After last week's stellar episode, 'Meadowlands' (to me at least) feels like a bit of a comedown. Don't get me wrong, it's still good, but I found some of the writing in this episode to be a tad clunkier than usual. That being said, this episode has some significant milestones for the series. The hypnotic dream sequence at the beginning is the first of many to come, and this episode is also the first to really put an emphasis on A.J. over Meadow. With regard to the dream sequence, there's a lot of good stuff going on (the Melfi and Livia comparison, A.J. peeping through the door, Jackie's foreboding speech), but I've never understood why the newspaper that Paulie is reading is in Japanese. It's not the only event in the episode that felt without purpose - Tony beating up Mikey Palmice is such an uncharacteristically blunt move that could have landed him a LOT of trouble and is a moment that seems to exist only to fill up a violence quota - this is supposed to be a mob show, after all(!)
This episode is quite an important one for Dr. Melfi, whose involvement with Tony begins to intervene with her personal life as he demands to know more about her. This intrusion comes in the form of the stereotypical bent cop, Detective Vin Makazian, as he beats up Dr. Melfi's date for little to no reason. Despite Melfi seeming to be on the ball at this point with regard to Tony's psychology, the two fairly obvious Freudian slips he makes as she explains the situation appear to go over her head.
Of course, this is not Melfi's only major purpose in this episode - she inadvertedly gives Tony some very strategic advice, leading Tony to reconsider quitting therapy. Of course, I am referring to Melfi telling Tony to give controlling elderly people the illusion of control, which he puts firmly into action by giving Junior the position of acting boss. This is definitely my favourite part of the episode and for me it is one of the defining moments in the season. Other moments I really liked include all of the scenes featuring Christopher and Adriana, Livia's never ending pessimism during her conversation with Tony, and Jackie's bittersweet funeral.
One final (rather petty) point: I can forgive the clichés of A.J.'s storyline here for the sake of important exposition and some great scenes for his character towards the end of the episode, but what I CANNOT forgive is how sloppily the Mario Kart scene was executed. I mean, the least they could've done was told James Gandolfini how to hold the controller properly!
This episode is quite an important one for Dr. Melfi, whose involvement with Tony begins to intervene with her personal life as he demands to know more about her. This intrusion comes in the form of the stereotypical bent cop, Detective Vin Makazian, as he beats up Dr. Melfi's date for little to no reason. Despite Melfi seeming to be on the ball at this point with regard to Tony's psychology, the two fairly obvious Freudian slips he makes as she explains the situation appear to go over her head.
Of course, this is not Melfi's only major purpose in this episode - she inadvertedly gives Tony some very strategic advice, leading Tony to reconsider quitting therapy. Of course, I am referring to Melfi telling Tony to give controlling elderly people the illusion of control, which he puts firmly into action by giving Junior the position of acting boss. This is definitely my favourite part of the episode and for me it is one of the defining moments in the season. Other moments I really liked include all of the scenes featuring Christopher and Adriana, Livia's never ending pessimism during her conversation with Tony, and Jackie's bittersweet funeral.
One final (rather petty) point: I can forgive the clichés of A.J.'s storyline here for the sake of important exposition and some great scenes for his character towards the end of the episode, but what I CANNOT forgive is how sloppily the Mario Kart scene was executed. I mean, the least they could've done was told James Gandolfini how to hold the controller properly!