had this yapfest written in my notes so might as well, will probably drop the ones on the rest of stretch later if i feel like it - I’m already scared for what’s going to come next, this episode was phenomenal. Easily top 2/3 in the show so far for me, could be my Christopher bias speaking though. But this episode truly reminded me why he might be my favorite deuteragonist of all time in horrifying fashion SPOILERS All the way back in 2x7 Christopher’s destiny was sealed, by his own choice. Tony gave him the option to continue his dream by becoming a film writer or to stay with the crew and live the mafia life, as the two simply cannot co exist. After sitting down outside on Tony’s stairs to contemplate both, he ultimately decides to return inside and accept his life as a member of the mob, indirectly setting his final fate in stone But the practically unmatched storytelling of this show doesn’t end there, in that SAME episode, AJ’s future throughout this one was foretold as well. On the front surface it seemed like he was just going through a phase of puberty, asking about “what’s the meaning in life” and why people exist on this earth while God himself is dead, but in reality it was him realizing the fate of humanity, the only thing all humans are equal in, death. Both of these events directly foreshadow the ones they go through in this episode, 7 years later, with both of them taking up the main focus of the episode once again. Their ascension into what in “their world” is supposed to be the bare minimum of manlihood and the contrasting actions they had to take to reach that point as both of them suffer from depression 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢 “Where’s my arc?” You can’t have an arc if nothing changes you. They all made fun of him and his lifestyle. Mocked his rehabilitation, pressured him back into his old self, telling him to “get a drink” knowing damn well he’s working the program et cetera, never truly understanding his situation and constantly trying to reset his progress And still, having multiple chances to actually escape the mafia life, he never did and stayed loyal. He even gave up the love of his life for these guys, yet never got any sort of appreciation for doing so. Instead they’ve continued to loathe, neglect, resent and straight up disrespect him at any possibly moment “I think that’s when the relationship between me and him got poisoned” Deep down they’ve resented him all along. “The boss’s cousin”, a title which in their eyes was the reason why he rose up the ranks so quickly as well as the reason why they continuously kept tormenting him throughout his entire career in the mob. Over time as he got older and grew more unstable he slowly lost that relationship, trust and most importantly protection from Tony, which only made him an easier victim of amusement for them In the end it lead to one of the most horrifying scenes I’ve ever seen in television. Fuck I even knew the laughing scene was going to happen towards Chris but that was simply evil incarnate. The moment he realized he didn’t have a single real friend inside the entire room, the realization they’re laughing AT him and not WITH him 💔 Easily the saddest scene in the show so far What by far hurt him the most and pushed him over the edge though, was seeing Tony laugh. The guy who he sees as a 2nd father figure ever since his real one was gone, the guy who taught him everything he knows, the guy who he’s going to hell for. Once he saw that, he truly broke and finally realized the wrong decisions he’s made. It’s such an incredibly powerful scene, take the hypocrisy shown from Tony for example. Just imagine if those same words about Chris’s daughter were ever said towards Tony regarding Meadow, what do you think would’ve happened to Paulie then? Not to mention it directly parallels to Tony’s own realization of that same fact in 5x4, though in exactly opposite situations. There, they’re laughing with him, not at him. But he realized that they were just laughing with him out of fear, because he’s the boss and weren’t actually his friends, while Christopher realized they were just laughing at him out of spite because they didn’t actually care about him at all… Though i feel like because he was drunk, his perspective of the entire moment is somewhat warped. There’s simply no way I could believe that a man like Bobby (especially after the events that took place in 6x13) would laugh at a joke like that no matter the circumstances. But it shows how he’s fully accepted and given up on the mafia life, knowing he can never leave it Like i said at the start, i’m so fucking scared about what’s going to happen with the way he started speaking before Dolan. It wont take long anymore until he decides to start using frequently again. With the way he poured his heart out to him, then was forced to kill him for the same reason he’s so destroyed in the first place. Dolan saying “Chris, you’re in the mafia” was the thing that finally set him off, not the fact that he gave him way too much information and was too dangerous to be left alive. No, those words were a due reminder to him of the life that he chose back in 2x7 and can now never escape 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐲 “ 𝐀.𝐉.” 𝐒𝐨𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐨 AJ also ends up going through a phase of depression, though their methods of handling it differ completely although ironically half of the origin comes from the same alleyway. Though the Soprano men certainly have something in common. In their lives with many wrong decisions, 1 good thing did come out of it. Their women, but this time it doesn't work out that way. On one hand Carmela fully accepted and understood the life her husband lives (in a way, but that’s a convo for another day) but on the other Blanca simply cannot. Atleast this time Tony does acknowledge the part he played in the cause of his son’s depression “My rotten, fucking, putrid genes have infected my kid's soul.” realizing that just like he himself, AJ never had the opportunity to form his own lifestyle, he was also born into it. But unlike Tony’s parents did to him by turning a blind eye to it all, he decides to try and finally end the cycle of depression. Unlike with Chris where he directly caused and continued to encourage his regression But how much good will acknowledging you’re part of the problem really have? The only possible solution he had is distracting AJ with the things he enjoys himself, never asking AJ what he wanted. Now think to yourself: is this going to solve the problem, or inflate it even further? AJ was starting to show extremely suicidal behavior, even bringing back his now further developed ideology from 2x7. Unlike his father who has no sympathy for any form of human life, he’s grown a deep interest in the subject which only makes him even more sad. He can’t accept the fact that he can’t do anything about the pain and the suffering in the world and it keeps bothering him throughout his entire life, as he keeps seeing more and more of it right in front of him. Once his father got hurt, he tried to take out the reason behind his pain and suffering to no avail, proving that he simply cannot solve the issue at hand. Not to mention it’s the sole advocate behind his lifestyle (how his father earns his money), and once Blanca found out, she couldn’t live with that for the rest of her lifetime, only furthering AJ’s feelings about the situation He was only 15 years old when those thoughts started to appear inside of his mind, you have to realize what type of an influence that could be on a young teenager going through puberty. I was surprised that it didn’t go any further back then, but that’s most likely because he’s been suppressing them all along, just like what his father is trying to make him do now As a young man having those thoughts, he hadn’t lived enough yet to fully verify the reality behind those words. At the time, there was no one else supporting him during his moment of need, so who else to ask but the oldest & “unjudging” person he knows, Livia. So that’s exactly what he did, which only further backed his belief as she does the unreasonable thing of making him embrace those ideas in the most negative way she could think of, because that’s just the type of person she is Who knows how much of a lasting effect Livia's words had on him back then, after all just look at what they did to his father. Someone who's practically on their death bed, reaffirming your negative thoughts? Now imagine all those thoughts resurfacing again years later, when he's had time to confirm it for himself too, I didn't expect him to get over it so easily nor do i actually think that it truly is over. Depression doesn't end that quickly, especially not by simple distractions. But obviously when Tony and Carmela see him doing better, they're satisfied. They're not gonna look further for a deeper meaning, he has a therapist, he has new friends, he has the distractions. There's no possible way anything serious could happen anymore, right?