I wrote this article about last night’s Desperate Housewives. The only good part about this show or my story is that I quoted Madonna’s “Sorry” out of (and in order to reflect) sheer desperation.

I won’t do what y’all think I’m gonna do and just FREAK OUT about The Sopranos. Last night’s season premiere was absolutely amazing, but you can read about its plot points at literally any other domain on the grand old Internet. I’d like to comment at length on something most critics wouldn’t deign to mention, and that is how hilarious it is that Tony and Carmela have become obsessed with a local sushi restaurant! They ate there twice together in the same episode, and Tony even went once by himself. (Carm was totally jealous — she said it was because she thought the restaurant was “their place,'’ but I know better: she just wanted the food!)

This is just brilliant. Aside from being generally humorous (haha, look at the hardcore Italians eating raw fish instead of prosciutto) I think their sudden sushi habit is a self-aware nod to how long the show has been on hiatus. I don’t have facts or figures on this, but America at large was much less obsessed with sushi twenty months ago than it is now. I personally didn’t even have sushi on my radar in 2004. It’s not that I hated it, it’s just that it never occurred to me to really dedicate myself to the cause. Sushi seemed kind of trendy back then, even though I live in the city and as a serious eater, should have been all over it.

But even I’m a bad example because I’m so tragically hip. My parents, also serious eaters, still don’t eat sushi, and it’s not because they refuse — it’s just that there’s always so much other fabulous shit to eat. Those Chicago-style deep dish pizzas surround my parents, floating around in beautiful orbits before sweeping in for the kill. The Sopranos, too, had always eaten like royalty. They had no reason to migrate towards sushi. It just happened over time.

So the fact that Tony and Carmela have just discovered the little place called “Nori” in their ‘burb probably rings true for a lot of Americans. And the scenes were spot-on, complete with all-you-can-eat platters (”Keep ‘em coming,” said Tony, before “Can I get another sake?”) and sweet, impossibly trim waitresses who you just know go back to the kitchen and laugh with the rollmasters about how obnoxious all the fat Americans are. (To cap it off, Tony has actually gained a ton of weight — due in part, we’re to assume, from his recent sushi craze. SODIUM.)

One final note about The Sopranos — the new baby daughter Janice wishes was dead is named Domenica. This means “Sunday” in Italian, which I know because it is one of the four or so words I bothered learning in the little book Dee brought along when we went to Italy. I liked the sound of it, so I kept shouting it out at random places and times, along with “Prego!” and “Melanzane!” Hey, Meghan! DOMENICA! Hahaha.