TV ScopeThe Sopranos, Network 2, Tuesdays 9.30 p.m.The Sopranos is a lot more than a series with a Mafia angle catering for our preoccupation with the criminal and violent underbelly of society. There is of course plenty of both, but it is the internal moral conflict of Tony Soprano, the head of the mob family, which makes this series superior to others of its kind.
In his excellent, dense script David Chase provides us, through Tony, with a character we can identify with.
In Tony's struggle to reconcile his need to be loved with the violence he engages in as a mob head, we identify with our own emotional neediness and the pressures of being all things to all people.
We may hate what he does but we like him and we care about what happens to him. His struggle has given rise to the mobster and his therapist sub plot which has been a constant thread throughout the last four series.
Through this sub plot, we gain useful insight into therapy. In the Tony/Dr Melfi relationship the myth that therapy involves a one way relationship is realistically dispelled. (i.e. troubled person attends neutral person who mysteriously cures them).
In her conversations with her own therapist, Dr Melfi mirrors our conflicting feelings about Tony.
She is not immune to his charms and she acknowledges that she found him somewhat sexy and exciting while also being repelled by his promiscuity and violent lifestyle.
However, she responded to the professional challenge in which the freedom of the client to tell everything is linked to the potential of the therapist to hear everything even that which is difficult to hear.
Tony, in turn, responded to Dr Melfi's capacity to hear by ridding himself of the burden of the betrayals and violence he had perpetrated on others.
He sees in Dr Melfi someone he could have an ideal relationship with. This is based on his belief that in her he had found someone who accepts him in his totality.
He is used to getting what he wants, especially with women, and he then puts pressure on Dr Melfi to have a personal relationship with him.
She responds by shattering his illusions in her distinction between the professional and the personal. In the professional relationship she did not judge him but in a personal relationship she could not remain silent about her disapproval of his values and behaviours.
Tony's response to this rejection is in keeping with his chameleon character; he switches instantly from romantic suitor to abusive thug and storms out.
His angry departure brought him no relief; he was then without both wife and therapist.
His wife knew best how to tread on his Achilles heel. "They go around complementing you - do you think they really care? You're the boss. They are scared of you. They have to kiss your ass and laugh at your stupid jokes."
In last week's episode, as was inevitable, he returns to Dr Melfi: Who else could he trust to tell how sexually attracted he was to Adrienne? - in spite of the dangers of such a relationship as demonstrated in Adrienne's suspicious fiance completely losing it this week.
Who else but Dr Melfi can tell him it as it is? "If you can't keep it in your pants, you will have to stay away from her."
We await with interest to see if Dr Melfi will be the one he can't stay away from, if he is to assuage his inner demons.
Oliver Travers is a clinical psychologist