Surfing Through "The Sopranos"

Blogger is taking forever to post, today.And "The Sopranos" is taking forever to grind its way to the finale. Last week we watched a closeted Mafioso go antiquing. This week, we wasted a lot of time on the restaurant owner. Even more boringly, we wasted time with a new, even minor character -- his Albanian hostess who flirts with a mobster, rips off Amex card numbers for a scam, seems ashamed when found out and then lashes out. Who cares? We've never spent two minutes before with her. Just like last week we watched the gaf Mafia guy presumably consider suicide (though the actor is so weak it's hard to tell), this week we watched the restaurant guy melt down. But how many shots of an empty restauarant do we need to see to get the idea? And the dialogue! I paraphrase, but "We lead the world in data collection!" and the wife's comment about his swearing, "When you swear you give them the moral high ground" or whatever. Good God. Also, Michael's trip to LA was a waste of time. Fine, he nastily confronts Ben Kingsley over the swag he gets -- but since Kingsley was never going to make his movie anyway, it wasn't a scene with any consequence, just a time killer. (Though it was admittedly fun to see Lauren Bacall get clocked by Michael so he could steal her gift basket.) Finally, in a depressing echo of last week's final moment, this week ended with the two least important characters of all -- the two Italian hitmen who are seen sitting in a plane heading home and comparing the gifts they'd bought. How is this interesting or important in any way? Why are we even spending another moment with these guys, much less watching them look at the watches and pens they bought and discussing the exchange rate? Ridiculous.