Join the Club

"Join the Club"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 2
Directed by	David Nutter
Written by	David Chase
Cinematography by	Alik Sakharov
Editing by	William B. Stich
Production code	602
Original air date	March 19, 2006 (2006-03-19)
Running time	54 minutes
Episode chronology
← Previous "Members Only" Next → "Mayham"
The Sopranos season 6
List of episodes

"Join the Club" is the 67th episode overall and the second episode of

Starring

• James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano / Kevin Finnerty
• Dr. Jennifer Melfi
  *
• Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano
• Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti
• Dominic Chianese as Corrado Soprano, Jr.
• Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante
• Tony Sirico as Paulie Gualtieri
• Anthony Soprano, Jr.
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano
• Janice Soprano Baccalieri
• Steven R. Schirripa as Bobby Baccalieri
• Vito Spatafore
• Patsy Parisi

* = credit only

Guest starring

• Hesh Rabkin

Also guest starring

Synopsis

Alone with Tony, Carmela passionately expresses her love for him. Meadow reads him a translation of the poem Pater Noster by

. He admits to Meadow that he is embarrassed and angered by the actions of his family. A.J. finally gathers enough courage to talk to his father when they are alone, and vows to kill Junior. Afterward, he admits to Carmela that he has flunked out of college. She looks at him in stunned disbelief but holds in her anger and sends him away.

At

who are now regulars there.

While he is in a coma, Tony has a long dream-like experience that is woven through the episode.

Tony awakens as a precision optics salesman, without his New Jersey accent, in a hotel room in

brush fire. The next morning, he goes to a convention and is asked for ID to gain admittance. Tony realizes that he has someone else's wallet and briefcase, belonging to a man named Kevin Finnerty of Kingman, Arizona

, to whom he bears a resemblance.

When Tony returns to a bar where he thinks he unintentionally picked up these items, some business travelers overhear him telling his story to the bartender who, when asked what Costa Mesa is like, replies, "Around here, it's dead." The group invite Tony to join them for dinner, during which he discusses his 'life' in more detail, alluding to a midlife crisis. As he and his group leave, Tony notices a religious commercial on TV, which shows the question, "Are sin, disease, and death real?" Outside the hotel, Tony makes a pass at a woman from the group. She responds at first but then cuts him off, telling him she saw his face when he got off the phone with his wife (whose voice is not Carmela's). Suddenly, a helicopter spotlight shines on the pair (the lights of the hospital surgery room). The woman says, "They’re looking for a perp."

Tony briefly awakens from his coma and rips out his breathing tube. The dream resumes when he is placed in another coma.

Tony checks into a different hotel under Finnerty's name. Two

MRI scan shows some dark spots on his brain caused by lack of oxygen. The doctor states that this indicates early stages of Alzheimer's disease. When the doctor leaves him, Tony says "I'm lost" to himself. After he returns to his hotel room, he picks up the phone but hangs up before dialing, while the beacon of light flashes on the horizon.^[5]

First appearances

• Ahmed and Muhammad
  : Muslim associates of Christopher Moltisanti who hang out at the Bada Bing.

Title reference

• In Tony's dream, when Tony tells the businessmen at the bar that he is 46 years old and does not know where "[he] is going," Lee (the woman from the business group) tells Tony to "join the club."

Production

• Most interior hospital scenes of the episode were filmed at the North Hollywood Medical Center, Los Angeles, with additional exterior and interior scenes filmed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology
• James Gandolfini uses his real voice in his comatose dream instead of Tony Soprano's strong Jersey accent.
• The interior of the hospital lunch room is actually "The Highlander Club" (formerly called "The Pub") inside the Campus Center at NJIT.
• The interior of the hospital is the same hospital from the TV show Scrubs.
• The credits do not mention the actress providing the voice of Tony's wife in his dream, though the writers have stated the voice is of a generic New Jersey actress and not intended to be anyone previously featured on the series.^[6] On the A&E syndication rebroadcast, the voice is credited on the closed captioning as 'Carmela's voice'.
• This episode was shown at the season's premiere party instead of the first installment, "Members Only."
• This is the only episode of the series directed by David Nutter and the eighth of nine episodes for which David Chase receives an individual writing credit.

References to prior episodes

• Carmela tells Tony that she regrets telling him he would go to
  the pilot episode
  .
• Lee is curious how Tony made the jump from selling patio furniture to precision optics. Tony mentioned selling patio furniture on
  College
  ," and in a therapy session with Dr. Melfi in season 1.
• When
  Eugene Pontecorvo's suicide, he notes that perhaps Eugene killed himself because of closeted homosexuality. This is a reference to Vito's own homosexuality, which was exposed in the season five episode "Unidentified Black Males
  ."

Other cultural references

• Vito says Junior "Marvin Gayed" his nephew, a reference to the murder of the singer Marvin Gaye by his own father.
• As a comment on A.J.'s long hair, Paulie Walnuts addresses him as "
  Van Helsing," (a reference to the vampire hunter in the 2004 film) and Rosalie Aprile greets him as "Fabio
  " (the model and advertising spokesperson of the '80s and '90s).
• Carmela mentions a trip to Long Beach Island.
• Policemen tell Carmela they have to ask her about Tony's knowledge of the Kennedy assassination after Junior mentioned some details about it to them. They reference The McGuire Sisters and Sam Giancana. The McGuire Sisters were a popular singing trio from the 1950s–60s, whose member Phyllis McGuire was noted for dating gangster Giancana.
• When Christopher meets the FBI agents at the store, he says, "Oh, Sheriff of Nottingham, my kingdom for a mortadell." This is a reference, first to the legend of Robin Hood, then to William Shakespeare's play Richard III, when, after Richard is unhorsed in the midst of battle, he desperately cries out, "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
• The reporter asks A.J., "would you call it, Growing Up Soprano?", alluding to the 1960 book Growing Up Absurd.
• Meadow reads a translation of Jacques Prévert's "Pater Noster" to Tony.
• A.J. tells Tony about the Shelby Mustang GT500, noting that it is cheaper than the BMW M3.

Music

• The song Carmela plays for Tony in the hospital first is "
  Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist's Office...
  ", in a scene where Tony crashed his truck into a barricade.
• The second song Carmela is heard playing in Tony's hospital room is "There's a Moon Out Tonight" by The Capris.
• The song Carmela says she was playing in Tony's car an entire weekend at Long Beach Island and now plays in his hospital room is "
  Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
  .
• When Tony is waiting at the bar, "The Happy Organ" by Dave "Baby" Cortez can be heard. This song was also used in the season 3 episode "Fortunate Son."
• The song playing in Bada Bing is "Spitfire" by The Prodigy.
• The song playing at the end of the episode, where Tony returns to his hotel room and picks up the phone but ceases dialing, is Moby's "When It's Cold I'd Like to Die" with vocals by Mimi Goese. Just before that, while Tony is kicking off his shoes, an instrumental version of "Day After Day" is heard.

Reception

"Join the Club" was watched by 9.18 million American viewers on its premiere date.^[7]

Since its premiere, "Join the Club" has frequently been singled out by critics as one of the best episodes of the series. Edie Falco's performance was highly praised.^[1][2][3][4]

References

External links

• "Join the Club" Archived 2016-08-18 at the Wayback Machine at HBO
• "Join the Club" at
  IMDb