Letters to the Editor
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Babies are Fragile
One element of the story that struck me last night, chilled me, was Tony's voiced fascination with the destroyed car seat, how it was (paraphrase from memory) "smashed into a million pieces," and how Christopher's baby COULD HAVE or WOULD HAVE been killed (as if a) the baby ever would have been riding with C and T after a late night mob meeting or b) Christopher would have been driving her around high (which is clearly the more possible version)). Carmella sure didn't like hearing it, and neither did the guy next to Tony at the wake. I guess it's just Tony's way of voicing his awareness of life's fragility, but the thing about it that interests me is that Chase et al. have already used this trope: Tony had to tell Bobby and Janice the terrible story about the baby drowning in the pool with all the adults around.
Tony is clearly locked in this season on how easily a child be erased from the world, even with the "protection" of adults (whether it be a carseat or just supervision around a pool). Perhaps it's a reflection of how easily his "son" Christopher's death came, and his realization that his protection as boss and father meant very little for Chris against his personal affliction, and Tony solved both of their problems with a dispassionate squeeze of the nose.
I don't think that's all there is to Tony's baby-death fixation, though, so I imagine Meadow or, more likely, AJ (but maybe Meadow, since she's more ostensibly "protected") will demonstrate how fragile children of any age are. I'm very curious about the repetition of baby-death from the mouth of a character who now has no sadness for or real fear of death at all. If he can kill his "son" dispassionately, what death would touch him? (Maybe though--and sorry to go on like this--the example of Johnny Sack's dying in prison mostly separated from but ultimately in the presence of his wife and daughters shows that Tony will realize, the bad way, that your real family is way the hell more real than your "business" family.)
FWIW, I'll cast my votes for Tony feeling the joy of his burden lifting and his luck changing in the casino (not NOT being able to feel it), and for saying "I GET it" (not I DID it) to the Sun God or whoever winked at him in the desert.