“Eloise” Review
Grade: A-
“How To Marry a Millionaire”
Despite running for six seasons, The Sopranos can be neatly divided into three distinct acts. For example, the first three seasons establish the foundations, while seasons five and six serve as the extended climax. In between, season four represents a series in transition — a coda to the past and a prelude to the future.
It is at once The Sopranos’ most frustrating and rewarding season — frustrating because of the minimalist slow-burn aesthetic; rewarding due to the intricacies that are revealed upon repeated viewing. It’s no surprise that season four’s main themes include isolation, uncertainty and disconnection.
Take “Eloise,” for example: although it is the season’s penultimate episode, there is hardly a sense of finality. The installment bears more similarities to “No Show” than it does with next week’s “Whitecaps.” Nevertheless, the tensions that have been simmering throughout the year continue to grow — Carmela’s self-contained infatuation with Furio Giunta reaches the point of no return, Meadow’s maturation into an adult puts her at odds with her mother, and the disagreements between the New Jersey and New York crime families are ready to boil over.
Without therapy, Tony Soprano now complains to anyone who will listen, including airing out his Carmela-related frustrations to Furio, the Italian henchman who is hopelessly in love with the boss’ wife. Of course, Tony’s dismissive attitude has also caused Carmela to reciprocate Furio’s lovelorn feelings. She even plans a date for the two of them. Meanwhile, Furio contemplates pushing Tony into a helicopter propeller.
Due to a combination of drunkenness and selfishness, Tony remains ignorantly unaware of these developments. Besides, he’s preoccupied by the feud with New York City over the Esplanade project, which — in a stunning change-of-heart from Johnny Sack — could lead to a resolution via assassinating Carmine Lupertazzi.
For the most part, however, “Eloise” shows things from Carmela’s perspective. She’s heartbroken when Furio suddenly returns to Italy, and she spends the rest of the episode jealous that Meadow is doing so well for herself (a new boyfriend, a bright future and the freedom to make her own decisions). Meadow has finally been liberated, while Carmela remains more trapped than ever.
At the end of the episode, when an ignorant Tony asks Carmela if this isn’t everything she ever wanted, she responds in a blank emotionless tone: “Yes.”
Whether it’s Carmela feeling undervalued, Tony undervaluing everyone else or Paulie Gualtieri going unrecognized, nothing much has changed since the series began. Case in point: Carmela and Meadow argue and are just as hostile to each other as they were back in the pilot. The unchanging nature of the characters makes “Eloise” a perfect representation of season four’s intentional “aimlessness.” And while it might not feel like a great set-up for next week’s finale, the episode works perfectly within the season’s unpredictable structure.
Most of all, “Eloise” benefits from great editing. Although this is a busy installment with several subplots both superfluous and substantial, the episode never feels too cluttered. Despite the disjointed awkwardness of several scenes (notably the family dinner at Meadow’s new apartment), “Eloise” is perfectly streamlined with great comedic timing. Even Carmela’s depression is played for laughs, which purposely removes all feeling from the storyline, a recurring trend this season.
With all emotion relentlessly drained away over the course of the last 12 chapters, the growing malaise has become quite palpable. In this regard, “Eloise” is actually a perfect penultimate episode — the passionless calm before next week’s emotional storm.
Once again, audience expectations are up-ended and series creator David Chase subverts typical television convention. But this time he even subverts typical Sopranos convention: the action is centered around Carmela rather than Tony, which provides a clue to where next week’s finale will end up and how we should have been viewing season four all along. As a result, “Eloise” is somewhat disorienting despite being a necessary sidestep to reach the finish line.
STRAY ROUNDS
- The episode takes its name from Carmela and Meadow’s longstanding tradition of having lunch at the Plaza Hotel underneath the portrait of Eloise. Just as it was back in the pilot episode, the lunch meeting is an unmitigated disaster.
- The Furio storyline was never a favorite of mine, mostly due to the fact that Furio doesn’t have much depth as a character. No matter how drunk Tony was, I think he’d still remember their scuffle on the helicopter pad. All in all, Furio was just a plot device to set up Carmela’s actions in the season finale. This is his last appearance in the entire series, and his point-of-no-return with his love for Carmela is exactly that: he decides to leave for Italy and never return to New Jersey ever again.
- Meadow’s roommates are super awkward, but at least their clumsiness is played to comedic effect. They don’t realize how cringeworthy they are, which is exactly how college kids who think they’ve got everything figured out would act.
- We are also introduced to Meadow’s new boyfriend, Finn De Trolio, a dental student. Even though Meadow continues to be annoying despite her newfound sense of direction, we should be commending her for her actions (especially since her dating history includes Noah Tannenbaum and Jackie Aprile, Jr.). She’s been able to put the past behind her and has seemingly become a responsible woman.
- Meadow and Carmela’s heated argument begins with disagreeing over the homoerotic subtext in Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, of all things. Later on in the episode, AJ Soprano is reading Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, another story that can be seen as homoerotic.
- The most amusing storyline of “Eloise” belongs to Paulie, who spends the episode driving around his elderly mother and her “friends” from the nursing home. He later finds out that Johnny Sack has been playing him for information (Carmine Lupertazzi doesn’t even know who Paulie is), and so he murders and robs an old lady to get back in Tony’s good graces. Ever since “Pine Barrens,” Paulie has been floundering with his identity.
- “Eloise” was written by Terence Winter and directed by James Hyman.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
- “Have you thought about flooring yet?”
- “Some men have to move at their own pace.”
- “You’re a wormy cocksucker, you know that?”
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