HBO Sunday night wrap-up (gay Vito edition)
Ah premium television, gotta love it. Well, you don’t gotta love it, but if you’re forking over the $10 every month, you probably do. HBO it seems, invented Sunday nights (it was either them or god during his whole “resting†period), but over the past couple years they’ve continually lost ground to the likes of Showtime and—godforbid—ABC. Once Sex and the City left the air and The Sopranos decided people would get the biggest kick out of the show if it was rarely on television, HBO Sunday nights haven’t had quite the punch they once had. But the past 11 weeks have gone well. The Sopranos is a must watch and surprisingly Big Love has turned itself into something altogether unique. Click below to find out why…
The Sopraonos “Cold Stones†(#611)
Is anyone else as shocked as I am, not in the length of the knife that was repeatedly shoved into that one guy’s stomach, but in the fact that there’s only one episode left this season? It’s weird, while I’ve entirely enjoyed the past 11 weeks I feel like this season hasn’t gelled as a whole. Remember those first four episodes after Tony was shot? What happened? And the Kevin Finnerty stuff seems to have disappeared as fast as a stack of Johnnycakes in front of gay Vito. Though I trust David Chase and the creative team behind the show know what’s what. After all, we have an episode to go (and then, technically, another eight this January).
Probably the greatest compliment one can give The Sopranos is that even in a season where seemingly little happened, it couldn’t be more compelling. That, to me, is the sign of a great show.
Last night Vito met his inevitable end. It was going to happen. We all knew it, and it paved the way for Phil to say the following line to Vito’s grieving wife, “I loved him like a brother-in-law.” So best! What I found so frighteningly true about this arc was the level of homophobia in, well, just about everyone in the cast. For some it was a religious thing, some a manly thing, but for most is issue of family honor. And yet when Tony finally had to decide if he was going to have him killed or not he simply exploded, “Who the hell cares, why couldn’t he have stayed wherever he was!” It was never really about Vito being gay, it was about everyone else. This season has spent a lot of time dealing with the idea that “the mob” as the characters have known it, is basically obsolete in the traditional sense. There’s no need for low-level enforcers trying to get money out of small businesses when we live in a world where the small business doesn’t really exist. There was the fantastic scene a few weeks back where the two hoods tried to shake down a Starbucks to no avail. The business is changing, and they’re having a hard time dealing with that. Vito is the manifestation of how these guys react to change.
Big Love “Where There’s A Will†(#111)
It is with much consideration that I say this, but Big Love is without a doubt the weirdest series on television right now. And it’s not weird in the Twin Peaks-midget-talking-backwards sort of way, but weird in the I-find-this-perversely-relatable way. Part of me watches the show and thinks about a certain type of midwestern nuclear family that is religious, conservative, and overall welcoming. But then you see how everyone is behaving within those confines and the black and white starts looking a lot more grey.
Big Love, despite its innocent projections (there haven’t been more than five curses the whole season, and while there is a lot of sex its mostly of the married variety, something rarely seen on television these days) is a series that at its core is about greed and jealously, though centering around a group of people who are fundamentally opposed to such base desires. But that’s just it, their opposition seems to only fuel these sins further, because when push comes to shove, they’re trying to live a lifestyle of purity that never really existed in human evolution– and trying to do so within the parameters of modern America (even if in this case modern America is suburban Utah). What they want is some sort of weird human impossibility, and yet they’ve found a way to make it work… kinda.
For those who don’t watch the series, Big Love follows the happenings of the Hendrickson family. Bill, the patriarch, played by Bill Paxton, owns a series of home improvement stores. He’s married to Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), mother of three. He’s also married to Nicki played by Chloë Sevigny and Margie played by Ginnifer Goodwin. Three wives! Yes, it’s true, they’re polygamists. Throw in a crazy compound, an old man named Roman who claims to be “the prophet†(played brilliantly by Harry Dean Stanton), and escalating levels of trickery and lies and you’ve got yourself the series in a nutshell.
What’s fortunate about a series being on HBO is that they know they’re going to get a full season regardless of ratings. Because of this, they can play with the pacing of the series and how the viewer will be informed. A network show could be upended any time and because of this they can’t tease little things. For example, in Big Love we’ve never been told (as the audience) exactly how the family came to be, but instead bits and pieces of the story have leaked out over the past 11 episodes. This is an excellent way to tell a story, if you’re willing to ride it out. Some aren’t, and that will forever be the rub, but Big Love, a series that I didn’t particularly like for its first four episodes has become one of my favorite appointments every week.
ALSO: The York Times profiles Chloë Sevigny here
Picture via HBO.com
Tags: Big Love, HOB, The Sopranos
