The Second Coming (The Sopranos episode)

The Second Coming (The Sopranos episode)

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Second Coming
Series = The Sopranos


Caption =
Season = 6
Episode = 19
Airdate = Start date|2007|5|20
Production =
Writer = Terence Winter
Director = Tim Van Patten
Photographer =
Guests = "see below"
Episode list = List of "The Sopranos" episodes
Season list = Infobox The Sopranos season six
Prev =
Next =
"The Second Coming" is the eighty-fourth episode of the HBO television series "The Sopranos". It is the seventh episode of the second half of the show's sixth season, the nineteenth episode of the season overall. It was written by executive producer Terence Winter and was directed by longtime series director Tim Van Patten. It originally aired in the United States on May 20, 2007.

Episode recap

The episode begins with asbestos and waste smoking into the air in an area of scrubland near the New Jersey Meadowlands. As Tony sleeps in his bedroom, a sleepless A.J. turns on some rap music, waking his father up for a moment. When Tony goes downstairs later, he finds that the gift he bought Carmela in Las Vegas, an engraved watch, has arrived by courier. Carmela recalls that Tony said he went to Vegas to wrap up some of Christopher's business there and mentions that Christopher's widow Kelli will need financial support now. When Tony shows up at the office, a picture of Christopher, taken on the set of "Cleaver", has been put up on the wall. Tony tells the guys about his peyote experience in Las Vegas.

When Tony goes with Sil and Bobby to see Phil, he tries to reach a compromise with Phil about the asbestos removal project, reminding him of the talk they had while Phil was recovering in hospital. Phil tells Tony about the compromises he made while spending "20 years in the can," where he made grilled cheese sandwiches on the radiator and "jacked off in a tissue" because he couldn't have any women. He coldly rejects Tony's offer. Tony retaliates by taking Phil's men Butch DeConcini and Coco off the payroll for another construction project. Butch and Coco viciously beat the foreman when he gives them the news.

A.J. despairs about the world and his future to his therapist, Dr. Richard Vogel, complaining, "Why can't I catch a fuckin' break?" He becomes interested in W. B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" and reads it in bed. He feels deeply disillusioned with the political and materialist status quo and talks pessimistically while Christopher's widow Kelli is over for dinner. When Meadow comes to see her brother in his bedroom, he dismisses her cheeriness about "", telling her "it wasn't fair to the people involved" and dejectedly claims that the U.S. will bomb Iran. He also tells her he's dropped out of college. Meadow tries to console him and reminds him that he's a son in an Italian family and so "you'll always be more important." After Carmela leaves for a lunch date, A.J. attempts suicide in the family pool, slipping off the diving-board with a plastic bag around his head and one foot tied by rope to a cinder block. While underwater he manages to struggle back up to the surface since the rope is too long. Tony comes home, hears his son's cry for help, jumps in the pool, and saves him from drowning. A.J. is put on Valium and admitted to a mental-health ward in a hospital.

When Tony talks to the guys in his office about A.J.'s suicide attempt, he laments, "Where did I lose this kid?" Patsy, Sil, and Carlo try to console him with their stories of their children's tough times. When Tony tells Carmela he feels depressed, an argument between them erupts. Carmela blames A.J.'s condition on Tony's family's genetic predisposition towards depression, tells Tony he plays the "depression card," says that he is always complaining, and throws the watch he bought for her at him. In Dr. Melfi's office, in response to her suggestion that the long rope suggests A.J. subconsciously didn't want to die, Tony responds, "he could just be a fuckin' idiot... historically, that's been the case." Tony talks about the "Sopranos curse" that Carmela mentioned but refuses to shoulder all the blame. "His mother," he says, "she coddled him."

While Meadow has another "mystery date" with her new boyfriend at a cafe in Manhattan, a drunk Coco comes over to their table and makes several lewd comments. After Meadow tells Carmela, she tells her father what happened and Tony hides his rage. Meadow reluctantly tells Carmela and Tony that her boyfriend is Patrick Parisi, Patsy's son. After Tony leaves, Meadow tells Carmela that she will not be going to medical school but instead law school, inspired by Patrick's passion about the justice system.

When Dr. Melfi sees Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, he tells her that a study has shown that sociopaths are not helped by talk therapy but further enabled by it, perhaps even "sharpening their skills as con men" in the process. Meanwhile, Tony tracks down Coco and Butch at restaurant in Brooklyn. Tony then viciously pistol-whips Coco several times with a snubnose revolver and warns Butch at gunpoint to shut up and remain seated at his table. After breaking off many of Coco's teeth with a curb stomp, Tony leaves the restaurant. At a session with A.J.'s psychiatrist that Tony and Carmela attend, A.J. recalls times when he felt humiliated by his mother and depressed by his visits to Livia at the nursing-home. As Tony listens, he notices one of Coco's bloody teeth inside the cuff of his pants leg. Carmela wonders why a college would teach a poem like "The Second Coming" to young people.

At the office, Patsy talks warmly with Tony about the romance between Patrick and Meadow and hopes there will be a wedding one day. Carmine Lupertazzi comes in, commiserates with Tony about A.J., and then tells Tony that he has brokered a meeting with Phil.

Tony partly blames himself for his son's state while in Dr. Melfi's office, although he also says he realized, while on peyote in Vegas, that mothers are like buses who drop you off and continue on, but "we keep trying to get back on the bus." Dr. Melfi tells him that it's an insightful thought.

Tony's beating of Coco has opened a deep rift with the Lupertazzi family, as Phil refuses to meet with Tony and Little Carmine when they show up at his house. After Butch closes the door on Tony and Little Carmine, Phil yells down at them from behind a second-floor window as they walk away from the house.

In the final scene, a despondent Tony comes to visit his son at the hospital and, with the glass doors to the mental-health ward sliding shut behind him, father walks down the hall to his son.

First appearances

The episode marks the first appearance of:

* Patrick Parisi: Son of Patsy Parisi and new boyfriend of Meadow Soprano.

Guest starring

* Gregory Antonacci as Butch DeConcini
* Peter Bogdanovich as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg
* Cara Buono as Kelli Moltisanti
* Lindsay Campbell as Professor Kline
* John Cenatiempo as Anthony Maffei
* Dominic Chianese Jr. as Uncle Junior
* John "Cha Cha" Ciarcia as Albie Cianflone
* Michael Countryman as Dr. Richard Vogel
* Armen Garo as Salvatore "Coco" Cogliano
* Frank John Hughes as Walden Belfiore
* Michael Kelly as Agent Ron Goddard
* Joey Perillo as John Stefano
* Daniel Sauli as Patrick Parisi
* Matt Servitto as Agent Dwight Harris

Title reference

* "The Second Coming" is a poem by W.B. Yeats which A.J. is studying for college. Its bleak perspective increases A.J.'s depression which culminates in his suicide attempt. Parts of the poem's final lines ("what rough beast . . . Slouching towards Bethlehem") are echoed in the final shot. A slouching, downcast Tony is seen walking down the halls of the mental hospital, or "Bethlehem", which was famously the name of the world's first psychiatric hospital.

* In the Season 5 episode, "Cold Cuts", Dr. Melfi quotes "The Second Coming" to Tony.

* A.J. can be seen as the second coming of Tony's panic attacks and fits of depression; Tony has often talked with Dr. Melfi about his passing-down of these weaknesses to his son.

* Tony can be seen as the second coming of his mother, Livia. Tony displays Livia's paranoid and vindictive tendencies throughout the second half of season six, and says "Poor you!", Livia's standard response for when someone is looking for sympathy from her, in this episode to Carmela and A.J. when they complain.

References to prior episodes

* During their fight, Carmela angrily mentions the incident when Tony's father shot his mother through her beehive hairdo, as told to her by Janice in "Soprano Home Movies"; Tony hates the anecdote so much that it partly led to his brawl with Bobby.
* A.J. recalls being deeply affected by Livia's comments that life is a "big nothing" and, "in the end . . . you die in your own arms" when he visited her in "D-Girl". A.J. also recalls Carmela calling him an "animal" for smoking marijuana at his confirmation, which occurred in the same episode.

Production

* Arthur Nascarella (Carlo Gervasi) is billed in the opening credits but only for this episode.

Awards

* The following actors submitted this episode as their 2007 Emmy choice: James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano), Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano), Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano), Robert Iler (A.J. Soprano) and Peter Bogdanovich (Dr. Elliot Kupferberg).
* This episode was nominated and won for Outstanding Writing for A Drama Series for the WGA Awards.

External links

* [http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/ HBO.com — "The Sopranos" official website]
*imdb title|0141842|The Sopranos
*imdb title|0995837|"The Second Coming"
* [http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/Shows/The-Sopranos?strSeason=all&strSortCoulmn=airdate_asc&ShowName=The+Sopranos&vgnextoid=4c88ef12f85b2110VgnVCM1000006dc1d240RCRD Television Without Pity — "The Sopranos" recaps]
* [http://www.the-sopranos.com/ "The Sopranos" — Family Values]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • The Happy Wanderer (The Sopranos episode) — Infobox Television episode | Title = The Happy Wanderer Series = The Sopranos Season = 2 Episode = 19 Guests= see below Airdate = February 20, 2000 (HBO) Production = 206 Writer = Frank Renzulli Director = John Patterson Episode list = Episode… …   Wikipedia

  • Second Coming (disambiguation) — The Second Coming is the Christian belief in the return of Jesus Christ or the Islamic belief in the return of the Mehdi to fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy.:*Second Coming (LDS Church)Second Coming may also refer to:*The Second Coming… …   Wikipedia

  • University (The Sopranos episode) — Infobox Television episode | Title = University Series = The Sopranos Season = 3 Episode = 32 Guests= see below Airdate = April 1, 2001 (HBO) Production = 306 Writer = Terence Winter and Salvatore J. Stabile Director = Allen Coulter Episode list …   Wikipedia

  • The Sopranos — This article is about the television series. For the pilot episode of the series, see The Sopranos (episode). For the novel unrelated to the series, see The Sopranos (novel). The Sopranos Genre Drama …   Wikipedia

  • The Second Coming (poem) — The Second Coming is a poem by William Butler Yeats first printed in The Dial (November 1920) and afterwards included in his 1921 verse collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer . The poem uses religious symbolism to illustrate Yeats anguish… …   Wikipedia

  • Music on The Sopranos — The HBO television drama The Sopranos has received considerable critical attention for its effective use of an eclectic array of music.[1][2][3][4] Series creator David Chase personally selects all of the show s music with the producer Martin… …   Wikipedia

  • The Sopranos — Seriendaten Deutscher Titel: Die Sopranos Originaltitel: The Sopranos Produktionsland: Vereinigte Staaten …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Cold Cuts (The Sopranos) — Cold Cuts The Sopranos episode Episode no. Season 5 Episode 62 …   Wikipedia

  • List of characters from The Sopranos — The characters from the HBO series, The Sopranos that are friends or family of the Sopranos. Contents 1 Soprano family blood relations 1.1 Domenica Nica Baccalieri 1.2 Anthony Tony B. Blundetto …   Wikipedia

  • List of characters from The Sopranos in the Soprano crime family — The following is a listing of fictional characters from the HBO series The Sopranos that are associated with the Soprano crime family. Contents 1 Administration 1.1 Giacomo Jackie Aprile, Sr. 1.2 Silvio Dante …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”