‘Sopranos’ returns with haunting kickoff

COMMENTARY

By Frazier Moore

updated 6:56 p.m. ET March 7, 2006

NEW YORK - Warning: Possible spoilers for "Sopranos" premiere.

So one FBI agent says to another, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”

Out of the blue, this is the first thing heard in the first episode of the long-awaited return of HBO’s “The Sopranos.”

Why is a Fed quoting H.L. Mencken? If you’ve been counting the minutes until 9 p.m. ET Sunday, you need pay no mind to such a question. Or to this column either, beyond its observation that the new “Sopranos” season looks to be the strongest, most penetrating yet.

Enough said. Sunday’s premiere, titled “Members Only,” should be seen in its pure state, and yours, free of any advance skinny. That’s how I viewed it. Since then I have watched it three more times. It’s that good, from its eerie start to its startling climax. I only wish I could see it for the first time again.

There. Consider the preceding your spoiler alert.

The episode’s initial sequence, as mesmerizing as anything “The Sopranos” has framed in its five prior years, is a slyly disjointed succession of images — or what seems disjointed on first viewing. But what lies beneath is a fluid foreshadowing of the season ahead.

As the hour wears on, it seems Tony’s universe is breaking down.

Let Tony (played by James Gandolfini) pay lip service to his current run of luck — no, it’s “more than luck,” he boasts. In almost the same breath he confides a gnawing fear to his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco), adding, “Why do you think I toss at night? It ain’t just the apnea.”

But “Sopranos” mastermind David Chase and his creative team haven’t upped the tension level so much as introduced a whole new algorithm for conjuring dread.

“I’m worried,” Carmela tells a friend.

“Everybody worries,” her friend replies.

“No,” persists Carmela. “I am worried all the time.”

Let the characters worry. For the viewer, it’s thrilling to behold. It’s a rush.

Mommy dearest
Since Season Five’s conclusion in June 2004, roughly 18 months have passed in “Sopranos” Time as life goes on:

—Tony’s sister Janice (Aida Turturro) and her mobster-hubby Bobby Bacala (Steve R. Schirripa) have had a baby daughter.

—Carmela grows curious what happened to Adriana, whom no one has heard from, as Carmela notes, “for over a year” (around the time poor Ade was executed on Tony’s orders for having been an FBI informant).

—Tony’s hothead nephew Christopher (Michael Imperioli), who was Adriana’s fiance until playing his role in her disappearing act, is on the wagon (again) and all the more foul-tempered for his booze-and-drugs abstinence.

—And if you weren’t otherwise convinced that the world of Tony Soprano had been rocked in its moorings, ponder this: He and Carmela are hooked on Japanese cuisine. On the first episode, Tony dines out once on pasta, but three times on sushi.

“I don’t know about you, but ever since we found this place I catch myself fantasizing about this,” says Carmela as she savors a bite of eel.

“Me, too,” says Tony, grinning. “Sometimes during sex.”

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