The Sopranos, "The Sopranos": Sometimes life is good

The Sopranos premiered on January 10, 1999 and was the beginning of HBO's biggest and most important show. My review/recap of the first episode after I watch the ducks try to fly.

The episode opens with Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) visiting psychiatrist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) after collapsing. It is clear that Tony does not want to be there and doesn't think he collapsed from a panic attack. He tells Melfi about the day that he collapsed.

Tony tells Melfi about the stress of his business life, which he tells her he is in waste management. He feels that he has come in at the end of something, and he reminisces of past times. He tells her about a family of ducks that nested in his pool and that he had been taking care of them, and that his wife Carmela (Edie Falco) and daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Singler) are not getting along, and that he has to train his "nephew" Christopher (Michael Imperioli) in the "family business." Dr. Melfi stops Tony and tells him about doctor-patient confidentiality, but that she has to report if she hears of a violent act. Tony talks about his life, but keeps the violent details to himself.

Tony tells Melfi about the troubles of him mother Livia (Nancy Marchand), who may have dementia and refuses to move into a retirement home. At his son A.J.'s (Robert Iler) birthday party, Livia does not come, which leads to the episode's funniest line, said by 13-year-old A.J. ("So what? No fucking ziti now?"). While Tony is barbecuing, he sees the ducks fly away, which causing him to have his panic attack and collapse. Melfi gets Tony to admit that he is in fact depressed but he storms out after trying to connect his depression with the ducks.

The next day, the Soprano family, along with Livia, take a tour of a retirement home. Livia starts yelling after she sees the nursing home part of the retirement home, and Tony collapses. Tony has an MRI. There he gets nostalgic with Carmela, which leads to an argument, which leads Carmela to say, "The difference between you and I is that you're going to Hell when you die."

At his next appointment with Dr. Melfi, Tony opens up more and tells her about a dream he had where a bird steals his penis. Melfi suggests that Tony was projected his love of his family onto the family of ducks living in his pool.

Other big storylines:

• Christopher kills Emil, the representative of Triboro Towers garbage, a Czech waste management company trying to move in to the Soprano families Barone Sanitation.
• Tony's Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) wants to kill "Little Pussy" Malanga in Tony's childhood friend Artie Bucco's (John Ventimiglia) restaurant. Tony tries intervening, first by asking Junior not to do it at Artie's restaurant, then by giving Artie tickets on a cruise thus closing the restaurant, and then finally have his right-hand man Silvio (Steven Van Zandt) to blow the restaurant up. Junior is angry at Tony for interfering with him, and floats the idea of "eliminating" Tony to Livia, who does not necessarily try and stop him.

This episode is a great pilot for a show, especially with so many characters. Tony is able to introduce all of the characters and their personalities to the audience by telling Dr. Melfi about them. It also sets up several storylines, including Tony having problems with his family as well as his criminal family, and Junior being mad at Tony.

Be on the look out for Drea de Matteo, who plays a hostess in this episode, who goes on to play Christopher's girlfriend Adriana. Also the pork store that Tony uses to meet people and where Christopher kills Emil is named Centanni's Meat Market, which is a real store. Later, HBO acquired an abandoned building which became Satriale's Pork Store, which was used for the rest of the series.

Favorite scenes from this episode:

• Carmela running outside and holding the AK-47 on Meadow after she finds her trying to break into her room.
• "Big Pussy" (Vincent Pastore) and Hesh (Jerry Adler) intimidating Mahaffey on the bridge and Big Pussy throwing his ice cream cone off the bridge and into the water below.

Sign of the times January 1999: When Meadow is on her computer, the web site she tries to bring up takes a very long time to load (dial up Internet) and the famous 'You've got Mail" sound byte is heard.

One of the best shows of all time had one of the best pilot episodes. 85 more episodes to go.