Join the Club

Many hardcore fans dislike the dreams that frequent the Sopranos, but I find them interesting and provocative. Tony's coma/dream didn't disappoint. It raised many questions:

• A.J. has proved himself an aimless coward, but showed uncharacteristic conviction when he vowed to murder his grandfather (while telling his mother he flunked out of school). Is he going into the family business ? -Was the dream Tony's subconsious wish that he was a WASP middle class schlubb ? - How will the outfit adjust to Silvio as the new boss ? Will they lose street cred or come out of their corner swinging ? - Was this Edie Falco's greatest episode in the entire show ?

We see the consequence of the shooting portrayed in the previous episode.

It's difficult to discuss the plot without spoiling, but the focus on Tony is a typically unconventional David Chase approach to the situation. The writer stated that these scenes are not dreams but he also left their meaning ambiguous. There are clues relating to Tony's soul being possibly in various states of limbo, hell, purgatory, or awaiting rebirth, but the main theme is about his identity. There are images and dialogue relating to possibilities of who he might be if not that "fat f______ crook from New Jersey" and also the aspects of his personality that are quintessentially him. I'm not pretending to understand it all, but I think it's compelling to watch.

The other aspect of the story that transitions brilliantly from Tony's journey is the family at his bedside. The scenes with Carmela, AJ and Meadow are wonderfully portrayed and recognisable to anyone who has been in the unfortunate position of being round the clock in hospital with a relative who is critically ill. Edie Falco is great in most episodes, but here she is exceptional.

His other family is amusingly portrayed with a dynamic of one-upmanship amongst each other that provides some humorous relief, but also shows how self-serving they are.

One Family together forever, the dreams idea from the writer is perfect, i liked it so much.

To call this episode brilliant feels like too little. To say it keeps up the excellent work of the season premiere is reductive too, 'cause there's never been a far-from-great Sopranos episode so far. In fact, the title might be a smug invitation for those who aren't real fans yet: Join the Club...

Picking up where Junior left off (putting a bullet in his nephew's gut after mistaking him for a crook he killed in the first season), the story begins with Tony being absolutely fine. With no recollection whatsoever of what happened to him, he's attending some kind of convention. Only he's not speaking with his normal accent, and there seems to be something wrong with his papers: apparently, he is not Tony Soprano but Kevin Finnerty, or at least that's what a group of people think, and until the mess is sorted out he can't leave his hotel.

Naturally, in pure Sopranos tradition, that turns out to be nothing but a dream: Tony is actually in a coma, with the doctors uncertain regarding his fate, his family and friends worried sick and Junior refusing to believe the whole thing actually happened. Unfortunately it did, and Anthony Jr. looks willing to avenge the attempt on his father's life.

Dreams have popped up rather frequently in the series, often as some kind of spiritual trial for the protagonists (most notably in the Season Five show The Test Dream). Join the Club, however, takes the metaphysical qualities of the program, already hinted at by the previous episode's use of a William S. Burroughs poem, and pushes the envelope in the most audacious way: Tony hallucinating about his dead friends (the first occurrence of the sort was caused by food poisoning, four seasons ago) is one thing, him actually being in what would appear to be Purgatory is radically different. The "heavenly" section of the story is crammed with allegorical significances, not least the name Tony is given (as one character points out, spelling it in a certain way will give you the word "infinity"), and none of it comes off as overblown or far-fetched: David Chase has created a piece of work that is far too intelligent to use weird set-ups just for their own sake; it all helps the narrative. Talking about "help from above" in the case of Tony Soprano might be stretching it a tad, though.

My current rewatch has revealed unlikely front-runners among the episodes of The Sopranos and, so far, this and The Test Dream I hold in extremely high regard as moments of effective introspection. If you are someone who was not a fan of the early dreamier moments of the show (like Funhouse), then I can understand some dissatisfaction here. But for those who appreciate them, these later seasons really offer a lot. In this, and in The Test Dream, the dreams take on more supernatural qualities. They are not simply visually symbolic nonsenses which appear during sleep. I would even posit that they are not dreams, but visions. The narratives they contain are sophisticated and fleshed out (unlike a dream) and, especially here, their pacing is the pace of real life. In this episode we see Tony either in purgatory or just having a dream about what his life would be like if he was "normal", i.e. outside of the mafia. There is a healthy sprinkling of post-9/11 anxiety which exists in prior seasons too, which forms part of the "normal" Tony's conundrum. It's worth noting, as 'current affairs' form a large part of the discussion of anxiety that the show conducts. I always say to fans of Mad Men who have not seen The Sopranos that the last two seasons of the show is where Mad Men was born (arguably, the Gloria Trillo plot line is very significant too, but I believe the best part of that arc occurs after her death, in season five). This episode is an illustration of that. Outside of Tony's purgatory dream is another stellar moment for Edie Falco and a continuation of minor characters' arcs amidst the general plot stasis caused by Tony's hospitalisation.