Reviewing Movies

Interesting to see the mafia portrayed in a positive light. With hit-men
as the good guys and law enforcement as the bad. Sometimes there's a
fine dividing line as when their methods drive a foot soldier bent on
retiring to commit suicide rather than become an informer. This is not a
show for the squeamish. In the opening episode one character gets beaten
until he ends up on life support, final notice indicates multiple
bullets to someone's head, someone hangs himself, and Tony is shot by
his demented uncle. Business as usual it seems. One marvels that
professional criminals can get away with so much violence with seeming
inpugnity.

The program has its own unique moral compass and logic. As when Tony
beats up his new muscle-bound bodyguard for no good reason just to prove
that he can to re-establish dominance over his crew in the wake of his
hospitalization. It also introduces you to its own jargon. Biangaleen is
bleach, a BBQ means a business will be blown up, such euphemism's
abound. Season Six was issued in two parts. By the second box-set it
becomes apparent that the series writers were running out of ideas. The
episode at the cottage dragged, this isn't On Golden Pond but a much
more disfunctional and distopian look at relaxing at the lake. Little is
as it seems here where men who despise one another exchange polite
greetings and kiss. The late night meeting between Tony and Hesh being a
case in point, the bedroom scene after demonstrating Hesh's true feelings.

Tony warned his nephew Christopher what would happen if he ever got back
on drugs. The murder isn't as disturbing as the fact that Tony can lie
about it with a straight face deceiving even his own wife. Despite
inter-family warfare Tony survives and the series ends with Tony,
Carmella, and the two kids having dinner at a local Italian Greasy Spoon.