The Sopranos: College First Watch
October 22, 2021 1:47 PM - Season 1, Episode 5 - Subscribe
While visiting colleges with Meadow, Tony spots a snitch. Carmela, meanwhile, discovers something about Dr. Melfi.
This is a great episode. I think this was the episode that made me stick with "The Sopranos" and start telling friends to watch it (I had female friends desperate for things to watch with their husbands that didn't involve people running from giant fireballs). Just hearing about the series, it sounded like a mob saga, which I wasn't interested in, or else a comedy ("Analyze this" had just come out). Then I watched it and realized the show was commenting on American family life, and it had some of the best writing and acting I had ever seen on TV. Kids today may not realize how little good TV there was back then. Before "The Sopranos", if you had asked me what were the greatest things I had seen on TV I would have probably gone with "I, Claudius" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy".
Sort-of TV. I didn't have cable, and it was, as Alligator has repeatedly pointed out, the 90s. On the way home from work, I had to drive out of my way to hit a "Blockbuster Video" on the day (a Tuesday, mostly) when the next batch of episodes would have been returned and not yet checked out again. Then we had to watch them quickly enough not to get a fine. Good times.
I'd really like to know what first-time viewers are seeing; for middle-aged people like I was then, it was about the failure of the American Dream to live up to what we were told it was. For someone growing up today, with the American Dream believed by almost nobody, what are you seeing in this show?
posted by acrasis at 1:58 PM on October 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
Sort-of TV. I didn't have cable, and it was, as Alligator has repeatedly pointed out, the 90s. On the way home from work, I had to drive out of my way to hit a "Blockbuster Video" on the day (a Tuesday, mostly) when the next batch of episodes would have been returned and not yet checked out again. Then we had to watch them quickly enough not to get a fine. Good times.
I'd really like to know what first-time viewers are seeing; for middle-aged people like I was then, it was about the failure of the American Dream to live up to what we were told it was. For someone growing up today, with the American Dream believed by almost nobody, what are you seeing in this show?
posted by acrasis at 1:58 PM on October 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
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- I'm so glad they didn't go for cheap drama and kept things chaste with the priest. I like his character, and it's clear that Carmela is lonely and intellectually understimulated in addition to her guilt and marital frustrations. Yet, is she really confessing her own sins? Does she have the ability to repent, without abandoning her family and even perhaps sacrificing her life? Is that the cost? I'm not a Catholic so someone else will hopefully elaborate.
- Important that they wrote in that scene where 'Peters' tells his goons to kill Tony and Meadow, since up to that point the score was even, each letting the other live for the sake of his daughter. It make's Tony's ultimate decision seem more justified and/or necessary. And it's also true that if 'Peters' had killed Tony, it would have left him a dead man walking anyway.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:54 PM on October 22, 2021 [2 favorites]