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EPISODE 4: The Fleshy Part of the Thigh

OK, Cagney, Jr., is officially off the reservation. Extorting the Clown Prince of Garbage without Tony's blessing? Plus the fact that Tony may or may not remember in the future whose voice was on the other side of Finnerty's hotel room wall. Plus Cagney's internal turmoil over his aunt/mother's hoo-ah status, and the advantage his mother/aunt took of how great a son he is. Some pretty dark days lie ahead for Cags... which is disappointing. If he gets whacked, all we'll be left with for comic relief is Sil's Michael Corleone bit, which is only slightly more Al than the knockoff they put in the Godfather video game when Al didn't participate in the voice acting. So I guess we should be thankful for Cagney's explanation to Barone-ito of "Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization," because, Mother of Mercy!... it may be the end of Little Rico. I'm steeling myself to this evntuality in advance, in case I've got company when he gets called to that big sit-down in the sky.

If anyone needs to get whacked, it's Janice's narcoleptic ex. Not real happy about his return. In fact, actively unhappy. If he absolutely had to come back, the least they could do for us is let him fall asleep standing up and concuss himself on the hospital floor. That would kick ass.

On another WTF note... Sil just shows up in Tony's waiting room again with his inhaler? If that's the end of it, then his cracking under the pressure of being Boss story line was a serious McGuffin. Chase and Co. missed (or purposefully opted out of) a chance to more clearly underscore the difficulty of Tony's daily life as compared to that of his co-mafiosi by drawing out Silvio's failure over another episode or two by having Tony or other Family members comment on it. Or having New York decide to attack based on the weakened state of both Tony and Sil. It may have repercussions yet, but if not, it's a big miss. Silvio going down under the pressure of a disagreement between Bacala and Vito? In terms of middle-management power bases within the Family, those 2 are non-issues Tony could have dispatched from his comatose state. Could be that Chase meant to use that scenario to illustrate family pressure on work performance. Sil's wife was pushing him pretty hard to ascend to the throne, which he eschewed immediately. Possibly the biggest source of my surprise regarding the whole situation is that, to this point in the show, Sil has been a rock. He has delivered plenty of unpleasant rulings on Tony's behalf, most recently (and with dire consequence) the decision to deny Eugene's retirement request, advised on important decisions in times of both war and peace and has killed repeatedly: Chucky Signore, Uncle Jun's right hand man before Mikey "It's not Bra-ooon" Palmice, Jimmy Altieri, the rat-capo who flipped after the same arrest where Puss was flipped, then Puss himself and last, but not least, Adrianna.

Congratulations are due Baccala, I guess, for getting the Family into the PR consulting business in helping promote the career of an upcoming rapper by capitalizing on current popularity trends in the entertainment business. Apparently Treach is down to get rich or die tryin'.

Finally, this week, for all the questions it raised in my mind, illuminated the impending war between New Jersey and New York. Tony's diminished mental capacity, which we were prepared for by the doctor who played Rachel's dad on Friends, led to some very un-Tony-like behavior in this episode. Old Tony, even from the first episode of this season before he was Malanga'd, would never have let Pastor Bob come into a room with him and Chris and Hesh to discuss spiritual matters. And Old Tony definitely NEVER would have said, "There's enough garbage for everybody," to anyone outside his own family. Barone Sanitation has been a New Jersey staple since the first season and it has never even been hinted that New York had a piece, that I can remember, until this week. Not to mention the fact that he came out and told the nurse that his mind had been "running away with him" since he awoke. The previews for this coming Sunday show Phil and Johnny Sack talking about Tony's weakened state, and Phil says, at one point, that Johnny has mandated that someone (who we may fairly assume is Tony) has got to go. Looks like things are about to get very interesting. A good opportunity for Chrissy to implement his "DEFCON-4-bazookas-under-each-arm-Say-Hello-
to-my-Little-Friend" approach? He needs something to occupy his time with no Ade or smack in his life these days. An opportunity to see Carmela assume the Connie Corleone role? She was rather forward with her counsel to Tony on the untrustworthy nature of Cagney and Vito.

Sunday can't get here fast enough.

If you don't know... now you know.