“All Happy Families…” Review
Grade: A-
“All happy families are alike…”
In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy writes: “All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This passage serves as the namesake for the fourth episode of The Sopranos season five, an episode which also finds Carmela Soprano being compared to Madame Bovary. Yet despite being rife with canonical literary allusions, “All Happy Families…” is a hilarious lighthearted installment that pokes fun at New Jersey’s most dysfunctional family.
Then again, the comparison to Bovary is apt. For the Sopranos, the regularness of life is just too hard. They find trouble at every turn, yet it’s trouble they crave.
Case in point is Feech La Manna, the elderly ex-con who quickly gets involved in extortion, petty larceny, grand theft auto, etc. and eventually finds his way back to prison. And then there’s AJ Soprano, who copes with his parents’ divorce with expensive gifts and teenage defiance — anything to avoid newfound responsibility and work ethic.
So, sure, every character on the series is privileged and bored and refuses to learn any lesson or take any accountability. But that’s what makes “All Happy Families…” so entertaining. Throw in another executive poker game, and these are the ingredients for a Sopranos comedy classic.
The only unfunny aspect of “All Happy Families” are Tony’s jokes. But everyone laughs anyway. That’s because, as Carmela explains to him so bluntly, his friends are just flunkies. They’ll do anything to kiss his ass, and even though Tony is hurt by the realization, he knows it’s the truth. After all, he’s running a business, not a popularity contest. But, well, deep down, he’s running a popularity contest too. That’s why Tony sends Feech — the only one not to laugh at his jokes — back to prison.
Out of all the new characters introduced so far in season five, Feech has been the most magnetic. That’s mainly due to the larger-than-life and gruff-beyond-belief persona of 74-year-old actor Robert Loggia (of Scarface, Big and Lost Highway fame). Nevertheless, it’s clear the selfish old-school Feech will become a problem for Tony à la Richie Aprile. As entertaining as Feech is, The Sopranos has already done this storyline before, and so it’s nice to see Feech back on the prison bus (Christopher Moltisanti sets him up with stolen TVs just in time for a “surprise” parole visit), never to be seen or heard from again.
Anyway, there’ll be bigger fish to fry than Feech — the New Jersey crew isn’t the only unhappy crime Family. Elsewhere, the power struggle in New York City claims its first major victim, as Lorraine Calluzzo is killed in her home for not adhering to new leadership. Eliminating her is another smart choice for The Sopranos, considering she was the most uninteresting and out-of-place new addition. We don’t even feel sorry for her when she’s gunned down wearing nothing but a towel. In fact, keeping with the episode’s humorous nature, her death is morbidly funny.
The main unhappy family the episode examines is of course the Sopranos, who have no idea how to adapt to divorce, coparenting, coming of age and pretty much every other aspect of day-to-day life. This means that Tony and Carmela’s terrible parenting skills are on full display: Tony buys AJ a new car as a motivational tool to improve his grades; Carmela competes with Tony by allowing AJ to stay overnight in NYC after attending a concert. And AJ remains the most undisciplined kid in TV history, constantly disrespecting his mother and disappointing his father at every turn.
All that being said, the episode’s main strength lies in its ability to illicit laughs from all this dysfunction. The more agitated Tony becomes (with his wife, his son, his capos, etc.), the funnier he gets — it’s absolutely hysterical when he jumps to the crazed conclusion that AJ is having a relationship with his high school guidance counselor centered around “poppers and weird sex.” Tony’s often the funniest guy in the room when he’s not actively trying to be.
But the episode’s sympathies belong to Carmela, who is hit the hardest by the separation. Her children blame her (as does Tony, despite the fact that it was Tony’s affairs that caused the whole ordeal), and now she’s lonelier than ever. After kicking AJ out of the house due to bad behavior, a poignant final scene shows her entering the empty family home, which now looks so hollow and cavernous.
Just before Carmela opens the front door, she has a quick flashback (almost a hallucination) to a young AJ riding a toy bike down the driveway. A youthful Carmela calls out, but no one is there to hear. Back in the present, she stands there in shock, desperate for what she once had — a relatively happy family — even if she’ll have to eventually sacrifice her newfound independence to get it back.
Although Tony remains a constant (and inescapable) presence in her life, Carmela is starting to exercise that newfound independence. She goes on a sort-of-date with Robert Wegler (AJ’s aforementioned guidance counselor), the first time she’s explored a potential new relationship since last season’s infatuation with Furio Giunta. And she’s also holding her ground amidst constant disagreements with her husband and son (and daughter, occasionally). This is Carmela’s chance to grow and mature and, dare I say it, change. But this being The Sopranos — and based on that yearnful final scene — we can make a fair assumption of how that will turn out.
So, yes, “All Happy Families” is an episode that makes us think about the nature of family and what makes everyone so unique and so similar in their successes, their failures and their moral beliefs. But the installment’s main claim to fame is being one of the funniest Sopranos episodes in a while. This perfect combination of the high and the low, the sacred and the propane, is why the series is so consistently great.
STRAY ROUNDS
- Tony has a few mini-panic attacks this episode (induced by arguments with Feech and Carmela), suggesting that his anxiety has reached a point where he’ll need therapy sooner rather than later. His daily life, which is relatively “boring” in this episode, has become too routine, too easy. He sends an apology gift basket to Dr. Melfi’s office as a form of ablution.
- Apparently Tony smuggled his cousin Tony Blundetto’s sperm out of jail so he could have kids. “It was the least I could do,” says Tony S. Fortunately, this bit of Soprano family history is not expanded on any further.
- More family history, though it’s the only story Feech hates re-telling: the time a young Tony and Jackie Aprile Sr. robbed Feech’s card game (the executive poker game, in fact). It helped put Tony on the fast track to being made, but if you want to hear the full account, Ralph Cifaretto already told us back in season three.
- Several big names in this episode. Aside from the aforementioned Frankie Valli playing an actual character, we get to see Lawrence Taylor and David Lee Roth at the executive poker game.
- While sitting at the Crazy Horse, Tony silently points out a song on the speakers to Silvio Dante. It’s “Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive” by Little Steven and the Lost Boys, the real-life band of actor Steven Van Zandt. Overall, there are quite a few instances of The Sopranos crossing over to the “real world” in this episode.
- Feech is always eating something interesting. In “All Happy Families…” he treats himself to some New Zealand peaches, and in a previous episode he fixed a dandelion salad.
- Carmela is instantly attracted to Mr. Wegler’s cultured intelligence, but he’s played as The Sopranos‘ typical pretentious intellectual. It’s a bit of an insult to compare Carmela to Emma Bovary, especially on a “date,” no? Luckily, she’s never heard of the book.
- Wegler’s Review of Madame Bovary: “It’s almost a perfect novel. Flaubert writes about bourgeois loneliness, emptiness. Emma Bovary destroys herself for some fantasy in her head. It’s great, truly great. Somehow horrifically funny though tragic. I think you might enjoy it.”
- “All Happy Families…” was written by Toni Kalem and directed by Rodrigo García. Kalem plays Angie Bonpensiero on the series, making her and Michael Imperioli the only cast members to contribute to the show’s screenwriting.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
- “Jason don’t put pinecones in the filter! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
- “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type?”
- “Gary Cooper wasn’t a 16-year-old boy.”
- “He was at one time.”
- “You’re the boss. They’re scared of you. They have to kiss your ass. Laugh at your stupid jokes.”
- “What do I have to send you a memo every time I move my bowels too?”
- “Did I learn nothing from Richie Aprile?”
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