ending that matters. They die, they live with it, it's all beside the point. What matters is the choices they made.


¹Formerly Lily, formerly Chanterelle; a character who made stunningly foolish choices early on, who with Buffy's help and by Buffy's example found the strength to deal with life, who now devotes her life to helping kids who are in the kind of trouble she was in.

Wire Blogging

I keep wanting to write about The Wire, and I'm always deterred by the fact that others are already doing it better. The really sad thing is, I felt that way even before I found Heaven and Here, the finest Wire blog I've yet seen. The commentary there is thoughtful, perceptive, and eloquent, fully worthy of the best show on television. If you're watching The Wire (and if you aren't, you should be), go and read¹.

¹One warning: they're blogging based on the OnDemand schedule, which means they see each episode the Monday before the Sunday it's broadcast. If you don't have OnDemand, be careful to avoid spoilers (they're good about spoiler warnings).

[That's all, folks]

The Wire 4.2

As Petey said, it's a great episode. Some reviewers (who love the show as a whole) call The Wire 'slow', but I don't see it; it's not a resolve-everything-in-42-minutes kind of show, but there is a hell of a lot going on. Episode 4.2 seemed particularly action-packed, with major developments in multiple storylines and several threads beginning to intersect. It was, relatively speaking, a fairly light episode, with some sweet, touching moments and a lot of humor.

Anything else I say has to go below the fold so I don't spoil anyone who hasn't already seen it.

Big plot developments:

• Looks like Carcetti is back in the game. His performance in the debate showed us what an impressive politician he can be (and harkened back to his speech at the end of Season 3). He got an unexpected gift from Valcek, but he knew exactly what to do with it.


• More importantly, it looks like there is significant opposition to Royce in the police department...and some of them (Landsman and Valcek, but presumably a lot more) are willing to sabotage his campaign. We could well see this erupt into open warfare. I'm not sure what Valcek's particular motives are, but it seems a lot of police believe they've been treated badly by Royce (being made Royce's scapegoats on crime, for example).


• The MCU's subpoenas got served...and Clay Davis is not happy. If he gets cornered, he could end up inflicting some damage on Royce. Burrell and Rawls are talking about 'proper supervision' of the MCU, so we can expect to see some kind of crackdown on Freamon and Griggs...but once the subpoenas are out there, they can't be recalled or ignored. I loved Freamon's logic, which seems exactly right: a year ago, they'd have been quashed; after the election, they'd be quashed; but three weeks before the election, the powers that be have to play ball. Freamon doesn't seem to be acting for political motives (unlike Valcek), but from a dedication to his case.


• And then there's Herc and the blow job. He's convinced Royce is going to fuck him for what he knows; Valcek thinks Herc is the one holding the cards. I think Royce's comments to his aide show it could go either way. The big question is whether or how it comes to play a part in the election; Valcek knows, and he's clearly committed to Carcetti.


• Meanwhile: Bubs enrolls his 'nephew'; Marlo gives away back-to-school money; and Cutty (whose gym looks to be thriving) has become a major babe-magnet.

Funniest scenes:

• Rhonda Pearlman complaining to Daniels (in bed) about how Freamon manipulated her...and Daniels' reaction. It's nice to see Daniels enjoying a good laugh.


• The homicide detective debating whether to take a call...and the eventual result.


• Q: "Did he say who shot him?"
  A: "Yeah. He said it was 'some guy with a gun'."


• Naymond and Mike arguing about whether the Ku Klux Klan is in Howard County.


• Cutty and the ladies.

Touching moments:

• Carcetti playing Battleship with his daughter. "This game could still go either way"...although it seemed to me that his daughter was creaming him.


• Vice-Principal Donnelly sending clothing and supplies over to Dukie. She came off as hardened in the first episode, but now we get a glimpse of real compassion.


• Bubbles and his 'nephew'.

And finally, one question: what is the deal with Chris? At least twice now, Marlo has looked to Chris (who gave a quick nod or head shake) when making some decision. Is Marlo just the titular leader, and Chris the power behind the throne (that seems unlikely, given that Chris is doing the hits)? Or does Chris take on the counselor's role filled in Season 3 by the wheel-rim guy?

[That's all, folks]

Speaking of The Wire

Happy birthday to the amazing Idris Elba.

[That's all, folks]

The Wire Returns

The best show on television¹ is back, and (judging from the first episode) in fine form.

The Wire always has a whole slew of plot threads running at any given time. The first episode introduces a half dozen new threads (and continues 3 or 4 others), (which can be fairly daunting for a first time viewer; I would advise starting with Season 1, rather than coming to season 4 cold). The first episode connects some of these, and gives tantalizing hints of how the others might be tied together later on.

The 'wire'--which refers, in a broad sense, to whatever investigation is being conducted by the unit formerly headed by Daniels--is the lens through which Dave Simon and Ed Burns examine some aspect of contemporary Baltimore. Season 1 focussed on street-level drug operations; Season 2 was about the destruction of the (unionized) blue collar employment base; Season 3 got into attempts at systemic reform...

This season the theme is education, in a broad sense (as Ed Burns says: kids will learn; the question is, where?). So the first episode introduces a group of kids whose education (on and off the streets) we will follow through the season; Prez² is back as a rookie teacher (so, it seems, is Bunny Colvin...or maybe a different character played by Robert Wisdom); and there's a mayoral race on (Tommy Carcetti is running hard, and hating it) which we can expect to make education a central issue. I'll admit that I was dubious when I heard about the theme being education, but based on the first episode I think they've done it in a way that brings it very naturally into the existing milieu of The Wire.

The pre-credit sequence is a classic example of the tone of the show as a whole. A young girl (she looks to be about 14) in Marlo's crew goes to a Home Depot-type store and discusses nail guns with a white middle-aged clerk, who sells her on the top of the line model (she tells her partner "he say it the Cadillac of nail guns; he mean Lexus, but he don't know it"). Underlying the when-worlds-collide humor of the scene is a sense of dread about exactly what she means to do with the nail gun. (When you introduce a nail gun in act one, somebody has to shoot some nails in act three (I think Chekhov said that). We do get the nails eventually, near the end of the episode, but until then we're just...imagining.) As is always the case in The Wire, hilarity is never far from tragedy.

It's a great show, and so far at least Season 4 looks to be worthy of its predecessors.

¹Notwithstanding Scott Lemieux's wrongheaded claim that The Sopranos is better, IMO only Deadwood really comes close. The Wire is better because:

• The characters are more compelling and believable. Now, this is sort of apples and oranges, because The Sopranos has a smaller core cast and a bunch of characters who come in for one or two plotlines, while The Wire follows upwards of 20 or 30 regular characters. I don't think there's any single character in The Wire as compelling as Tony or Carmela or maybe Christopher; if we left it there, it would be advantage Sopranos. On the other hand, at least two of the primary characters in The Sopranos (Silvio and Paulie) often strike me as little more than the sum of their exaggerated tics. In The Wire, all of the characters seem perfectly believable to me--real humans with real motivations. The Sopranos explicitly explores the interior life of its primary character (through such devices as the therapist and those love-em-or-hate-em dream sequences), while The Wire has a purely external approach to its characters' internal lives...but we do grow to understand what they're thinking.


• The plotting is tighter. The Sopranos has a bad habit of introducing a character (or elevating a completely peripheral character) who becomes vitally important for one or two episodes, but is treated as if he or she has been important to the plot for a long time. The Wire, I think, does a better job of keeping putting characters in the background before bringing them to the foreground, so that even if you suddenly ask yourself 'who is this guy?', when you go back and re-watch you'll see that he was there all along. In The Sopranos, characters are often Introduced; The Wire more closely replicates the real-world process of getting to know characters.


• It's more ambitious. The Sopranos is ambitious in its own ways, but it has very little connection to the world outside The Sopranos; occasional references to the rest of the world come off as either perfunctory or artificial. For better or worse, it's all about the Sopranos. The Wire is an amazing attempt to capture the life of an American city--and it's amazingly successful.


• The acting is better (with all due respect to Ogged, who doesn't think much of the acting on The Wire). Or maybe it would be fairer to say the acting is more to my taste. In The Wire, most of the cast are acting; in The Sopranos, they tend to be Acting. I prefer the more naturalistic, low-key style to the kind that calls attention to itself. The latter doesn't preclude amazing performances (Edie Falco, James Gandolfini), but can also devolve into annoying caricature (did I mention Paulie and Silvio?). Some of The Wire cast are Acting (I love Michael K. Williams as Omar, but it's a distinctly showy performance), but for the most part the acting is understated and spontaneous. (I don't even understand Ogged's complaint about the directing. There are no gimmicks, which is consistent with the realistic intent of the show, but I wouldn't call that 'flat' direction.)


• It's funnier. Like any good tragedy, both The Wire and The Sopranos are often hilarious; I just find the humor in The Wire more organic, more subtle, and...well, funnier. The Wire convincingly captures the crudely inspired wit of the working class; the wise guys' humor in The Sopranos has more of a sense of artifice to it. Okay, so maybe this is a matter of individual taste.

²One character says "I won't even try to pronounce his name." Similarly, I won't even try to spell it.

[That's all, folks]

Big Love and the Law

Reading about that Republican congressional candidate with the bigamy problem (hat tip: blogenfreude) got me wondering about Big Love. The Henricksons appear to believe that they could go to jail for what they're doing...but my understanding has always been that you're only committing bigamy if you legally marry more than one spouse. The Henricksons are all religiously married, but only one of the marriages is legal. So I was wondering: is this actually a felony?

In Utah, the answer is yes:

A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person. [emphasis added]

And in case it's unclear how broad that is, a recent Utah Supreme Court decision upholding the statute (against a freedom-of-religion challenge) upheld the interpretation of 'purports to marry' as including purely religious marriage ceremonies with no legal confirmation of the marriage.

I did a quick check in a few other states and as far as I can tell, none of them have comparable language; the bigamy statute in California, for example, bigamy is just defined as 'marrying' more than one person. I'm not certain, but Utah may well be unique in this respect.

The reason is obvious; it's the same reason a prohibition on polygamous marriage is in the state constitution:

No inhabitant of this State shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship; but polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.

I don't have any great point to make about any of this. I just thought it was interesting.

[Cross-posted at Property of a Lady]

[That's all, folks]