The Sopranos: Advanced Discussion Thread

Tony was his mother also. But the last scene with janice, and her victimizing herself over and over again, showed how she was her mother's daughter.

As far as the finale goes, I just watched it again. It is just perfect in every way.

as for the Russian, am I the only one who thinks he just died in the woods. I mean, there is no way he escaped in Paulys car, otherwise the russians would have been down Tony's throat. I think he climbed the tree, as implied in teh show, and he died shortly after. I mean, he was shot in the head.

Just got done watching season 1 again, did a whole day marathon. God, I love the forshadowing this season did. Christopher and his screen writting attempts. Livia, and her memory loss, and how she told Junior "just wait, you will be there soon". I did feel bad for Jimmy when he got whacked, knowing that Pussy was the rat the whole time. Kind of cool to see the guy who played Vito, play someone else in Seaon 1. I think his name was Gino.

College is the standout of the whole season, and easily ranks in as one of the top 5 Sopranos episodes. Tony is one dedicated proffesional, damn his daughters future, when theirs a hit to be made.

I don't think Jimmy was a rat. I think he was just in the wrong place, wrong time, and talking to much. It was too funny when Chris goes "I called a bomb threat into his wake", and Sil says "Now, that's a bit too much"... lol, gotta love the mob ethics of conduct.

I do love that too, when Chris steals the whole stack of newspapers. I'm thinking, "what is he going to do with all of them?", but then i realized it's Christopher.

Going to start season 2 tonight. Bouth the whole series used on DVD a few weeks ago. All 6 seasons for 60 bucks. And no, it didn't involve a shake down.

Todd VanDerWerff is starting an AV Club Classic rewatch series on The Sopranos as of today. Should be required reading for anyone interested in the show, or the medium of television, or the darker aspects of the American character in the 21st century. Same goes for his Deadwood series, while we're at it.

Dude, THANK YOU! It's such common sense, but sometimes I need a jolt for things to read on AV Club that are sitting right there.


One day, I can't wait to dive into the Sopranos. I only ever saw like 4-5 episodes scattered throughout. The "fandom" over it put me off when it was airing.

You'll love it, pants. It's bleak, wrenching, sharply satirical, violent, and absolutely hilarious. It's also the most insanely cynical show to ever become a huge mainstream sensation, which I always found amusing. Also, it had serious issues with the fandom it developed, and addresses this in really sly and intelligent ways in later seasons. Oh, and (shakes up can of worms) the ending actually is daring and uncompromising in all the ways the Lost cheerleaders have been claiming its was.

The Deadwood reviews are really ace. I highly recommend them, especially to anyone who wrote the show off as a big pile of violence and profanity. That show's got subtext that craps bigger than you.

You'll find no such complaints about Deadwood here, I assure you, you cocksucking dirt-worshipper.

Alright, sorry for the derail. One day, I shall return to the thread.

One of the posts in the A/V Club comments links to this exhaustive analysis of the final episode.

I haven't started it yet myself, so I can't comment on anything except its awe-inspiring obsessiveness.

ETA: Got through about half of it over lunch. If the Zapruder film had been scrutinized half as carefully, Stone would never have needed to make JFK.

I don't really have a problem with the "Tony gets shot at the end" theory, if only because it would pander to my sense of justice in a way the show itself always pointedly avoided, but trying to come up with conclusive proof just seems inane. If that really was the correct way to interpret it (or if there was one correct way at all), well, they could have very easily shown us. That Chase made a point not to should tell you that there isn't a "canon" answer for what happens next.

I've only seen the finale once, and certainly have never done a detailed analysis. But after I watched it, mt conclusion was that Tony lived, because the tension in the scene felt more like a commentary on audience expectations, given that nobody could watch it without realizing it was the final scene of this huge phenomenon, and thus not expect someone to get capped. I always go back to the tension built into Meadow parallel parking and crossing the street, and I remember laughing at it at the time, thinking Chase is totally fucking with us.

Of course, that doesn't mean Tony doesn't get shot. I've since come to the conclusion that the point is it doesn't matter if Tony lives another 50 years, or .5 seconds. As a character, he's set.

Rewatching the whole series right now. Finsihed up season 1, and just got done with the episode in Season 2 where they go to Italy.

Goddammit, now you all've got ME wanting to start up a new marathon of this show. Thanks so much, assholes.

:: reaches for Season 1, sitting on the shelf ::

you know you wanna.... "Woke up this morning......."

Now I can kiss my whole week off from work goodbye. And here I thought I'd be getting in some Red Dead and Alan Wake time...

get some Baked Ziti, a couple CAO cigars, and some good red wine...

It was the friggin' "Season 2 Italy" mention that did it, motherfucker. Chrissy never did make it out to that volcano.

But yeah -- the wine sounds like a plan.

Naples University my friend

Totally forgot Michael K. Williams (Omar!) played the guy who takes in Jackie Aprile Jr. when he's on the run.

Furio just came over from Italy... I forgot how much of a badass he was in the beginning. Beating up the asian whores, and their pimp.

Great to see the T-1000 getting work, even if he is playing a degenerate gambler.

I've also just rewatched the second season, the John Faverau cameo is fantastic and really funny, the scene with him and a wired Christopher in the hotel room had me in stitches.

Also, Paulie going to see the psychic, "who da fuck are you talking to?!"

I think it's perfectly illustrative of his character that he inexplicably yells, "FUCKIN' QUEEAHS!" before tossing a chair into the wall.

who ya calling wired...

On Season 3 now. Tony's mom just died. The "get together" at the house is one of the all time classic scenes from this show. I forgot how wonderfully absurb the whole thing was. The tension, everyone doing shots just to get through it, Janis showing her Narcisstic side, Carmela's father finally blowing up, and of course, Christopher explaining the world the way only Christopher can. "that would be one big space" line had me in stitches.

I'm wondering how, with some perspective under their belts, people rank the seasons against each other. It's much harder for me to do with this one than other shows, because I can't quite decide on the criteria.

Season 1

Pros: Strongest throughline with the Tony/Junior conflict, which is the simplest way to stack seasons against each other, if not the best. The finale is an explosive payoff to everything that happened before, offering a sense of narrative closure the show would eschew in subsequent years (although 5's finale did offer a pretty final statement on those storylines). The show would never again find a consistent use for John Ventimiglia's talent. College.

Cons: It's the first season, which means it takes awhile for some of the performers to find their feet (mainly Iler, but Gandolfini also tries a few different things out before settling on the nasal, ravenous brutality that would come to define the performance), and the relationships can't be as nuanced and deep as they would later become. Father Phil is a character I like more in concept than in actually watching. Always felt like Tony having an imaginary friend was gimmicky, and the show would get much better at expressing Tony's subconscious in less literal ways. It's a bit frustrating to see people who would become some of my favorite characters (Sil and Adriana) introduced as bit players and only slowly integrated into the main stories. Junior and Mikey are a tad too buffoonish, and would be overshadowed by subsequent nemeses.

Seasons 2-3

Pros: If I were to hand out grades to each individual episode in the series, these seasons would probably be neck and neck for highest GPA. The relationships and world have deepened considerably, and they contain the most of the "classic" Sopranos elements operating simultaneously. Tony definitely in charge and Livia and Janice and dethroned Junior and Baccalla and Christopher on drugs and Christopher courting Hollywood and Furio and seriously hot Meadow and Big Pussy and Richie/Ralphie (Pants gave the better performance, but a lot of the ground he covered was already broken in S2), all going on more or less at once. The way Tony reacts to the Richie resolution. Pine Barrens.

Cons: When it comes to S2, not many, although the ending loses some punch in retrospect knowing that the climactic arrest will be shrugged off without any consequences at all. 3 has the horribly awkward CGI Livia (countered by the sublime wake) at the beginning and an ending that falls a little bit flat because Jackie Jr. isn't nearly as sympathetic a sacrificial figure as Big Puss, and the act is carried out at several additional steps of removal.

Seasons 4-5

Pros: Contain scattered throughout are what I consider the highest highs the show would ever reach (Whoever Did This, the intervention episode, most of Whitecaps, the Adriana arc and finale of S5). Johnny Sack and Phil Leotardo's rise in prominence, as well as long overdue appearances by Loggia and Buscemi in Sopranos-land.

Cons: Those highs come in the midst of the spottiest stretches the show had seen, side by side with many of the lowest lows. By the GPA standard, they might come out the lowest despite racking up a few A+'s. The mob storylines are at their weakest from Ralphie's departure until Buscemi snaps. Way too much time examining Janice's love life.

Season 6

Pros: The best premiere they ever did. The back nine is the longest continuous hot streak they ever hit. Stayed completely shocking and utterly cynical right to the end.

Cons: Followed that brilliant premiere with the longest continuous run of sub-par episodes they ever hit. Way too much time examining Vito's love life. Christopher's storyline just gets more and more depressing at every turn. Puts a little too much dramatic weight on AJ coming down the stretch.

Overall, I think I give the edge to 2.

I would say 3.

I should say that when I talk about a "bad" Sopranos episode, it's not like it is a really bad or uninteresting hour of television. Just ones that dragged in parts, or had repetitive elements, or generally did not fire on all cylinders at every moment and put the rest of televised element totally to shame.

Early to mid S6, while still funny and surprising and very well acted, got repetitive and especially slow paced for a show that was not blistering at the best of times. And the problem wasn't so much Vito's lovelife as his entire character. He wasn't very interesting or sympathetic (even by extremely loose Soprano standards), and I didn't really want to watch him carry a storyline, especially one that went so far afield of Jersey to so little overall effect.

The best Vito moment is his at-best-one-sixteenth-hearted defense of Ralphie when he insists they continue their basketball game. But scattered moments and carrying an extended, dramatic storyline are very different things.

I'm also a bit resentful that Vito got his run of episodes while my favorite side character, Silvio, got only one or two throughout the whole run where he was a main focus. He was never an Emmy threat or anything, but I think Steven Van Zandt actually put in a great, understated comic performance over the years.

That scene where Vito is telling himself not to look at his watch is worth any amount of clunky gay romance. What a wonderful sequence.

It was a little offsetting to hear voice-over in the show, but I wholeheartedly agree.

Silvio in Season 2, where he was playing Poker was some of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV. Leave the fucking cheese where it is, I like cheese on my feet...

I love every eisode of the Sopranos, but the weakest one for me, is the colombus day one.. with the Indians protesting the parade. Meh...

My biggest problem with the Vito storyline in season six is that I thought Johnny Cakes looked a little too much like Morgan Spurlock.

My biggest problem with it is how completely removed it is from the rest of the action for 3-4 episodes. Oh, and I don't think Gannascoli is that good of an actor. Although he's better in the episode where he finally comes back.

My rewatch has finally brought me to Pine Barrens, holy shit, as great and funny as I remember. As good as all the stuff in the woods is there is so much other hilarious stuff going on, it seems like they tried to be as funny as possible for this episode - Paulie getting a manicure, Bobby in his hunting gear, Tony wearing the Kaftan, Tony getting clocked with the steak, Junior's "you been eating steak?" line.
I think the "He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator." "His house looked like shit." is the best gag they ever did.

I also love this quote from David Chase about Valery,

I'm kind of amazed that they were able to take AJ, a character I thought was a little underdeveloped, and transform him into one of the most interesting characters in the second half of the six season.

Due to this thread I've started to revisit the show, I'm currently on season 3, episode 4: Employee of the Month. Lorraine Bracco was phenomenal in this episode, just devestating work, and that final scene is one of the few moments in the shows history where morality won out. I was relieved and proud when Melfi decided not to tell Tony who raped her. The long pause still manages to be deeply tense, despite now knowing how it resolves. I didn't want to see her compromise herself

I can't really pick a favourite season just yet, will need to get through the rest but running from memory I and drawn between 2 and 5. The Pussy storyline in 2 was one of my favourites of the series, his delusions of , whilst Adriana's covered similiar ground but with a far more gutpunching resolution. The scene where Adriana confesses to Christopher (closely followed by her death) was probably the most emotionally harrowing the show has had.

On the topic of AJ, on my first viewing I found him boring and aimless, due to the contrast between him and the more colourful, dynamic adult characters - but in hindsight I realize the aimlessness is entirely the point. I can empathize with his lack of direction, and the awkward frustration that comes with that. He doesn't get a lot to do throughout most of the series, but the little moments we do get from him are quite poignant at times. His relationship with Tony is actually one of my favourites in the show.

I don't know why, but Paulie losing his temper with his 'mother' when he finds out that she's not his biological mother just genuinely upset me. It's a perfectly played scene, and Paulie's harshness (which is abundant throughout the entire season) is perfectly encapsulated by it being focused on this little old woman.

It's amazing how monstrous the show is willing to make these people, all these people, and it kind of makes for some interesting emotional connections. I feel for Johnny Sack at his daughter's wedding way more than any other character because despite him being the closest thing the show has to an antagonist there's something truthful about his joy and sorrow in those scenes which you never get with Tony's crew.