What a prick.

[SPOILER ALERT!!!]

That's David Chase's idea of what happens when you get your brains blown out: Nothing. (So much for Tony's "There's something beyond all this.") Tony has earlier looked into Uncle Junior's empty eyes and seen that our one shot at quasi-immortality — memory — ain't shit either.

Paulie was the double-dealer. Working with Little Carmine, probably.

Up until the end, the episode was comic, anticlimactic "life goes on." AJ was easily bought out of his military resolve.

Although we've roved around in an omniscient point of view, at the moment of Tony's death we're (arbitrarily, because David Chase is such a prick) solipsistically trapped in his point of view, so we'll never know what happened to the rest of his family. We can assume they were all blown away except Meadow (so much for "something has to happen to Meadow"), whose life was saved by her inability to parallel park. (Somehow it makes me feel just a little better about my own deficiencies in that regard.) But that would be just an assumption. The blank black screen is the ultimate Rorschach blot, and the ultimate "f*ck you for caring."

You can't even be 100% sure Tony got blown away. 99%, okay. 95%? But it's also possible Chase just pulled the plug. THE END. What happens next is everybody's guess.

Wonderful.

In other words — I loved it. (Okay, I'm a masochist.) The way it empowers and disempowers the viewer at the same moment? Like life, the bitch, to the end. And, when you think about it, the one and only way to make the series live on.

A deep bow to that f*cking prick.

I commented over at Althouse:

I started out assuming that was Tony's death. By the end of my own post, I was less and less sure.

I think it was the perversely perfect ending. Sort of like — for a totally absurd comparison — the way the pilot ends up drawing a sheep for the Little Prince: just a box with holes

This guy gets it:

The episode was brilliant, and here's why … From the moment that Tony sat down in the diner booth and "Don't Stop Believin" started playing, my heart was racing. It was pounding like crazy. The episode was almost over. The series was almost over. This was it.

Every person in the diner became a suspect. Every time the door opened, I was on the edge of my seat. I was thinking "when is it going to happen?" Is the guy at the counter going to kill him? Has Carlo given them enough to put Tony away and are the feds on the way? Who are those two shady guys that just walked in? Then I realized it. I had become Tony Soprano. … That paranoia, that tension, that suspense that I felt watching that scene, was the same paranoia that Tony lived with every day.

The Misfit disagrees. I LOVE this. "Build up your image as an artist, and if you then piss on your audience they'll thank God for the refreshing drizzle."

[The next morning] You know we're kidding ourselves, right? Tony's dead. That's Chase's idea of what it's like to get shot in the brain. A pretty good death, though it doesn't leave you much time for a "life review." Just as well in Tony's case, probably. Although he had his moments of self-reflection, and that's as much as someone like him (or anyone) can ask for. But I don't remember him using a one of them for remorse, and that's why there was justice and inevitability in his execution.

The show, and the viewer, too, were shot in the brain — put out of their misery. [After writing this I find that commenter Ed at Althouse said, "Tony doesn't get whacked. The audience gets whacked." Perfect!!] Of course, the .01% of doubt (isn't the banality of going on a worse sentence than death?) is sadistic genius. Leave room for wishful thinking, let the fools make fools of themselves thinking there's life after death or life after The Sopranos.

If Chase ended it this way because he's keeping the door open for a movie, I'd think a bit less of him artistically, but it would certainly be human: he always wanted to make movies, always hated television, which makes it supremely ironic that his imprisonment in television forced him to burst its bounds and make something you could never cram into a movie, no matter how many sequels, something Dickensian in form, if Shakespearean in girth and loft. (What I'm trying and failing to evoke with those words is the sense of exhilarating expansion, of lung-bursting spaciousness, you get from the greatest works the way you get it from being in the mountains.)

But then, a Sopranos movie would not have to follow the series in time. It could be set in one of the long lacunae of the series. It could even begin with Tony's rubout, and be a flashback, a life review, an alternate reality.

I hope not. Let the dead rest. I hope Chase gets to make his movie (he's earned it), and that it's about something entirely else.

Season 2, Episode 1: Aired on June 11, 2007

Part 1

Previously on Big Love: The whole damn first season. But, in case you wanted specifics, here’s what HBO thought we should know, even though some of this doesn’t even come up in this episode.

After my tape briefly freaks me out by randomly cutting to ABC, we get to the good stuff: Roman, the prophet, wants his 15% of the newest Hendrickson’s Home Plus, but Bill insists that it’s a separate entity, so Roman can basically go screw himself. Nicki, Bill’s second wife, doesn’t understand why Bill can’t just like her evil, evil father, who just happens to be Roman. “I don’t want him in my homes!” we hear Bill roar again.

Then, they take us way back to the first episode where Bill’s dad, Frank, is sick. Barb says that they swore they’d never go back to Juniper Creek and that she meant it. Anyway, we found out that Frank had been poisoned with arsenic.

In other sister wife news, Margene, Bill’s third wife, watched Love Actually with her nosy, but sweet neighbor, Pam. Ben, Bill’s hot teenage son, basically tore into her, telling her that she had to be careful with who she had over, protecting the family, and blah blah blah. Finally, he asked her if she was unhappy, and in response, Margie launched herself into his arms, for a sweet, if more-than-slightly inappropriate hug.

Barb told fellow First Wife Peg that she’s having an affair with Bill and was promptly and bluntly chastised by Peg, and told that Bill was not going to leave his other wives, so Barb should just stop pretending that the situation is something that it’s not.

Speaking of Peg and Don and the other two sister wives, Wendy from Hendrickson’s Home Plus suspected Don of being a polygamist and told Bill so, not realizing that he himself is a polygamist. Don expressed concern with being “stuck in bed with Juniper Creek.”

Bill thought he’d washed his hands of Roman, but boy was he mistaken. So, he wanted eyes on the UEB Council and approached a guy named Earnest Holloway, and essentially took his seat on the council. Roman got angry.

Meanwhile, Margie’s friend Pam started to suspect Nicki of polygamy and Teeny put Barb up for Mother of the Year, a position that would very much put her out in the public eye. Oh, and Margene’s pregnant.

Then, we had the annoying Rhonda, who was to be sealed to Roman, even though she’s not even 16. She seemed very excited about marrying the Prophet. But, you know who wasn’t so much with the excitement? Heather, Sarah’s LDS friend, who told Sarah that it was wrong and that something needed to be done. Sarah quite understandably freaked at the prospect of Heather potentially outing her whole family.

Additionally, we have the Wanda-is-crazy plotline, where she has this little problem where she sort of poisons people. Yup, it was she who poisoned Frank and now she’s poisoned Roman’s son, Alby. She claims she does this to protect her husband, Joey, who also happens to be Bill’s brother. Roman got angry.

And finally, Roman outed the Hendricksons as polygamists, right as Barb was about to accept her award as Mother of the Year. She was disqualified on the spot and led off stage in front of the entire audience, including her children, in a horrifying scene that was very hard to watch. “I got what I deserved,” Barb despaired to her fellow sister wives.

Whew. Got all that? I may have to look into compiling a FAQ for new viewers. Let me know what you think about that in the comments.

Two minutes of previouslies? Really, HBO? Luckily, this was the premiere, so it’s unlikely they’ll do that again, but geez. On to the actual episode.

Credits. God only knows how Jeanne Tripplehorn really feels about Waterworld.

We open up on blue skies and pan down to Sister Wife Central, settling on Barb’s house, where Nicki and Margene are figuring out the weekly chores. Margene keeps piping in and saying she can do things, but Nicki keeps shooting her down with flimsy excuses, like “You have enough to do.” She won’t even let Margie cook dinner. Have I mentioned yet that I can’t stand Nicki? No? Well, I can’t. Just so you know. Also, Ginnifer Goodwin looks like she’s lost some weight that she really didn’t need to lose. Particularly in her face. Maybe that’s just me, though.

Bill wanders in, talking on the phone. We focus on a radio that’s giving a report on the Third Annual Safety Net Meeting that was held at the University of Utah, where representatives from seven communities of polygamists met with the Attorney General’s Office. I’m not sure what this has to do with anything currently, but since they focused on it, I figured I would, too.

Bill looks out the kitchen window and watches Barb do some pretty vigorous laps in the pool. Jeanne looks fantastic, by the way. But I still feel as though she probably wasn’t thrilled with the underwater shots of her thighs wobbling past the camera, all “Hi, mom!”

Bill dusts whoever he’s talking to and talks to some guy named Lee, who I think is his lawyer. He tells him he needs to find out who exposed them and wants Lee to find a contact at the First Lady’s Office. They’d need to talk to the First Lady’s Office because she’s the one who put on the Mother of the Year thing.

Nicki and Margene. Margie actually needs a new back door mat for her OWN HOUSE, so she obviously tells Nicki to let her do it. Nicki practically rolls her eyes and is all, “Margene,” as if she were talking to a child. Now, I know that Margie is immature and needs to be handled every once in a while, but MY GOD. It’s just a back door mat. How can she possibly screw that up? To me, Nicki’s behavior toward Margene all goes back to her being furious that she’s not the Boss Lady, so she figures she can just control Margene the way Barb controls everything else.

Bill walks in and tells them to get the mat at Home Plus and Margie tells him that Teeny needs to be registered for summer school, so she’ll take her.

“No, you won’t,” Bill argues. “Barb will. Guys, it’s been two weeks and she hasn’t left the house. All she does is these crosswords.” Nicki quietly says that she doesn’t seem ready. “Well, this isn’t healthy for her! I don’t think we can indulge her anymore, or coddle her. And I mean it! Either of ya!” Why is it that Paxton sometimes whips out this semi-southern accent? Also, why is it that he delivers every single one of his lines as if he’s pissed off at the world? He’s just so rude to his wives, particularly in the way he speaks to them. There was no reason for him to get all pissy just there.

Nicki waits for him to leave and then immediately moves all of her stuff over to Barb’s usual seat at the head of the table. Margene does a facial stutter and sort of looks back and forth between Nicki’s old seat and her current position in Barb’s seat. Nicki just hums cheerfully. Hee.

Barb is in her bedroom when Bill walks in and too casually asks about her swim and whether she’ll be taking Teeny in to summer school registration. “I plan on it,” Barb says tersely.

Bill: Good. (awkwardness) Okay. I’ll … see you later then. (pause) Our world can go to Hell in a hand-basket, but as long as we stick together, we’ll be alright.

I hate it when Bill does that – goes all preachy and philosophical. And it’s usually out of nowhere. Yuck. Barb clearly agrees with me because she totally doesn’t even acknowledge his existence.

Bill leaves Sister Wife Central, but is caught off guard when Nosy Neighbor Pam and her husband, Carl, wave to him hesitantly and generally act all around goofy.

Hendrickson’s Home Plus. Bill greets his employees and then he and the infamous Wendy end up walking side-by-side. Here’s what they actually said and what they really said:

Wendy: Mr. Hendrickson. How are you this morning? (I so know that you are practicing that dirty, dirty polygamy, you pig!)
Bill: Never been better, Wendy. (I will cut you.) Thank you. (Fuck you.)

It turns out that Bill has had Don ransack her desk, complete with photocopies of all of the dirt she’s pulled up on Bill and his family, as well as records of her emails and Internet activity. Bill jumps right to “She was targeting me!” But Don tries to calm him down by pointing out that all they know is that she was interested. Bill can’t handle all of this drama, so he wants a basis to fire her by the end of the week. Don hems and haws, forcing Bill to admit that he’s not 100% sure that it was she who outed them.

“But I’ve got ten souls in my charge,” he argues. “And if I can’t protect them, what kind of man am I?” Because I am a dork, I did the math on my own and he is right. For once.

Now he wants Don to tap her phone. “Tap her phone?! I can’t tap a phone!” Heh. But Bill walks all over him just like he walks all over his wives.

Summer school registration. Summer School Lady, Julie, apologizes for what happened at the Mother of the Year thing. “We were rooting for you,” she tells Barb. And I really thought she was being sincere here. But then she asks if Barb was planning on getting back to teaching any time soon. Barb falters a little and says that she hoped to. Julie just makes an “hmm” noise and smiles awkwardly at Barb, without saying anything. Barb is concerned.

Home Plus. Joey has stopped by to update Bill on the whole Alby-getting-poisoned thing. He’s been transferred to a private clinic and rumors have been flying. First, it was that he’d had kidney failure, then that he’d gotten a kidney transplant, then that he’d died on the operating table. And Joey rattles all of this off as if it’s not completely absurd. Heh.

Bill seems to be following until the dying part and gets all, “whoa, whoa, whoa,” explaining that you can’t get a kidney that fast and that they’d obviously have heard if Alby had died.

Apparently, Wanda is going to be questioned at a Good and Welfare Meeting. That sounds like a fun thing, but apparently it’s not. Bill is not really concerned and Lois is not really sympathetic to Crazy Wanda. We learn that Wanda has done this before, to Joey’s boss in Phoenix. Joey thought she was better, due to “vitamins and exercise.” Isn’t that what Tom Cruise prescribes for his patients?

Bill says they’ll get her some real help and also points out that she could obviously be arrested, as could the three of them for being accessories in a cover-up after the fact. “His kidneys could still fail,” Lois adds hopefully. Bill just sighs, all “Why me?”

Sister Wife Central. Barb and Sarah come home and Sarah suggests that not everyone knows or cares. Barb admits that when she thinks about the look on Sarah’s face at the Mother of the Year thing, she “just wants to die.” “It’s okay, Mom,” Sarah assures her. “I get called Plyggy every day at work.” Hee. Barb doesn’t think it’s as funny as I do.

“I don’t want the choices that I’ve made – the things that have happened to me – to ruin your life.” Sarah tells her to stop, but Barb plunges forward, asking her if she’d like to change schools or go out of state for college. “I want you to have choices.”

But Sarah is having none of it, telling her mother to take her off her worry list. She’s okay. Barb does not look like she feels any better.

Home Plus. Margene is shopping (yay Margie!), when she sees Nicki up ahead of her. She catches up.

Margene: What are you doing here?
Nicki: What does it look like I’m doing? What are you doing here?
Margene: Nicki! I said I would do the shopping.
Nicki: No, Margie, I said I would do it.
Margene: Maybe you’re not the only one who can do things.
Nicki: Don’t get snippy. (oh, is that the pot calling the kettle black, or what?)
Margene: Well, you asked for it.
Nicki: There’s gotta be a strong center or things will not hold. The way Barb is going, who knows when she’ll be back on her feet. So, whether you like it or not, this is a role that I have to take on. It’s for Barb, it’s for Bill. It’s for all of us.

I get her point, but she needs to delegate, like Barb did. And she needs to stop acting like Margie is one of her kids instead of her sister wife. Also? It’s a nice touch that Margie has the mat in her cart. I luff continuity. ConYay!

Anyway! Nicki sees Wendy standing a bit away and looks like she’s about to go psycho on her ass. And if you remember the smack down she gave Barb’s sister last year, you know she means business. Margie intervenes, however, and they continue their shopping. But not before Wendy notices them, too.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Miss Cordy is a senior at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. She is seeking a double-major in Political Science and Advertising / Public Relations. She has written for her local newspaper, focusing on the world of entertainment — movies and television. Her favorite movies are the Lord of the Rings series and her favorite TV shows are Heroes, Lost, The Amazing Race and Dancing with the Stars.

The Outer Limits was a science fiction anthology series created by Leslie Stevens, with some help from Joseph Stefano (who also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho). It came into being towards the end of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone run, it began in 1963, while Twilight Zone ran from 1959 to 1964. The two shows have a lot in common, first and foremost strong writing, the anthology format, the twist, and being able to stand the test of time. As I watch, realizing just how good it is, I recognize that there is no way that it would get made in today's television climate. Not to say that there are no shows today that can match its quality, it is just that television has changed, the landscape is a vastly different, and in many ways rockier terrain to navigate.

Smartly written, The Outer Limits was a series that aimed to raise a mirror up against society and perhaps make us question things around us, things we take for granted, make us look at the world from a slightly different perspective. The episodes tend to lean towards the talky side, lots of dialogue can be found strewn throughout the running time, that is the first thing that would be nixed today, way too many words, and considerably less action than we are used to today. Another factor towards it not surviving today is the anthology aspect. It seems that current television is leaning towards the long story arcs, serialized stories that last anywhere from a few episodes, to seasons, to multiple seasons. Yes, I know that there was a second run that lasted seven seasons, ending in 2002, but it never reached the heights of the original, and never made it to any of the major networks (actually, I am not sure what network it was on, Showtime?).

Each episode began the same way, narration from the Control Voice:

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits."

What followed were episodes that presented us with creatures from outer space ("The Galaxy Being"), beings from beneath the sea ("Tourist Attraction"), experiments gone awry ("The Sixth Finger"), time travel ("The Man Who Was Never Born"), and others. Each episode offers up a different take, not quite as twisty and ironic as the the Twilight Zone series, taking a more straight up approach as the characters deal with the variety of strange situations that they are faced with.

This set contains the first sixteen episodes of the first season spread across two double-sided disks, four episodes on each side. Each episode is presented in its original 1.33:1 full-frame aspect ratio and in glorious black and white. The accompanying audio is the original mono track. Overall, the 40+ year old episodes look quite good, there is nice separation in the colors, offering a nice detail level. This is in addition to the nice cinematography, direction, and music employed in the initial creation of the series. There are no extras included, no featurettes, no interviews, no commentaries, nothing. This is a big missed opportunity, as I am sure there are plenty of folks involved in the show available to talk to, not to mention historians and television scholars that would be willing to discuss the impact and importance of the series.

Bottomline. This is a wonderful series, and anyone likes science fiction, speculative fiction, or the like should definitely give this series a spin, if you haven't already. The 16 episodes here are all worth your time. The series has a wonderful look and feel from the music, cinematography, and storytelling. I may prefer the Twilight Zone series, but there is no denying the place that this series holds.

Recommended.

Christopher Beaumont spends much of his time writing about entertainment when he isn’t sitting in a movie theater. He is known around the office as the “Movie Guy” and is always ready to talk about his favorite form of entertainment and offer up recommendations. Interests include science fiction, horror, and metal music. His writings can be found at Draven99’s Musings, as well as Film School Rejects.