Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
Fast Learner said:
Chrissie died the same drug addict and movie-making wannabe he had always been. Nothing really changed for him. (He would have been made no matter what.) It is why Tony had to off him. He knew he wouldn't change. I think they showed AJ curled up in a ball crying, taking a job Tony set up for him, and going out with a child specifically to show he hadn't grown. Meadow still isn't sure she is on the right path job-wise (questioning the compliments her boss had given her), is dating someone her parents had said they did not approve of, and was talking to her old girlfriend Hunter about hHunter's medical career. I think they brought Hunter back as a vehicle to specifically to show that Meadow might yet switch back to medicine from law.
The whole thing with Melfi the previous episode was to show that Tony had not grown and was likely incapable of doing so. I suppose you could say that Melfi has grown, since she found the strength to dump Tony as a patient, but I get the feeling she only did that because of the peer pressure, which has always been her Achilles heel (her therapist pushed that button constantly). And all of her peers were always jealous of the work she was doing and somewhat awed by the whole mobster mystique, which is why they went out of their way to denigrate her work and cajole her into abandoning it. They weren't growing nowhere.
Paulie was sort of forced to grow by making him agree to take a crew, but we do not really know if he ever goes through with it. If the show continued he would probably back out and Patsy would wind up as Captain of that rabble.
They make a point of showing our favorite FBI agent cheering on the NJ guys when news comes in of the Shah's demise. He always had a problem with being too close to the dark side and admiring them a bit (partly because it felt less important than being on the Five NY Families case), so nothing changed for him.
Bobby was on the verge of growing, so they offed him. Because of his death, Janice is back to her old tricks.
They had Hesh's wife die a couple of eps back just so we would know there was no happy ending in his future beyond the end of the show. He'll die miserable, whether he dies alone or gets surly because of the loss of his wife and mouths off one time too many.
Syl probably will not recover.
Who else is left? I must be missing a bunch of fairly regular characters.
