The Sopranos: Down Neck

"Meadow was one thing- this is my son."

A particularly good episode this time as we deal with the themes of destiny versus free will in the terms of whether children are fated to repeat the mistakes of their parents- and the corruption of being brought up by the fruits of immoral earnings. This latter point applies not only to Mafia families but to all of us, as Tony implies with his comments on polluters- but don’t we all benefit from slave labour in poor countries, and don’t we all contribute to unsustainable emissions of CO2, something far more acute now than twenty years ago?

Yes. 1999 was twenty years ago. I know, it’s appalling.

We have two parallel storylines of Mafia sons- young Anthony is found bucking and drinking communion wine at school which leads to friction between Carmela and Tony over whether or not he has ADD, a great ‘90s debate to fit alongside, well, Prozac. The two of them eventually unite over the view that it’s all over-medicalised bollocks but, of course, the truth is more subjective as it always will be with any condition where one needs to exhibit a number of subjective indicators. ADHD, like personality disorders, may be artificial constructs, but they can be useful. And Tony learns that Anthony knows, from school, what he does for a living. There’s a lot of angst about the younger generation finding out about “this thing of ours” and how it affects their life chances- but, on the other hand, it’s Mafia money that sends the Soprano kids to private schools.

This is contrasted with fascinating flashbacks first appearing after a superb semi-dreamlike sequence in which Tony wakes up to his wife and son rowing in the background, and takes his Prozac to the splendid sound of Jefferson Airplane’s famous trippy rodent-based classic. This takes him back to 1967, a world of parental authority and casual racism, and the first time he sees his father and uncle beating a bloke up- and seeing his father getting arrested. We also see how disturbing his mother was even back then (“I could stick this fork in your eye!”) and how she gave Johnny so much emasculating drama- stopping them from moving to Reno where, in hindsight, they could have made billions.

We also have Livia finding out about Tony’s psychiatrist and reacting as one would expect. And, of course, we get a mention of South Park’s seminal “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe” as a top 1999 pop culture reference. This is bloody good telly.