Finished watching Season 7 last week and it's a lot better than I remember it being the first time. And that's funny, because I really enjoyed it the first time. Oh well. This show is officially second in my eyes to The Wire in cable programming. It leapfrogged The Sopranos halfway through its run and has stayed there so far. I just started re-watching The Sopranos yesterday, so we'll see how it goes.

Highlights:
The culmination of all of Vic's dirty deeds and how it would ultimately affect Vic and everyone who remained standing after the previous seasons.
Michael Chiklis cemented himself as one of the best and underused actors I've every seen. I still can't get over the fact that this guy isn't on a show right now, as we speak. I don't know if the guy can do accents or not, but if he can, he should be the next villain on "24". If not, he should be the next Curtis on 24.

Same for Walton Goggins. The man played Shane as tone of the least sympathetic, but at the same time pathetic characters I've ever seen on any show. I never liked Shane as a person, but Goggins made his ruthlessness, cowardliness and genuine love and affection for his loved ones so clear. I remember being anxious for Shane and Mara to get either arrested or killed the first time I watched the finale. This time, knowing what was coming, I really felt sorry for the guy.

Shane tried to be like Vic, but he lacked one thing Vic was able to demand--respect. No matter how wrong or crooked Vic was, even if the people he double and triple-crossed hated his guts or didn't trust him, they respected him. No one respected or feared Shane. From the time Two-Man gave him up to Dutch and Billings to the time when Shane himself realized he and Mara had no one was going to help them get out of trouble, Goggins made you believe all of the chaos Shane had created and wasn't able to escape from. I'd put that performance up next to Andre Braugher on Homicide, Andre Royo as Bubs on The Wire and Keifer Sutherland as Jack Bauer on the all time greats of television list.

CCH Pounder vs. Michael Chiklis in the interrogation room in the finale. Chiklis didn't have a line and Pounder did all of the talking, but this scene summed up the entire series to a tee. Claudette was able to let Vic know that he might have had immunity, but everyone knew everything he had done and even though he was officially off the hook legally, he'd have to live with the fact that he lost the respect he held so dearly.

The hilarity of Dutch and Billings. If there was any way to keep the show going focusing on these two, I'd be all for it.

There were no major dislikes in this season. The schizophrenia of Cassidy (and Cassidy in general) was annoying, but she's a teenager, so it's to be expected. Even Corrine's whiny ass shined in this season, maybe because she actually had a reason to be whiny.

A+

It may take a while, but I'll get around to a Sopranos post when I finish the first season.



<----My debut album cover


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