TVSquad

Ok, if you haven't watched Sunday night's season premiere of The Sopranos, stop reading. There's plenty of other TV Squad goodness, so just skip on to something else. For those of you that are still with me now, you know that Tony is, at the very least, out of commission for a little while. This is going to lead to a power struggle of absolutely epic proportions. Now, most Mafia familys are set up with the Boss who's in charge, the Underboss, who's his second-in-command, and then the Consigliere, who actually fits somewhere between the two since he's a "personal advisor" to the boss. After those three, there's the Capos who each lead up their own crews of made men. If what I just said was making your head spin, trust me, it's not that bad.

In the Soprano's family, Tony's the boss and Silvio is his consigliere, but here's where the problem lies-- there really isn't a second-in-command; there's no Underboss. When Tony took over for Uncle Junior as the head honcho in Season 2, he became what is known as a "Street Boss". This is where the actual Boss is out of commission for some reason, and someone, normally the Underboss, takes his place at the top temporarily. This confusion could have been avoided altogether, because we all know that it should have been Tony who was placed in charge right after Jackie Aprille died, but tradition held fast and Junior took over. Because of this position of permanently being temporarily in charge, Tony's never named an Underboss. We as the audience know that Tony's been grooming Christopher to take that role and eventually his place, but outside of Christopher and Dr. Melfi, I'm not sure Tony's really told anyone who would have some clout in this situation.

So, with Tony gone, who the heck is in charge? Technically, I guess it should be Silvio in this situation, but I'm not sure if Silvio is ambitious enough of if anyone is really going to listen up for him to take the reigns. Christopher obviously wants it, and has been dreaming of being in charge since day one, but it's also the same way that a five year-old dreams of driving a race car-- no matter how much fun it may seem, they just could never handle it. Paulie's voiced once or twice that he thinks he should be in charge, should anything ever happen to Tony, "God forbid," but he's a little, how should I put it, "Fiery". In the very same episode, we heard Vito's confession of dreams of grandeur, but would anyone let him live, let alone follow him, if they knew his secret desires? What about Bobby? He seems to be having a breakdown of sorts, but Janice has never made it a secret that she thinks he should extend himself more. Maybe Phil Leotardo will take this opportunity and try to enact his final revenge on the Soprano family now that both Tony and Johnny Sack are out of the picture.

Whew... There's so much that could happen and I'm sure will, that my mind wanders with idea after idea every time I think of it. What do you think will happen? Take up this valuable space with your predictions and let me know!