That's why, until recently, season four of The Sopranos [Sundays, HBO, 9:00 p.m.] has been a major snooze-a-thon. I mean, c'mon! These guys are goombahs, for the love of Mike! Where's the violence? Oh, suuuuuure, there's been the occasional nose-breaking, bitch-slapping, and belt-whupping, but where were all the cap-busting-off-in-asses scenes? Go ahead! Call me a bloodthirsty monster! But by living vicariously through the murders of others, I have not killed one single jerk here at the office. And in fact, my stress level has dropped 48 percent! (Granted, this also happened around the time I started taking Prozac, but don't stop me! I'm on a roll!)
Anyhoo, The Sopranos have been about as interesting as the skin floating on a bowl of clam chowder--until two episodes ago! That's when the show snapped awake and gave us the goriest, most bloodsoaked-a-rrific episode of the season... featuring the death of the skeezy Ralphie Cifaretto (played by "King of Skeez" Joe Pantoliano). Ralphie has always been an embarrassment to the organization; he killed one of Tony's favorite strippers at the Bada Bing!, and his sexual preferences lean toward the unusual (i.e., having Tony's sister Janice stick a buzzy vibrator inside his "boom-boom room," and asking his partners to work on his nutsack with a cheese grater). However! Ralphie always brought in a lot of moolah for the organization, and as I always say to Grandma around Christmas, "Fork it over, baggy britches! Money talks and bull-poop walks!"
And because he was raking in the dough-re-mi, Ralphie was put on a long leash--that is, until he bit the wrong ankle. In order to pay for his son's hospital bill, Ralphie torched a horse stable to collect the insurance. The problem? Tony's pretty pony was in the stable! And as any Sopranos-lover knows, if there's anything Tony loves more than duckies? It's horsies.
So guess who shows up in Ralphie's kitchen? Tony Soprano, bearing a case of whup-ass. Naturally, he thrashes the life out of him in a particularly bloody fashion, and has his second-in-command Christopher (who's coming down off a heroin high--nice!) chop up the pieces and drop them in a bowling bag. And the real tragedy in all this? It was a perfectly good bowling bag!!
And herein lies the moral of our tale: A little violence here and there ain't gonna kill ya. However, putting a hit out on a goombah's horsie probably will.