Raging on
'The Sopranos' returns with its fury and brilliance intact -- and with Tony moving closer than ever to the edge
Is it possible that "The Sopranos" is one of TV's underrated series?
Wait, don't laugh. Despite torrents of hype that remain strong five years on, HBO's mob drama is constantly getting drenched in whine -- the it's-not-what-it-used-to-be backlash that started after Livia delivered her demonic, castrating smile at the end of season one. We still watch "The Sopranos," we still wait patiently during its lengthy hiatuses, we still submit to profuse media coverage of it, but we still like to remark that it's not what it used to be.
Yet the series has never failed to amount to superior TV, even during the quiet episodes -- those in-between hours that are inevitable in a medium that delivers storytelling with no end point. And "The Sopranos" returns for its fifth season on Sunday night at 9 in typically great shape, its darkly comic New Jersey world layered in the usual mayhem -- raw violence, gothic pathos, sly pop allusions,
and, as Paulie would put it, "Machiabellian" scheming. While the revelatory rush of the first season has long passed, the show's family history has gotten only deeper and richer over the years. Now, when we see the separated Tony (James Gandolfini) sleeping on a recliner in his mother's home, the resonance is deafening. When the now-married Janice decides she has the Epstein-Barr virus, the droll joke is crystal clear. And when we meet Livia's sister, her resemblance to Livia is as haunting as it is funny. Despite the show's 15-month absence, the accumulated tensions from season four are fully dynamic when the action opens with the traditional newspaper-in-the-driveway scene. Tony isn't there to retrieve it this time, but he visits the beige nouveau-riche manse often enough to continue his "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"-ian struggle with Carmela (Edie Falco, who consistently raises the bar on TV acting). He also jumps right back into the muddle that is Carmine Lupertazzi's New York family, where Johnny Sack continues to juggle allegiances and play with fire. And Tony is still primed to act out on the only sane woman left in his life, as he makes Dr. Melfi an offer she may want to refuse.
As always, there's an infusion of new characters and battles, when a few crooks jailed in the 1980s are freed -- "Mafia: The Class of '04," as the news channel on Uncle Junior's TV puts it. A white-haired Robert Loggia appears as Feech La Manna, a fiesty old-fashioned gangster who can't accept that little Tony Soprano is now his boss. But Steve Buscemi's Tony Blundetto is the more enigmatic ex-con, an introvert who wants to stay out of the mob. He's the Bizarro Tony, as buttoned up as his cousin Tony Soprano is flamboyant and explosive. Tony Soprano calls him "Mr. Clean" (a riff on Buscemi's role as Mr. Pink in "Reservoir Dogs"?), but he may tire of his cousin's cool manner and his occasional sidelong digs. He may also tire of Tony B.'s wardrobe, which is vintage "Miami Vice."
Every season, it seems as though Tony Soprano grows more feral, more ready to jump down people's throats. And this season he looks particularly awful, a wandering mess with an insatiable appetite, not unlike the wild bear that's haunting Carmela's backyard (thanks to the corn Tony bought to feed his ducks -- yes, the animal metaphors continue). He rages at almost everyone in his path, and his uneasiness is palpable even when he's hanging with the boys, giggling at fart jokes. The writers wittily drop a few Jackie Gleason mentions into the first few episodes, since even the relaxed Tony has a gruff edginess similar to the sitcom-ized Gleason.
But while Tony is more grizzly, he's also more like a big kid this season -- "the boy king," as Feech calls him. The two Tonys -- Soprano and Blundetto -- were best friends as boys, and when they're together now you can see Tony Soprano revert to his self-image as the thin-skinned overweight kid in the neighborhood who doesn't like being laughed at. He's profoundly stung when Junior knocks him for his failure to make varsity football, as if he's still invested in that aspiration. And his hypnotic response to "The Prince of Tides" -- in which a man and his therapist (Barbra Streisand) fall in love -- is as adolescent as his grammar and spelling abilities.
Of course, one of the joys of "The Sopranos" is its ability to bear such character analysis, as if every member of its sprawling cast were a real person. That psychological fullness has sustained a few books and websites over the years, and Christopher's newfound sobriety and Adriana's tragic naivete are only going to provide them with further fuel.
But "The Sopranos" isn't only there for the analysis; it also works beautifully as a crime drama, as the family members fight off ambitious outsiders and insiders, as well as the ever-more-eager Feds. It's the other side of "Law & Order," the anarchic side with its own twisted morality -- and its own twisted sense of humor. The clever references continue as always this season, with nods to the "Pine Barrens" episode that Buscemi directed, to Larry David, to Streisand's fingernails. Oh yes, and to "The Godfather," that icon of a far more romanticized kind of mobster life.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 