Members Only

Did You Know?

• The episode marks the first appearance of Agent Ron Goddard, FBI Agent Harris' new partner working counter-terrorism.
• Eugene Pontecorvo is shown wearing a "Members Only" jacket and is made fun of for it by Vito Spatafore.
• When Eugene proposes retiring, he cites the precedent set by "Joe Bananas" (Joseph Bonanno).

Synopsis

A little more than two years have gone by. Janice Soprano is raising a new daughter with Bobby Baccalieri, who has gotten into model railroading. Meadow Soprano is still dating Finn DeTrolio. A.J. Soprano is in college.

Carmela Soprano worries and remembers Adriana La Cerva. Vito Spatafore, now thinner, works as a spokesperson for a weight loss company; he is Tony's top earner and has ambition. Phil Leotardo is the acting boss of the Lupertazzi family, handling things for Johnny Sack who is in prison. In Brooklyn, Hesh Rabkin and his son-in-law Eli Kaplan get jumped by Lupertazzi guys; Eli is hit by a car and badly hurt.

Tony tries to reach Johnny through his brother-in-law, an optometrist named Anthony Infante, but Johnny only cares about his own family's money problems. Tony, Vito, and Christopher, now a capo, meet with Phil and Gerry "The Hairdo" Torciano. They smooth things over, and New York agrees to pay Eli $50,000. Carmela's spec house gets a stop order because of bad lumber.

Eugene Pontecorvo inherits $2 million and wants to retire to Florida. He asks Tony, who says no. Eugene is also an FBI informant, and the Bureau won't let him leave either. His wife is bitter, his son is on heroin, and Eugene hangs himself.

Production

To prevent plot leaks, the production team filmed decoy scenes, including an alternate version of Uncle Junior shooting Tony where Phil Leotardo fires from a window. The usual season premiere opening with The Star-Ledger is replaced by a montage showing events from the two-year gap. Frank Vincent, Dan Grimaldi, Joseph Gannascoli, and Toni Kalem join the main cast, appearing in the credits only for episodes they are in; Vincent gets a solo credit, while the others share one. Jamie-Lynn Sigler reverts to her birth surname in the credits after her split from her agent and husband. Robert Funaro, despite his character being central to the episode, is absent from the opening credits. The original broadcast on March 12, 2006, skipped next-episode previews to preserve the mystery of Tony’s shooting. Filming occurred in May 2005.

Music

The episode opens and closes with Bill Laswell's "Seven Souls," featuring William S. Burroughs reciting from his novel The Western Lands. David Chase, the show's creator, felt the song carried a heavy sense of doom and dealt with death and rebirth. He had originally wanted it for the pilot, but it took eight years to finally land in the season premiere's opening montage. When Tony and Carmela eat at a sushi spot, Goldfrapp's "Ride a White Horse" plays. Blondie's "Dreaming" comes from the car radio as Eugene drives home after a murder. The track that scores Junior shooting Tony is Artie Shaw's "Comes Love," sung by Helen Forrest.

Reception

When "Members Only" first aired on March 12, 2006, it drew around 9.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched program on cable that night and the third-highest across all television. Critics were overwhelmingly positive. Television Without Pity gave it an A+, with one review finding irony in Christopher Moltisanti’s mockery of Phil’s eyebrows. Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle described the season’s first four episodes as “a magnificent bonfire of assured creativity.”

Entertainment Weekly assigned an A−, with Gillian Flynn noting the episode’s “quick glimpses of unease and loneliness” rather than relying on violence that had lost its shock value. The New York Times praised how the episode wove psychological themes into mundane details that could suddenly turn violent. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger called Tony’s shooting “gut-wrenching” and observed that his past was catching up to him. At the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, writer Terence Winter won Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for this episode.