So after a relatively lackluster (read: boring) season opener, the Sopranos returned Sunday night with a new episode.  Apparently trying to make up for lost time, or realizing that having Tony stare out over a lake practically the entire show probably wasn’t the best use of time, this episode took the opposite decided to cram a whole lot of stuff into the hour. And like an older sibling desperate for its parent’s attention, this episode overachieved in grandiose proportions. But if I had to choose between too much going on, like in this episode, or nothing going on, like in the last, I’ll take the too much going on every time.

Here’s the highlights of what you missed.

· Johnny Sacks, former boss of New York and relatively tough guy until he starts crying at weddings, is no longer in prison. Which would be great, except that he’s in the only place worse than prison, a cancer ward. Because he, you know, has cancer all of a sudden, even though it looks like he put on 30 pounds. I wouldn’t get too attached to him if I were you.

· Christopher, on the other hand, is alive and well, screening his new movie, Cleaver, which is basically a Saw rip-off, except that it’s supposed to be terrible. All is well with the movie, except that Tony sees a resemblance between one of the characters in the film and himself. Which is fine, until Carmela points out that the character is a monster because he slept with another characters fiancée (which is shades of what happened with Adrianna, but not really), because apparently Tony is too stupid to realize that on his own. This lead to a delightful scene of Tony crying to Dr. Melfi. So for those of you keeping score in the "Let’s make our main character as effeminate as possible" sweepstakes he got beat up in the first episode and cried in the second. So the way we’re going, by the fifth or sixth episode he ought to be pushing aside his duties as boss so he can take a nice warm bubble bath and watch Grey’s Anatomy.

· Rounding out the episode, AJ is still a prick, The New York family whacked John Sacks protegee for some reason I missed (revenge? It was probably revenge), Christopher took a meeting with Shooter McGavin, John Sacks died with his fatty wife by his side, and then Geraldo showed up! Most importantly, however, is Phil Leotardo drank himself angry and looks like he’s going to take control of the New York family, which means Tony is going to have a delightful enemy to deal with.

So, to score:
Gratuitous Nudity: While there was two scenes at the Bada Bing, oddly enough, neither one really showed all that much skin. So that’s not good. But at least Bobby was wearing a shirt for this entire episode.
Gratuitous Violence: The shooting was pretty good. Even better though, was watching the guy from Wings get smacked in the head with his own award. Good times.
Paulie moment: Probably the highlight of the episode, poor Christopher introduces his film and feebly tells those in attendance to turn off their cell phones. This does not, of course, apply to Paulie, as he gets a phone call in the middle of the movie and proceeds to have a delightful conversation right there in the theater. Brilliant.

Final Grade: B
A solid episode, much better than the first one. Looks like there’s still hope for a redeeming ending to the series after all.