The Sopranos, Season Six Episode 15: “Remember When”

The last image in “Remember When” is of Junior Soprano (Dominic Chianese) slumped meekly in a lawn chair outside his treatment center, absently petting a snaggle pussed cat. His tight-lipped expression bespeaks frustration at his plight, but also the fact that for the first time since the sixth season premiere “Members Only” – in Friends parlance, The One where Junior Shoots Tony – he’s without his dentures. A few scenes earlier, he’d been assaulted by a fellow patient who gave him a good sock to his fragile jaw. What we’re seeing then, is a tableaux of toothlessness at once literal and figurative – the old fox defanged.

It seems as good a place as any to leave Junior, arguably the least empathetic of The Sopranos’ major characters (seasonal bogeymen like Richie Aprille and Ralph Ciffaretto notwithstanding) and seemingly a forgotten man as far as the writers were concerned. The slow erosion of Corrado Soprano’s former sharpness has been a familiar motif over the past few years, but (pace its nostalgic title) “Remember When” charts just how far he’s slipped by introducing an old photograph of Junior and his brother Johnny, slouched casually against a Cadillac in front of Satriale’s.

As a portrait of old-style wise guy cool, it’s just about perfect. The pair’s expressions hover somewhere between avuncular and homicidal. Flipping through old photos during a South Beach sojourn with Paulie, Tony gives the picture a quick glance and seems eager to move on. He’s equally uninterested in the vintage snapshot of Paulie (a real and arresting image of Tony Sirico, all biceps and slicked-backed attitude), exclaiming a few seconds later – after Paulie has commandeered the conversation with another long-winded remembrance of malfeasance past -- that “‘remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.’”

It’s understandable that Tony doesn’t really want to dredge up the past; after all, the little bit of past that’s been dredged up in a Jersey basement – the corpse of a bookie who was apparently Tony’s first-ever kill – is what has him fled to Florida, dining chez Beansie (now moving about in an expensive-looking wheelchair) and wondering which of his many regrettable yesterdays will finally undo him in the present tense. And Tony looks very much like a guy who’s coming undone: he seems paunchier and sallower than usual, and a furtive phone call to Hesh suggests he may he having money problems. (200 K is no small loan).

The week’s major revelation, courtesy of bigmouth Paulie, is that Tony murdered the bookie at his father’s insistence. No wonder Tony is reticent to reminisce. The Sopranos has always been a show marked by hauntings, but this episode was a veritable echo chamber, referencing important moments in the show’s past.Junior being pelted by paper balls by his former charge mirrored Meadow’s drunken behavior in the season three finale; the tense scenes between Tony and Paulie on a rented boat loudly (and some might say over-deliberately) evoked Big Pussy’s murder.

Despite its abundance of carefully wrought resonances, “Remember When” feels a bit like a holding pattern, another attenuated standstill to mark time as the plot slowly kicks into gear (though we did see another bloody step Phil Leotardo’s NYC takeover bid). There wasn’t much, f’rinstance, to substantiate (or refute) Robbiefreeling’s superb postulation from last week about Christopher’s possible extra-cirricular activities. (And I watched Imperioli during his one scene like a hawk). There’s more to be said, of course, and rather than try to unravel it myself, I’ll just give you both some talking points that I’m not articulate enough to jump on. Why the sudden and frankly unprecedented glimpse into Paulie’s interior life? What do you make of Junior addressing his treatment centre protégé/assailant as “Anthony?” Does the tomato plant count as another Godfather reference? Help me out here.

The tomato plant was, of course, a very obvious Godfather reference, especially Tony's line that he had to leave just as his tomatoes were coming in. Any connection to Don Corleone dying amongst his plants? Foreshadowing?

One thing is that I disagree about Tony not being interested in the photos. The picture of Paulie from the '60s sparks a flurry of reminiscences about how much he admired Paulie back then and almost wished he was his father. It's when Paulie starts going on and on about illegal deeds in front of the three women that Tony loses his patience. It taps into another major Sopranos theme -- willful denial. Tony's content to talk about how much he admired Paulie back in the day, but when the reality of why he admired Paulie so much is brought to the forefront... he just wants him to shut up.

Great post Adam.

After reading this blog carefully, I realized that its themes tie closely into the first episode of this season, "Soprano Home Movies".

Tony seems to regret his first murder, perhaps realizing that it steered him down an irreversible path to his current, sociopathic-self. However, just last week, Tony pointed Bobby Bacala down the very same path by sending him on his first murder.

This all ties into my own pet-theory about how they show may end.

Extrapolating from Robbiefreeling's idea that Chris may already be flipped, I surmise that...

-The FBI's entire RICO against Tony is based on Chris' testimony.

-Tony finds out and is considering killing Christopher to save his own skin. Chris doesn't know he knows, nor do the feds.

-Phil is still out to hurt Tony or his family.

-After 7 years of psychotherapy and humanization, Tony comes to the realization that he cannot kill Christopher (the little five-year-old in his bicycle basket) just to save his own skin. Perhaps as Dr. Krakhauer suggested, Tony has decided not to hurt someone, and to face the music.

-In an act of serendipity, Phil guts Chris like a fish, destroying the FBI's RICO case and saving Tony Soprano from a life in Federal lock up. His feud with Tony ends, and Tony is off scott-free.

-Perhaps this is a life changing event for Tony, and his willingness to sacrifice himself so as not to kill again (even someone as loathsome as Christopher Moltisanti) leaves Tony a changed man, and sends him packing for the country having left his money and children with Carmella. Perhaps he will sit by a lake and watch the ducks fly in. Much like the 2nd season's Witness Protection murder, we know is will all catch up with Tony some day, but for now, he can have a little bit of peace.

Of course, this is all speculation, and I am projecting my own wishes for Tony. I just want to see him get out, and that would be a fairly neat-and-tidy way for him to do it.

I apologize is the above grammar isn't perfect... it's early, and my brother is a far better writer.

Matt

That was a fun theory, Matt...though I'm of the mindset that Carmela will play a much bigger role in the downfall--last week's confrontation between Carm and Chris was yet another example of Carm's inability to let the "Adrianna thing" die. And, though, I shouldn't speculate based on the hilariously misleading "Next week on Sopranos!" promos, it looks like her one distraction, the spec house, might be headed again for disaster. That 200K that Tony needs....mortgage anyone?

But putting aside grandiose theories (because as fun as it is to do, watching it unfold without thinking too far ahead is way more fun), I must say that I found "Remember When" to be primo Sopranos--pared down, tense, witty, and of course, full of import while seeming anecdotal. What the show does best. It may be something of a standstill, but isn't that what we should expect of David Chase, after all these years? "You want satisfaction? Plot momentum or resolution? Well, fuck you and your mother."

Perhaps the week's purest pleasure for me was Tony's stomach-of-castor-oil reaction to Paulie's rapid-fire maniac laugh while watching Three's Company (I think...it was some old sitcom, at least), which he saw when spying on him from his balcony. Paulie's staccato bursts of laughter, harsh, jagged, obnoxious, hilariously free of self-awareness, perfectly encapsulated the episode--humor that hits with the force of a machine gun. And Tony Sirico pulled it off brilliantly...

In fact, "Remember When" might have been Sirico's finest moment. Why this sudden glimpse into Paulie's life, you ask? Well, there does seem to be a very direct attempt this season to invest dignity and, as cnw said last night, PATHOS, into characters previously used as comic relief or punching bags. Bobby in the first episode, Little Carmine last week, and now Paulie. Beansie and Tony's stunningly emotional conversation was the clearest example of this: "He loves you." Also, he mentions that it must be sad that Paulie has no one to come home to. Then Tony remembers that creepy Napoleon painting of him he had on his wall. Is Tony all Paulie has? How can Tony possibly be there for him...this blabbermouth, ridiculously coiffed henchman...especially when he seems like he could and wants to kill him at any moment?

Like "Sopranos Home Movies" there seemed to be a vague threat in the air the entire time, yet I didn't know where it was coming from. And as with that episode, it was coming from Tony. He's falling apart, piece by piece, indeed, but not very sympathetically. I differ with Matt in that I wouldn't like to see him find some peace...he's making life miserable for everyone around him. Does he deserve a moment alone with the ducks?

"Not articulate enough to jump on?" Brother, you sell yourself far too short...thank you for another thoughtful, thought-provoking post, and a special thanks to Matthew (Brotherofbrotherfromanother?) for an entirely plausible (and chilling) theory as to where this is all headed.

I agree that "Remember When" puts the series in a bit of a "holding pattern," but I'm also inclined to think that this is one of those episodes that suffers from the build-up around THE FINAL EPISODES. Over the past year, I watched the whole series again from start to finish, and the curious thing: freed from the insane expectations that come with months and years of waiting, these portentous "holding pattern" episodes age rather well, and I'm inclined to think that'll be the case with this one.

So as to your specific questions, I'd like to field question one and leave THE GODFATHER to Robbie, because I know he's got lots to say on that front. I've always loved the way SOPRANOS twists our sense of identification and sympathy (Ralphie is most sympathetic before he gets it; Vito starts season six farting on the couch before making his grand escape and then squanders the whole thing, murdering a random man in cold blood before meeting his end). These unexpected moments of humanization tend to portend bad news for the character in question, but I'm not about to write Paulie off just yet. I do think it's been a long time coming for Paulie, and I'm glad they've given him a little pathos. It comes at a crucial time for Tony: as tense as it was, that boat scene was not about the possibility that Tony would knife Paulie; rather, it revealed the irreparable break in their relationship hastened by the murder of Pussy, cemented by Paulie's flirtation with Johnny Sack back in season four. I keep speculating that whatever the details, the series will really end with Tony just...alone. But I think what we're seeing is that he's _already_ alone: his sister, Bobby, Christopher, Paulie, Junior...these are relationships that have already failed, the dye cast long ago. And next week we get...Carmela? In short, by seeing Tony through Paulie's eyes (stained by Pussy's and -- we get the sense Paulie knows -- Ralphie's blood), we continue to glimpse a darker side of Tony Soprano this season -- isolated and despised, a leader by intimidation, a murderous thug whose time has already passed.

Anyway, I'm rambling, and I haven't said much of anything about the episode or Junior or THE GODFATHER. Perhaps Robbie can throw me a lifeline...

I waited too long editing my response and missed Robbie's contribution. Apologies for any redundancies. So let me toss this out there to Brother, Matthew, Mark, Robbie, or anyone else who has an idea: What's up with these GODFATHER references?

Well, I'm actually inclined to think they should be taken almost as a joke...especially when they're so brazenly iconic (Junior grimacing with sunken jowels, stroking a kitty cat) or offhanded and out of left field (tomatoes?!). The Bobby-Tony fishing scene in the first episode managed to recall Godfather II with proper import, yes, and last week's restaurant shooting was the stuff of prime mobster murder (face down in the food, natch), but the more there are, the more they seem like David Chase & Co. are just placing them there as distractions for the fans. Yes, I think it's implicit to make us think of the series as heading towards some sort of grandiose tragedy, but I find it more like the beginning of last week's episode with the insanely gratuitous violence of the "Cleaver" clips...MORE CREATIVE DEATHS! Chase's contempt for his own audience...giving them what they want while also mocking them for wanting it.

Hence, idiocies like Entertainment Weekly's TOP TEN FAVORITE DEATH SCENES! Adrianna #6?! Aside from the fact that she doesn't even get the dignity of a number one slot...how could this be a "favorite" anything? #10: Tracee, the stripper whose head was bashed against an iron grate. Supercool!

So, perhaps TOP TEN GODFATHER REFERENCES isn't too far off.

All: Yes, that EW list was enough to make me never read the magazine again (unless they put Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the cover).

I didn't mention one telling moment in the vein that Robbie is describing -- the acid self-reflexivity: after getting the call that the 80s murder has been pinned on Jackie Aprille, Tony relievedly sighs something to the effect of "what's it gonna be next." Add "week" to that sentence, and it seems like a bit of a wink.

Matt: stop reading film blogs.

I am someone who delights in watching previous episodes and seasons of The Sopranos over and over again. So I appreciated cnw's observation that "freed from the insane expectations that come with months and years of waiting, these portentous 'holding pattern' episodes [like "Remember When"] age rather well..."

I must admit that I was puzzled, then impressed, by the parallel construction evident in this episode.

On the one hand, we see Tony and Paulie taking to the open freeways, hoping to protect themselves from possible incarceration as bodies are being exhumed and ancient crimes reconstructed. (I loved the irony of the road sign warning drivers: "Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates").

Contrast this to the claustrophobic scenes involving an increasingly demented Uncle Junior and his whacko young sidekick Carter.

What the storylines seem to share is a preoccupation with bad influences, with how criminals are mentored and go on to mentor other criminals.

For the first time (odd that Melfi never asked about this more directly), we are given some information about what role Johnny Boy Soprano really played in Tony's early development. (We saw and learned enough about Livia Soprano over the years to understand her contributions to her children's self-destructive behaviours).

We hear that Tony's own father ordered him to "make his bones" at the tender age of 22 by killing Overalls the bookie. There is also the rather breathtaking revelation that this order to kill came just a week before Meadow's birth (i.e. before Tony's new fatherhood). It made me recall the painful scene two episodes ago where Bobby Baccala returned from making his first messy hit (following a cruel and vindictive order from Tony)and seemed to comfort himself by holding his little daughter in his arms.

The latest episode provides other intriguing new information -- that as a younger man, Tony regarded Peter Paul Gualtieri as something of a father figure, a man to look up to for his big "gatzies" (balls) and dashing good looks, but also someone to be feared; apparently, Uncle Paulie's name was regularly invoked to keep Tony in line.

Now, Tony is nominally the Boss, a situation which I think Paulie both resents and respects. This would explain his earlier flirtations with Big Carmine and Johnny Sack, a sign of his fluctuating loyalty and resentment of Tony's power over him. Yet earlier in the series, Paulie rescued the painting of Tony and Pie-O-My from the trash and re-invented Tony as a great general leading men into battle -- Tony-but-not-quite-Tony, whom Paulie can more comfortably admire from afar.

The episode demonstrates just how stunted Paulie is as a man. The sensitive Beansie reminds Tony (and us) that Paulie (with his fussy ways, his phobia about germs, his white shoes and his total base criminality) never achieved what Tony, Jackie Aprile, Carmine Lupertazzi, Johnny Sack and others achieved -- a normal family life (or at least what passes for normal in the New Jersey mob!)

Is Chase making the point here that a criminal without an actual family can never be a leader, can never be trusted enough to become the head of a mob family?

Paulie's emotional limitations have already been underscored by storyline involving his realization that Nucci, his beloved "Ma" is really his aunt, and that his aunt, the nun, was his birth mother. An adult man, he has no personal understanding of parenthood or family. He is blind to the sacrifices Nucci made for him and for her sister, and thus he is able to coldly abuse and discard her. For Paulie, life's only real currency is money. Thus he can only conclude that Nucci's motives in mothering him were purely financial ones (i.e. the flat screen TV and the nice room in Green Groves).

But The Sopranos has been,is, and always will be about Tony. Now, with a handful of episodes left in Chase's operatic, modern opus, we see Tony torn between his early regard for Paulie and his growing distrust and distaste for the aging criminal. Tony's eyes are now opened (as they were when he keenly noticed the unsmiling face of Feech LaManna in a room of smiling men). He can hardly stand to be near Paulie, with his desperate need for approval and phony cameraderie, and his braying voice (the same voice, it should be said, which penetrated through the wall in another non-descript hotel room during Tony's coma-induced existence as Kevin Finnerty.)What's the next step? Will Tony's newfound disgust with Paulie finally turn into disgust with himself?

Tony seems to be a free man in this episode, moving from the freeway to the open ocean. But in many ways, never have we seen a more closed-in version of Tony Soprano. He seems to be in federal custody already, a prisoner of his own mind and heart, touched and changed by a thousand tiny revelations.

Contrast this with Junior who is well and truly locked up, observed, warned and medicated. (Hard to believe this is the same Junior whom we have just seen in Beansie's "remember when" photo, as a much younger man, leaning against the Caddy Biarritz outside Satriale's.)

Now Junior has been reduced organizing a pathetic, almost other-worldly "Executive Game," where the players are blubbering depressives (not Frank Sinatra, Jr. or the penis doctor), where the refreshment of note is is "real Coke" (not real cocaine), and where Junior's only real admirer (at least temporarily) is Carter, a furious Chinese kid with a hair-trigger temper and a huge grudge against both his father and grandfather.

Carter's final assault on Junior (happily warbling away during the group singalong)comes when he finally sees the passivity and selfishness beneath Junior's alluring surface mob-boss persona.

Someone asked about the visual references to The Godfather in this episode.

There's an obvious parallel between the final shot of "Remember When" (a blank-eyed, toothless old Junior, cradling an ancient, snaggle-toothed "pet therapy" cat) and the shot of Don Corleone, caressing a charming, playful little cat on his lap while discussing some mayhem-for-hire. But while the Godfather image showed one criminal at the height of his powers (Corleone), Chase et al. go for a darker image of two old, spent forces.

I do see a connection between The Godfather's depiction of the aging Don, playing innocently with his grandson in his sun-dappled tomato garden and Tony's sad realization in this episode that he has to "lam it" just as his tomatoes are coming in.

We see both these characters --Vito and Tony -- as all-too-human, both laid low physically by a recent, violent assault, both finally exhausted by lives of immorality, violence and loss.

Don Corleone was accorded the grace of his final moments in the sun. It remains to be seen whether Tony Soprano will be quite so fortunate.

Wow, eve m., will you write for us? Seriously? You have a depth and understanding of the show that I find daunting. Your descriptions of Paulie's past stuntedness and man-child aggressions are the most incisive I've ever read on the character....

And I'm glad you brought up the tight structural paralleling of the Junior and Paulie storylines...of withered father figures and mentors unable to lead their proteges down any sort of sensible path.

Do we see Junior as effectively out of the picture? Toothless, like brotherfromanother says, and neuteured? Was this the last moment accorded Junior, inverting the iconic image of virile Vito? Is Chase just slowly giving each of his characters a final whimper of glory?

Astute and insightful analysis, eve. I'm glad you reminded us of Paulie's hideous siren song during the Kevin Finnerty episodes, pulling Tony back to the life he hates. Given the obvious theme, in these three episodes so far, of the past haunting the present -- and the way Paulie explicitly embodies the recurrence of the past -- I'm made to recall Kevin Finnerty's surprising diagnosis of Alzheimer's. If the Finnerty stuff illuminated the central themes of the season as a whole -- and I am certain, in one way or (and) another, it did -- surely there is something to the impulse to forget, to dispense with the past, an impulse that stands completely at odds with the baggage we can't let go of. The murderous resentment Tony feels towards Paulie serves as a literalization of the desire to kill the past by eliminating its mouthpiece and thereby to exorcise its demons (metaphors mixed, thank you).

On the flip side, we have Junior, whose dementia has reduced him to replaying the past -- not just the executive game, but also his relationship with Carter (aptly revealed to be a surrogate for his relationship with Tony through a quick slip-of-the-tongue). Far from freeing him from his own sense of failure or regret, Junior's impaired mental state seems to have doomed him to reliving his failure. Junior's always been toothless and neutered, and he knows it, even if he doesn't remember his own name.

Again, these ramblings are barely coherent and probably amount to nothing more than this: memory/Kevin Finnerty/Paulie/Junior/dementia. Discuss. I feel like Bobby: "What, you never thought about the back thing with Notre Dame?"

Thanks for all the kind words, robbie and cnw! Like so many others, I am besotted with The Sopranos. I can't quite figure out why, but a scene from the amazing "Test Dream" episode keeps coming back to me.

In Tony's dream, he and Carmela are standing in the Sopranos kitchen (before going out to meet Finn's "parents"). There's a small television set on the counter, and Tony is watching himself and Carmela standing in the kitchen (like the old ad with the cereal box showing a baby holding a cereal box showing a baby holding etc.) Carm says to him, "Why don't you shut that thing off?" Tony dreamily replies: "Because it's so much more interesting than real life..."

I'm not sure what Tony meant, but that's how I feel about The Sopranos (God, my life must be really boring!).

I agree completely with you, cnw, when you say that the early Season 6 "Finnerty stuff illuminated the central themes of the season as a whole...surely there is something to the impulse to forget, to dispense with the past, an impulse that stands completely at odds with the baggage we can't let go of."

The Finnerty stuff (that haunting image of the beacon, the beacon!) is central, to be sure, but so is what followed, especially Tony's conversation with his fellow-patient John Schwinn. The ailing scientist (throat cancer; clearly this guy has some unpopular truth to tell!) shares his ideas that, on some molecular level, any perceived divisions between individuals and events are illusory: The wind in the tall trees that wave and whisper over Tony as he finally relaxes back at home after his ordeal is the same wind in the trees that wave and whisper over Jason Barone as he is viciously knee-capped by Paulie before getting his kayak in the water.

While the molecular connections are only potential in Schwinn’s theory, the temporal links have been made clear: Tony's ease, in fact, his whole existence, depends on the exploitation of and the harm done to the innocent ("You've caused much pain yourself, haven't you?" Dr. Melfi states mildly but emphatically during one therapy session, and Tony does not argue with her.)

The series plays with this, exploring Tony's deepest perceptions of his life and whether he can or should escape it. In the unforgettable episode about Tracee's brutal murder, we see his visible discomfort when the young stripper descends from the Bada Bing dance floor to actually approach him like a real person. There she is, no longer bathed in pink light, proffering a pathetic homemade nutbread to thank him for helping with her son's medical care. Tony tells her that she "can't do this" (i.e., move from her world to his), a message which is quickly reinforced by Sil who shoos her back to where she belongs.

Later, after Tracee is killed, we see Tony back at home. At one point, he watches his daughter crossing the kitchen, holding a bread on a tray, and we witness Tony's sudden, awful recognition that Meadow is real and alive, a young woman worthy of being loved, and that in these ways, she is no different than Tracee.

This hints at another essential theme of The Sopranos. It has to do with "crossing over." By this I mean that Chase's characters seem to exist quite firmly in very separate worlds, depending who they are. What they know and their ability to act is often limited by this separateness.

For example, the women may share homes, families and beds with the men, but they are not privy to what goes on in the men's world. The men routinely lie to the women about certain key events: Big Pussy is off somewhere in witness protection; Adriana has dumped Christopher for another man; Tony Blundetto went away; Vito was working for the CIA; Jackie Aprile Jr. was whacked by drug addicts, and on and on...

Carmela, Gabriella Dante, Rosalie Aprile, and to some extent the younger women like Adriana and Meadow, don't know exactly what their husbands, fathers and lovers are up to. They may suspect and, on some level, accept the existence of criminal activity and infidelity. But they don't know the full extent. If they did, the world would come crashing down. (This may yet happen, if any of the female characters finally learn that Tony Soprano's hand was in the deaths of Jackie Jr. and Ade. Tony knows this instinctively; his sense of self-preservation, his awareness that maintaining the separateness is vital, explains his sudden desire to throw Carmela off her plan to hire a private investigator to find out what really happened to Adriana.)

When a female character does attempt to cross over in some way, she finds her ability limited or thwarted. Livia wisely understood the limits of her role as wife and mother; she did what she had to do to have the necessary impact on Johnny S., Junior and Tony (i.e., use her female wiles, act in a passive-aggressive style, and nag and undercut as required).

We continually see female characters in The Sopranos try and fail to cross over in some way. At one point, sitting next to her brother over a glass of wine, Janice asks plaintively: "Tony? What happened to Sal Bompiensero? I mean what really happened to him?" She doesn't get an answer, of course, but her question suggests that she already knows it. (Students of The Godfather will recognize this theme at the very end of the film, when Michael Corleone says he will allow his wife Kay to ask about his business "just once." What's on Kay's mind is whether Michael was involved in killing Connie's abusive husband -- of course, he was -- and his answer, in the negative -- is a complete lie.)

The desire of various characters to cross over and their difficulty in doing so has been illustrated in other storylines:

We see Vito's desire to live free as a gay man or die. But when he tries to cross over into that life, he finds it isn't enough, that the thrill of his criminal life in New Jersey outweighs the love of a good man.

We continually see the FBI agents as they try to penetrate to the "other side" with varying degrees of success. In some cases, the flipped mobsters themselves try to cross over to be with the good guys (recall the seriously deluded Big Pussy talking about "doing surveillance" and maybe joining the FBI after a few years in prison).

Many of Christopher's problems stem from his desire to break free from his world. We witness his ongoing failure to cross over -- to Hollywood, to that room full of free "stuff." (Chris knows he could always steal the comped watches and sunglasses, but his ego won't rest until he's good enough to simply deserve it. Characters like Chris and Jackie Aprile Jr. who want to break free typically don't understand what it means to live on the other side. Remember Jackie Jr. confessing to Meadow that what he's really interested in is men's fashion? Not to actually do it, Jackie adds, but "you know, to be, like, Hugo Boss"?)

The crossing over theme was present in the Tony Blundetto storyline. In his desire and efforts to go straight, Tony's cousin got close, but clearly, there was no cigar at the end -- just a final shotgun blast to the face.

I could keep going but would love to hear what others have to say about this…