Reviews & Ratings for
"The Sopranos" Stage 5 (2007)

14 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Everything I Love and Hate About The Sopranos, 15 April 2007

Author: loudprincess from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The latest installment of the final eight Sopranos episodes will certainly not disappoint if you want shock, surprise, and a little quicker pace.

There are many things I love about this show, but one of the things that drives me nuts is when important details are hardly mentioned or mumbled so quickly you miss them the first time. There's a lot of that in this episode. Without spoiling too much of what went down this week, I'll tell you that it's important to pay attention to the different players in the action. Even the little players you've only seen once or twice. I, for one, will be watching this again in the next couple of days, with the closed captioning on.

We all know Christopher and Little Carmine were working on "Cleaver" with Christopher's AA buddy/screen writing slave, J.T., and we finally see that project come to fruition. This project also acts as a easel for the display of Christopher's subconscious feelings towards Tony, and not without notice from others.

We get a very surprising update on Johnny Sack, but I won't spoil that for you. It's better viewed without hints.

The final scene feels like a great, tense foreshadowing of things to come, and almost seems like one of the HBO commercials for the show. The music, the symbolic gesture, and the expressions on key players' faces all let you know that the show and it's creators are in Stage Five of the Sopranos series grieving process.

13 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Shakespeare's influence, 24 April 2007

Author: pjnoble-2 from United States

i like the direction taken in this episode quite a bit. setting up the 'hamlet' parallel is cool, and it's natural for Christopher (ahem, the nephew) to stage hamlet's play.

remember the rule, folks. the ending, when finally revealed, no matter how fantastic, must appear inevitable.

everything they've given us this season is everything they should have been giving us a season or two ago.

some serious time went into the writing of the three episodes aired so far, and it's clear it's all setting up what's coming next. my Sunday nights are back.

7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Sleep well, Johnny, 26 May 2008

Author: Max_cinefilo89 from Italy

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and death. Those are the five stages of life, and the fact that this episode's title is Stage 5 is a clear sign of the direction these last few shows are headed towards.

Death inhabits the script like never before, mostly because a large section of the story revolves around the awaited release of Cleaver, the horror movie Christopher and Little Carmine are producing. In fact, the opening scene of the episode is revealed to be the climax of Cleaver, where the undead protagonist finally gives mob boss Sally Boy (Stephen Baldwin) what he deserves. The movie premieres and is a huge hit, but Carmela finds it offensive as Sally Boy is blatantly based on Tony: the temper, the bathrobe, the alleged affair he had with the other guy's girl (Adriana, anyone?) - it's all Soprano stuff.

The ultimate end of things is also present in a much bleaker environment: Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola) is told he has cancer and approximately three more months to live. It actually turns out he has been granted much less time, but before he dies he befriends a fellow inmate, oncologist-turned-killer Warren Feldman (Sydney Pollack). The latter is a particularly enjoyable character, all thanks to Pollack, who sometimes gives greater satisfaction as an actor than as a director: while most people would play the role in an obviously psychotic way, the Tootsie director goes for a more realistic approach, portraying Warren as a normal guy who just happened to lose it one morning. His cameo is also drenched in a lot of irony, most notably when he refreshes the old "I killed my wife and her lover" cliché by adding the mailman and a few other people, seeing as he already was in the mood.

So, a convict who seems to be taken straight out of a slasher movie, and a horror film that, in some people's opinion, borrows too heavily from real life. Interesting parallel, huh?

6 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
One of the best episodes---ever, 21 April 2007

Author: Tom_Powers30 from Raleigh, NC

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I thought that this was such a fantastic episode! It had everything: parody, horror, surprises, artful whackings...

Comedy, too. Soprano's is at its best when it is both funny and just plain scary.

James Gandolfini keeps getting better and better and John Sacrimoni, the actor that plays him, should get an emmy nod for his portrayal of the dying John Sacrimoni.

I loved Cleaver and Tony's reaction to it.

And the final scenes set to one of the best pieces of music the series has ever used was both a great nod to The Godfather and stood on its own. What a show and season so far!

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