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The Sopranos - The Complete Fourth SeasonRating:
Release Date: 28 October, 2003 Retail Price: $99.98 OUR Price: $69.99 You SAVE: $29.99! Cast: |
The Sopranos - The Complete Fourth Season Reviews
The Sopranos: Season Four
After the third season of "The Sopranos" finished airing in May 2001, the mob series went on a long hiatus for 16 months. Then the show returned to the air for its fourth season in September 2002. And the wait was worth it. Season four of "The Sopranos" was as effective as it's three previous seasons (though still not up there with the memorable first season). The acting, writing, and directing is still top-notch in season four. The show got 13 Emmy nominations for its fourth season. The strong acting by James Gandolfini and Edie Falco paid off again: both won their third Emmys for Best Actor and Actress in a Drama Series, and deservedly so (Gandolfini won previously for seasons two and three; Falco won previously for seasons one and three). This was thanks in part to the final episode of season four, titled "Whitecaps". This is the episode where Carmela decides that she's had enough of Tony's philandering and stands up to him by throwing him out of their house. Falco has done alot of great acting on "The Sopranos", but her performance in this episode is easily her best. Also winning an Emmy for season four was Joe Pantoliano, who won for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his chilling role as the psychopathic Ralph, and the writing team again was honored with an Emmy for the third time in the show's history. Other memorable storylines from season four include: Christopher fighting a massive drug addiction; Uncle Junior's trial; Carmela's major attraction to Tony's driver Furio (a character introduced back in season two); and Adriana finding out that her new friend actually works for the FBI. "The Sopranos" has never disappointed since it hit the airwaves in 1999, and season four continues to be proof of that.
Simply Brilliant
Whenever I get into watching the Sopranos, I find myself thinking about them all the time, as if their lives were more real and vivid than my own. It astonishes me that characters whose experience is so different from my own, basically violent ill-educated thugs and their dames, can be given such humanity. I think the fascination comes from the contrast between the criminal underside of the Soprano family and the comfortable domesticity of their life in the suburbs, where (for example, in this season) they confront such ordinary problems as their daughter's first apartment and the tiny rift caused by the sophistication of her Columbia education.
No episode exemplifies this dichotomy more than the shocking ninth episode "Whoever Did This" -- the episode that brings an end to the sordid career of the sociopathic Ralphie. I don't want to ruin this one for a viewer who has not watched the season, but suffice it to say that Tony's contradictions are here on full display; never is he more violent, or in a more sentimental cause. For sure, Tony is evil (Ralph's head in a bag proves it). But he's still human enough for us to believe that someone like Carmela and his children can legitimately love and care about him. What a trick these writers have!
The fourth season is my favorite because it is the season where this tension between domestic comfort and violence is the most dramatic, and not only in the ninth episode. This is really Tony's and Carmela's season, as the secrets deepen and their lives begin to veer apart hopelessly, the season when the tension becomes too much until it erupts when Carmela confronts Tony with evidence of his infidelity. Edie Falco is unbelievably good in that scene in the final episode "Whitecaps," and James Gandolfino ain't bad either.
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