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Mob Experts on The Sopranos, Week 9

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Is There Such a Thing as a Gay Mobster?

By Jeffrey GoldbergPosted Monday, May 3, 2004, at 3:46 PM ET

Last year, each new episode of The Sopranos was analyzed by a group of shrinks; this year, each week two mob experts will discuss the lives and squabbles of America's favorite gangsters.

Dear Jerry,

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You know, it's funny—I bet if Jerry Shargel were here, he would say that there's no such thing as a gay mobster. Or a mobster, for that matter, but that's another issue. (I'm picking on Jerry S. a lot today, did you notice? We better invite him back next week, so he can give some back.) Jerry S. is right about one thing, I'm afraid—no mob boss would whine as much as Tony's whining lately. I can't picture the boss of a Family telling anyone, even God, "I had a fight with my mother and I fainted. That's why I missed the hijacking job." I can't imagine myself admitting such a thing. Of course, I always go early to hijackings, in order to get a good seat.

You watch Deadwood? It seems so dreary to me.

I'm confused about something: Do you think Vito was trying to make Finn his, you should pardon the expression, bitch? I didn't think the scene outside the porta-john was communicating that, exactly. (But the undercurrent was there, of course, given what we now know about Vito.) I thought he was making a classic gangster move: simultaneously buying Finn off and intimidating him into silence. Though I suppose, given my knowledge of the dynamics of bitch-making—knowledge derived entirely from watching repeats of Oz (a show that makes The Sopranos look like The Gilmore Girls)—intimidation is the point of the sexual act.

I'll say this for Finn: It seems as if he proposed to Meadow just to get her to shut up (message to all the kids out there: Never propose marriage at 4 a.m.), but it could also be that he read the situation in a smarter way and knew that he needed to come into Tony's family in order to seek protection from a gay hit man.

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I like your notion, that Carmela is going to take scissors to Tony's manhood (a term, given all his weeping, I use advisedly). But it still seems more likely, given both the cleverness of the writing and the bleakness of the show's world view, that the series concludes with Carmela dead by Tony's hand. If you've noticed, the one crime David Chase won't let Tony commit is spousal abuse (the physical kind, obviously, not the verbal). He's done everything else in creation, except hit Carmela. He's punched walls, and he's loomed—he's a great loomer—but he's never punched her in the face. So it makes sense for Tony to cross that bridge in the very last episode, next season. Of course, this is just rampant, ignorant speculation.

I remember the Greg Scarpa case. Did his crew ever find out who donated the infected blood? Or did they institute their own version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?

Jeff

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