Luxury Lounge

Artie's restaurant is struggling and Christopher goes to Hollywood chasing his dream.

The is a very humorous episode with great character moments.

Artie and Christopher both suffer the green-eyed monster over materialism and certain lifestyles led by other people. Their arcs nicely parallel as the story unfolds.

Christopher's taste of the Hollywood celebrity circuit contains some great awkward humour as both he and Carmine make you cringe in the company of various famous people playing themselves. The critique of freebie culture is not exactly subtle, but it works for the story and their "incident" with Lauren Becall is a superb.

Artie's plot is incredibly funny at times, thanks mostly to a brilliant performance from John Ventimiglia. He plays Bucco like a psychotic and violent Basil Fawlty, as he gradually comes apart under the strain of unrealised dreams and continual persecution.

Tony has a prominent role dealing with both characters as they struggle with fulfilment and his interactions with them both are well written and performed by all.

Visually it is superb as always with great cinematography, editing and the use of music enhances certain moments.

The scene in the actual "Luxury Lounge" is dizzying, poor Christopher, you feel his sense of longing and feel less sympathy towards Lauren then is due. Michael Imperioli is just priceless as an actor. Seeing him fall off the wagon was like watching a friend.

Sir Ben was great as himself and set this tone then emanates. We also celebrated that Artie finally stood up for himself, alas it was short lived and he shriveled back to his place in the kitchen. Both Artie and Christopher's stories are complex and you can't help to route for them, from episode to episode.

"They just give you all this stuff for free?" -Christopher

In the second season of The Sopranos, Christopher's passion for movies and screen writing led him to a memorable encounter with Jon Favreau which showed how rotten the film business can be at times and anticipated HBO's hit comedy Entourage by four years. Luxury Lounge treads similar waters with equally exhilarating results, providing further proof of the show's great choice of guest stars.

With Little Carmine willing to produce his gangster-horror movie, Chrissy heads out to L.A. to meet with Ben Kingsley, his scary work in Sexy Beast making him the ideal choice for the role of the mob boss. Sadly, Sir Ben isn't impressed, leaving Chris with nothing to but drink and do drugs again. Oh, and mug Lauren Bacall just for the sake of it. Back in Jersey, things get bad for Artie Bucco as he discovers one of Chris's pals has been using his new waitress to run a credit card scam. When things threaten to turn bloody, Tony has to step in once again.

Juxtaposing two story lines, Luxury Lounge alternates between sincerely touching in the Artie section and cruelly satirical in the Hollywood plot batch. The latter part is particularly appealing on account of Kingsley and Bacall's willingness to get their hands (and mouths) dirty, Kingsley especially having a great time making fun of his Englishness. Then again, his casting probably wasn't accidental: perhaps David Chase read Roger Ebert's famous review of Sexy Beast, which ended with the following sentence describing British crooks: "These are hard people. They could have the Sopranos for dinner, throw up and have them again." Judging from Sir Ben's hugely enjoyable self-mockery and cracking final line (it's just one priceless word), Ebert had a point, although the man who played Don Logan never actually meets Tony. Maybe he found him too hard to swallow.

This episode is a case study of interjecting humorous situations without being overboard which could damage the structure of the episode.

Bringing in Sir Ben Kingsley and Lauren Bacall was an amazing coup. Sir Ben played himself with such a passive aggressive arrogance that it could have been absolutely real. Lauren Bacall didn't have a big part, but it was still amazing to see her interact with Christopher and the extremely simple minded Little Carmine.

All in all, the episode was woven with very subtle comedic moments that were perfectly performed by everyone.

The final scene with Sir Ben on the plane with Christopher was the cherry on top and I often use the final word Kingsley speaks in the episode with the same phrasing when something unsavory happens in my day.

Ah....what a classic episode.