By: David Valdes
As the final season of THE SOPRANOS rushes to a frenzied conclusion, the lines that used to separate work and family for Tony have been all but erased. In “The Second Coming,” longtime series writer Terence Winter paints a bleak picture of Tony the sociopath and the toll his lifestyle has taken on his children, A.J. and Meadow.
In a half-hearted suicide attempt, A.J. ties a cinder block to his chair and drops himself into a pool with a plastic bag over his head. Fortunately for A.J., Tony hears the youngster’s cries and saves him. “What’s wrong with you,” Tony asks in a rage. But isn’t it obvious?
“You realize we’re going to bomb Iran,” A.J. dejectedly tells Meadow early in the episode in the middle of a thoroughly unrelated conversation. Tony’s son, completely depressed, spends his free time brooding, feeling helpless and hopeless, and reading Al Jazeera’s website. Carmela, in one of those outstanding kitchen argument scenes, tells Tony she blames his “playing the depression card” for “The Soprano Curse.” Tony, who has been chastising people for “going about in pity for themselves” for two seasons now, has little to say in response.
And if A.J.’s mental health was up for debate before, let the simple fact that he no longer finds BORAT amusing solidify the fact that the kid needs help. Or at least more help than his distant, incompetent shrink has to offer. Even Meadow noticed the young man was suicidal – and that was two episodes ago.
Meadow gives A.J. some significant advice when he complains he is in her shadow: “We’re Italian, A.J. You’re the son. Do you have any idea what that means? You’ll always be more important.” But the way Tony reacts to a New York wise guy intimidating Meadow this week tells a different story. The juxtaposition of the scene in which Tony tells Meadow and Carmela that the mobster is “harmless” and that he will talk to him with the scene in which he curb-stomps the guy’s teeth out is chilling.
Dr. Melfi’s visit to her own mob-obsessed psychiatrist offers the viewers a big helping of Tell Us Something We Don’t Already Know. He brings up the idea that talk therapy is useless for sociopaths because it only validates them and allows them to “sharpen their con skills on their therapists.” Fittingly, the next therapy scene between Melfi and Tony begins with Tony uttering the line, “I’m a good guy.”
The stakes for Tony are sky high, with A.J. and Meadow now more involved than ever. He is no longer the widely respected
Jersey boss he once was and he is no longer in control of his own future. Even his goombas back at the Bada Bing seem to be getting a little listless with their sycophancy. How about that scene where the guys try to calm Boss T’s worries about his suicidal son? Tony is even showing more signs of self-doubt than ever before with that silly attempt at Freudian psychology in Dr. Melfi’s office. “Our mothers are the bus drivers – no. They are bus.” Even funnier than hearing Big T say it is hearing Dr. Melfi dub his remarks “insightful.”
Tony Soprano’s troubles are no longer few and far between. All of the stressors and dangers in Tony’s life are now hovering right above him and bouncing off of one another. Tony, who has tried for so long to keep his work affairs separate from his comparatively normal home life, is now at a “precipice,” as Carmine puts it. If “The Second Coming” is any indication, a happy ending for anyone on THE SOPRANOS is virtually impossible.