The Sopranos Dream Episode.

This episode rolled out like a Fellini film, like Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries. According to the HBO site, it describes the dream like this:

" ... At the Plaza, Tony gets a voicemail message from Silvio that's as chilling as it is succinct: 'Angelo's gone.' While the old consigliere was out buying a big wheel for his grandchild, he was shot to death by Phil and Billy Leotardo. Suddenly Tony realizes why Tony B. was so agitated. 'I saw him this morning and he must've fuckin' known already,' Tony says over the phone to Paulie. Tony B. and Angelo became close friends in prison and Tony B. loved the old man like a father. Fearing the worst, Tony makes several more phone calls in an attempt to locate his cousin, with no results.

"Eventually, Tony settles in for the night. After availing himself of the services of an Asian call girl, he finally manages to fall into a fitful sleep. He has a long dream peopled with important individuals from throughout his life and culminating in an encounter with his high school football coach, Mr. Molinaro. In the dream, Tony points a gun at Coach Molinaro, who berates him for the company he keeps, the life choices he's made and his lack of preparedness. When Tony pulls the trigger, the gun's silencer goes limp; he pulls it again and the clip falls out. Just before he wakes up, Coach Molinaro tells him, 'You'll never shut me up.'"

Psychic trauma, Asia motif, dream: up until this moment, Tony has been getting ready for the big bang, the upcoming gangland bustup that will either validate all his mother's critiques of his masculinity and his ability to be effective in the world, or invalidate them, freeing his energies up. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this (probably), but could the Asian call girl symbolize the East, and Eastern non-linear thought (the entrance into the realm of dream)?

Coach Molinaro, like most of the characters in the dream (although, for the life of me, I don't know what Annette Benning means -- wife of Warren Beatty? Tamer of the male libido run amock?), accuses Tony of not being "man" enough, squandering his leadership abilities. And the horse (whores?) that Tony rides in on while visiting Carm ("we need to set up some ground rules ... I don't want to clean up after it"), is the symbol of Wild West Americana manhood, like the tv show they were watching, which, most probably, saturated his childhood.

The camera angle is always in an odd relation between Tony and Carm. Remember when he almost threw her in the pool after she drained it in passive-aggressive protest at his penurious ways with child and spousal support? Tony towered over her, like he did while on the horse, like Fellini's women tower over him.

Scrooge? To Carm Tony is, withholding money, withholding affection; but it looks like Tony will get back to her, just in time for the bust up with Johnny Sacks and the much anticipated Adriana whack job, whih looks like it may occur next week. They will both see the light. But if Tony is Scrooge, is Carm Tiny Tim?

And is Tony the Frankenstein monster that the crowd made him up to be? Like Janice last week when she threw down on the soccer mom? Janice tried to suppress her hostility in anger management, to not be a monster, to hold on to her marriage: but Tony let the monster out, and was happy.

But isn't depression rage turned inward, as Melfi might say. The Coach says, "You'll never shut me up," like the Reverend at the end of Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, who, beyond death, continues to haunt Alexander (Bergman).

What do you think?