Log Lines And Titles
(I'm getting tired of giving spoiler alerts, but if you don't know want to know what just happened on The Sopranos, read no further.)
Those little plot descriptions you see in TV Guide are called log lines. The Sopranos has the best ones. Most shows try to drum up excitement, but The Sopranos, safe on its perch at HBO, never tips off anything important. No hard sell. If anything, it tries to make each episode sound like nothing big will happen.
The latest episode, "Kennedy and Heidi," is described thus: "An asbestos-disposal impasse raises tensions between Jersey and New York. Meanwhile, Tony has a revelation while Paulie gets upstaged." Not even the slightest indication that Tony will kill Christopher, or even that they'll be in a huge accident. (By the way, Paulie's "mom's" wake is upstaged by Christopher's, and Tony's questionable revelation comes while he's high on peyote.)
They also have great, evocative, titles. But I was confused by this one. When I first watched the show, a character, rather derogatorily, referred to Christopher's grieving widow as Jackie Kennedy. But I couldn't figure out the "Heidi" part.
So I watched it again. Turns out the two teenage girls whom Christopher swerves to avoid (leading to the accident) are named Kennedy and Heidi.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:02 AM
3 Comments:
Comcast's even shorter abbreviated discussion was even better- "Tony gets a revelation" making us (at least me )think some FBI mole was going to be exposed -remember the revelation about Big Pussy that came from a talking fish in a dream. (Wow-there's a sentence I never imagined I'd write)
Since David Chase likes to defeat expectations (i.e the looming confrontation with Christuhpher is dealt with suprisinly in the first 10 mins in a random traffic mishap 4 episodes from the end) so I'm guessing this series ends like Hill Street Blues- things will just go on as they have before, Tony will probably still be boss, they'll be a tussle with Phil but it'll be worked out on business terms and A.J. will fuck something up etc... The Russian and French Canadian story-lines will be left to wither. Any other predictions-knowing that the seeming goal of the series is to defy predictions?
Thanks for the Kennedy and Heidi help-I thought "Heidi" might have playing on a TV in the background somewhere.
I don't even try to guess what will happen on the show, since David Chase, for better or worse, tries to avoid formula. He'll set up a confrontation and have it peter out, or even spend major portions of an episode on surreal dreams. He doesn't even mind loose ends, which is a no-no in most drama, so I agree he's unlikely to wrap everything up in a neat package.
Still, for all that, there's been a high body count this season, so I expect at least one more major death. The only question is will it be someone in Tony's biological family. since that would be the ultimate.
As to the French Canadian, I always assumed that was over, but who knows. Which Russian are you referring to--the Pine Barrens episode? That was years ago.
By the way, last night David Letterman showed an excerpt from this episode, since bandleader Paul was in the background when the widow got the bad news. The funny thing was I saw in the end-credits that they'd used footage from Dick Cavett (which was very obvious--an interview with Katharine Hepburn which, incidentally (?), Turner Classic Movies had aired a few days ago) and the David Letterman Show. I didn't remember the latter but I caught it when I watched it again.
I have been trolling through a few Soprano's discussions (including the somewhat lackluster one on Slate this year) and the return of the Russian from the Pine Barrens is a major topic (together with
Tony's one-legged sex partner ) It may not be on David Chase's mind but its out there.
There are a lot of loose threads hanging out there any one of which could be picked up (or more probably ignored) - Vito's chocolate-showering kid, Furio in Italy, the molester soccer coach (OK that was the first episode I watched), Tony's other sister, the couple who saw Tony in a traffic accident but were afraid to testify etc....Its fun if pointless to speculate. The show is very much unrealistic (nobody seems to ever investigate all these murders until 20 years later-) but its thumb-nosing of narrative structure does create a feeling of real life.
I'm thinking we have one more dream sequence featuring all of the dead. That or a totally nude scene with Dr. Melfi (she did do the altogether in The Graduate)
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