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The Sopranos: too close for comfort


Eerie: Uncle Junior, a volatile young Asian and a mental ward.

By ED BARK
Sunday night's episode of The Sopranos indirectly but chillingly evoked the horrific events at Virginia Tech University, even though it was scripted and filmed months earlier.

In a featured storyline, a still addled Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) had a precarious friendship with fellow mental ward patient Carter Chong (Ken Leung), a young Asian with serious anger management problems.

During one of their conversations, Chong recalled how his demanding father asked him where the other four points were after he came home with a 96 on his report card. He then pointedly cursed both his father and the memory.

Chong's mother later visited, telling her son, "Now apparently you are becoming a bully." He instantly despised her for saying that.

His feelings of rejection continued to boil close to the surface, although Chong enjoyed the company of the old gangland heavyweight. It also excited him when Uncle Junior retaliated against another patient by kneeing him in the groin.

"Get him! Get him!" Chong urged.

One couldn't help but draw parallels to Cho Seung-Hui, the now infamous mass murderer whose posthumous "multimedia manifesto" seethed with hatred. Would Chong also go berserk?

He eventually did, but only to the point of physically attacking Uncle Junior after feeling betrayed by him. Until that time it had gotten very unsettling. Very unsettling indeed.