Mob

Is Sonny going to wind up in prison for his crimes on General Hospital? You have to wonder how he's going to avoid it now. It's not like viewers have every thought of Sonny as innocent, but he's skirted having to pay for his sins via the criminal justice system. There have been other ways he's paid, but prison? So far, Mac and the Port Charles P.D. have yet to get him locked away for long. The Feds have also dropped the ball every time they've tried. But Friday might have been the game changer.

Sonny's portrayer, Maurice Benard, thinks it is. He told Michael Logan, "I truly believe Sonny's done this time. He wants his son to be safe and he sees no other way out. ...He doesn't think he can get away with it this time -- at least that's the way I'm playing it."

If there's one thing we can count on with General Hospital, it's the mob. Other soaps lean on corporate shenanigans, the fashion business, medical drama. GH used to be about the latter, but that was a long time ago. Now, the hospital storylines are thriving more on Night Shift, General Hospital's SoapNet spin-off. But on GH proper, the mother ship if you will, the main thrust remains Sonny, Jason, the Zaccharas and mob wars.

They're bringing in a new actor to the scene, and he carries major TV mob credentials. Vincent Pastore is joining General Hospital as Maximus Giambetti, father of Sonny's two main bodyguards, Max and Milo. Vinny is best known as Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpenserio on HBO's The Sopranos. On GH, Maximus comes to Port Charles to see his boys, under the false assumption that Max and Milo are running the syndicate in town.

Law and Order creator Dick Wolf and NBC Universal have snatched up the rights to the book The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia. The book tells the true story of two New York City copes, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, who secretly worked as murderers for the mafia. The book was written by William Oldham and Guy Lawson. Oldham worked for the NYPD alongside Caracappa, but didn't find out about his partners secret life until later. He launched an investigation, despite very little help from the NYPD, and both Caracappa and Eppolito were eventually arrested.

The book will be developed into a television project produced by Wolf and Tom Thayer, though whether it will be another Law and Order series or something else entirely isn't known just yet, according to Variety. Meanwhile, several movie deals are also being worked out to bring the story to the bigscreen.

(S01E04) At some point in episode one, something was said that gave me the impression Jenny Reilly was married. Strangely, in subsequent episodes the topic never seemed to come up again.

After seeing Jenny make nasty with Tommy and the delivery boy, I was sure I just misinterpreted some dialogue somewhere during that first show.

Turns out I wasn't wrong. This week I discovered that Jenny is married for sure and that her husband left her around a year ago.

Now, take a look at that picture over there to the right and let that sink in for a moment. Jenny's husband left her? Last time I checked, Jenny Reilly is scorching hot! What man in his right mind would leave that?

It'll be interesting to discover the real reason their relationship came apart. Something tells me this will be critical to the show in future weeks.

There are a lot of initial discrepancies about NBC's The Black Donnellys from the moment you watch the show.
If you are a born and raised New Yorker, you might find it initially hard to relate to the creators insistence on piecing together different but real geographical areas and their claim that it's one fictional neighborhood, unlike other shows using a New York backdrop such as The Sopranos, Law and Order or even Sex and the City.

If you are Canadian, you might be even more confused by the creators choice of the title, which until recently has been a famous historical reference to one of the most gruesome murders in Canadian history.

Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis, the Oscar winning team behind Crash and the creators of The Black Donnellys implore you to throw pre-conceived notions out the window when you watch the premiere Monday night and want to remind us that although the show is heavily based on their personal experiences growing up in New York City's Hell Kitchen, the story and places are indeed fictional and should feel timeless.

Forgive me for being late on this. With Thanksgiving, I didn't get to see Thursday's episode of CSI until Friday night. And, oh my God, was that the worst episode ever or what?!?

The episode was about a missing mobster whose car was found 30 years after his death. It starts out with a guy singing karaoke and pushing a wheelchair-bound guy in front of a Hummer. Then three other guys are killed... [*SPOILER ALERT*] by a person who was very obviously wearing different masks. I said, "He's wearing a mask" in the first few frames of the first scene. It took Grissom and the crack team of forensic scientists 50 minutes into the episode to figure it out. Come on! The masks looked horrible. The writers even tried to "trick" us into believing that someone else (the motorcycle cop) might be the man behind the mask. Puh-lease. The only reason I kept watching was because I was hoping that there would be some sort of twist at the end and I would be proven wrong. No such luck. This episode never should've seen the light of day.

Ken Jennings recently conducted an interview with himself on his blog about his appearances on the first episodes of NBC's new game show, 1 Vs. 100, and offered a gentle critique of the show and how it could be made better. Apparently, being a member of the studio "Mob" isn't the most pleasant experience in the world. Folks aren't even allowed to sit down, though they do have a nice piece of plywood they can sorta lean against. By the end of a long day of shooting, many people actually got up and left. Jennings also said it's too easy for a contestant to build up a lot of money with the early, easy questions and just take off, which doesn't exactly make for compelling television. Jennings doesn't completely write the show off, but he does see a lot of room for improvement.

Given his penchant for trivia and his personable style, I wonder if we'll ever see a game show in the future hosted by Ken Jennings. I don't know what it would consist of, but I do know it should end with a boxing match against a kangaroo. That's the essential element missing from game shows these days.

NBC thinks it has a hit on its hands with the new game show, 1 Vs. 100, which is hosted by comedian Bob Saget. As Joel explained before last week's series premiere, the show requires very little skill. Contestants face 100 other people in a pop culture quiz. The idea is to knock off as many members of the 'mob' by answering questions correctly ('mobsters' have to answer a question incorrectly to be booted). The dollar amount goes up as the contestant gets questions right and each 'mobster' is ejected from the game. Eliminating the entire 'mob' wins the contestant $1 million.

NBC has ordered 10 more episodes of 1 Vs. 100, which brings the total to 15 so far this season. When it debuted last week, the game show had 12.6 million viewers, which is not too shabby for flailing NBC. For the curious, the next episode airs on Friday at 9 pm, which pushes the season premiere for Las Vegas back one week.

(S18E01) When Bart refuses to let Lisa sit with him on the bus, she tries to complain to Otto, but he'd rather rock out to his Grand Funk Railroad tape than bother with her. She tries to get his attention but manages to break his tape in the process, leaving him with no musical options except the kids' rendition of "Old MacDonald Had a Fart" and whatever crap his bus radio is spewing out. At that moment, he sees Metallica's tour bus stranded on the side of the road, but they opt to get a lift from Moleman, who once slept with Lars' grandmother. Oh yeah, and Bart steals the bus.

Enraged, Otto encounters Bart outside the school and spanks him. The corporal punishment is witnessed by Skinner, who instructs Otto to turn in his beaded seat cushion and gun. Until Otto is reinstated, the kids will have to rely on car pooling to get to school. On the first day, Marge takes Bart, Lisa and their friends, including Fat Tony's son, Michael. Since he's the son of a mob boss, everyone is afraid of Michael and wants nothing to do with him, but Lisa sees he's not the hardboiled criminal his father is and befriends him. Michael reveals he wants to be a chef, which upsets his father who wants him to take over the family business.

This is a great way to spend 10 minutes of your Friday. A preview of season 18 of The Simpsons is online today in advance of this weekend's season premiere. FOX made the first seven minutes of Sunday's episode available on various websites, including MySpace.com, FOX.com, and IGNTV.com. The episode is about Homer joining the mob but, in true Simpsons fashion, the first seven minutes are more about Otto than the larger story. And it's pretty damn hilarious-- including a cameo by Metallica. Stick around after the clip because there's more-- a look at a scene as it first appears in pencil and then as the final product. Ahhh... all will be right with the world when The Simpsons return.

(S06E15) This episode opens with Krusty the Clown's signature bicycle trick in which he rides in a loop and swallows the tiny bike in the end. The kids go crazy for the stunt, but Krusty has other things on his mind, like spending all the money he's making. He tells his assistants to hire Kenny G to play for him in the elevator, to put flowers on Bea Arthur's grave (he doesn't know she's not dead) and to purchase him a new house since his old one is dirty.

His MC Hammer-style of spending money concerns his accountant, who tells Krusty he's broke. The only way for Krusty to make money again is to open a clown college that will train men to pretend to be Krusty and appear at parties and openings the real Krusty wants nothing to do with.

Cut to Homer driving down the highway, excited that it's the first of the month and the new billboards are finally on display. Ever the obedient consumer, Homer obeys every billboard he reads because they each have to do with food. He ignores Krusty's clown college billboard, however, because, "you can't eat that."

According to The Smoking Gun, Tony Sirico, the actor who portrays Paulie Walnuts on The Sopranos, didn't have to stretch his acting muscles too much to portray his on-camera role. In the '60s and '70s, Sirico was apparently a mafia-connected thug who spent time in Sing Sing and other prisons of that caliber after he was convicted on felony weapons possession charges. I love it. There's nothing I like more than a little authenticity in my mafiosos. Sirico is also quoted as saying he would "carve his initials" in the forehead of a disco club owner that he had a beef with. Although hilarious and pretty cool, I'm a little frightened, and this is probably the one time I wouldn't want a celebrity reading my post about them. I mean, Paulie beat up an old lady!! Does that picture look like it's looking at me...?

HBO realizes that it's been a really, really long time since we've seen any new episodes of The Sopranos, so it has enlisted the assistance of Google Maps to help you remember. On The Sopranos website, the Google Map shows different locations in New Jersey where key plot points happened last season. Move your mouse over a red dot and a box will appear with a video clip, summary, and a link to an entire episode guide. A lot of the video clips are just conversations between Tony and other major characters like Tony B. (Steve Buschemi), Christopher (Michael Imperioli), and Sack (Vince Curatola) and really aren't all that exciting. They're used as a reminder of who got whacked and where the tensions lie between crime bosses. And, of course, it includes the scene where Adriana gets whacked.

Speaking of getting whacked, here's a way to kill time. It's The Sopranos' version of Whack-a-Mole.

NBC is banking on gritty writer Paul Haggis for one of its new fall dramas, called The Black Donnellys. Haggis wrote the screenplays for Million Dollar Baby and Crash, and has also won two Emmys for his writing on Thirtysomething. The new series, created by Haggis and Bobby Moresco, is about four Irish brothers in New York's Hell's Kitchen and their lives in organized crime. It's one of those "they keep pullin' me back in" kind of things. The series will actually be shot in New York.

With The Sopranos concluding next year, NBC must be hoping that we'll still want our violent mobster fix.