Sopranos Season Six - Began with a Bang?

The Sopranos started off a little unpredictable. I wasn't exactly sure of what to expect since Season Five's Season Finale. Tony is back together with Carmella and everything seems pretty good. Tony buys her a new car after a nice dinner at their "special" place. A large point in Episode one was Eugene trying to get out of the "business". The only way he could leave to Florida was to take out a bad Debtor. Christopher promised Eugene he would put in a good word to Tony for him. Silv didn't give Eugene such great news as he told him Florida was out and that once he's here he stays. With a death on his conscience and just about everything going wrong for Eugene he decides to hang himself.

As Tony busts in on Janice and Bacala he sees Janice is way to busy to watch him so Tony has to take matters into his own hands and says "#@%$ it, you want something done, do it yourself. Back at the house Tony makes dinner when Junior shows up with a gun and shockingly shoots Tony in the stomach. Apparantly thinking he was someone else Junior goes up in his room and hides in the closet. With Tony lying on the floor he struggles to make it to a phone to call 911. Tony just lies there unconscience.

After watching Episode one we all knew what the next episode would be about. We have been introduced to the "Dream" episode before and would probably be forced to watch one again, since there really is no way around it. Tony's shot and there has to be an episode dedicated to what's going to happen to him. Perhaps the main tagline in Episode 2 was "I'm 46 years old. I mean who am I? Where am I going?" It all starts off with Tony in a hotel room heading to a bar for a drink. He calls home and gets the answering machine with his two kids on the the other line. They don't sound like Meadow and AJ but Tony smiles anyway and leaves a message. Trying to go to a press conference he takes out his ID and shows it to the lady but it isn't his ID, it's a guy named Kevin Finnerty, a solar heating systems saleman from Arizona. It looks a lot like Tony but isn't. Tony then calls home and a women, not Carmela, answers the phone.

A group of people come over to Tony and invite him to eat with them. At first he declines but then goes over. After dinners over you see Tony kissing the lady that he saw at dinner until the lady stops Tony and says "This isn't going to happen... I saw your face when you got cut off the phone with your wife." Right after a helicopter hovers over Tony, and he looks directly into the searchlight, and is all of the sudden in th hospital struggling for his life. Doctors are trying to pin him down as he wonders "Where am I"? "What's going on"?

The news isn't too great as Tony's "other" family waits in the distance to find out how he is. Meanwhile in Tony's "other" life, or his dream, however you want to put it he checks into another hotel with Kevin Finnerty's credit card and waits for an elevator to go upstairs. He is encountered by two monks that think Tony is Kevin by saying "We had a horrible winter at the monastary because of your heating system." One of them then slaps Tony and they run away before Tony can find out anything about this Kevin Finnerty guy.

Meanwhile back in prison, the psychologist is trying to ask Junior some questions but he just mocks every question being thrown at him. One of the questions were asking about if he shot Tony intentionaly, but Junior just answered by saying "If somebody shot my nephew it was him himself. He's a depression case." Back at the hospital the doctor tells Carmela to talk to Tony and to play his favorite music. This actually helps people in a coma. Carmella tells Tony "I know that you're really strong, as strong as a bull." She is telling him on and on that he is going to get through this. Carmella then apologizes to Tony for all the bad she has said about him going to hell, etc. She tells Tony that he isn't going to hell. Anthony Jr. stops at the hospital to visit his father, who he couldn't bare to see at all before.

He starts talking about Hybrid cars, etc and stays the night with his comatose father. Towards morning he gets up and promises to his father that he will get revenge on Uncle Junior and that "I'm gonna put a bullet in his f%$*^ng mummy head." Carmella then thanks Anthony Jr. for staying with his father until he tells him mother he flunked out of school. Her mood suddenly changes and says "With your father in a coma?" Meanwhile back in dreamland Tony falls down the stairs as walking right past a note that says the elevator is down, he tries it anyway. Tony wakes up in a hospital and is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. There is nothing the doctors can do so they tell him to rest. He then goes back to his hotel room and stares at the phone, but can't get up to call home. Towards the end of the episode he looks out the window and see's this bright light moving back and forth.

Now... There are many possible ways the next episode can go. Some possibilities in my opinion and others are that dreamland Tony is his real life and he's finally beginning to realize that maybe he had Alzheimers before the doctor diagnosed him and he forgot his identity that way? Or perhaps it isn't a dream at all... You ask how that can happen? Well he is in a coma and half dead at the moment, so it could very well be that Tony is in Purgatory, as everything makes perfect sense. He did stare at a fire in the woods and a bright light through the window right in the sunset.

This symbolizes Heaven (the light), and Hell (the fire). He even see's signs of life and death on signs all in his dream, and briefly grabs his heart as he's walking out of the building. Originally in the episode preview they said he forgot his identity, but then when we watch the episode, he took someone else's wallet and briefcase. He didn't forget his identity that way unless perhaps all of that "stuff" is his? This is some very complicated information but it could definitely pan out the way many of us are thinking. Only the producers know and we will have to certainly find out in the upcoming weeks. I can't wait!