Season 2 (2000)¶
At a glance¶
- Episodes
- 13
- Aired
- January 16 – April 9, 2000
- Avg. viewers
- 6.62 million
- Metacritic
- 97
- Emmys
- James Gandolfini, Lead Actor
- Golden Globes
- Gandolfini; Falco; Nancy Marchand, Supporting Actress
Three o'clock in the morning… you were sleeping with the fishes.
The audience nearly doubled, and the show responded by building its first proper season-long arc: somebody close to Tony is an informant, and the audience knows who before Tony does.
Episodes¶
| # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist's Office… | Allen Coulter | Jason Cahill | Jan 16, 2000 |
| 15 | Do Not Resuscitate | Martin Bruestle | Robin Green, Mitchell Burgess & Frank Renzulli | Jan 23, 2000 |
| 16 | Toodle-Fucking-Oo | Lee Tamahori | Frank Renzulli | Jan 30, 2000 |
| 17 | Commendatori | Tim Van Patten | David Chase | Feb 6, 2000 |
| 18 | Big Girls Don't Cry | Tim Van Patten | Terence Winter | Feb 13, 2000 |
| 19 | The Happy Wanderer | John Patterson | Frank Renzulli | Feb 20, 2000 |
| 20 | D-Girl | Allen Coulter | Todd A. Kessler | Feb 27, 2000 |
| 21 | Full Leather Jacket | Allen Coulter | Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess | Mar 5, 2000 |
| 22 | From Where to Eternity | Henry J. Bronchtein | Michael Imperioli | Mar 12, 2000 |
| 23 | Bust Out | John Patterson | Frank Renzulli, Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess | Mar 19, 2000 |
| 24 | House Arrest | Tim Van Patten | Terence Winter | Mar 26, 2000 |
| 25 | The Knight in White Satin Armor | Allen Coulter | Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess | Apr 2, 2000 |
| 26 | Funhouse | John Patterson | David Chase & Todd A. Kessler | Apr 9, 2000 |
The season¶
Three threads, braided.
Big Pussy is wearing a wire. He disappeared at the end of season one; he comes back in episode two with a story about his back. The audience learns the truth in "From Where to Eternity"; Tony doesn't confirm it until the finale. The whole season is watching a man have dinner with someone he's going to have to kill.
Richie Aprile comes home. Jackie's brother is out after ten years, and he cannot accept that the business changed while he was inside. He is a genuinely frightening piece of writing — a man whose sense of grievance is total, whose leather jacket is a legal document, and who gets involved with Janice, which turns out to be the most dangerous thing he does.
Tony's world professionalizes. He brings Furio back from Naples. Bust Out — the systematic looting of Davey Scatino's sporting goods store through a credit line until it's a husk — is the clearest, coldest procedural explanation of how the business actually works.
"Funhouse"¶
The finale, and one of the show's formal high points.
Tony gets food poisoning from bad Indian takeout and spends most of the episode in a fever, dreaming. In the dreams he already knows what he has spent thirteen episodes refusing to know, and a talking fish on a boardwalk — in Big Pussy's voice — tells him so.
He wakes up, and he and Silvio and Paulie take Pussy out on the boat.
The scene that follows is a good candidate for the show's best. Pussy knows. Tony knows. Everyone is polite about it. He asks not to be shot in the face. Afterward the men are quiet on the ride back, and Tony throws up over the side.
Then the episode cuts to Meadow's high school graduation party, and the last sequence intercuts the family celebrating with the crew going about their business, scored to The Rolling Stones' "Thru and Thru" — an ending Chase has cited as one of his favorites in the series.
Also notable¶
"D-Girl" (S2E20) — Christopher goes to Hollywood, meets a development executive, and finds out he's a story someone else wants to option. The show's first sustained joke at the expense of its own genre.
"Commendatori" (S2E17) — Tony, Paulie, and Christopher go to Naples. Tony discovers the old country doesn't operate the way the mythology said, and that the actual boss over there is a woman.
"The Happy Wanderer" (S2E19) — the Executive Game. Davey Scatino gambles himself into ruin at a card table while Tony watches, and the episode's real subject is Tony's contempt for civilians who want to be near the life.
Reception¶
Metacritic 97; Rotten Tomatoes 94%. James Gandolfini won his first Emmy for Lead Actor. Golden Globes went to Gandolfini, Falco, and Nancy Marchand for Supporting Actress — Marchand's only major win for Livia, and her last. She died on June 18, 2000, two months after the finale aired.
The show also received its first Peabody Award for this stretch.