Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen the show since it went off the air June 2007, I don’t know how else to help you.
What?
Yeah, she is.
Disregard her physical size or gender. Disregard the fact that she’s supposedly the “good” Soprano that got a college education.
Look at this link regarding sleep deprivation as an abuse tactic.
Also look at this transcript of her all-night argument with her boyfriend Finn.
LATE AFTERNOON / EARLY EVENING (YANKEE/PADRES GAME ON THE TELEVISION IN FINN’S APARTMENT) …
Meadow: So you’re just not gonna show up? You love baseball. What is wrong with you?
Finn: I don’t like the guy, all right?
Meadow: Right. I get it. Dr. DeTrolio can’t hang with the common folk.
Finn: He came on to me, all right? – Either that or he wants to kill me.
Meadow: What?
Finn: I saw him blowing some security guard in the parking lot.
Meadow: When? What are you talking about?
Finn: This morning I showed up early. I didn’t wanna say anything but I’m really afraid of this guy.
Meadow: Vito Spatafore is a married man, Finn. I seriously doubt he wants to kill you.
Finn: Well, maybe he wants to fuck me and then kill me.
Meadow: Wait a minute. Is that why you got out the suitcase?
Finn: I am not going back to the site.
Meadow: Do you have any idea the strings my father pulled to get you that job? And you just fucking quit? I’m gonna hear so much bullshit!
Finn: So it’s all about you, right?
Meadow: Is that all you can say whenever it’s anything to do with my feelings? So you’re going back to Mission Viejo?
Finn: I didn’t say that.
Meadow: Why don’t you just admit it? This whole thing the fight, the stuff with Vito, it’s about you not wanting to commit.
Finn: I’m here! We fucking live together!
Meadow: But you got out a suitcase!
Finn: It’s my process, okay? Look, you never can tell.
Meadow: Your process?
Finn: About anything, the future. I was thinking out loud. Well, not out loud, but in the action of getting out the suitcase I was thinking.
Meadow: Thinking of leaving!
Finn: No. Well, yes. But, I’m still here. I didn’t go.
Meadow: Fuck you!
Finn: Right, great. fuck me. There was no abundant intentionality in me getting out the suitcase.
Meadow: I can leave too, you know. My friend Hunter’s in Montreal.
Finn: Do I know? With the French roommate guy who was all over your ass when we visited. You don’t think you keep mentioning him every 24 hours at a minimum?
Meadow: Because he’s thinking of becoming an oral surgeon. And you might have had a new friend if you hadn’t been so obnoxious to him at the club!
Finn: Can we just stop fighting?
Meadow: You got out a suitcase!
Finn: I’ll put it back, OK?
— CUT TO A DISAPPOINTED VITO SPATAFORE STANDING OUTSIDE THEN DEJECTEDLY WALKING ALONE INTO YANKEE STADIUM —
Stadium Announcer: Now batting for the Padres
— AN UNDETERMINED AMOUNT OF TIME AFTER FINN DOES NOT SHOW UP AT THE BASEBALL GAME WITH VITO SPATAFORE / EARLY MORNING —
Meadow: So it’s not about us, but suddenly you’re talking about options.
Finn: Don’t paraphrase what I said. I said this point in our lives is a transition period forced on us by external events. School is over for me. And next year for you. These are difficult choices. You’d rather not have choices? Thank God for choices.
Meadow: Stop your bullshit! It’s really simple. – Are we going to stay together or not?
Finn: If you want.
Meadow: That’s not what I asked!
Finn: I said I did.
Meadow: And then you said, “How are we going to keep it together through four years of dental school for you and probably med school for me?”
Finn: Well, it’s a good question.
Meadow: But why ask it now? Tonight of all times?
— FINN NODS OFF. —
Meadow: Are you asleep?
Finn: No.
Meadow: You were! And now you were gonna lie like you did about the suitcase.
Finn: I did not lie about the suitcase.
Meadow: Then what do you call it?
Finn: I don’t know, I explained it. Jesus, you should quit the law center. You’re like a prosecutor at four a.m. I can’t think.
Meadow: How can you sleep in the middle of this?
Finn: In the middle of what? I said I didn’t wanna go back to the job site and maybe I should go home until this thing with Vito blows over.
Meadow: But you didn’t ask me to come! You went to the closet and got out your suitcase!
Finn: Jesus Christ!
— MEADOW RUNS CRYING INTO THE BATHROOM AND SLAMS THE DOOR CLOSED. THE MALFUNCTIONING AIR CONDITIONER ON A HOT NIGHT FINALLY SPUTTERS OUT AND FINN KICKS IT. —
Finn: Look, just stop crying, OK?
— MEADOW SLOWLY COMES BACK TO THE BEDROOM AND SITS BY FINN ON THE BED. —
Finn: Why don’t we just get married?
Meadow: Married?
Finn: Let’s get engaged.
Meadow: Really? Why are you saying that now?
Finn: I can’t think, it’s too late. It’s just something I feel very strongly.
The Sopranos, Season 5, Episode 9 / 61 Total (“Unidentified Black Males”, 42:25 – 48:14)
Yes, you can make a legitimate point about the homophobic panic of many straight men that assume all gay men are dangerous predators that won’t take no for an answer. However, the threat isn’t because Vito Spatafore is gay. It’s because he’s a gangster who very well might kill to prevent homophobic retribution getting him killed (which happened anyway).
Yes, you can make another legitimate point about the kind of men that string monogamous women along with promises of fidelity then leave when they get sex. But that really doesn’t apply to Finn and Meadow at all.
You may even sympathize with Meadow’s predicament, seeing as how she got dumped once before.
But look at that argument again.
Finn: I don’t know, I explained it. Jesus, you should quit the law center. You’re like a prosecutor at four a.m. I can’t think.
Meadow: How can you sleep in the middle of this?
And this.
Finn: I can’t think, it’s too late.
I’m going to emphasize the relevant points from that sleep deprivation article.
Depriving a member of the household of sleep is a common tactic used by emotional abusers because it has a profound effect on the emotional state of the victim while leaving almost no evidence that abuse has occurred.
Motivation for sleep deprivation may range from anger and a desire to make the victim feel some of the abusers pain or rage to a more manipulative form where the abuser calculates that they will have more control over the victim in a sleep-deprived state.
Denying a person sleep or starting arguments at a late hour is a common tactic of emotional abusers and those who suffer from personality disorders.
No, she doesn’t punch a hole in a wall dangerously close to her partner’s head.
No, she doesn’t routinely physically abuse her domestic partner then have her murdered.
No, she doesn’t kill her intimate partner for being a sex worker that complains about about the emotional, verbal, and physical abuse she’s subjecting them to.
But if you want to hand wave this obvious shit away, there’s nothing really else to be said to you. Meadow obviously learned some dysfunctional control tactics in that household she didn’t even think twice about using.
No other article or group I could find online mentioned this aspect of her personality, so I thought it had to be said.
I’m on Team Noah Tannenbaum and Blanca Selgado. Them’s some smart brown people.
AAAtheist 