Good recap, EdHill...that about says it all. Nothing happened. I really expected some serious fireworks, after an opening couple of minutes that featured a dismembered head and Phil's near demise.

Instead, all we got was a whole lotta Christopher/Julianna Permanent Midnight-style junkie romance and AJ somehow turning into a completely different person. Even the Phil heart attack stalled out. Oh well. I gugess they're saving the good stuff for the final eight.

(By the way, Ed, some of the comments in your butterface postscript mark you as a fellow fan of The Superficial. If so, you have good taste in celeb-bashing blogs, sir.)

Nice recap, EdHill. Not a bad episode, but agreed kind of a strange one to leave us hanging on until sometime next year.

Loved the discourse on butterface-ness. May I nominate right-wing hag Ann Coulter as the butterface poster girl?

I WANTED SOMEONE KILLED!!! I kept on thinking, "They only have four minutes to whack someone ... three minutes ... two minutes ..." It wasn't a cliff hanger at all, and I doubt I'll even remember it when I tune in next season. BIG disappointment -- plus, they made us wait an extra week for it. Fuckers.

Since there's nothing to talk about in this episode ... I was just watching a documentary on (mobster) Vincent The Chin Gigante, who feigned mental illness for years to escape charges against him -- even had a handler with him all the time and walked the streets in his pajamas.

Anyone think Junior's mental illness might be an act? He did feign it in the beginning when the people first came to test him, and maybe he did actually want to shoot Tony for some reason.

Flush it all away, I am a fan of the superficial and now that you pointed it out to me I totally stole that Kirsten Dunst joke from him. I swear it was completely unintentional. The worst thing you can do is steal another bloggers joke.

well, actually the worst thing you can do is genocide, but stealing another bloggers joke is a close second.

Renee Zellweger is a butter face.

JasonR, you miss the most important part of the butterface equation. They have to have a good body and an ugly face. Ann COulter is a slag from head to toe.

Too bad they didn't end the half season with a whacking of Ann-the-Cooter-Coulter.

hb

This show is about so much more than the whackings, as fun and shocking as they are when they happen. The quiet, family-oriented holiday was a good scene, just in a different and much deeper way than a cliffhanger of someone getting shot.

Christopher has set himself up for all kinds of trouble and played a very dangerous game with Julianna. Carmela, who began the season acknowledging to Melfi that she knew who and what Tony was when she married him (and maybe even married him because of it), has slipped back into quasi-deliberate blindness. AJ might actually be growing as a person.

A lot happened, but it was character-based and beneath the surface. You know that peaceful family scene can't last, so the whackings and action will come.

Plenty of shows give action-based cliffhangers, and plenty of shows kill characters for the ratings. This show goes deeper. It's a great thing.

Ok, WHY would someone like Julianna Marguiles hook up with Christopha? Seriously! And I hate this misogynistic writing where a guy pulls a woman's hair but oh wait - she loves it! Of course she does! Give me a fucking break.

I know, I know, it's the Sopranos, I should get over it.

I enjoy the quiet, character-building epsiodes as much as the crazy, violent episodes, but this one was pure bullshit. While I thought the AJ line and the warm-fuzzy at the end were fine, I was not down with watching two losers get stoned for half the show.

I don't expect a season semi-finale to end with a huge bang, but this one had all the excitemnt of a cold, wet, limp dick.

This was probably the worst episode this season. So boring! I like character development as much as the next person, but I
seriously wanted a whacking.

All the rampant racism and homophobia in the past few episodes had me hating the whole family and waiting for a family masacre, but alas...

BSideLover- While I think there is a ton of misogyny in this show, I am also pretty sure most women do love getting there hair pulled. Can I get a second?

Gasmgrrl, I can be your second! I'm totally down with a little gentle pulling myself. I just think TV and movies are ALWAYS showing women enjoying being roughed around a little. It's all about HOW you do it and when (ie, not when I'm trying to pick a fight with you).

Good call on the Sarah Jessica Parker butter face thing. If anyone were president of the BFC, it would definitely be her. My nomination for VP is Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, minus the whole peeing her pants fiasco.

gasmgirl - you're absolutely right. Sometimes there's nothing better than a good hair pulling. I think there's a part of every woman that enjoys it, the guy just has to know the right time to do it. He can't just go all willy nilly pulling hair.

I agree with everyone, definitely a boring season ender. But I think Blanca was mentioned as being Dominican, not Puerto Rican. Guess the rampant racism isn't limited to the Sopranos. *ZING*
Also, I'm pretty sure she had a son not adughter. BTW I think Dania Ramirez is the hottest chick who's ever been on this show.

Can anyone verify that whole Valerian Tea thing? Uh, I mean I have a friend that was wondering.

ChickenSangwich, they specifally said she was Puerto Rican.

Ok, I just re-watched the bit where Tony and Carmela are talking about her, and they say "she's Puerto Rican ....or maybe Dominican" So I guess we're both right (or wrong). The actress is Dominican, so that counts for something, right? Either way you're still the greatest recapper on the 'Gasm, even if this episode did blow.

Second that on this being a boring episode and rather lackluster "season"...let's hope the final 8 do this show proud...

I really thought/hoped that Christopher would get shot towards the end of the episode, when he and Julianna are leaving the diner.

Anyone else think that Julianna is with the FBI? That would explain why she's into a total loser like Christopher, and it seems a little too convenient that they both happen to be in the same AA class just around the time when she first meets Tony. Maybe she'll bring down the Family in the final 8.

I know this is a little late but I just finally downloaded this episode a couple of days ago...

I'm shocked that nobody made the FBI connection with Julianna until that last comment... I don't know if it true or not, but like the last poster said there are just waaaaay to many coincidences with her and Christopher's relationship to not at least question it. The one roadblock to this theory I found was how she spoke to her "sponsor" that day in a supermarket, because that would be a little over the top to simulate fake sponsor conversations if she really was just FBI. But when I watched it again, I noticed that they really just spoke about her addiction, and I found myself thinking that the FBI may have assigned her to this case knowing that if they got Christopher drugged up, they could get him to say more classified stuff, so they got an agent with a prior history of use, who would be comfortable in a situation using drugs to lure Christopher in, and that really was her sponsor worrying that this assignment would affect her sobriety... I don't know, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

You guys talked about the tea/valium thing earlier, and that was the first thing that made me think she was FBI. Why in the hell if she had a cold would taking something that was the equivalent of taking a Valium be better for her than taking cough syrup, regardless of the "natural ingredients?” Since when is valium a remedy for the common cold? Being somebody who has experimented with drugs plenty in his day, I never heard that one. It was almost like she wanted Christopher to get the idea of drugs into his head for some reason.

I don’t know, all I know is this season was definitely lackluster, but I’m really looking forward to the last 8… Something really big will happen, this show will go out with a bang. I'm convinced of it

A few things (very late on this episode):

a) why no recaps for the new season (currently ongoing as of late May, 2007)?

b) for the comment from the last episode "rhymes with smacking" that Adrianna was possibly killed and buried at the site of Carmella's spec house- you are totally wrong. The spec house was/is in North Jersey, not far from where Tony and Carm actually live (North Caldwell- their house on the show is actually a real home in North Caldwell that looks the same (from the outside), and is at the end of that cul-de-sac). Ade was likely killed somewhere in South Jersey, probably an exit off the Garden State Parkway (South of Exit 63) in the Pine Barrens- roughly the same vicinity as where the episode with Christopher, Paulie and the Russian took place in the snow. If not, it was probably somewhere in the Western part of NJ, far enough North of Philly to be rural, and very near to the PA border and the the Pocono Mountains in PA. Does Tony seem like the type to bury anyone at the property that he just purchased for his wife's spec house? Doubtful.

c) The Vinny the Chin Gigante comment- he was old and frail by that point, and he definitely did "feign" (depending on who you ask) mental illness and used to wander the streets of his NYC neighborhood in a bathrobe and slippers, but that was allegedly to fool the Feds/prosecutors, not his "family." That is now part of mob lore and to someone like Tony, it would be a more than obvious ploy, I think he would see through it if Junior was clearly pulling a Vinny the Chin move on him. Junior obviously was at one point during his trial after he got hit by the TV boom mic("Crazy like a fox, my little nephew"), but not anymore.

d) Fat Dom Gamiello that met his fate at Satriales after one too many gay jokes at Carlo's expense was obviously dismembered there. His frozen head was kicked into a storm drain by Carlo somewhere down the shore, assuming of course it was in NJ and Carlo doesn't have a place in the Outer Banks or somewhere like that. It seemed like a very unpopulated coastal spot, which, in Jersey, probably meant South of LBI and North of Atlantic City, or else South of AC, but North of Cape May/Wildwood.