Dear Peggy,
Well, I feel for you being the only female analyst on this panel. You’re in a bit of a double bind, perhaps letting down the PC feminist front if you don’t point out Melfi’s inadequacies, not to mention the misogynistic context in which they arise. On the other hand, let’s say you convince the writers of your correctness (God forbid): There goes the show. This is a drama about old world orders of power slowly crumbling in contexts that disintegrate their very mortar through persistent social and psychological analysis. Pathways of destruction begin when a Mafia Don goes for help to “get in touch with his feelings” or a parishioner (wife Carmela) confronts her parish priest, Father Phil, on his addiction to spiritually counseling his female flock so that he might get “a whiff of sexuality.” These institutional challenges are what made me a devotee from Episode 1. What if, for example, Jennifer were the perfect female shrink? I don’t think there would be much drama.
Meanwhile, is it possible your diatribe underestimates the powerful impact that she does have upon Tony, even given her ham-handed technique? Bear in mind that in the first year, she prevailed upon him in a way that made him call off the hit on the predatory high-school gym couch who was boffing Meadow’s teen-age girlfriend. Contrast that if you will with the other version of feminine power exhibited in Season 1, when Livia counsels her brother-in-law Uncle Junior to “straighten out” Christopher (AKA rough him up enough to put him in a neck brace) while sanctioning a hit on Christopher’s best friend. Women aren’t entirely weak sisters in this series. In Jennifer, Tony finds a powerful antidote to his homicidal mom. In Episode 6 he says to Jennifer, “…you’re gentle, not loud, sweet-sounding (long pause) like a mandolin.” Does he intimidate Jennifer? Sure. But guess what–she intimidates him, too. No, not physically, but by repeatedly getting inside his inner world in a manner that keeps bringing him back for more and more. That’s real power, no matter how clumsy our refined analytic sensibilities may find her technique. When analysts like you or Glen or Joel or I get in over our heads with a case like this, we fly to consultation. Let’s hope for the sake of the show that Jennifer doesn’t!
