So what do you think?

I am usually one, during the course of this show, to remain in a state of perpetual confusion about the Mob stories. I can never remember who’s who especially when the New York families get involved. It’s pathetic.

(Like with guy whose funeral was tonight. I’m going to have to sit down and make a chart to figure out who he belonged to, who had him killed and why anyone cared.)

(And don’t even get me started on Deadwood. All those moustaches look exactly the same.)

So, normally, I’m okay with the other, small “f” family sublots. I can tell them apart with ease. But even I am wondering just a bit about this season.

An example…3/4 of the way through tonight’s episode, I had to go upstairs to tend to Joseph. Meadow and her boyfriend were talking. I came down what seemed to me to be hours later. They were still talking. What?

But, on the other hand, the weight of this season’s trope seems just terrifically heavy: everyone – every single one of these miserable people – is laboring under the most extreme delusions. Tony imagines himself a tough guy, a real live mobster, when actually he’s not (and I don’t mean he’s a sweet teddybear. I mean his just a weak jerk). Carmella – well, her fantasy is long-lived and seemingly unshakeable – that her lifestyle is deserved and that it’s compatible with her proclaimed values. Meadow had clearly fallen tonight, with her speech to the boyfriend about the omerta in the old country. And it just extends to the rest of them, in subtle and obvious ways.

To me, that’s overwhelming everything else this season – it’s like there is a big bubble over all of them that is slowly, slowly cracking. And I just want it to shatter, and see if Chase brings us any real consequences.

(And by the way…did anyone else think Meadow’s boyfriend was inspired to propose by his sudden fear for his life, and the intuition that if he was part of the family, he couldn’t be harmed?)

More serious matters tomorrow. Maybe. I am in the last stages of going over this manuscript, and it keeps me in such a state of constant fury, though, I dunno….