JPod, I agree that last night’s Sopranos was somewhat off-balance, and that the first half was rather brilliant. But, despite the abrupt mid-episode shift, I think Tony’s Vegas trips (which reminded me quite a bit of the peyote scenes from The Doors) were in keeping with the change-and-rediscovery storyline the writers have set out for him after last season’s shooting. “I always wanted to try that,” he says of the drug, and he does. People have been complaining of odd changes in Tony’s character (the discovery of the gambling problem, etc.), but since his extended hallucination in the wake of the shooting, he’s changed. Right now, though, even he isn’t sure what, exactly, he’s changed into, and that uncertainty is resulting in erratic, experimental behavior like we saw last night.