All Rise...

Editor's Note

Our reviews of The Sopranos: The Complete First Season (published August 14th, 2001), The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season (published March 28th, 2002), The Sopranos: Season Six, Part II (published October 23rd, 2007), and The Sopranos: Season Six, Part I (published November 1st, 2006) are also available.

The Charge

"Everything comes to an end."—Carmela Soprano

Opening Statement

After more than a yearlong hiatus, television's most revered and criticized drama finally returned for thirteen more episodes of mob mayhem, family explosions, and psychiatric sessions. But when it was all over, something wasn't quite right. Though treated to the usual barrage of placements on year-end ten-best lists and awards recognition, audiences were left with a general feeling of "I waited over a year for this?" So does the season's DVD release help amplify its qualities or confirm its status as weak link in The Sopranos' history?

Facts of the Case

When we last left Tony Soprano, he was okaying a hit on his daughter's ex-boyfriend, Jackie Aprille Jr., celebrating his beloved Uncle Junior's victory over cancer, and sparring with sexy but psychotic love interest Gloria Trillo (Annabella Sciorra). It is now more than a year later, and all is not well in the Soprano world. Tony's business is hurting thanks to the post-9/11 economy. Uncle Junior, having beaten cancer, is now on trial for his life. Friend Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) has been sent to the slammer on weapons charges, and is getting a bit too friendly with the New York family. And Carmela and the kids are still breathing down Tony's neck on a regular basis. Lucky for fans, it's just another year in Soprano-land.

"For All Debts Public and Private"
As we pick up Season 4, we find Tony Soprano struggling financially in the face of a sluggish economy. Carmela is beginning to worry about the family's financial safety should something happen to Tony. Meanwhile, Uncle Junior's defense team is bleeding him dry in his upcoming Rico trial, and Adriana's new friend Danielle is curious about every aspect of her life, including her fiancé's business.

"No-Show"
Christopher is thrilled when a new promotion is handed to him, but not everybody is quite so excited at his fortune. Tony's daughter, still mourning the death of ex-boyfriend Jackie Jr., considers dropping out of college and moving to Europe, much to Tony's dismay. And Danielle finally reveals a secret that will change Adriana's life forever.

"Christopher"
An upcoming anti-Christopher Columbus protest has Silvio up in arms, and in true Soprano fashion, he's not taking it lying down. And when tragedy strikes Bobby Baccalieri, he finds consolation in the most unlikely of places. And even in prison, Paulie is able to stir the pot, as he leaks information to Johnny Sack that puts the New Yorker in a foul disposition.

"The Weight"
A remark about his wife's weight has Johnny Sack out for blood, while Tony struggles to keep the peace between the New York and New Jersey families. Christopher and Silvio pay a visit to some old-timers that still know how to get things done, and Carmela and Furio's relationship hints that there may be something more there than just friendship.

"Pie O My"
Ralph's new pet has Tony loving life once again, while Carmela is anxious to invest in medical real estate to secure her financial well-being. Adriana, having agreed to feed information to the feds, becomes increasingly angered at Christopher's use of her club as a meeting place. And Janice continues to console Bobby, though her motives for doing so may not be entirely righteous.

"Everybody Hurts"
A business opportunity sees Artie Bucco seeking financial aid from Tony, who questions his effects on those around him as a result of some shocking news. Christopher's drug problem becomes increasingly noticeable, but he continues to move up in the ranks of the Jersey family. Anthony Jr. finds that his father's business can be especially helpful when it comes to his social standing.

"Watching Too Much Television"
Paulie's finally out of jail and finds his newfound freedom doesn't exactly provide the happiness he was hoping for, but Johnny Sack is more than receptive to his grievances. Carmela's cousin Brian is slowly becoming seduced by Tony's world, and gives Tony some real estate advice that proves especially lucrative, but brings him too close to an old flame.

"Mergers and Acquisitions"
Tony gets close to Ralph's new girlfriend, who reveals some bizarre insights into Ralph's sexual lifestyle. Paulie attempts to settle his mother into the nursing home, but finds that her old friends aren't quite so receptive to the idea. And while in Italy to mourn his father's passing, Furio questions his feelings about Carmela, which he knows could get him "fired" in more ways than one.

"Whoever Did This"
In this brutal and shocking episode, Ralph faces a tragedy that exposes his vulnerability for the first time, while a fire at the racetrack has Tony equally dismayed. Meanwhile, a fall in front of the courthouse may give Uncle Junior a way out of his Rico trial, while Svetlana, the one-legged Russian nurse, returns to help his cause.

"The Strong, Silent Type"
Christopher's drug problem finally reaches the breaking point, literally, for a friend of Adriana's, bringing the family together for intervention, Sopranos-style. Tony, meanwhile, finds himself becoming closer to Svetlana, while Ralph's disappearance has Tony struggling to place blame where it doesn't belong.

"Calling All Cars"
Tony reevaluates his continuing psychotherapy with Dr. Melfi and comes to an important decision concerning his business future with the New York family. Janice is becoming restless at Bobby's continuing depression over his wife's death, and Anthony Jr. gets a good laugh at the Baccalieri kids' expense.

"Eloise"
Furio comes dangerously close to catastrophe after a night of partying and reflection about his relationship with Carmela, and ends up moving back to Italy as a result. Carmela is devastated by this, and takes her frustration out on everyone around her, including Meadow and her new roommates. Junior's reaches out to a juror in his Rico trial, prompting a conclusion to the proceedings, and Paulie's financial troubles lead to a pathetic breakdown at the nursing home.

"Whitecaps"
Tony surprises Carmela with some Jersey Shore property, but it all goes south when she receives a call from Tony's ex Irina. Johnny Sack is furious at Tony's decision to back out on the Esplanade development, and Christopher's release from rehab gives him a new lease on life.

The Evidence

(Warning: What follows is a detailed dissection of several plotlines that made up Season 4, and contains major spoilers.)

When it first aired back in 2002, The Sopranos' fourth season proved to be its most polarizing, dividing audiences into two camps. The season's critics cried foul at the apparent decline in violence that had become the show's trademark over the previous three seasons, and complained that various loose ends from season three (e.g. Dr. Melfi's rape, the Russian conflict) were either dropped or left dangling. Its supporters, conversely, applauded the audacity of the creative team to delay audience gratification by providing easy payoffs, and quickly pointed out that real life does not tie itself up as neatly as we would sometimes like. Those that stood by the show felt that for a series like The Sopranos, which strives for emotional realism in favor of conventional narrative, the season's slow development was more than appropriate.

I happened to fall into the first camp. It wasn't the shortage of violence that bothered me, or even the refusal to continue developments from previous seasons. It was the lack of forward momentum of any kind. When reflecting on the thirteen episodes that made up season four, I just couldn't shake the feeling that although major developments occasionally took place, they were few and far between, and the various subplots that made up the interim periods felt like tacked-on filler material. Each week we were teased with a "Next on…" vignette that promised that the real stuff would happen in the next episode. Only it never did. We had waited over a year for new developments in both the business and family aspects of Tony Soprano's life, and what we got was…character development, and not much else. A show that had, for three seasons, been as consistently brilliant as The Sopranos couldn't possibly have become this—and there really isn't any other word for it—this dull, could it?

So it was that I looked forward to this DVD release as an opportunity to reassess the quality of the season as a whole, hoping that the knowledge of the overall arc of the season would make it easier to focus the overriding theme of Tony (James Gandolfini) and Carmela's (Edie Falco) marriage and, subsequently, would make the various subplots easier to stomach. And it helped. But only a little.

A number of the season's tangential storylines improve considerably with a second viewing and help to flesh out some of the peripheral characters dramatically. For example, the Jonny Sack/Ralphie confrontation that develops over the first four episodes of the season and originally felt like water-treading instead helps to provide insight into both Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola) as a character (he may be a sociopath, but he sure loves his wife) as well as the absurdity of the idea that one of these men would have another man killed over a throwaway fat joke at his wife's expense.

Other such subplots, including Artie Bucco's failed attempt at a business venture and the Pie-O-My storyline don't feel quite as tacked on as they once did, and the latter is the catalyst for enough valuable character moments (as well as a major character death) so as to justify its existence.

And to be fair, the season's high points still rank among the best episodes of the show's brief history. Episodes like "No-Show," "Whoever Did This," and the stunning season finale, "Whitecaps," help to remind us just what made this show great in the first place. "No-Show," (episode 2) which sees Tony's daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) threatening to move to Europe due to her depression over last season's slaying of her ex-boyfriend, Jackie Jr., plants the seeds for the rift that will develop between Tony and Carmela over the course of the next eleven episodes, while at the same time giving us more of the Tony-Meadow dynamic that has proven to be one of the show's most fascinating and heartfelt aspects. "Whoever Did This," in which Tony brutally murders Ralphie over the death of his horse, Pie-O-My, features one of the most realistic fight scenes ever filmed, and with no forewarning from the last episode's "Next On" feature, proves that The Sopranos has the ability to shock like no other television show around.

Then there's "Whitecaps," which may rank as the best season finale the show has ever given us. In an episode that pays off all of the betrayals and emotions that have been bubbling under the surface for the previous four years, Tony and Carmela's marriage finally comes to an end, and the actors play it for all it's worth, displaying all the pain, fear, and anguish that a real-life separation undoubtedly causes. Ironically, though James Gandolfini and Edie Falco probably won their recent Emmys for this episode alone, their performances are so good that they render all awards meaningless, and reveal the Emmys for the sham that they are. You will not find better acting on a movie or television screen this year.

And yet, even despite the brilliance on display in these remarkable episodes, the season's flaws are just too glaring to ignore. For every instant classic like "No-Show," "Whoever Did This," or "Whitecaps," there's a "Christopher," "Calling All Cars," or "Mergers & Acquisitions," installments that just lie dead and go nowhere. "Christopher," for example, concerns a Native American protest during an annual Columbus Day parade, and seems to exist only to expose the hypocrisy of characters like Sylvio (Steven Van Zandt), who complain about the oppression of their ancestors without ever having felt the effects of such oppression firsthand (a point made in a preachy and overblown speech by Tony toward the episode's end).

Furthermore, while I noted before that a few of the season's subplots improve with a second viewing, others still seem painfully out of place, and nowhere is this more in evidence than in the Janice/Bobby relationship. In the aforementioned "Christopher," Bobby Baccalieri's (Steven Schirripa) wife is killed in a car accident, and throughout the course of the season he is comforted by Tony's narcissistic sister Janice, a development that results in a romantic relationship blossoming between the two. Way too much time is devoted to their relationship and, for the most part, we simply don't care. It's nice to see some more screen time given to the excellent Steven Schirripa, but since her arrival in season two, Janice (Aida Turturro) just hasn't evolved past the point of being a conniving bitch. It's as if they couldn't think of how to fit these characters into the overall story arc for the season, so they just slapped them together.

And speaking of not knowing what to do with certain characters, why the hell is Uncle Junior's trial reduced to nothing more than an inconvenience for the rest of the characters if we're constantly reminded that the man is "on trial for his life"? Junior (Dominic Chianese), one of the show's most reliable characters, has always been a major source for conflict and wisdom for Tony, and their moments together in the fourth season serve as a reminder of just how fascinating their dynamic can be. But they don't have nearly enough screen time together, and the rest of the time Junior's trial is treated as a throwaway plot point, the resolution of which is anticlimactic and meaningless. Here's hoping that Chianese returns to a more pivotal position in the fifth season.

Finally, while "Whitecaps" is unquestionably the season's best episode, its events are also predicated on a huge leap of faith on the part of the audience that takes place earlier in the season. Tony's assemblyman friend Zellman (Peter Riegert) at one point reveals to Tony that he's been seeing Tony's Russian ex-girlfriend Irina, who we had been led to believe held no interest for Tony any more. While Tony is ostensibly happy to hear this (it means he won't have to deal with her any more), he is unable to let it go, and ends up beating Zellman senseless for it, which results in a phone call placed in the finale by Irina to Carmela, who subsequently decides to throw Tony out. There are two problems with this. 1) The Irina/Zellman romance comes out of nowhere, and feels like a cheap plot device when viewed in the grand scheme of the season. And 2) Are we really supposed to believe that Tony cares whether or not these characters see each other? I understand that Tony is supposed to essentially be a middle-aged twelve-year-old (it's hammered into our head on plenty of occasions over the course of the season), but Irena was thought to be a long-gone presence on the show, both physically and in Tony's mind, and yet here she is shoehorned into an unnecessary plot device that serves no purpose other than to break up Tony and Carmela for good. It comes off as lazy writing, and this show is better than that.

Despite the rockiness of the show's fourth season, HBO has once again given the series a rock-solid presentation on DVD. The episodes are presented in anamorphic widescreen and look positively stellar, with only the slightest bit of edge enhancement and shimmering present. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix is adequate but not earth shattering, as this is mainly a dialogue-driven series. The set also includes Spanish and French language tracks.

Unfortunately, for the hefty price tag, the extras on this four-disc set are scant at best. For roughly $70 (best case scenario), you get the show's thirteen episodes, each just under an hour long, and four commentaries from the show's various writers. The commentaries vary in quality from insightful (David Chase on "Whitecaps") to insightful but rambling (Michael Imperioli on "Everybody Hurts") to dull and listless (Terence Winter on "The Weight"). Best tidbit to be gleaned from a commentary: Imperioli reveals that Steve Buscemi will play a major character in the show's fifth season, which now officially cannot get here soon enough.

Also included are the original "Previously on…" and "Next on…" vignettes (something I really wish the Fox DVD people would start to include on the Buffy and Angel seasons), Season 1-3 recaps, and the usual cast and crew biographies. With studios like Fox putting out full 22-episode seasons with copious supplements for around $50, the folks at HBO need to ether start laying on the extras or bringing the prices down. The Sopranos may be head-and-shoulders above most of what passes for television today, but $70 is still too much to pay for a single-season set.

Closing Statement

As a footnote in the greater Sopranos picture, the fourth season stands as both a testament to the series' enduring genius as well as irrefutable proof of its fallibility. When a show has been this consistently great for this long, the highest highs make the lows seem just that much lower. Fans of the series have already made up their mind as to whether or not they'll purchase this set, and completists are no doubt going to want every episode of the series on disc. But if, for some reason, you happened to miss season four in its original airing, a rental is strongly suggested, as this probably ranks as the show's weakest leg thus far.

The Verdict

The trial ends in a hung jury. The show's creators are advised to get the focus back on track for season five, and HBO are urged to beef up the extras and bring down the price on its subsequent DVD set. Case dismissed.

Give us your feedback!

Did we give The Sopranos: The Complete Fourth Season a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.

Share This Review

 Tweet

Buy This Blu-ray/DVD

Additional Purchase Recommendations

Similar Decisions

• That Evening Sun
• Ride With The Devil
• Casino
• Pursuit