The Badger Herald

by Nick Marx

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Here’s to hoping none of us has to deal with the emotional and physical baggage of old age anytime soon.

Just weeks removed from the can, Paulie Walnuts finds himself not only fighting for the earning power he once had, but also fighting to keep his meek mother Nucci happy at Green Grove retirement home. She is being excluded from a sewing circle of friends, so Paulie takes it upon himself to convince an old neighborhood chum to convince his mother to make Nucci feel more at home.

Furio feels right at home upon his return to Naples for his father’s funeral, during which he confides to a friend that he is infatuated with the “Don’s wife,” Carmela. Thankfully, Tony is happily oblivious to the ponytailed one’s intentions, and does he have good reason to be.

Ralph Cifaretto introduces T to his newest goomar, Valentina, and it doesn’t take the big man long to get her into bed. After he tries to break it off with her, however, Valentina reveals some dirty bedroom secrets about Ralphie (remember Ralph and Janice’s disturbing fling? — ‘nuff said).

While Tony is off fooling around, Carmela stumbles upon evidence of his philandering and decides she’s had enough. She steals his keys, lifts some money from the backyard stash, and, in the episode’s best scene, innocently makes one-time deposits of just under $10,000 into four separate banks (deposits of over $10,000 require government notification).

Maybe it’s the midseason blahs, but “Mergers and Acquisitions” seems set on chugging along with new, barely compelling conflicts rather than addressing issues at hand. The episode seems to introduce characters merely as a way of filling dramatic space — couldn’t Tony have found out about Ralph’s masochism in a more interesting way (an incriminating sex toy, perhaps) than mere gossip?

In addition, if Nucci is only to be used to create more tension between Paulie and Tony, scenes of her struggling to adapt to the neo-adolescent nature of a retirement community are extraneous at best. Generational issues were far better developed with earlier episodes featuring Livia and Uncle Junior.

The episode does manage to present an important piece to the Sopranos’ growing marital strife, though, as Tony tacitly tortures Carmela with knowing looks and uncomfortable silences indicating he knows she’s stealing money. Those looks convey more suppressed rage and pending conflict than any elaborately orchestrated shouting match could have.

The series’ bread and butter have always been cute one-liners, but these one-liners have recently turned into overlong scenes of what essentially boils down to exposition. As the final scene proved, just one image tells a much better story than words ever could. Let’s hope that a show reputed for playing with genre clichés has enough sense to obey at least one of them.

Best line: “I already took his horse.” (Tony to Ralphie’s goomar Valentina, explaining why he can’t have a relationship with her).