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Hi,
Let me try a half assed dream interpretation. In the first dream,
Ralphie, Carmela, Gloria and Peg-Leg represent parts of Tony's psyche.
Tony himself in the dream is the all seeing "inner eye", the conscience
that sees all despite all our attempts to lie to ourselves.
Carmela represents Tony's emotions. Ralphie represents intellect, and
the goomars together represent base animal desires. So, Tony's
emotions/impulses are driving and he's getting nowhere. The intellect
is in the passenger seat dying. In the back seat, which is reserved
for those of lesser status, animalistic urges dominate and serve the
purpose of distracting Tony's conscience from the hopelessness of his
life.
The caterpillar turning to butterfly reminded me of Hamlet's Soliloquy
because it was on the head of Ralphie, one who is dead. Death is
"a comsummation devoutly to be wish'd". Tony's not happy. He
gets plenty of sex, but that's all in a ploy to distract himself from
the fact that he's letting his emotions drive him nowhere.
So, now cut to the second dream. The car is stopped, life has ended.
That's why Tony speaks with an accent because he is in an "Undiscovered
country". And the woman is some fearful creature of the dream of
"sleep of death". David Chase is a learned man. So, he must at least
have thought of the parallel between Hamlet's soliloquy and this episode.
Tony will not kill himself because the fear of the unknown gives him
pause.
We all know Tony lets his emotions have the run of his psyche because
being honest with himself and letting Ralphie (the intellect) take over
and get his life back on course is a gruesome prospect. It would require
Tony to face too many ugly truths from which he's been hiding all of his
adult life.
Tony was unfair to Dr. Melfi. Impulse control will only come after
Tony has addressed the fundamental issues plaguing his life. His violent
emotional outbursts are what are called defense mechanisms. They are
largely involuntary reactions to truths he is not willing to face.
Tony has to face the ugly truths in order to get impulse control. So,
in the final analysis, Tony really only wanted psychoanalysis for the
drugs and other band-aids. Also, his relationship with Dr. Melfi was the
only meaningful one where issues are meaningfully discussed. If you look
at Tony's interactions with others, it's always Tony giving unconditional
orders or Tony getting into shouting matches which resolve nothing. Tony
does not want to throw away the only non-superficial relationship in his
life, but not at the price of giving up a life of crime. The life of
crime inevitably leads to lying to himself and wearing two faces, and Dr.
Melfi tugged at the fabric of Tony's convoluted patch-work self image a
little too hard. Tony was afraid of his life unravelling like a cheap
sweater. His ending his counseling with Dr. Melfi was yet another
defense mechanism designed to prevent himself from facing ugly truths.
There was more death related stuff in this episode, but I didn't manage
to catch it I guess partly because death is not my favorite subject.
As for Carmine and Johnny Saks, the only way it makes sense to me is
if Carmine is playing Johnny. Johnny is the emotional one. He doesn't
show it, and therefore he keeps his emotions bottled up and allow them
to eat away at him. Emotional people can be played. I don't have such
a good read on Carmine, but I do not think that he is stupid enough to
think that he can win a war with North Jersey. North Jersey organization
is not weak. What I think Carmine is trying to do is have Tony get rid
of Johnny Saks for him. After all Johnny conveniently lives in Jersey.
I think that Johnny's death will be the end of the war between the two
crime families. Otherwise, the whole thing about roughing up the
appraiser makes no sense. He's not the only appraiser in Jersey willing
to play ball!
One more thing. Paulie will get whacked before this season is out.
Do you remember Tony's dream from a few seasons ago?
thanks
Jae
posted by 172.191.15...
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