Just finished season 6A again today. Fantastic. I love the exploration of sexuality - not so much the "Vito in exile" scenes, which are there to shed humanity on his situation (and thus the severity of his murder), but the reactions in others toward his being outed.

I'm convinced, now, of Phil's repressed homosexuality. The particular anger with which he reacts to thoughts of Vito, the haste with which he denounces it as a disgrace the family, his emergence from the closet in the scene in which his henchmen murder Vito, the lingering shot of his hands gripping the bedsheets as they beat Vito to death, the clear unease he feels when there are muscled-up, virtually-naked men on TV in the aftermath of Vito's death, that shot of him lying there awake at night after Vito has been killed (really, he should have been relieved of putting an end to the family shame, not lying awake at night thinking about it).

Also: when Tony says to a bloodthirsty Carlo, re Vito being a fanook, "Carlo, let's be honest here, we all know he ain't the first". And Tony to Melfi, about him understanding men's sexual needs when incarcerated in the can... How many years was Phil in the can? Twenty. And, for all he talks of honour and not ratting anybody out, he seems especially antsy about the time he spent in there.

Anyway...

"The Fleshy Part of the Thigh" is an amazing episode. So is the season opener, and the two consequent episodes with the whole Kevin Finnerty thing, but the one straight after, with Tony now awake but still in hospital. I like the philosophy put forth in it, a slant on pantheism, with everything made of the same particles as everything else, etc. I love the final scene, where Tony sits in his garden looking at the trees, and his POV (a shot of trees in the wind) is edited as a visually flawless transition to another scene: Paulie beating up Dick Barone's son. One scene is horrific and violent, the other relieved and tranquil, and yet both are part of the same fabric.