Letters to the Editor
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"Sicilians eat their own"
When I saw Crissy was going to die at Tony’s hand, my first reaction was “mercy killing”. Chrissy was spitting up blood and Tony was showing mercy. But as the scene went on. I became more uncomfortable with that assessment, which was later borne out by the doctor saying he might have made it. Upon reading the reactions in the letters to this article that this could only be a murder, I realized in Tony’s mind, murder could be a mercy killing. If could put words to Tony’s thoughts: “If I don’t kill him now when he confessed he is always going to be junkie like his dad when am I going to do it. It is mercy to kill him now. Chrissy doesn’t get another chance in my world.” The rest of the episode is an exploration of Tony’s thoughts. Tony escapes to Vegas to confront himself which he can only define as escape. His appreciation of the good weed and desire to do peyote with some hot chick making her way through the world with her body in service of her mind, in Tony’s words “stripping her way through college,” Tony becomes a retro-hippy looking for enlightenment through an escape with hallucinogens. But instead of the terrify soul-searching he might have experienced, he receives justification and validation, like some Jersey “Manson,” that killing Chrissy was the first positive step of the rest of his life. “I get it” will lead him on a course of murder and brutality unprecedented in this apparently thoughtful series. To say Tony is a sociopath is to say the obvious. It is the premise of the series.
I predict he will kill Phil, possibly by his own hand. That AJ will use his new chemical romance to become Tony Jr. Carmella will gain an enlightenment of her own and realize the monster that Tony is and that she has become. I see a scene where Carmella confronts Tony about any of the number of his past atrocities. Tony becomes physically abusive and AJ intercedes, killing Tony in defense of his mother. In the process AJ becomes the new boss, even more vicious and abusive than his dad. After all the series is about the familiar Greek mythological themes of fathers eating their sons and sons dismembering their fathers. “Sicilians eat their own,” I don’t remember which Mafia movie that quote came from, but here it applies. (NB. I’m Sicilian so no slight was intended.)