Of course, I watched the Sopranos and Deadwood. Here are my not terribly literate impressions, for what they’re worth, which most certainly is zilch. Humor me. I can’t help myself.

The Sopranos

The Tony Blundetto (Steve Buschemi) character makes my skin crawl, particularly when he makes jokes. Buschemi is one of the very best actors at consistently being able to make my skin crawl.

I got a kick out of Christopher and Tony Blundetto spending time in the bucolic setting of his uncle’s country home for the sole purpose of locating and digging up bodies of previous hits in order to prevent a developer from finding them. Chris’s and Tony’s casual conversation as they smashed the uncovered human bones to smithereens with hammers was some seriously dark humor. Finally, I could not help notice the brief (about a second) shot of Chris holding the skull of the first body they unearthed (Chris’s first hit) and staring at it as if he were Hamlet looking at the skull of Yorick.

I could not believe that the Georgie, the sorry-ass bartender at the Bada-Bing (played by Frank Santorelli), got yet another serious beating, this time from Tony Soprano. Tony vented his rage on Georgie (Tony’s rage being a central theme in the episode) when poor Georgie didn’t show sufficient concern about the possibility that terrorists could import a bomb or even a really bad person inside a sea container. In earlier episodes, Tony gave Georgie a beating with a phone and Ralphie Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) smashed him in the face with a padlock on the end of a chain. The guy definitely needs a new gig.

Since last week’s episode, every time I see Vito in a scene, I become apprehensive that the business with Meadow’s boyfriend will be revisited. That whole thing could go any number of ways – all bad.

Is Tony’s gang really going to get screwed by Johnny Sack’s mob out of the hijacking of a future shipment of provolone – the good stuff? Tony has a load of business problems on his plate.

Tony’s sister Janice might just be the biggest piece of shit of them all. Tony’s evil, but successful prodding of her managed to undo all that she claimed her “anger management” therapy had accomplished. I think that Tony wanted to prove to himself that Janice was full of shit and that the anger management therapy wasn’t worth a damn, thereby satisfying himself that anger management is not something he should bother with.

As I continue to become involved with the characters, and come to be amused by them, and even, on a certain level, like them, I must regularly remind myself that they are anything but nice folks. Rather, they are lazy, stupid, violent, hardcore criminals.

Deadwood

Like Towdawg, I was glad to see Flora and Miles, the angel-faced grifters get their comeuppance, which ended with them being beaten, shot and served up as dinner for Mr. Wu’s pigs. However, I did not expect that it would happen so soon.

I was bummed when Trixie, “the whore,” could have taken advantage of Alma Garret’s offer and gotten out of town with a large chunk of change and a promise of future support. But, nooooooo. She waltzed back into the Gem saloon and back into Al’s bed (and with him in those never-washed long johns, yet). However, before hopping in the sack, she did give Al a smack in the face, which he did not return. What’s up with that? Al, the softy?

Finally, E.B. Farnum’s “bold” idea for killing Bullock while he slept included “steadying the ladder” while Dority was to climb up to the second floor to do shooting. His lickspittle, toady, scuzzoid, weasely character slays me.

Update: Thanks to John Shabe at NJ.com for correcting my spelling of “Blundetto.” I have fixed it in the text.