HOME / tv club: Talking television.

The Sopranos: Week 10, Season 3

Missing the Therapeutic Boat

Posted Tuesday, May 1, 2001, at 11:07 AM ET

Dear Margaret,

Point well taken. The "way in" would have been through the conflict over Jackie, in which all of the contradictions in Tony's life have come back to haunt him. I think that my thesis about Pussy as the "return of the repressed" is true, but, as you say, the conflict is also embodied in Jackie Jr. And not only does the conflict about Jackie Jr. touch the loving part of Tony deeply, but it is also on a more therapeutically manageable scale than Pussy's execution.

I think the writers have done a very clever thing here. We've all been meditating about the conflict between therapy and morality. And in this episode Jennifer--who has also obviously been obsessing over the issue--has the moral question dumped into her lap. But, as you argue, she is so eager to take it up, she misses the actual therapeutic point of entrée and thereby misses the opportunity to move toward it in a way that would have been tolerable for Tony.

Joel

Missing the Therapeutic Boat

Posted Tuesday, May 1, 2001, at 11:07 AM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTEmail to a FriendE-MAILShare This ArticleRECOMMEND...Get Slate RSS FeedsRSS
This spring, Slate will ask Dr. Melfi's real-life counterparts to examine developments on The Sopranos. Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., is a professor of psychoanalysis at the Menninger Clinic and co-author of Psychiatry and the Cinema. Philip A. Ringstrom, Ph.D., Psy.D., is an analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and a full-time practitioner. Joel Whitebook, a practicing analyst in New York, is on the faculty of the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Margaret Crastnopol, Ph.D., is on the faculty of the Northwest Center for Psychoanalysis and a practicing psychologist/psychoanalyst in Seattle. Click here to comment on Sunday night's episode and here to read this series from the beginning.
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
TODAY'S PICTURES
TODAY'S CARTOONS
TODAY'S DOONESBURY
TODAY'S VIDEO
Gorgeous gowns.2/091211_TP.jpg
Cartoonists' take on climate change.31/091211_TC.jpg
Driving Mr. Fiddy.87/091211_TD.jpg