Okay, not to obsess about this or anything, but well...I am kind of obsessed now, so what the hell. Having now watched it for a third time, "The Test Dream" has rocketed into my all-time top five. I mean, maybe you have to be a full-on Sopranos freak, but this most recent episode is almost too rich to be believed. Just off the top of my head:


- The first person to appear in the dream is Carmine, which is appropriate, since it was his death that kicked off the whole chain of events that led to the current precarious situation. And Tony had just been reminded of that - Carmine's last words were "smells like burning hair." Where has Tony smelled burning hair before Valentina? I would guess at the stable when the charred husk of Pie-O-My was hauled away.


- I dunno who the voice on the phone is in the dream, but I can almost convince myself it's David Chase. Not quite, though.


- Movie references: The Shining (The creepy hotel, Tony B.'s twin boys [thanks to Phil Nugent for pointing these out] and Twin Peaks (all the dream stuff, but specifically the horse in the living room). The Godfather scene in the bathroom is obvious. I would add 2001 (pre-dream scenes of Tony in his white robe eating in the hotel suite) and Taxi Driver (Tony B. shooting Philly with his fingers). Then there are the movie scenes seen on TV - Chinatown (previously referenced in the season four finale - "Bad for the glass! Bad for the glass!" - and here referring to the Guatamalan maid who speaks English only when convenient - Gittes asks the boy "You speak English?"), A Christmas Carol (ghosts of Christmas past I noticed: Pussy, Ralphie, Richie, Gigi, Mikey Palmice, Johnny Boy Soprano, Gloria, Vin Makazian, Carmine. Missing in action: Jackie Aprile Sr. & Jr., Matt Bevelaqua, Livia), High Noon (Gary Cooper, Tony's eternal "strong silent type" and the opposite of what he actually is), and Bugsy (Annette Bening: "There's something Bugsy about him!").


- Many ghosts of Sopranos episodes past. Just a few: last season's car dream, the driving sequence back from the casino in "Christopher" (same backgrounds), "Unidentified Black Males" (the SUV blasting rap music, plus the guy who points to Tony B. - "Isn't that there the Tony you were supposed to whack?" and also "Sometimes what happens in here is like taking a shit!"), Pie-O-My in the living room (on the first two viewings I naturally assumed Carmela said "You can't keep your horse in here" but after seeing it mentioned on a few other Sopranos discussion boards, I must admit I missed this: she definitely says "You can't keep your whores in here"), Tony staring into the trophy case ("You never had the makings of a varsity athlete"), the bullets turning to shit ("I'm like King Midas in reverse - everything I touch turns to shit"). Plus all the Gleason stuff. (Watch for my upcoming dissertation "To Da Moon: The Semiotics of Jackie Gleason in the Fifth Season of The Sopranos")


- Meta references to the show itself. Angelo singing along with a Frankie Valli song right before he's whacked. Carmela pointing to the TV and telling Tony "That is your life" (and all the scenes that play out on TVs).


That's all I got for now, but man, anyone who thinks this was a shark-jumper is watching the wrong fucking show.