An interesting episode, though I'm not exactly sure what I make of it. For once, I was compelled by Vito's story. His domestic squabbles with Johnny Cakes, and the sweetness of their home life were effective to me. I get the idea that you can take the guy out of the mob but you can't take the mob out of the guy. Vito's lived with the mafia for too long to work a straight job. And so he throws the baby out with the bathwater and abandons what he's built with Johnny Cakes. It's an interesting idea in principle, but the execution...eh...I can't really explain why it didn't work for me. It felt...sudden? I get that he was having a rough time as a handyman and fitting in, but it still seemed like he went from really enjoying his new life to bolting awfully quickly without it feeling earned. Maybe that's the point. Maybe he's a reactionary who jumps from thing to thing without much warning, but we've never really gotten that from him. Whatever it was, it didn't work for me when he left. And him capping the guy he rear ended seemed manipulative, to try to remind us that this guy we've been warming to as he cuddled with his partner is still a cold-hearted killer. I don't know. Just kind of too tidy. I do enjoy, as always, Carmela finding ways to get to Tony, even when she has plausible deniability, to get what she wants vis-a-vis the spec house. The scene with Tony and Meadow (where Meadow whines over minor nothings) and it's something Tony would prefer Carmela dealt with was pretty amusing in Tony's uncomfortableness. And it was a nice contrast with Carmela handling Janice's emotional outburst at the end of the episode. Tony and Carmela's marriage is obviously built on a house of sand at this point, but they do have their arrangements. The most interesting reveal of the episode was Tony's resentments of Janice. It's no secret that Tony harbor antipathy for his sister, and it's not even the first time that he's brought up the fact that she got to leave while he had to stay. (It was in the scene where he choked her.) But there was something very striking about the way he used it to justify not giving handouts to his sister -- that he feels entitled to his success and stature and finances and feels justified limiting his sister's (and her husband's) share in it as much as possible because he had to live in the Soprano household after Janice left and endure the scars of their parents' fucked up child-rearing while she left. I love the show's explorations of Tony's psyche, especially the things he has trouble admitting to himself, and factoring his sister into the home life that left him so damaged is a very interesting avenue on that front. Of course, there's Johnny Sack copping a plea, and slowly being abandoned by his mob buddies. There's always been a hypocrisy to the mob in the series that 'The Sopranos' has never shied away from -- this is a group who talks about honor while robbing people, that talks about respect while doling it out selectively, and talks about family and loyalty while chewing you up, spitting you out, or worse, the second that you cease to be useful to them. Ginny Sack sitting despondent at home while Janice sized up her living room was a great image to drive that point home. And the point is underlined even more with the gardener from last season. When he asks if he can stop taking care of Johnny Sack's lawn now that he's in jail, Tony shuts him down; but once Johnny pleads guilty, Tony admonishes him for treating Johnny Sack like a criminal (even though he himself was lamenting it seconds earlier), but then absolves him from having to continue to service Johnny Sack's house. A recurring theme in the show this season has been the haves and the have-nots. Tony is at a peak, and Johnny Sack is at a nadir. Clearly, this puts Frank in charge and (hopefully) is building to something significant on that front, though Vito looms as a wildcard in all of this.

Great analysis!