Season Finale Season: The Sopranos and Big Love
HBO seems to be dropping the ball left and right. It is no longer the sole home of high quality televised drama (thanks for canceling Arlis, a-holes), and when it is given the advantage (i.e. when The Sopranos is airing), it completely destroys any sense of momentum in the season by skipping a week before the finale. Neither The Sopranos nor Big Love were on last week, probably so the network could get away from the added pressure of competing with everyone else airing their season finales. What happened to “It’s not TV, it’s HBO?” Are things really in such dire straights the big, bad HBO can’t stomach going up against Grey’s Anatomy, a series so popular it wasn’t even ON last week? This is a shame for both of their series. All the urgency was drained away exposing flaws that might have otherwise gone undetected. The Sopranos held up, as it always does. It’s flaws aren’t dramatic, but instead simply illuminate the direction of the show. Big Love is a different story altogether. Keep reading by clicking below…
The Sopranos
There was a particularly funny exchange in last night’s episode between Junior and a nurse at the asylum. They were making holiday crafts:
Nurse: You can make a hand-turkey!
Junior: For Christmas?! Fucking idiot.
Classic! But if that exchange was good for anything more than a laugh, it was to illustrate how noticable the absence of Junior Soprano has been on the series this season. That might be a good way to summarize the season: noticable abscenes. A lot was missing this season, most seemed intentional. Season six, like season four, was a slow build with a few scattered moments of intensity– exactly what most people tune into The Sopranos to avoid.
Jokes on us.
This season seemed to be all about Tony not acting on his impulses– for him to settle down and think about the big picture. Likewise, impulse is to give the audience easy gratification. Those impulses weren’t acted on either.
All in all, it was a good season. I like the slow build. It’s why I like The Wire, but there was one aspect of this season that I felt was serevely unaddressed: Kevin Finnerty, the assumed identity of Tony Soprano in his coma-induced dream-state. Those were such pivotal scenes it seems a waste to have their payoff be nothing more than a fleeting reference made by Tony to Phil in the hospital.
What can you do?
Well, we can all tune back in in January for the final 8 episodes of the series. I can’t wait.
Big Love
What happened? Two weeks ago I was singing the praises of this show, complimenting its bizarre and creepy ordinariness, and now I’m starting to rethink everything. The Big Love finale was so bad I could see people not returning for the second season. It’s like during the week off (again, WHY the week off?) whatever dimensions had been added to these characters over the season’s run were instantly ironed as flat as Nichole Ritchie. It’s like once they realized they were getting a second season, the creators got nervous and ditched characters for plot.
Which in some cases is tolerable if you’re working with an interesting plot, but they aren’t. The conflicts on Big Love used to be emotional, but the cat and mouse game between Bill and Roman has swallowed up the entire series. It came to the ultimate WTF-moment in the finale where Bill finds a way to insert himself into the UAB council through some sort of stock-buyout. It’s overly complicated and borderline illogical, and ended with Roman calling up someone and outing the family.
Then everyone is shocked.
What?! If Roman is such a badass, why the hell didn’t he out the Hendrickson family the moment things got complicated? It’s so obvious. What a waste of 12 weeks.
Thank god Deadwood starts next Sunday.
Tags: Big Love, HBO, Season Finale, The Sopranos
June 9th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
I thought they held off because of the holiday.
June 21st, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I beg to differ that Big Love was disappointing. I will say, however, that skipping that week was a bad idea. These TV suits do not appear to understand people’s television habits. Many of us have important things to do with our time but we hook up to a great show and decide to set aside time for it. Busy people, like me, arrange dinner, kids, preparing for Monday, etc..etc so that we can sit down from 9-11 to watch our shows. What the hell is the reason for skipping.? Anyway…. The last show was great. I cannot believe that this show had me almost in tears over Barb’s embarrasment. Nicki’s hysteria actually made me feel sorrry for her for a moment. My girl Wanda is crazy but has guts. I am sure Roman has some sinister fate awaiting Bill after Bill’s wife “pulled” his new bride Wanda, Bill infiltrated the Council, Alby’s poisoning etc. Some have predicted that Bill is being setup as the new prophet after his business fails from the “outing”. I am a little disappointed that Margene backed away from her new friends. I expected them to present a threat to the Hendricksons. Anyway–if anyone finds out when the new season for Big Love starts, please post it.
June 21st, 2006 at 5:11 pm
The season finale was somewhat boring. Does anyone think Julianna Margulies is FBI? She shows up, out of the blue” with the ability to pay Tony for a building above market value. Was she really getting high with Christopher? It seems funny that she ends up at Chris’ meeting right after Tony rebuffed her. Something is not right about her. I miss Adrianna. Chris new wife has no personality. Also can somebody tell me what a “spec” house is? Anyway…….. I hate this time lapse.