"The Sopranos Season 4" It's Alright

     After the glowing review I gave Sopranos Season 3, I was hoping that season 4 would lose none of the momentum, I felt like the show was building, but considering the show was always about the characters and their relationships with one another, I should have known better. I'm not saying that this season was bad, it was just that it felt kind of abrupt. This season certainly does tie up some old threads, leaving room for much bigger, more ambitious plans. Though after the way last season ended, it does feel a little surprising that they'd just nip some of the seeds they've set so quickly. I hate to report that I once again took my random mid-season break this time around, and frankly I was not very compelled to come back either. Let's discuss why.

    First of all, let's talk about Ralph. Realistically, I'm surprised he made it this long. He had dead man screaming all over him. He was a drug addict, he was pretty unlikeable to many members of not only Tony's crew but also the New York mob, and the tension he created was going to bubble over eventually. What I did not expect was for him to go out the way he did. His child randomly is shot in the lung with an arrow, gets turned into a vegetable, so suddenly Tony's top earner decides to burn down the stable, and Tony kills him in a fit of rage. Now do not get me wrong, Tony killing him made sense. The entire show Tony has been trying to grapple with all of these hypocrisies in his life, especially ethically as a mob boss who regularly ruins the lives of everyone he knows. I just thought it'd go out with a bigger bang. Honestly, I was surprised he even survived the dispute with Johnny Sack and Carmine. I am not saying this show needs to be believable every time, it's just that Ralph's death was so out of the blue it made me wonder if that was always the way that Chase and Co. intended for his character to go.

    The same could be said about Furio, who had this bizarre emotional cheating thing with Carmela? I would say this is way more unsatisfying because I kind of liked Furio. Like yes, I absolutely understand that his character was pretty flat and lacked much depth emotionally, personality wise or story-wise. Though I thought it was pretty refreshing to have this random Italian dude who just did violent things and wore a ponytail. I thought surely he would have a storyline that was better than this one. Honestly, I think it would have been more interesting if it was just some random underling rather than Furio, or if she actually cheated on Tony, especially with how rampant his cheating is. Randomly having Furio hold Tony against a helicopter blade, then let go and run away back to Italy just also left me asking why? Of course not everything has to be finished cleanly, having an abrupt character death can work in stories. It's just that they built up this entire story with Furio, just to have him leave. Then to top it all off, they finished the Carmela storyline by having Irina call her and having her kick Tony out of the house.

    That part I understood, Tony's affairs were eventually going to come to a head and I do think it sets up for an interesting dynamic where he comes back crawling to Melfi trying to fix the family structure he's been so hyper-fixated on since the beginning of the show. It's just surely you could have done a more gradual build up with that, instead of this whole Furio nonsense that just gets thrown away in two seconds. On the subject of storylines being set up, I do like that the world of The Sopranos, is slowly becoming bigger, and finally opening up to New York. Honestly, considering the "reduced" role it felt like Paulie had this season, I'm surprised he didn't try and "flex" his friendship with Johnny Sack some more. Regardless, I enjoyed seeing Carmine and Johnny Sack interact with the Jersey crew more, as I always thought that the mob politics/relationships were by far one of the most interesting aspects of the show. 

    In terms of why I felt like this season felt flat? There were also seasons that were funny, but ultimately did not hit me like episodes of last season. While I did think that Christopher was funny, and did a decent job talking about this fake Italian pride many of mobsters held, it was ultimately nothing more than that. Funny. It was just like one big bit, especially the ending where Tony yells at Silvio for not even going to the parade because he was too busy getting drunk at the casino. I'm not saying the Soprano's can't be funny, it's just that it felt out of place for the show. The only real impact that episode has is that they randomly visit that same casino on later in the episode. Even storylines like that involving New York felt a bit weak. The first time we really begin to witness the interactions between New Jersey and New York and you mostly just see Carmine holding Johnny Sack back for the most part.

Final Score: 75/100

    I'll admit that I have high hopes for next season, but frankly my hype has been tempered after the way this season petered out. I mean of course that doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching, though with the way school is tightening I think season 5 will need to start off spectacularly to keep any momentum up as I juggle this show with my real duties. On a side note you'd think this show would keep more characters around but they really do cycle through so many side characters. What I'm saying is that if you have a semi-large storyline in any given season as a "non-main character" there's a 50% chance you'll also be dying quite abruptly later on in that same season. I've been spoiled on the fate of two other characters but other than that everything else has been kept quite mum luckily. Even still, I knew Ralphie was going to die but I never saw him dying so soon, I thought they'd keep his character around for something larger.