Soprano Home Movies

"Soprano Home Movies"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no. Season 6
Episode 13
Directed by Tim Van Patten
Written by
Produced by David Chase
Featured music "This Magic Moment" by
Ben E. King and The Drifters
Cinematography by Phil Abraham
Editing by William B. Stich
Production code S613
Original air date April 8, 2007 (2007-04-08)
Running time 51 minutes
Episode chronology

"Soprano Home Movies" is the thirteenth episode of the sixth season of the HBO television drama series The Sopranos and seventy-eighth episode overall. It served as the midseason premiere to the second part of the show's sixth season, the broadcast of which was split into two. It was written by supervising producers Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, series creator/executive producer David Chase and executive producer Matthew Weiner; it was directed by frequent series director Tim Van Patten. The episode first aired in the United States on April 8, 2007.

"Soprano Home Movies", which is set eight months after the preceding episode,[1] details a weekend that series protagonist Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his wife Carmela (Edie Falco) spend with his sister Janice (Aida Turturro) and brother-in-law Bobby (Steve Schirripa) at a lakefront vacation home in upstate New York and the complications that arise during this weekend.

The scenes set at the vacation home were filmed in Putnam Valley, New York. "Soprano Home Movies" was watched by 7.66 million American viewers. Critical reception of the midseason premiere was mostly favorable; critics praised the episode for its calm, contemplative storytelling. The episode garnered a number of award nominations and was the episode submitted to Emmy Award voters to represent the season, leading to a nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, an award the show subsequently won.

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

Episode recap

In a flashback to the winter of 2004, a neighborhood teenage boy witnesses Johnny "Sack"'s (Vincent Curatola) arrest by the FBI and Tony Soprano's dropping of a pistol in the snow as he flees the scene. The same teenage boy later picks up and accidentally fires the gun, and then takes it with him back into his house.

Over three years later, in August 2007, Essex County authorities arrest Tony on a gun charge based on the teenager's testimony as he was caught with the illegal weapon in his car as well as some drugs. Tony spends a short period of time in the Newark city jail, before appearing in court with his attorney, Neil Mink (David Margulies) who easily secures Tony's release on bail.

In Brooklyn, a party is held for Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent), who has recently returned from the hospital after a long convalescence following a near-fatal heart attack. Phil tells the Lupertazzi mobsters he is ready to act with calm in his decisions and "enjoy [his] grandchildren" (as Tony advised him to).

Tony returns a few hours later to a warm welcome at home. Later, he and Carmela travel to Janice and Bobby's upstate New York lakefront cabin to celebrate Tony's forty-seventh birthday. On the way, Tony is happy to receive a call from his lawyer informing him that the gun charge has been dropped. Tony and Bobby start to bond and they fire Bobby's customized AR-10 assault rifle in the nearby woods. Bobby gives Tony the firearm as a birthday present. The two later relax by fishing on the lake in Bobby's antique motor boat. In a moment of frankness, Tony voices his thoughts to Bobby that there are likely only two ways a mobster's criminal activities might end: either in prison or by getting murdered. Tony tells Bobby that his plans to bring in a protégé, through which he would have given orders and shielded himself from the law enforcement scrutiny, has failed (referring to but not naming Christopher) and that Tony could now look for a higher position in the criminal organization for Bobby, who he says he trusts. Tony also raises the fact that Bobby has never "popped his cherry" in regards to murdering someone and juxtaposes this with the kill record of Bobby's father who Tony refers to as the "Terminator." Bobby replies that he has come close, but that his father never wanted it for him. In North Caldwell, New Jersey, A.J. (Robert Iler) opts to skip going to his new job at "Beansie"'s pizza parlor and uses his parents' bedroom to entertain his girlfriend while also having friends over for a party while his parents are away.

Tony, Carmela, Bobby, and Janice celebrate Tony's birthday with karaoke, drinking and a raucous game of Monopoly. As they all get increasingly drunk, an argument starts after a discussion of Monopoly's house rules. Over Tony's objections, Janice relates a childhood story, which embarrasses Tony, of their father and mother when once a gun accidentally discharged and shot through Livia's beehive; Tony then starts quipping remarks about Janice's looks and past promiscuity which insult Bobby who demands Tony to stop. Tony agrees, but soon resumes his quips at Janice again, making Bobby lose it and punch Tony in the face. The two have a chaotic fight, despite attempts to stop it by their spouses, which ends with Tony lying bloodied and bruised on the floor. Janice scolds Bobby for hitting his boss. Panicking, Bobby runs outside, where he drives off drunk in his Jeep Grand Cherokee and backs into a tree. He returns inside and apologizes to Tony and the two couples go to their beds. Tony wakes up in the middle of the night and tells Bobby and Janice that Bobby beat him fair and square. The next day, the couples seem to make amends, but, as the day progresses, Tony increasingly obsesses over losing the fight to Bobby, making angry comments to anyone who will listen.

Tony and Bobby leave for a prearranged business meeting with two Québécois, but inform their wives they are going to play golf. After a tense ride to the meeting, they find French Canadian gangsters who want to sell them a large amount of expired prescription medication. As a part of the deal, Tony agrees to arrange the murder of one of the Québécois' former brother-in-law and asks Bobby to personally take care of it. Bobby is compelled to accept the task. Carmela and Janice nervously wait for their husbands at the cabin and get into an argument when Carmela shows resentment at Janice's implications that Tony comes from a violent and vengeful family and behaves that way himself. Carmela maintains that Tony is not a "vindictive man." Once the men return to the house, Carmela and Tony leave for home and Bobby immediately sets off for Montreal, where the man he agreed to murder lives.

Bobby finds his target in the laundry room of an apartment building. Seemingly frenzied, Bobby kills him by shooting him in the chest and then in the forehead at point-blank range. The victim rips a part of Bobby's shirt out and the mobster then flees the bloody scene.

Back home, Tony watches the "Soprano Home Movies" DVD given to him by Janice as a birthday present. Mink calls, informing Tony that the gun charge, though dropped by Essex County, has been picked up by the FBI and could be used as a predicate for Tony's RICO case.

Bobby returns to his lakefront house, picks up his daughter and gazes out over the lake in silence as the sun sets.[2][3]

First appearance

Deceased

Title reference

Production

Writing

"Soprano Home Movies" was written by four of the show's five principal season six writers: supervising producers and writing team Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, series creator and showrunner David Chase and executive producer Matthew Weiner, who had been promoted from co-executive producer before the production of "Soprano Home Movies" began. The four developed the episode's story outline along with executive producer [4][5] Terence Winter.[6][7] "Soprano Home Movies" is Frolov and Schneider's fourth and final official writing credit for the series; it is Chase's twenty-seventh and Weiner's ninth. Chase and Weiner collaborated on two more of the season's episodes: "Kennedy and Heidi" and "The Blue Comet".

Filming

"Soprano Home Movies" was the first episode of the final nine episodes to be produced, following a six-month-long production hiatus. In preparation for shooting the episode, series creator/executive producer David Chase held several rehearsals with the lead actors.[8]

The scenes at the lakefront vacation home were filmed over two weeks in June 2006 in Putnam Valley, New York. Additional interior shots were filmed six months later at Silvercup Studios, New York, where a replica of the cabin had been built in a sound stage. The lake seen multiple times in the episode is Lake Oscawana. The scenes of Tony and Bobby fishing were filmed on location on the lake but much closer to the shore than it appears in the episode. The scenes set in Montreal were actually filmed in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Filming of the scenes set in New Jersey and the Soprano residence took place on location in Essex County, New Jersey and in Silvercup Studios.[8] While filming the cabin fight scene between Tony and Bobby in Silvercup Studios, Steve Schirripa accidentally headbutted James Gandolfini. The fight scene was choreographed but Gandolfini didn't step out of the way in time. His nose was bloodied but not broken. The real headbutting was kept in the episode.[9]

Cast notes

References to previous episodes

Other cultural and historical references

Music

Reception

Ratings

"Soprano Home Movies" drew an average of 7.66 million viewers when it first aired on HBO on Sunday April 8, 2007 in the United States. This estimate was done by Nielsen Ratings. This was a significant drop from the 2006 season premiere episode, "Members Only", which attracted 9.47 million viewers and the lowest ratings for a Sopranos premiere since the season two opening episode, "Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist's Office...", which drew roughly the same number of viewers as "Soprano Home Movies" (7.64 million viewers).[10][11]

Critical response

The episode was critically acclaimed. Tom Biro of television webblog TV Squad gave the episode a favorable review, writing "All in all, big thumbs up from me."[12] Marisa Carroll of PopMatters called the midseason premiere "stellar" and wrote that "David Chase repeatedly re-imagines ordinary family scenarios—like a weekend trip to the mountains—in brutal, gangster terms. [...] Such signature exaggerations remain both hilarious and unsettling." She awarded the episode a score of 9 out of 10 (shared with the following two episodes).[13] Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle praised the episode, writing "the series remains as vital and interesting as ever [...] There may be no better (or realistic) way to go forward into this Sopranos swan song."[14] Kim Reed of Television Without Pity gave the midseason premiere an A−, writing "...while, on the surface, not much happened, I think there were a ton of callbacks to previous episodes and that familiar Soprano tension was used to good effect."[15] Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune wrote "this is loose, contemplative Sopranos storytelling at its best."[16] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly was impressed with the midseason premiere and wrote that, despite not being a very eventful episode on the surface, "everything happened".[17] Alan Sepinwall of The Star Ledger gave "Soprano Home Movies" a positive review and praised it for featuring the character of Bobby Bacala in a more prominent role, writing "The hour was largely a refresher course on Tony, Janice and their history, but it also gave Bacala the dignity he's so often been deprived by the writers."[18] Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times gave the episode a mixed review, calling it "solemn" and wrote that "even before last season the series had started to sag in places, a creative fatigue that matched the main characters' weariness and also the audience's."[19] Brian Zoromski of IGN awarded "Soprano Home Movies" a score of 9.5 out of 10, citing the calm, subtle storytelling as a great strength.[20]

Awards

In 2007, "Soprano Home Movies" was nominated in four categories for the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. The episode was submitted for consideration in the category of Outstanding Drama Series. This led to a nomination and the show—which was judged by six episodes from the second part of the sixth season, including "Soprano Home Movies"—won.[21][22][23] It was also nominated but failed to win in the categories of Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (Phil Abraham), Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series (William B. Stich), and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Aida Turturro).[24][25] The episode was also submitted for Emmy consideration in the categories of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Steve Schirripa) and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (David Chase, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, and Matthew Weiner); however, it was not nominated.[26] In 2008, Tim Van Patten was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series, but lost out to Mad Men's Alan Taylor, also a director for The Sopranos, who happened to win the Emmy Award for directing "Kennedy and Heidi" at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards.[27][28]

References

  1. ↑ "Kaisha" ends with a Christmas Eve dinner at the Soprano residence, making the date December 24, 2006. In "Soprano Home Movies", they celebrate Tony's forty-seventh birthday. In "Another Toothpick", Tony's birth date is given as August 24, 1960. This means approximately eight months elapsed between the episodes.
    Directed by Jack Bender; Written by Terence Winter (2001-03-25). "Another Toothpick". The Sopranos. Season 3. Episode 5. HBO.
    Directed by Alan Taylor; Written by Terence Winter and David Chase & Matthew Weiner (2006-06-04). "Kaisha". The Sopranos. Season 6. Episode 12. HBO.
  2. ↑ "HBO: The Sopranos: S 6 EP 78 Soprano Home Movies: Synopsis". HBO. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  3. ↑ O'Connor, Mimi (2007-10-30). "The Sopranos: Episode Guide". In Martin, Brett. The Sopranos: The Complete Book. New York: Time. p. 223. ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4.
  4. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (2010-09-09). "Interview: 'Boardwalk Empire' creator Terence Winter". Hit Fix. Retrieved 2010-09-21.
  5. ↑ The Sopranos – The Complete Series: Alec Baldwin interviews David Chase (DVD). HBO. 2008.
  6. ↑ Lee, Mark (May 2007). "Wiseguys: A conversation between David Chase and Tom Fontana.". Written By. Writers Guild of America, West. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
  7. ↑ Lee, Mark (May 2007). "La Famiglia". Written By. Writers Guild of America, West: 22–31, 54–55.
  8. 1 2 Schirripa, Steve (2007). "Soprano Home Movies" commentary track (DVD). HBO.
  9. ↑ Clarke, Norm (2007-04-11). "NORM: Schirripa tackles Imus appearance". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  10. ↑ Huff, Richard (2007-04-27). ""Sopranos" ratings slip again". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2009-09-26.
  11. ↑ Ryan, Maureen (2006-03-14). "The comeback". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  12. ↑ Biro, Tom (2007-04-09). "The Sopranos: Soprano Home Movies (midseason premiere)". TV Squad. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  13. ↑ Carroll, Marisa (2007-04-25). "No Turning Back". PopMatters. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  14. ↑ Goodman, Tim (2007-04-02). "A tidy finish? Fahgeddaboutit.". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  15. ↑ Reed, Kim (2007-04-10). "The Sopranos – "Soprano Home Movies"". Television Without Pity. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  16. ↑ Ryan, Maureen (2007-04-05). "Ari Gold and Tony Soprano return, and we can't look away". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  17. ↑ Schwarzbaum, Lisa (2007-04-09). "Lake Effect". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  18. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (2007-04-08). "Sopranos Rewind: Livia's legacy, Bacala's broken heart". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  19. ↑ Stanley, Alessandra (2007-04-08). "This Thing of Ours, It's Over". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  20. ↑ Zoromski, Brian (2007-04-09). "The Sopranos: Soprano Home Movies Review". IGN. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  21. ↑ O'Neal, Tom (2007-06-30). "Report: Top 10 Emmy finalists for drama & comedy series". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  22. ↑ "Emmy winners". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  23. ↑ "Sopranos scores hat-trick at Emmys". RTÉ. 2007-09-17. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  24. ↑ O'Neal, Tom (2007-07-24). "Finally! Your official Emmy episode cheat sheet!". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  25. ↑ "The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards and Creative Arts Emmy Awards Nominees are...". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  26. ↑ Boomer (2007-07-26). "2007 Emmys Confirmed Episode Submissions". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2007-08-22. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  27. ↑ "DGA Announces Nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in All Categories for 2007". Directors Guild of America. 2008-01-10. Archived from the original on January 28, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
  28. ↑ "DGA Award Winners and Special Award Recipients". Directors Guild of America. 2008-01-26. Archived from the original on January 31, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
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