Back in the bronze age of HBO shows, Sex And The City and The Sopranos ruled over all. And yet their cable TV dominions, though incredibly powerful, always remained separate. Carrie Bradshaw did not run into Tony Soprano, either because they ran in different circles or, just as likely, because Carrie was loath to visit the New Jersey suburbs.
This long divide has finally come to an end with the release of writer/comedian/actor Eliza Cossio’s script for an episode that, at long last, bridges the divide that previously existed between the two shows. Cossio, who writes for HBO’s Problem Areas, has willed into existence the mash-up we may never have known we wanted, loosing “Business or Personal? An Original Sopranos and Sex And The City Crossover Episode” into the world.
It all starts normally enough: Carrie’s intro monologue is about autumn in New York and the first scene opens with her and Mr. Big walking down “a tree-lined 78th Street.” Before long, though, Big starts to act suspicious, enigmatically mentioning business he has to tend to, and the reader learns he’s being tailed by Christopher Moltisanti and Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri.
Without detailing how the set-up spirals out into a gripping tale of unexpected love, surprising betrayals, and “bloody Manolos,” it’s enough to say that Cossio has a firm grasp not only on the characters of both shows, but the comedic potential of blending the New Jersey mafia with four women doing their best to make sense of the early 2000s Manhattan dating scene.
“I wrote this script because Sopranos and SATC aired at the same time and took place a few miles apart, and the idea of them both existing in the same universe really made me laugh,” Cossio tells us. “These are two of my favorite shows, and the rom-com and the mob movie are two of my favorite genres (the episode is called “Business or Personal?”—a nod to a line from both The Godfather and You’ve Got Mail) so I didn’t want to just make fun of them. Instead I tried to find the comedy in following their forms. That being said, I would probably have a hard time explaining this to David Chase.”
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