House Arrest

A quieter than usual episode, HOUSE ARREST sees Tony spending time behind a desk at his carting company, and he is quickly bored to tears. Junior is under house arrest after some surgery, and quickly becomes frustrated when the not-entirely unattractive widow of an old pal reinserts herself into his life. He struggles with how much he should tell her about his situation. Tony meanwhile pisses and moans to Melfi, to no avail. And she is drinking more than ever, which leads to a dramatic moment in a busy restaurant. Tony attends a carting contractor gala and promptly collapses. after yet another run-in with Richie, who later in the episode makes a sarcastic reference to Junior about Tony's "grand mal" spells. Gandolfini nails the situation when, with nothing to do in his new office, he doodles and then starts picking at a stress-induced rash on his arm. The episode starts out with an amusing bit involving a garbage truck dumping a huge pile of trash in a deli owner's parking lot. Of course, it's not funny to the store owner. A phone conversation between the owner and Richie is not to be missed.

Tony and Corrado both find themselves imprisoned by their legal problems.

This is probably the most interesting piece of filmmaking about about the banality of existence I have seen.

Tony is ordered to keep a low profile and is so bored with the 'regularness' of life when not directly involved in mob shenanigans, it effects him both mentally and physically. There are a number of excellent scenes that visually convey this and it is analysed well in the scenes with Dr Melfi. James Gandolfini delivers yet another brilliant performance.

Corrado is similarly trapped in his situation and has a number of dialogue exchanges and sobering experiences about life. Much like Tony there is a mixture of humorous and reflective scenes that work very well. Dominic Chianese gives one of his best performances by once more making a cantankerous, ruthless character very watchable.

This one nicely follows up episodes like 'The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti', and 'D-Girl' that are quite rooted in existential themes. The genius of The Sopranos is that it deals with topics like this is in an entertaining way.

That's not to say it is an episode about nothing important. The arc involving Richie and Janice continues to develop and feels like a calm before the storm. Tony's line about Richie as he looks in at him in a potential new house/prison ties into the above themes well.

The production values are superb as ever with so much of the storytelling here being done visually.

Every season of The Sopranos tends to have one episode where nothing too shocking or audacious happens. Perhaps this is done so that audiences can relax for a second between all the emotionally exhausting events of the series. House Arrest is such an episode.

Following the prospect of being arrested for the Bevilaqua murder (fortunately, the witness chickened out after finding out who he had to do with), Tony is advised by his lawyer to spend more time at one of his legitimate work places, as a precaution, instead of hanging out with his crew at the Bada Bing all day. Because of this, the NJ boss starts sitting behind a desk at Barone Sanitation, which he finds to be quite boring. Equally bored is his uncle, who has to face the negative sides of house arrest when he runs into the widow of an old friend at the hospital and hesitates when it comes to revealing his current status.

Aside from tensions rising more and more between Tony and Richie, nothing of true importance happens in this low-key episode, at least in the gangster area. Dr. Melfi, on the other hand, faces a new, unexpected development as she flips in front of her son at dinner over a smoking guest. Not only does that scene (and Melfi's subsequent therapy session with Elliot) allow Lorraine Bracco to unleash the suppressed rage she mastered so well in Goodfellas, it also implies the relationship between patient and therapist will evolve dangerously over the years to come. Also foreboding, though related to a shorter time-span, is Richie's "alliance" with Junior, a suspenseful plot thread that suggests things will get dirty in the concluding shows of the season. On second thought, maybe this episode isn't that relaxing after all...