The Sopranos (HBO) TV Show • Page 38

I happened to upon Joey Pants’ Wikipedia page and found this nugget:

“After a Sopranos episode in which his character brutally beat a young stripper to death, during an interview he stated, “After the episode aired a lot more women started hitting on me. I thought it was very revealing.”

 

Silvio even eats McDonald's french fries weird.

 

saw a video of Steve van zandt playing guitar and ofc he's been living in my head for two months as Silvio and not as famed guitar player in the E Street Band and i felt crazy for the split second that it took for my brain to reconcile it all

e: wrong Steve lol but same point

 

Plenty has been written about how important the episode Whitecaps is, but what is interesting about the episode, and the season in particular, is how it constantly subverts the expectations that the show had developed before and after. In most seasons, an antagonist to Tony is developed and they usually die or suffer at the end. Ralph does die, but he had been on the show so long and had ceased to be a threat, dying in the episode where he is at his weakest. The conflict with New York is built up, but it ultimately does not boil over. The show had always billed itself as an examination of Tony's "two families", but this was the first time that the real conflict for Tony came from that family.

It is the best season of the show. Unfortunately, the fifth season veers a little bit too much in the other direction, as this was the time where some people thought the show was not killing enough people for their taste.

 

Buscemi does a great job on 5 tho, and there’s some really interesting stuff in that season. I agree tho s4 is fantastic all around. WC hits a lot of emotional beats that any other show couldn’t.

 

The Feech La Manna story goes nowhere. It is a repeat of the Richie Aprile storyline; Tony even acknowledges the similarity. Like many long-running shows with high body counts, inserting Tony Blundetto's character is extremely awkward, as he was seemingly such a major part of Tony's life but he was never mentioned at all. The show also acknowledges this when Bobby's son wonders why no one had ever heard of him.

 

just finished re-watch number 7? 8? hard to keep track anymore. Finale is just as frustratingly excellent as it was the first time.

 

I’m taking season 5 slow and it’s pretty excellent. I agree that the “class of 2004” storyline in the first third of the season doesn’t work perfectly, but I think it does a good job showing the divide between Tony’s father’s generation and his own. The concept of “Tony B” — an alternate version of what could have happened to Tony Soprano had the arrest gone the other way — is interesting.

Honestly as heartbreaking as Adriana’s eventual demise will be, her as a rat is probably my least favorite storyline. I know she’s supposed to be a pitiable pawn, ultimately beaten down and used and discarded by both the mob and the FBI. The whole thing with her IBS and everything is laid on really thick.

 

As a fellow IBS sufferer, I must advocate for whatever little representation we receive in the media!!!! I will not stand for this criticism!

 

The scene where she realizes they have her and she just immediately pukes on the table is incredibly relatable and perfect.

 

You’ve been questioned by the FBI too?

 

I puke when stressed.

 

Actually tho not to give tmi but stress ramps up my ibs to ridiculous degrees. I don’t puke but i have friends who do when their anxiety surges. That or the other end. Lol

 

I am near the end of season five now. Chase was really starting to hate the audience for the show. The Test Dream was unpopular at the time, so he decides to dive into a two-episode dream sequence in the beginning of the sixth season.

 

Paulie steals hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug dealers and he still clips coupons.

 

The storyline about Paulie's real mother has so much potential to be stupid and melodramatic, but it ends up getting to the heart of what the word family means.

The show was always about the "two families" idea, with Tony trying to balance the demands of the two and the way in which they intertwined. All of the members of the mafia struggle with the split; Johnny Sack almost gets himself killed over a personal affront to his wife, while people like Paulie dedicated most of his life to the mob.

Because Paulie never had a wife or children, he overcompensated by showering affection and devotion to his mother, making the revelation that much more devastating to him. What happens when your life story is revealed to be a lie? Finding out your lineage has been concocted by others would make anyone question their life, but for Paulie the question of race is even more pressing. Paulie has been obsessed with his Italian heritage; he was outraged about cultural appropriation at Starbucks in season one, and he tried to find cultural value on the trip to Italy in season two. The possibility of not being fully Italian would disqualify his entire lifetime of posturing.

Ultimately, though, Paulie does reconcile with his "mother" in part because of his mafia family. The gangsters in the show always agree on communal lies; everyone knows that Big Pussy and Richie Aprile aren't really in the witness protection program, and no one dares question the narrative that Ralph Cifaretto was killed by New York. Given those realities, what is the difference who is your actual mother? The mob family tries to take care of the families of deceased members, but they often find excuses to cut them off or otherwise express tough love, such as Phil Leotardo killing his cousin's wife and then refusing to help her financially. By contrast, raising a son to protect your sister's honor and to ensure a good life for the boy is a truly selfless act; Paulie is mad about how much money he spent on her over the years, but she would have loved him unconditionally even if he had been a common laborer his whole life.

In my own life, a similar situation occurred. My father and his first wife took in the child of his first wife's sister because she was born out of wedlock. In my childhood I was told she was my half-sister; she only found out as an adult when she went to get a copy of her birth certificate. It caused a lot of longtime strife, the kinds of things that never truly heal.

 

Oh!!

 

There is no way Paulie ate all those Danishes he took from the hotel on the way to Miami.

 

What’s the status of the prequel movie?

 

Release was supposed to be September, but it was pushed back to March 2021 due to the pandemic. I’d guess we don’t see any advertising until around September.

 

Just started this show tonight. Two episodes in. Really enjoying it so far. It’s a lot funnier than I expected it to be

 

dialogue and quote-wise, one of the funniest shows of all time imo. not to say it doesn't go dark as hell, but it's not always like that

 

I’ve said it before, first two seasons their show age at the turn of the century. It only gets better from there. Keep at it!