113: I Dream Of Jeannie Cusamano, With Laremy Legel

This week on Pod Yourself A Gun, we're discussing episode 13, "I Dream Of Jeannie Cusamano," the season one finale of the Sopranos and thus the season one finale of Pod Yourself A Gun. In this episode, all of the Sopranos biggest season one storylines come to a head, and many to a resolution. Tony finds out his mother and uncle conspired to try to have him whacked. Carmela realizes Father Phil is a fuckboi. Dr. Melfi puts her cards on the table and tells Tony what she suspects about his mother. Tony becomes a physical threat to Dr. Melfi. Tony removes a suspected snitch from his crew and comes clean to his remaining guys about seeing a shrink.

In one of season one's best episodes and arguably one of the best season finales of any show, we get a culmination of the themes introduced with a few intriguing questions left to explore. It seems to come from a time when prestige TV seemed to think it owed us more in terms of catharsis and closure. It ranges from dramatic and thrilling (Jimmy Altieri's death, Tony flipping the table on Dr. Melfi) to introspective and psychological (Carmela calling out Father Phil, Livia's psychosomatic dementia) to the kind of comedy that really only the Sopranos could do and maybe hasn't been done the same since (Mikey Palmice's death scene, one of the greatest in TV history, and one of the best lines in the show, "cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this!").

To discuss this week's episode, our guest is Laremy Legel, former critic at Film.com, author of Film Critic, long time friend of the pod and Matt and Vince's co-star in Whoop Dreams, a documentary about the Gathering Of The Juggalos. He joins your regular hosts, Matt Lieb from Good Mythical Morning, The Star Wars Show, and Newsbroke on AJ+ and Vince Mancini, Senior Film And Culture writer at Uproxx. Please enjoy, but if you don't, as always, va fongool.

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