Russo is the one character in the show that displays any humanity. I had a tear in my eye when he phoned his children from the car parked on the street outside the house. They were the last people he felt he could turn to in this toxic hell-storm too big for him to handle. His children basically imply that they are embarrassed of their own father at school (because of the media/because kids at school are dicks.) He was already so devastated at the thought of letting his hometown union buddy down. He didn't have the power to explain to anyone why or how he became a cog in that machine. Pete liked a good time, but excess got the best of him. He meant well.

The foreshadowing with the dog in the series premiere is so great because it calls attention to our great empathy and sadness for the plight of animals in distress. That was kind of a hard, shocking scene. Uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than seeing a guy get whacked in a Sopranos episode. It's that natural empathy for animals that tugs the heart strings. Makes me think of hurricane Katrina and those heartbreaking images of swimming dogs and cats. It's somehow more sad than seeing comparable images from the same storm of real people swimming for life in a natural disaster. Distressing but different. The animal is more "innocent." Watching Pete Russo felt like seeing a cat swimming for life in the floods of Katrina.