The New SteveSilver.net

The Gay Mafia

Wow, nothing like the out-of-nowhere revelation about the latent homosexuality of an obese fictional mobster to get “Sopranos” fans excited about the show again.
Yes, as was revealed on last night’s episode, long-time peripheral character Vito Spatafore- despite being both married and after Adriana- is in fact gay, judging by his early-morning “hookup” with a security guard at the Family’s no-work construction site. The last time there was this much excitement among the show's fan base about a head popping up, it was Ralphie’s, and it was severed.

Not that the idea of same-sex love among mobsters is necessarily a new one- not long after he turned state’s evidence against John Gotti there were rumors about Sammy “The Bull” Gravano being a homosexual, and when Mafia capo John D’Amato was supposedly whacked for being gay in the early '90s, the New York Post- which is just as obsessed with homosexuality as it is with the mob- ran the perfunctory headline “Fairy Godfather.”

Reaction to the episode was mostly positive from the ad hoc roundtable of people I discuss each episode with and the newsgroup I read each Sunday night; this breaks the five-episode streak of ”Sopranos” watchers complaining that the show was “too slow,” that too many new characters were being introduced, that storylines were taking too long to pay off, and that (of course) there wasn’t nearly enough of the straight-on mob violence that made the first season or two so great.

My reply to these arguments are that first of all, the family/Family ratio isn’t any different now than it was in Season 1- remember all the Livia scenes? That the show takes its time with storylines and often sets things up to pay them off two years later is quite bothersome to those who are used to David E. Kelley-style hackery in their television drama, when everything is neatly tied up at the end of the 60 minutes. The “Sopranos”’ leisurely pace is refreshing- and sometimes it helps for storylines to never pay off: hasn’t it always sort of cast a sense of dread over the series that the Russian from the woods was never found?

And as for whackings, you may have noticed that there have been quite a few this year- and lot of funerals as well. And with a New York mob war going full-steam, expect there to be more.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, some other comments on last night’s episode:

- Johnny Sack really is a marvelous character, the old-school boss that Uncle Junior was before they ran out of things to do with him after the first season. The fat-joke episode last season was the most underrated in the history of the series, if you ask me, and his frequent eruptions just bring out the best in the character.

- The “Joey Peeps” headstone- classic. If Johnny gets whacked, will his say “Sack”?

- How exactly does Carmela propose to extract 50% of Tony’s assets, when she’s not even willing to admit to her own lawyer where all of his “supplemental” income comes from?

- It’s nice to see Meadow get more than two lines in an episode for once, and whether it’s her boyfriend Finn talking about “my process” or Meadow’s nonsense speech about Italian-American violence coming from “the old country,” I’ve always loved the way “Sopranos” satirizes the diversity-speak and other psychobabble that regularly comes out of the mouths of today’s college students. But memo to Finn: those marathon 10-hour fights with your girlfriend are supposed to end with make-up sex, not with a marriage proposal. It may have worked this time, but you only get one of those.

- And one more Vito note: next time I’m standing outside Yankee Stadium before a game, it’ll be hard not to laugh/crack a joke about being “stood up by Finn.”

As always, here's the Slate roundup; just four more weeks!

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 3, 2004 11:41 PM