My Review of "Sopranos: Season 4"

Sopranos: Season 4 happened back in 2002 and I'm only catching up now. I'm going on a bit of a Sopranos binge lately but it's a lot longer than I had anticipated. Each episode is around an hour long with 13 episodes per season.

This season starts off just where season 3 had left off. The family has changed a lot. Us as viewers are really peeling the onion layers of each of the characters and this show is starting to getting more delicious after every bite.

After the events of season 3 Tony is rightfully getting increasingly paranoid. It seems that there's an agenda with everyone that surrounds him. Within his family there is some friction between the parents and the children. AJ in particular is starting to reach the pinnacle of his teen angst against his parents. There's no more options other than to ship him off to military school.

I think in this season Tony starts to see that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. It's kind of an exploration of how each generation feeds to the next. Tony had grown up differently because of his mobster boss and he is learning that it had an affect on his psyche. That's probably why Tony doesn't want AJ to follow in his footsteps.

The problem is that Tony can see a lot of him in his son. His son has pretty much learned a lot of his behavior in the household. Tony is an unchecked man that does whatever he wants with minor repercussions from his wife Carmela.

This season really tests their bond of marriage. There's some crazy stuff that happens closer to the end of this season that will rock the foundation of his marriage. That's not to say Tony didn't bring it upon himself. Still this kind of goes back to how he had learned bad behaviors from his father and is essentially teaching it to his children.

On the mobster side of Tony's life a hell of a lot of stuff is happening. Ralphie has been protected for so long because of how well he helps the group financially. All of this is thrown out the window when tempers flare and egos are crushed.

We're seeing a lot more egos being tested and in a testosterone driven group this only spells a recipe for disaster. There are a lot of major moves happening within the mob group and it's very fun to see how they psychologically play war tactics with one another. In the last season you saw a lot of betrayal but this season kind of sets up for more potential betrayals. This season is basically putting a whole bunch of gunfire ready for a big explosion.

I was excited to see what else could possibly go wrong and they keep throwing curve balls at me. I'm loving it because I can play out so many possible scenarios in my head of how these minor storylines will come to fruition. This is part of the beauty of this series. It sort of works like Game of Thrones where you watch an episode and you play out multiple possibilities. They're great with the pacing of these sudden clues that they drop at us throughout the season.

Now that each of the characters are more fleshed out we can really understand how the wheels will work for the next possible episode. We have our wildcards like Tony's sister Janice. She's after another man but this time it might just work out. The problem is that we've seen in the past that she can be quite manipulative especially when she's not happy.

We also have a new powerful wildcard in Paulie. After the craziness of season 3, Tony is understandably apprehensive of Paulie's loyalty in this season. Although, Paulie thinks of himself as loyal to Tony there is a fire in him that is ready to burn. His ego can only take so much until he explodes in anger.

I love what they did with Christopher's character. There are so many potential falls for him from multiple angles. His girlfriend Adriana is loyal to him but she gets herself into some heat that may endanger the whole family. He has also done things in previous seasons that may come back to haunt him. I can't wait for those issues to come up in future seasons. Luckily for him they finally get him the help he needs in order to become sober from drugs.

In the earlier seasons we see Tony have a relationship with his psychologist Dr. Melfi. I felt that was a great way for the audience to learn more about each of the characters and motivations. This season they dialed back on their relationship because we pretty much know our characters pretty well. Still Dr. Melfi's help didn't go unnoticed. I feel that she's going to be a crucial part of Tony's life in future seasons.

The end of the season feels like things are finally starting to reach the pinnacle of the show. I recognize that this show was only on for 6 seasons so I'm really excited to see what happens next.

Overall, I really loved this season. They had a ton of great surprises that I could kind of see happening but I didn't realize the method they were going to do it. There's a ton of fun nods at mobster movies with some of the scenes. This show is really starting to shine. I have to give this season a 9 out of 10. It's actually got me amped up to continue binging!