“Irregular Around the Margins” Review
Grade: A
“Bizarre Love Triangle”
So often do I marvel at The Sopranos’ impeccable writing and character development that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the actors who actually bring the series to life. The performances of the ensemble cast are in fact so great that I forget they’re just playing a role. It’s a testament to the all-encompassing nature of the show — Tony Soprano is James Gandolfini, and vice versa.
To tell the truth, pretty much every single scene of The Sopranos is lifelike and believable, whether the characters are just shooting the shit or shooting each other. But every so often there comes an episode that goes above and beyond in the acting department and completely transcends television itself. “Irregular Around the Margins” is one such installment.
Gandolfini’s performance — along with Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano — is deserving of all the accolades and has already been much discussed on Colin’s Review. But the supporting actors and actresses are just as important. In “Irregular Around the Margins,” both Michael Imperioli and Drea de Matteo step up to deliver a master class and deservingly win Emmy awards for their work.
Adriana La Cerva has been The Sopranos’ most tragic and sympathetic character ever since she was forced to become an unwilling FBI informant at the beginning of season four. Due to her predicament, she purposely isolates herself from everyone else — including her abusive fiancé Christopher Moltisanti (although that’s probably a good thing). She even develops irritable bowel syndrome from all the stress.
Meanwhile, Tony has been a tragic figure ever since his initial panic attack in the series’ very first episode. Our sympathy for him has slowly decreased ever since, yet we still want to believe that he’d save Adriana if given the chance. For perhaps the first time all series, the two share several scenes together, bonding in the back room at the Crazy Horse (i.e., snorting cocaine and talking about their personal lives).
Of course, one thing almost leads to another, and a sexually charged moment leads Tony back to therapy with a guilty conscience, where Melfi commends him for not acting on his urges. Soon enough, however, Tony and Adriana are alone again in a car together, driving up to Dover to score more coke. But just when you think “Irregular Around the Margins” is going one way, the installment takes a far more interesting turn — Tony and Adriana get into a car crash.
The “will they, won’t they?” scenario of Tony and Adriana sleeping together now takes a back seat. Everyone assumes they already did anyway — or, in a hilarious game of gangster’s telephone, everyone surmises that oral sex caused the accident — which soon sets Chris off on a bloodthirsty quest for revenge. He falls off the wagon, beats Adriana and shows up at the Bada Bing threatening Tony with a gun.
It’s another one of The Sopranos’ classic conundrums in which the viewer is unable to discern who is right and who is wrong. Yes, nothing happened between Tony and Adriana, but we can only assume something would’ve happened at some point. Yet we can’t take Chris’ side of the argument either. He proves himself to be chronically irredeemable — brutally beating Adriana (one of the episode’s most realistically harrowing scenes) and selfishly thinking about his street reputation over everything else (he’s unconcerned that she almost died in the crash).
Nevertheless, we can praise Imperioli’s performance. We’ve never seen Chris this unhinged before, and Imperioli makes every scornful action believable. Likewise, de Matteo plays Adriana with strength and subtlety. She’s perhaps the only innocent character on the series, which also makes her the most helpless, yet de Matteo’s acting is never overly sentimental. We feel sorry for Adriana, yet there’s also a sense of hope, especially when she delivers the coldest line of the hour: “If it had’ve been Christopher alone in the car with a woman, I would’ve killed him.”
As with the acting, the writing also remains top-notch. “Irregular Around the Margins” is filled with suspense, as we’re left wondering what action a volatile Chris might take. Ultimately, he’s subdued before he can do any real damage (he fired all his bullets into Tony’s parked car before entering the Bada Bing), but then the tension quickly shifts to what action an angry Tony might take. In one of the season’s best sequences, Chris is given a true intervention — threatened at gunpoint in the middle of a windy field at night.
The atmosphere of the scene is terrific, with cars’ headlights being the only natural source of brightness, while heavy winds (which is always symbolic of death in The Sopranos) provide a foreboding ambience. For first-time viewers, this truly seems like the end of the line for Chris. Luckily for him, Tony Blundetto intervenes, proves that the injuries Adriana sustained imply an upright position during the accident (i.e., not going down on Tony) and all crises are momentarily averted.
But the damage has already been done. In a sense, “Irregular Around the Margins” is the end of the line for Chris. His relationship with Adriana is irreparable, as is any future partnership with Tony. He’s been on a steady descent ever since season two, has already hit rock bottom once, and now has officially reached the point of no return.
The final scene of the episode is similarly despairing, as Tony, Carmela, Chris and Adriana (and Tony B and his mother) go to dinner at Nuovo Vesuvio’s to publicly save face. In the end, it’s all about propping up their fragile masculinity and dispelling any rumors of what the other guys might think. For instance, Chris felt more betrayed by Tony than Adriana. And Carmela once again is complicit in Tony’s business — protecting her “family” by bailing out the man who cheats on her at every opportunity and drags her name through the mud.
Fitting that the episode closes with the same Giacomo Puccini aria that played during Tony’s initial panic attack as the ducks flew away from his pool. Despite the superficial dinner arrangement, he’s lost his family forever. The meaning is still the same. It’s another reason why “Irregular Around the Margins” is so terrific — after an hour of intense action and suspense, The Sopranos also gives us plenty of food for thought.
STRAY ROUNDS
- Tony and Adriana have been symbolically paralleled several times throughout the series — “Pie-O-My” ended with Tony at peace sitting with a racehorse while Adriana was in a depressed heroin stupor with her dog; in “The Strong, Silent Type,” both Tony and Adriana mourn the loss of their beloved animals; and in “Irregular Around the Margins,” Adriana suffers from IBS while Tony has a cancerous mole removed from his forehead.
- Even though the cancerous mole is removed from Tony’s forehead, it’s a little on-the-nose when it comes to metaphors. We’re already well aware of his toxic influence and how he infects everyone he comes into contact with. Nevertheless, removing the mole is symbolic of him controlling his urges when it comes to Adriana. After all, he doesn’t actually do anything morally wrong this episode.
- Then again, we can probably assume something would’ve happened between Tony and Adriana. For instance, since when does Tony do hard drugs? A cocaine-fueled affair was highly likely. And it’s just as likely that Tony was actually going to kill Chris until Tony B intervened. As always with The Sopranos, the emphasis is on the ambiguity.
- The FBI mercilessly uses the potential affair as a way for Adriana to get closer to Tony. It’s no coincidence that Agent Deborah Ciccerone (ugh…the worst) is also featured in that montage of all the gangster’s speculating about the accident.
- Adriana seems much more comfortable talking with Agent Sanseverino this episode. In fact, Adriana also seems to be much more casual when asking questions to Chris and Tony about the business (she asks Tony for Chris’ new cell number and asks Chris about the stolen items he is shipping). Perhaps she was being swayed toward becoming a good informant? Either way, her curiosity is derailed by the car accident. Who knows how her storyline would’ve played out if things turned out differently.
- A hilarious scene: after arguing with Carmela while holding a pizza, Tony throws it on the ground and storms out. But after a few moments, he storms back in and reclaims his dinner.
- Carmela agreeing to attend the dinner with Tony is pretty much the nail in the coffin: they are going to get back together at some point. It’s the point of no return for her, as well.
- Another recurring visual motif is Chris looking in the mirror. In a previous episode, he was in a heroin stupor while observing his own obscured face (barely recognizable). In “Irregular Around the Margins,” he and Adriana are noticeably on opposite sides of each other (permanently disconnected).
- Remember how much ado was made about Uncle Junior going down on his mistress? The stupidity of toxic masculinity is always on full display in The Sopranos. Case in point: Chris is more concerned with his reputation than his relationships.
- “Irregular Around the Margins” was written by Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess and directed by Allen Coulter.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
- “If you think I’m gonna blow this guy for your sick purposes you are sadly mistaken.”
- “It would be like committing an act of symbolic incest.”
- “She’s a knockout. A 10. And look at you. Your average at best.”
- “You’d f**k a catcher’s mitt.”
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