The second season produced several more, but unlike year one's "Last Rights for Lucci," none of them were purely stand alone episodes. Long term status quo changes were seeded in season two's one-offs. The most important going into the third season would have to be the buffer episode between Knox Pooley and Rag Trade, wherein Don Aiuppo returns from the Profitt arc's "Squeeze" to woo, marry, and eventually be "deported" to Sicily with Carlotta Terranova, our protagonist's mother.
The other love-interest seeding involved Vinnie starting a relationship with Amber Twine, one of two survivors of the second-season music arc. The pair started dating in two standalone episodes to close the second season. Though unrelated, they had a common topic of Vinnie's love life, and so they aired as a two-hour "movie" to close the second season titled "Le Lacrime d'amore."
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Episode 43: The Four-Letter Word (Le Lacrime d'amore, Part 1)
When establishing the home life of Vinnie and his mom, Wiseguy often stretched further for ethnic authenticity when compared to its contemporaries. But it could still throw out the occasional clunker, such as opening an installment with a full minute of gondola-poling accordion music that's apropos of absolutely nothing. Like now.
Because of the arc-heavy structure, Wiseguy seldom had to do the typical TV business of establishing A and B plots right off -- instead it tends to give over the first act to a belabored recap of the arc in progress. Again, not so here. This is a romantic comedy movie condensed to 46 minutes, and there's no time to waste.
Visiting with Amber Twine, we learn Isaac's will is in probate and when she does receive the estate, the IRS expects her to take after her late husband and attempt to evade that hefty federal inheritance tax.
 |
| Quicksilver massage time! |
We also learn that her lawyer is Terry Silver, the villainous douche from Karate Kid III, so you can expect he'll be up to no good.
At Vinnie's house, he's also being served by a footnote actor: Mike Starr, better known to mob-movie fans as Frenchy in Goodfellas -- and possibly the only member of that film's supporting cast who didn't land in even one episode of The Sopranos. Frenchy was a school friend of Pete, and "the best tight end" Vinnie had ever seen. TMI.
A-plot: VD Silver lays it out for Amber: a friend with a gangster rep is bad for Shakala Records. He demands that Amber formally disassociate himself with Vincent. And on the side, VD wouldn't mind hitting the widow Twine, either.
A-plot: Amber's free spirit friend is forced to stay with her while her sublet opens up. She's a typical romantic comedy plot device: FSF is here only to illustrate that being single on the wrong side of 40 is bad, bad, did I mention it's bad? Amber, having moved past widowed and now feeling single, is slow to take the lesson.
In the world of VD, we learn he represents Unidac industries, who have apparently pulled off an amazing corporate resurrection following their Profitt-orchestrated collapse in Player to be Named Now. They're on a tear of buying up the neighborhood (inasmuch as sky-scraping midtown Manhattan is "neighborhood"). Hmm, is this playing into the motives for VD pressing Amber to sell Shakala and its real estate?
Also a tie to the Profitt arc is that VD plays racquetball with fellow Unidac stooge and secret KGB operative who forced poor Herb Ketcher to shoot himself in Date with an Angel. I wonder if VD knows? Or maybe Wiseguy is just recycling bit-part actors again...
VD works some underhanded legal maneuvers to push Vinnie out, which just makes Vince work harder to stay in. Both Amber and Vinnie's friends know what's going to happen and gently nudge them in the same direction. In the end, VD's connections to Unidac are revealed to Amber, who gives us the pat Hollywood ending by deciding against selling Shakala.
To the surprise of no one, a roller-coaster of anger and jealousy ends with Vinnie and Amber hooking up. For a romance that for much of its short life defined the term "chemistry-free," in this episode it almost feels like a good move for the show.
Luckily for everyone, that doesn't last.
Then: n/a. --
Now: B
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Episode 44: Le Lacrime d'amore, part 2.
Using her Uncanny Italian Mother Sense, Carlotta deduces from a brief phone conversation that Vinnie finally, finally! has met a nice girl he wants to settle down with. So she makes Don Rudy Aiuppo cut short their Olive Garden-free Tour of Italy and return to New York so they can meet her.
Alas, the meeting goes poorly; Amber walks out of Vinnie's shower (adorned in only a towel; tv-appropriate substitute for much less) and into the kitchen only to find Carlotta manfully slicing a long pepperoni; perhaps the single best visual joke in all of Wiseguy.
Yeah, half a pound of pepperoni for breakfast. That's amore! Amber's getting nothing but cold capicolla for breakfast, and flees. Carlotta lays into Vinnie: She's an older woman! With obvious low morals! She dyes her hair! She has premarital sex!Carlotta wasn't such a scolding prude earlier in the season, with her chiding about "the surgeon general" when Vinnie was working his way through every girl in the 'hood. The only good break for our hero is that Rudy never tells her that Amber was married to a black man...
Dinner with the in-laws is a predictably icy affair. Aiuppo attempts to bridge the gap while Carlotta is sullen and bitter, but she eventually comes to terms with the situation. As a result, Vince mulls over revealing his occupation to Amber (resulting in some out-of-character fantasy sequences which are all the more effective as surprises). In the end, he chickens out.
Aiuppo has done some checking on Vince's activities since he left the country, and decides that Vinnie's dabbling in the Rag trade and music industries is no good for a man with a family; so he arranges a meeting with the Family to further Vinnie's foundering mob career.
So Rudy takes Vinnie to see "the Commission," a mafia council allegedly of his own design. He finds the Family in mourning over the (very) recent death of one of their own. The two major players for the arc to come are introduced: opera-singing, pensive Albert Cerrico and abrasive, shifty Joey Grosset. Others in the room are introduced, but their actors are absent in future episodes, making the introductions a nice, but ultimately pointless touch. The Commission is puzzled with Rudy's abrupt return to the states, and even more when he tells them his visit is simply to ensure that Vinnie is not considered part of the Family. And if events prove otherwise, he will resume his reign as the Capo di tutti capo. With what army? no one asks.
Now, this history of Aiuppo as master of the mob comes a bit from left field; in his initial appearance back in "Squeeze," he was just a retired boss with apparent power equal to that of say, Joey Bags. Now he is reputedly the grand architect of the mafia structure that has endured for decades. Good thing he skipped Sonny's wedding...
The rest of the Family humors the don, and agree to leave Vinnie out of the business. Frank, however, has the Gentleman's Social Club bugged and is ecstatic at having a man with such easy access to the whole of the New York mob. Again. Vinnie, however, doesn't want to have to dance between his mother's happiness and job performance.
This part is quickly taken out of his hands. Announcing his engagement to Amber (Isaac's will is still in probate!), Aiuppo walks out to his greenhouse for a bottle of grappa to celebrate. So he keeps the grappa outdoors. So what?
So he's then shot five times by a carload of assassins. Vinnie pursues, grabbing one as he's climbing into their getaway car. Rather than extricate their colleague from this unarmed mook, he is shot by his friends who then drive off, leaving Vince soaked in blood.Somehow, Rudy survived, but for how long?
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Pros: Some surprisingly decent humor.
Cons: Go to the Commission and paint a big target on everyone. Smart, Rudy. Real smart.
Then: n/a
Now: B+
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Episode 45: A Rightful Place
This third-season opener picks up right where we left off. Rudy's on the way to the hospital. Poochie (the Bobby Baccalieri to Rudy's Uncle Jun) rushes to the scene, reveals that someone had delivered first-class one-way tickets to Sicily; they were waiting for the Don when he and Carlotta returned. Vinnie takes them for OCB tracing as Pooch recognizes the slain gunman and heads off to confront the most obvious connection: Albert "Aria" Cerrico, who the man sometimes worked for. Easily bypassing Albert's oblivious guard, he finds Cerrico with his son, reading a bedtime story. Albert's stunned that Poochie, who hasn't killed a man in twenty years, had come for revenge.
Recovering quickly, he's soon talked his way out of suspicion. Further, his boys tell him that Capo Ziffo has also been hit tonight. It's not mentioned anywhere directly, but Ziffo was the (acting) head of the commission, and Albert's the next in the Power Rankings. He gathers up his family and sends them out of town until the bloodletting stops.
Meanwhile, Rudy's in for surgery and Frank's stepped up with a needful pint of AB- and his car keys for Vince to get clear of the situation.
Stepping out the front door of the hospital, the least likely place for Frank's car to realistically be parked, Vince gets picked up by Albert, who has arrived with Poochie. Albert has decided he and Vinnie are the next on the hit list, and so they should make common cause. This assumes a lot on the part of the assassins; that in the short time since Aiuppo's introduction at the commission meeting, a man who was specifically not part of the Family business is now a top-4 target. And if he WAS, and the Aiuppo hit was at all well planned, the escaping buttons would've whacked the lone, unarmed Vinnie instead of their partner.
For his part, Vince is unimpressed. He tells Albert the story of what befell Pat the Cat when Patrice courted his loyalty. One of the more obtuse gaffes of Wiseguy continuity follow when Cerrico asks if Vinnie had clipped Patrice. I'd think that Sonny's public garroting of his arch-rival in front of 18 high-ranking bosses after delivering a memorable speech on the nature of life would have filtered down through the mafia grapevine in two years, making such a question, well, idiotic.
Equally bad for continuity, Albert begins referring to Vinnie as "Don Aiuppo's son," when, oh, last episode it was made clear by the Don himself that Vinnie was son and heir of nothing in particular. Bad for continuity, but good for Vince, since he'll be trading on the tenuous familial connection to Rudy for the rest of the arc.After driving all night around the neighborhood and to such safe, exotic, unlikely-to-be-watched locales as Albert Cerrico's daily place of business, Tosca Cartage, the two men have established some modicum of trust. Vinnie uses this trust to go to the emergency/war commission meeting.
He throws around good mob hot-button talking points like family, honor, and vengeance. It's enough to keep him from being tossed out on his ear.
One of television's great conceits to stretch a budget is to pay as few people as possible for speaking roles. This means group scenes where a series' principal actors and, at best, two of a dozen extras will have meaningful dialogue. For the Commission, we have a board-room table full of aging gangsters, but for all intents and purposes, the only speaking member of their club is Alex Vechoff.
Even though he was glaringly absent from last episode's meeting, bringing him in IS a good piece of continuity: he was himself one of those mute extras at the table for Sonny's bachelor party (albeit under a different name) and so is one of the few living and free witnesses to the demise of Pat the Cat.
Vechoff holds court, warning Vinnie he has no right to be in the room, and no friends to protect him. Vinnie refutes the first point by asserting he is Aiuppo's son, and Albert begs to differ on the second. Strangely, the fiery, greasy, impotent-son-in-law-of-Ziffo, recurring-speaking-role of Joey Grossett does not want Vinnie around, and speaks ill of Albert as well. Now why is this?
This is one of those short-lived TV mysteries, as in the very next scene all is revealed: Oh! He hired the killers! He found buttons known to have some history with Albert to lay a false trail. He even made sure one of them bought the plane tickets. Not dumb! Except he had his cousin Carlo (a pre-pre-Commish Mike Chiklis) clip Ziffo, which seems a strikingly bad case of Obvious Connection. At least Joey has the sense to put a cap in the ear of the dope who botched Aiuppo's slaying, which severs the shortest line.
Rudy's survived surgery and is in the almost-conscious category when Vechoff arrives to give Vinnie the good news: He can stand in place of Aiuppo for the time being.
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Pros: Some good nods to continuity.
Cons: Some really bad ones, too.
Then: A-
Now: B
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Episode 46: Battle of the Barge
Recap time! Rudy is now out of danger (from his wounds, anyway) and capable of receiving a lengthy infodump from Vinnie. He already told Aiuppo most of this, but the old guy was practically on a respirator, so cut the Don some slack.
And here, Aiuppo favors quid pro quo. Upon hearing that Cerrico moved his family out of town the night of the hits, Rudy judges that Albert did not order them -- a prudent man would have his family out of harm's way long before. He delivers the Cerrico history: a full-blooded Henry Hill childhood, working his way onto a crew. Albert is old-school mob: honor, family, loyalty. And Grossett? "A dangerous man. Can't even control his wife. He would kill me like a dog, but he doesn't have the nerve." Seldom in the annals of television are the obvious villains removed from suspicion on such a flimsy handwave. Of the two, Aiuppo, obviously, duh, endorses Albert, going so far as to forgive Albert the past -- the details of which will keep for now.
The title of this episode is a ripped-from-yesterday's-headlines issue of a garbage barge, owned by Tosca Cartage, which has meandered up and down the east coast in search of a place to drop its burden. It's the primary problem at Tosca when Vinnie arrives to tell a palpably-grateful Cerrico about Rudy's forgiveness. In return, Albert supplies Vinnie two tickets to Carmen, which Cerrico can't use with his wife absent. One of his lieutenants comes in to report that customers on Mott street are behind on payment, so Albert takes Vinnie out on a little meet-and-greet.
Davi is already the arc's linchpin, and the scene that follows is a good example why. Arriving in his monstrous Cadillac and black suit, he asks casually why the neighborhood produce store has changed garbage men. Well! What a lucky piece of the puzzle to fall out: Grossett came by and informed the man that Ziffo had said a rival Chinese business was now his collecting agency. The grocer pauses a moment, looks at Albert: "...but Ziffo's dead now." Davi smiles pleasantly, nods, and does nothing to disabuse the grocer of his mistaken conclusion: "Yes he is." Nicely underplayed, and nicely underwritten -- it's a fine small moment.It's in the service of an underlying plot that is, sadly, not so great. So Grossett laid the groundwork early to give Albert a motive for whacking his father-in-law. This was so far in the past, however, that Albert might have found out prior to the Commission meeting from Le Lacrime d'amore, and inquired to the then-alive Ziffo. Why Grossett was even AT the earlier meeting, given Ziffo's presence and that Grosset's position is due entirely to having married Ziffo's daughter, Gina (not a harmonious marriage; even she admits that the one thing they have in common is penis envy), is one of those contrivances best left unexamined.
Bad TV plotting aside, Albert and Vinnie head over to Chin's Cartage, where aggressive interview techniques land a different story: Chin met with Ziffo only once, had a low opinion of him. Chin wishes no trouble with Albert and promises he'll drop the issue.Of course he doesn't. Chin is manufacturing C-4 (and, and I guess, sometimes PE-4, Derrick) for the international terror market, a problem that is confined largely to Northern Ireland in the Wiseguy era. He sends two of his soldiers to the opera to whack Albert, who can't resist an aria (improbably, they have snuck uzis in), but are foiled by a combination of Mob and Fed, who were watching out for Albert and Vinnie, respectively.
The night at the opera turning DePalma is the last straw for Amber. She loves Vinnie, but she can't live in this world. Their damaged romance will linger past this arc, but it's effectively over here.
Chin goes to Grosset to complain about Albert, but indicates that he's taken care of Mr. Cerrico. Then Albert calls, and speaks with Gina. She's infuriated with Chin's assassins' incompetence and shoots him on the spot. Carlo approves, but all it leaves for he and Joey to do is clean up the body.--
Pros: Gina's bloodlust, the beginning of the end of the Twine-Terranova union.
Cons: Typically bad plotting.
Then: A-
Now: B-
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Episode 47: Sins of the Father.
Which they do, turning his reunion with his family into an ongoing media circus. And that results in the b-plot, where little Albert junior (AJ, heh) being thrown out of his private school. Luckily, Vinnie is there to pull strings to get AJ back in.
Deflated by Albert's winning way with the press, Allatore goes on the street and learns that Vinnie has become a major mob player, deducing that he's running the commission for Aiuppo and schedules a major press conference to announce this.
Frank amazingly deduces that this announcement is going to have an effect on Vinnie, and goes to confirm with Allatorre. Yep! He's made the dubious connection that Rudy is running the mob with Vince as a proxy. This October Suprise will make his election... less of a longshot. Frank is shocked and begs Allatorre not to ruin Vince's life by loosing another media circus on him. That part entails blowing Vince's cover -- for the record, the first time Frank has done so. Allatorre is sympathetic but unwilling to yield. As a last-ditch compromise, Frank receives 36 hours to come up with something, anything, god, please, anything! for Allatorre to base his campaign around instead.
This time, playing the mob-connections-ruin-my-life card is sitting okay with Vince, as he's newly single and if push came to shove, the mob eats better. He tells his mom that he's going to take all these old bastards down.
And she goes right to Rudy. She extracts a promise for him to intervene and stop Allatorre's press conference. Which he does, revealing his illegal presence in New York to Allatorre. Our would-be governor changes his speech, naming Aiuppo as the boss of all bosses (setting Grossett on edge) and then publicly vows to make the deportation of an old man his primary goal as governor.
Can't someone just file a warrant?
--
* The phrase "garbage war" gets thrown around by the press and Allatore a lot in this episode, and even factoring in Chin's death, a war doesn't really exist. Pete plays to the voters in talking about "innocent victims," yet who are they? The only dead people are top-level criminals, which is more due to Wiseguy's skeleton-crew mob structure than gangland restraint.
--
Pros: Good direction, opening-credits-worthy moment with Frank.
Cons: Been here, done this.
Then: B+
Now: B
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Episode 48: The Rightful Heir.
With the garbage war winding down, Albert's barge returns from its caribbean sojourn, given at last the okay to dump its cargo in New York. Beneath all that scent-masking filth is an inner hull laden with a billion dollars' worth of heroin. "Tax free," he adds, unnecessarily. He's going make "Crank, crack heroin," out of it and then cut the whole Commission in to $100 million slices of the pie. He reasons that this should provide motive power for him to assume head of the table.
Even if he adopts Vince as his right hand, Vinnie is unmoved, and cites Barzini-Corleone mob rules about selling drugs. Even pulling the old "what if AJ gets into your drugs?" canard fails to deter Albert, rationalizing that AJ was raised right.
Rebuffed, Albert sulks out. He immediately goes to the phone in the waiting room. As he's the second visitor in a row to do so, Rudy decides to have Poochie get the phone bugged...
Which is perfect, since Grossett comes to visit next, and when he too is refused the Don's blessings, runs right to that same phone and orders Carlo to hit Aiuppo and Albert, being sure to drop enough context into the order so that anyone who just happens to overhear the conversation can have no doubt that the pair also killed Ziffo. And all this in light of their having had this same damning conversation earlier in this episode. Convenience plotting, a Wiseguy staple since 1987.
While nothing has changed in his world to warrant it, Albert returns again for one last attempt at currying Rudy's favor. This time, Rudy is more amenable -- because he can now set Albert athwart Joey's plans. Albert takes the news in stride, promising to deal with it in the proper manner.
Propriety demands a trap, and Albert is sitting on a cool bil worth of bait. He has dinner with Joey, lays down the heroin deal (unlike the Steelgraves, he speaks somewhat obliquely in public about his dealings). Grossett offers a ride home (these mobsters, forever leaving cars behind), which is prelude for Carlo to approach and kill Albert.Coolly, Albert compliments Joey's ambition, though Joey demurs to Carlo on credit for the Ziffo hit. It's enough for Albert, to give Joey the Moe Green Special. Carlo hears the shot, ditches his gun and leaves as McPike and his feds swarm the car and bust Albert.
Albert's a tough nut to crack, though. He has a good attorney and a concealed weapon permit. Further, an excellent motive in that Grossett was armed, and had more than once threatened Albert's life. While the ultimate legal fate of Albert Cerrico is a relatively minor plot point that's left unrevealed*, it seems reasonably fair that he can escape significant prison time by pleading self-defense.
Vince goes to see Albert, who drops the news that Aiuppo had revealed Grossett's treachery. It's a clue that Vinnie will sit on for most of the act.
And now it's endgame. With Albert in stir, the heroin on the barge is worthless to the OCB. It could shore up any weak spots in the case against Albert, but who cares? If Vinnie were to deal it to the commission, it's entrapment (a lesson learned from the brief, sorry case of The United States versus Winston Newquay). Frank is sad, but Vinnie has read on in the script and knows that someone else will pick up the deal.
Cue Gina!
She's always been resentful and bloodthirsty, and now she's got nothing left to lose. Somehow she manages enough control to sit down for a prison visit with Albert; he enlists her with a place at his right hand and by ratting out Carlo's involvement in her father's murder.
As quick as you can say "fourth act," she has improbably summoned the entire Commission on short notice, sans entourages, at midnight, to some disused slaughterhouse that the feds happen to have wired. The mob of Sonny's era looks brilliant in comparison.The OCB listens in as Gina pitches Albert's deal, offs Carlo (cattle-style, nice) and takes right-hand-of-table. The old boys are by turns contemptuous, impressed, and, always, greedy. They all get one speaking line to accept. Then the feds roll in as Vince remembers suddenly that Lisa needs braces.
The denouement of the arc is Vince and Rudy, now back in his garden with his tomatoes. Vince has realized that Rudy knew he was a fed (Rudy covers with the lie that Carlotta told him on their wedding night) and that Aiuppo has betrayed every mob tenet. Thus the cop lectures the crook about honor amongst thieves. Both men have had their illusions of replacing lost relatives dashed by their own natures. It's new territory for the show -- Vinnie as the victim of a real betrayal -- and the scene is clearly swinging for the fences, but compared to Aiuppo/Cerrico earlier, it falls way, way short.On a show with a better lead (one not given to sanctimony alternated with desperate giggling, maybe) and less histrionic writing, this scene could've rivaled Vinnie-Sonny at the former Rialto.
But it doesn't.
* The other minor plot point being the episode ends on election day, and we never learn if Allatorre has won.
--
Pros: Small, excellent pieces here and there.
Cons: Undercut, oh, always undercut.
Then: A-
Now: B+
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