Gina and Sonny

[Matt5]

Great post 

[NeonHumidity]

On 4/11/2024 at 11:17 AM, Matt5 said:

Great post 

Thank you, assuming you meant mine.  I wasn't sure whether anyone had seen it.

 

"Fruit of the Poison Tree" is interesting because of its ties to earlier Gina episodes and an odd bonus.

 

And even:

(You can tell he's not Burnett anymore from the shaft of light and the fact he keeps Gina from killing the guy.)

Black and White Gina.  I thought this outfit seemed misplaced in The Lost Madonna, but having finally seen this episode, it makes much more sense here.

The bonus: 

Everyone seems to mention her calling Enriquez "baby", and unlike "Sean", or "Frank", she doesn't call him "Roberto"... maybe a sign that she's either learned, she didn't actually sleep with him, or both.  

"Baby" is flung around a lot in the episode -- Boyle calls Lisa that.

But the two instances where it's not used in any kind of manipulative, casual, or even faintly romantic context come from Sonny of all people.  He says "Come on, baby, be there" when the rest of OCB is sitting there and Gina isn't, and then he says "Come here, baby," when she's hysterical over seeing Nicky killed in her stead.  So it's clearly meant to be sincere... the question is just... why?  

He didn't have to call her anything, and he's never called her "baby" before... While I'm sure he's done it to others, the last significant one I can think of was Caroline, back in the cancelled divorce/hit list episode.  (And that was "Don't worry, baby",  and "I can't stay, baby".)

What does it mean?  Is it a mistake?  A throw-in by DJ?  A sign Sonny's feelings are the real ones in this episode? ...I don't really know.  

Edited April 20 by NeonHumidity

[NeonHumidity]

"Fruit of the Poison Tree", Part 2

aka, "the fifth Burnett episode"

He doesn't even look at Gina in his dream.  He never has a single flashback about her, over the course of months, not that we can tell.  Ever wonder why?

Sonny is obviously very isolated for the Burnett episodes, including in his own mind.  Gina may be even more isolated for this one; even though she's supposedly in contact with OCB, she's still clearly living very much in her own world with her own fake identity, right up until Sonny and Rico arrive just late enough.  (Sonny also has to wear a bunch of dark things in this episode because someone has made off with his pure-white shtick.)

"Poison Tree" has an almost-identical opening to "Hostile Takeover" (you can guess which's which): 

Gina's dress actually shows up at Celeste's party, on a blonde woman with a face we don't see, before we even and right after we see Celeste:

And now it's time for the person who set this up to pay.

A little hard to know if that's a jacket and t-shirt or dark shirt and tie, at first glance.  A little hard to tell which "pretty boy" she's pointing the gun at, for symbolic reasons... 

Forgiveness?  Maybe.  But whether there's one or two or however many Sonnys, you can't see his face.

Celeste is blonde, but there are multiple occasions her hair is made to appear black, either by wearing something over or near it.  See the white flowers on the bottle Sonny's drinking out of...?  ("Who are you?", indeed...)

So– he never calls Gina "baby", before "Poison Tree"... but he does call Celeste that, a couple of times.  With all the references to the arc in the episode, Sonny may not be Burnett anymore, but it probably makes sense that some things from that period are carrying back over.  Especially with his chain of calling Gina "Caroline" and calling Celeste "Caitie"... especially if it's heavily implied some part of him was always viewing Celeste as somebody other than that, too.

Why is Gina absent from the Burnett episodes?  She's not.  She's present on a different level.  (Then she gets one of her own.)

 

Edited April 22 by NeonHumidity

[NeonHumidity]

One more Gina-Celeste parallel:

 

(Extra adorableness + both times, he manages to match the cat.  Little orange guy is able to be freed, though, unlike a glittering panther.)

[vicegirl85]

Intriguing suggestion about the possible relation of Celeste to Gina by Sonny in the Burnett episodes.

I have to say that for me, it's really reaching and I don't see it.  But, we don't have to see things the same way.  There's a lot of ambiguity about what happens in MV. 

[NeonHumidity]

That he didn’t use Celeste as a Gina-substitute in order to sustain his illusion, or that Gina didn’t end up playing the Celeste-role in her own world (and the Burnett role, too; somebody tries to blow her up) to someone who is once again presented as an even flimsier Bad!Sonny stand in?

The show gives an awful lot of visual paralleling for neither of those to be a possibility.

Edited yesterday at 09:38 PM by NeonHumidity

[vicegirl85]

3 hours ago, NeonHumidity said:

That he didn’t use Celeste as a Gina-substitute in order to sustain his illusion, or that Gina didn’t end up playing the Celeste-role in her own world (and the Burnett role, too; somebody tries to blow her up) to someone who is once again presented as an even flimsier Bad!Sonny stand in?

The show gives an awful lot of visual paralleling for neither of those to be a possibility.

It's an intriguing idea and I'm sure you could make me believe it.  I'm not seeing it, but perhaps it just wasn't presented to me in a believable way (in the show).