Letters to the Editor

• professionalism?

  [Read the article: "Sopranos" wrap-up: Hide-and-seek]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Perhaps Chase is saying that we're all the same, we're complicit with everyone in bad and in good. Melfi and Eliot are MDs: professionals with a code. Tony and his cohorts are the same, it just so happens that they are criminals. Everyone on the show is portrayed as human and fallible. Chase is saying that we may expect "better" behavior from the shrinks because of all their education and respectability, in the end our own middle class prejudices were violated by Eliot's atrocious behavior. After all, he's just another human with "fancy" degrees but he's subject to his own desires. I think that something bad is going to happen to Tony's immediate family, with the foreshadowing of Tony's statement to Carmela that they "never go after family". Phil is clearly deranged: he bemoans the lack of "professionalism" of the Jersey crew which turns out to be projection on Phil's part. After all, what he's doing has never been done and goes against the very code that Philly is complaining that the Jersey "crew" is ignoring. I think Chase's genius is giving us Tony, a murderous, cynical protaginist who in the end, still has our sympathies. And we almost universally loathe all the people we normally would respect-- doctors(Cusamano; Melfi et al), lawyers (Neil Mink; Jean Cusamano's sister), teachers (AJ's guidance counselor; the shake down from the Dean at Columbia) etc. It is remarkable, really. Remember the one "good cop" that gave Tony a speeding ticket and ended up working at the garden center because he wouldn't deviate from his ethical/professional responsibilities? Chase showed us what happens to those who actually live ethically: you get fired and end up working for minimum wage.

  Permalink Monday, June 4, 2007 09:02 AM