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Jerusalem posted:AJ sits in the common room watching a bizarre commercial about sleeping pills. As he sits watching, Tony comes up in the elevator with a pizza, the same gift he brought his son once before after telling him how embarassed he was to have him as an heir. He's informed that there is no food in the unit and quietly leaves it behind, signs in and follows the nurse through the security doors. AJ steps out into the corridor to meet him, and after a quiet moment staring at each other, father and son walk on together. Livia Soprano said in the end your friends and family abandon you and you die in your own arms, and she did die alone and largely unmourned. Tony saved his son though, and will do everything in his power to keep him alive. There's still room on this bus to ride. This episode really shows the power that the show had even at the very end. Some of the best performances and scenes from the whole run of the show are on display here, and it is a powerhouse. The scene with Tony and AJ at the pool is one that has stuck with me ever since, and Gandolfini's performance of Tony's insane rage during the curbstomp scene was a home run. Tony's inability to change and his stubborn refusal to learn made him narratively frustrating but also made him seem undeniably real, and watching Tony felt like watching a person you know, rather than a character. So the scenes where he truly suffers, like he does here with AJ, hit hard. Another great writeup Jerusalem, I wish we weren't so close to the end because this has been really enjoyable. Thanks!
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Apr 28, 2020 16:13
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Obviously it's to be plot convenient but did meadow spend enough time around the NY mobsters at family functions for them to recognize her?
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Apr 28, 2020 21:27
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Bip Roberts posted:Obviously it's to be plot convenient but did meadow spend enough time around the NY mobsters at family functions for them to recognize her? I'm sure they all know who she is. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't rooting for Tony in that situation. drat this show for consistently making me root for bad guys, but in a show seemingly filled with nothing but - and even though Tony's reaction was over the top - Phil, Butchie and Coco are in no position to claim any sort of higher moral ground either and that sexual power play that Coco pulled is something I don't think would ever even cross Tony's mind, let alone acting on. He seems to have a semi soft spot for kids and animals and, as horrible as he can be, I can't recall him loving with a civilian like that and most especially not a family member. If my memory is sound, his "professional" violence was entirely aimed at people in the racket to one extent or another. Even the crooked cop he belt whipped was dirty. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I guess one could argue that dude answering the phone. I dunno. This is one of my favorite episodes and seems to mark the spot where It All Goes to poo poo and There's Just No Turning Back. Everything is crumbling. Chris is gone, The NY/NJ co-op is gone, AJ is almost gone, Meadow is crossing over into a semi mob wife/life, the therapy is going nowhere and it's suggested it's even doing more harm than good, money is being lost...It all feels so...hopeless. There's no bright spot. Carm and Tony are fighting again and pointing fingers.
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Apr 28, 2020 22:07
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Different look for Ralphie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DHy4xOLucM
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Apr 29, 2020 00:05
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Jerusalem posted:"Don't do it!" demands Butchie, and Tony turns and sneers at him in complete disregard, then turns back and stomps down on the back of Coco's head. Butchie winces, the staff can only watch in horror, and Butchie's teeth spill across the floor in a bloody mess. *Coco's teeth Fuckin' amazing write up, as ever! I don't see how Phil saw any other outcome than war, which might explain why his opening salvos were so effective - He was planning on squashing them the whole time, yah?
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Apr 29, 2020 06:43
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Thanks, fixed it now. And I don't think war was an inevitably in PHIL's mind, it's just that the alternative he did have in mind was never going to happen. He wanted Tony - who remember once chased him down in a car and beat him as he begged for mercy - to completely capitulate and essentially let the New Jersey mob be absorbed into the Lupertazzi Family as nothing more than their New Jersey crew. It was never going to happen, but it's what Phil thought should be the case. Of course, if Tony had just rolled over then Phil would have considered him with contempt for being "weak" and probably tried to remove him anyway. It was always going to end in violence, but Phil didn't necessarily think that was the inevitable result... he just didn't shy away from it either.
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Apr 29, 2020 06:57
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Was Phil that blinkered? If you've left no recourse to negotiation, all you leave is capitulation or the sword. And Tony isn't the sort to capitulate. But maybe Phil had a different sense of Tony? Except each time they came into conflict before, Tony did not capitulate. He ran him off the road, and stalled on Vito.
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Apr 29, 2020 08:59
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Phil thought things had changed, he's one of those guys who always thinks,"When I'm finally in charge everybody will have no choice but to bow to my will." Johnny Sack had a little of that in him too, which caught a lot of them by surprise since he'd been so reasonable during his time as Underboss (which the role called for), but he eventually saw reason. Phil might have eventually as well, but I think a lot of poo poo he had to eat during his lifetime meant that once he finally achieved his dream of the top spot he was fully committed to forcing people to bend the knee.
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Apr 29, 2020 10:44
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If Phil wanted nothing but violence from the start, I don't think he would have accepted Carmine's offer to meet with Tony in the first place. We know he was ultimately willing to offend Carmine since he does back out at the last minute, but I don't think that was a deliberate ploy--I think Phil's genuinely indecisive at that moment. On some level I think he knows he's behaving irrationally, but he really wants to make Tony eat poo poo, so he does that, in my opinion without a clear goal initially for where that might lead.
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Apr 29, 2020 16:30
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Which would make Coco running into Meadow also likely a coincidence? Which in turn feeds into my assessment that Tony, while a greedy piece of poo poo with terrible destructive tendencies, actually does an OK job of strategic planning, in comparison to the other Bosses we see. Or is it just that we get to see Tony's day to day, whereas the command and control decisions made in New York are mostly unseen.
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Apr 29, 2020 16:55
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Funny how hard they went after Vito. Phil is a whiny old bitch, and between him and Butchie, compared to Tony they dont have enough masculinity to fill a Mazda Protege
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Apr 29, 2020 17:23
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I think during the original run of the series I was a bit confused as to why everything was blowing up all of the sudden. But when you watch the Phil seasons over the course of a few months you can see the development of that grudge and how this feels inevitable once Johnny Sack was out of the picture.
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Apr 29, 2020 17:46
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With Phil, I think there also was some apprehension with meeting Tony too, but just curbstomped one of his lieutenants, maybe helped plan murdering his little brother and while he set up a meeting with Little Carmine realized, wait not that long ago he was looking to be boss on the opposite side of me. Both people have broken the "rules" so there was no trust on either side. Also realistically Phil is right that Tony's Family really is an autonomous crew for the Lupertazi's. While Tony, doesn't directly kick up he pretty consistently has to let them have shares in his groups interests. he also never meets with another New York family and he doesn't go to one of them after this ploy with Carmine fails. You would think the other 4 families might tell Phil to shut the gently caress up about starting a war which will draw a lot of heat after already dropping dozens of affiliated bodies. Finally with the Johnny Sack Allocution, and the multiple rounds of civil wars they have to be on thin ice. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 19:12
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BrotherJayne posted:Which would make Coco running into Meadow also likely a coincidence? Oh I think that was absolutely a coincidence, and he just couldn't resist being an rear end in a top hat to try and get one back on the guy (who he also thinks is simply the captain of a glorified crew) who had cost him some money.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:38
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Meadow knew exactly what would happen when she told Tony about this. You can maybe give her the benefit of the doubt with the whole thing about Finn, but this is clearly history repeating itself and it's more direct confirmation than anything that she accepts Tony's power and lifestyle and is willing to condone it for power and material advantages at this point in the show.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:49
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Paper Lion posted:Meadow knew exactly what would happen when she told Tony about this. You can maybe give her the benefit of the doubt with the whole thing about Finn, but this is clearly history repeating itself and it's more direct confirmation than anything that she accepts Tony's power and lifestyle and is willing to condone it for power and material advantages at this point in the show. I think she clearly wanted some kind of confrontation/retribution to happen (with plausible deniability on her part so she could still pretend to herself and her parents that she's not involved--there's no way her broader denial about the family isn't willful), but I think she'd still be surprised at how far it went.
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Apr 29, 2020 23:11
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Sinteres posted:I think she clearly wanted some kind of confrontation/retribution to happen (with plausible deniability on her part so she could still pretend to herself and her parents that she's not involved--there's no way her broader denial about the family isn't willful), but I think she'd still be surprised at how far it went. Her boyfriend gets forced to go talk to her dad and his buds at the strip club, he's wracked with guilt and anxiety about it, Vito "disappears". She's not A.J, she can put this poo poo together she knows what happened last time and goes out of her way (and looks more comfortable this time) to do it again
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Apr 29, 2020 23:14
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Sinteres posted:I think she clearly wanted some kind of confrontation/retribution to happen (with plausible deniability on her part so she could still pretend to herself and her parents that she's not involved--there's no way her broader denial about the family isn't willful), but I think she'd still be surprised at how far it went. I was typing up something like this, but then I realized it's been what, a month or so since Vito was murdered a few weeks after they interrogated her and Finn about him. She should really know better at this point. But yeah, I think it's kind of a willful inability to think these things through. "I told my dad about a guy that harassed me" doesn't necessarily lead to him being beaten half to death, right? She doesn't think Tony's capable of just walking into a restaurant and making a guy bite the curb, so maybe he'll just talk to their boss? And he'll get a reprimand or something? She doesn't internalize the idea that her father is just naturally going to visit brutal violence on anyone who threatens her.
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Apr 29, 2020 23:17
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I think Phil did that "Sitting up in my Castle Tower" bullshit power move on purpose. I can't see it any other way and am surprised people here think he set up a meeting with 2 people he not only doesn't respect but outright LOATHES, especially in light of "No More" and Tony's act of VERY extreme aggression against a made guy in his crew. He hates Tony and considers Carmine not only a rival but also a complete moron. He was playing Carmine AND Tony. Set up a meeting he was never gonna have and then sent Butchie down to deliver his lovely dismissive message in a lovely, dismissive way and then made sure he was Sitting Up High when his enemies showed up just so he could rain poo poo down on them. He's made it clear he no longer cares and is going to be aggressive, uncompromising and go 100% on the offensive. He didn't change his mind. He did it on purpose to let them all know what's what and get them all in one place looking weak as he looks DOWN on all of them. Not even sure how this is open to interpretation. These last few episodes have 100% been setting up Inevitable War for the finale and casting Phil as "The Villain".
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Apr 30, 2020 00:05
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BiggerBoat posted:I think Phil did that "Sitting up in my Castle Tower" bullshit power move on purpose. I can't see it any other way and am surprised people here think he set up a meeting with 2 people he not only doesn't respect but outright LOATHES, especially in light of "No More" and Tony's act of VERY extreme aggression against a made guy in his crew. He hates Tony and considers Carmine not only a rival but also a complete moron. Going out of his way to piss on another important guy in his own organization at the same time he's rushing to war with another (admittedly weaker) organization would be really stupid. We know Phil was making reckless decisions, but I think the subsequent episodes show that he was cracking a bit under the pressure and succumbing to paranoia too, so I don't think this was all some master strategy on his part. I think that 'I'm not going to eat poo poo from anyone' stubborness just leads him down the road to making the kinds of impulsive decisions that we see from Tony all the time, where he knows he should (or shouldn't) do something but says gently caress it and does what he wants to do anyway, but not necessarily in a planned out way. Paper Lion posted:Her boyfriend gets forced to go talk to her dad and his buds at the strip club, he's wracked with guilt and anxiety about it, Vito "disappears". She's not A.J, she can put this poo poo together Phenotype posted:I was typing up something like this, but then I realized it's been what, a month or so since Vito was murdered a few weeks after they interrogated her and Finn about him. She should really know better at this point. To be fair, if she does blame her dad for murdering Vito, it would be one of the few crimes he's actually innocent of committing. I think Meadow's obviously a hypocrite who knows some poo poo's going on that she isn't comfortable owning up to, but I don't think she's straight up plotting out some dude's murder or near-murder because he made a creepy comment to her. That seems way beyond anything she'd be comfortable with, even if she should be smart enough to know that these are real risks. I don't think even Carmella would be comfortable with that level of blatant complicity. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 00:14
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Paper Lion posted:Her boyfriend gets forced to go talk to her dad and his buds at the strip club, he's wracked with guilt and anxiety about it, Vito "disappears". She's not A.J, she can put this poo poo together small note. Finn talks to them at Satriales not the bing
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Apr 30, 2020 00:27
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Sinteres posted:Going out of his way to piss on another important guy in his own organization at the same time he's rushing to war with another (admittedly weaker) organization would be really stupid. We know Phil was making reckless decisions, but I think the subsequent episodes show that he was cracking a bit under the pressure and succumbing to paranoia too, so I don't think this was all some master strategy on his part. I think that 'I'm not going to eat poo poo from anyone' stubborness just leads him down the road to making the kinds of impulsive decisions that we see from Tony all the time, where he knows he should (or shouldn't) do something but says gently caress it and does what he wants to do anyway, but not necessarily in a planned out way. I'm willing to look at it that way but still don't see it. If I'm reading you right, you're saying he agreed to talk it out in a meeting brokered by Little Carmine - despite being shown as deliberately antagonistic and uncompromising leading up to this - and then had a change of heart after one of his top made guys had his teeth knocked in by a guy he despises in a meeting set up by a person he considers to be a complete moron and has never respected? I mean...it's possible but everything I've seen from Phil for most of this season is setting him up as the heel, the catalyst for the end war and as guy who simply can't or won't be reasoned with. You may be right but I still have a hard time seeing it as anything other than a "gently caress them both" move from a guy who gives no fucks anymore that wants his Rightful Place. I don't think "strategy" has much to do with it so much as deliberate contempt. E: And who did he "piss on" in his own organization? You mean Carmine? I don't get the sense he considers him part of anything he's trying to do. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 00:47
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Giving Little Carmine the Eskimo floe treatment and drawing Jersey into a quick spat of violence makes sense to me, if it's part of a bigger plan: clean house in New York, and bring the Jersey "Crew" back into line. But the more folks point to Phil just falling apart, the more I buy it q
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Apr 30, 2020 01:22
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I think there's a strong chance that Phil agreed to the meeting because he initially thought,"Now that he's done this to Coco, I can not only get what I wanted from him but maybe more too because he knows he hosed up" but the closer they got to the meeting the more he got pissed off that he was agreeing to a negotiation AFTER claiming his position was set in stone, even though Tony was actually coming to capitulate entirely, so he decided gently caress it, no negotiation. There was probably also a significant amount of pleasure in getting to force Tony to come all the way out to see him and then sending him away as a power-play, as noted. I also think - and I admit this is a very remote possibility - that Phil on some level is also scared of Tony. Tony has put him into vulnerable positions at least twice in recent memory: the time he ran him off the road but perhaps more importantly the time he sat at his bedside at the hospital and reached out to Phil on a human level and Phil reciprocated. Tony even brings that up in public and Phil acts unaffected, but I think it deeply rattles him that Tony got to him to the point that for almost a year Phil really did try to just effectively retire and give up all his claims to power.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:23
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BiggerBoat posted:I'm willing to look at it that way but still don't see it. I'm saying he agreed to talk it out after Coco got his teeth knocked out when the seriousness of the situation became clear (he wanted to lord over Tony and force him into a subordinate negotiating position, not start a war), and then backed out of that agreement when he decided to seize the opportunity to get revenge on Tony for his brother. If he'd wanted to go to war from the start, he could have just done that and taken the first shot without warning Tony by backing out of a planned meeting. And yeah, Phil doesn't respect Carmine (he did ultimately back out of the meeting), but Carmine was still clearly a part of the family, and one who was in leadership contention not so long ago (and seemed to be in a solid position to succeed Johnny Sack after Phil's heart attack if he'd wanted to), so he's not just some irrelevant idiot, as the way the war played out proved. I've been trying not to get too far ahead of the story, but the way Phil divorces himself even from his loyal crew tells me he lost the plot at some point and was just lashing out irrationally rather than coolly pulling strings. Edit: Didn't see this until after I posted. Jerusalem posted:I think there's a strong chance that Phil agreed to the meeting because he initially thought,"Now that he's done this to Coco, I can not only get what I wanted from him but maybe more too because he knows he hosed up" but the closer they got to the meeting the more he got pissed off that he was agreeing to a negotiation AFTER claiming his position was set in stone, even though Tony was actually coming to capitulate entirely, so he decided gently caress it, no negotiation. There was probably also a significant amount of pleasure in getting to force Tony to come all the way out to see him and then sending him away as a power-play, as noted. I agree about Phil seeming scared of Tony. When he's shouting from inside his house after canceling the meeting, he doesn't seem like someone who's cool and in charge, he seems like a little kid. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 02:25
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Jerusalem posted:I think there's a strong chance that Phil agreed to the meeting because he initially thought,"Now that he's done this to Coco, I can not only get what I wanted from him but maybe more too because he knows he hosed up" but the closer they got to the meeting the more he got pissed off that he was agreeing to a negotiation AFTER claiming his position was set in stone, even though Tony was actually coming to capitulate entirely, so he decided gently caress it, no negotiation. There was probably also a significant amount of pleasure in getting to force Tony to come all the way out to see him and then sending him away as a power-play, as noted. Yeah for Phil he really has not come off the winner when he clashes with Tony. 1. As far as he knows Tony helped murder his brother and tried to cover it up. 2. Tony wrecked his car and assaulted him in public. 3. Tony murdered his own cousin in cold blood to spite Phil. 4. Whatever happened there in the hospital. 5. One of his soldiers visited Jersey and "disappeared". 6. Tony is obviously in league with Carmine who is probably the one viable player on the board who could unseat him as boss. 7. Tony just brutalized one of his lieutenants in New York and walked away scot free. Like the only time Phil "won" was when he killed Vito really, nothing else has gone his way when they butt heads. I can absolutely see him losing his grip in this situation and not be acting rationally. He wants to win, and winning probably means killing Tony and his families leadership (Hits on Silvio and Bobby) avenging his wounded pride and brother. Then absorbing the Jersey crew entirely when an idiot like Paulie inevitably takes over.
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Apr 30, 2020 05:53
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Jack2142 posted:1. As far as he knows Tony helped murder his brother and tried to cover it up. Ah! Seeing it listed like this sheds a different kind of light on it, for me. This list, combined with "No more, Butchie... no more".
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Apr 30, 2020 06:58
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Lol, what a fuckin' mess. So the Lupertazzi Family basically sleepwalks their way into a war, *and* very nearly wins it in one blitz.
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Apr 30, 2020 10:22
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It was a pygmy thing... glorified crew.
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Apr 30, 2020 10:31
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Jack2142 posted:
"WHATEVER HAPPENED THERE?!?"
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Apr 30, 2020 11:32
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Alright then!
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Apr 30, 2020 11:42
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Jack2142 posted:Like the only time Phil "won" was when he killed Vito really, nothing else has gone his way when they butt heads. I would say the Vito thing belongs on the list of grievances. I don’t think Phil considered this a victory- it only would have been so if Tony had done it first because he would have been carrying out Phil’s bidding. The fact that Phil had to have it done and was able to do it first was another strike against Tony for “disobeying” him and “evidence” in Phil’s mind that Vito had Tony’s full cooperation. I think this is what Phil was lying awake thinking about- that this is only one slight on an ever growing list and perhaps a deciding moment that he needed to take a harder line against Jersey.
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Apr 30, 2020 12:09
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MrMojok posted:It was a pygmy thing... glorified crew. It's interesting that Phil remembers that Carmine used to say this about the DiMeo family, he wasn't there on the golf course when Carmine blurted it out and I can't picture him saying this time and time again. BiggerBoat posted:"WHATEVER HAPPENED THERE?!?" "God rest his soul, huh?"
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Apr 30, 2020 12:55
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I feel like some here are overestimating how important Little Carmine is at this point in the show. I mean, he's important to Tony as a go-between he can (mostly)trust, but to someone like Phil I just can't imagine giving a poo poo about what someone like Little Carmine thinks. His position as Carmine's son is respected and I think certainly New York would not take kindly to Phil doing something drastic like killing him, but I really doubt Little Carmine still has the sway to go to the other New York bosses and get anywhere by complaining about Phil. He's a guy who at one time was in a strong position to be the boss of the family but he's voluntarily taken himself out of that side of the business. His father's reputation protects him and his livelihood but I think that's probably about as far as it goes. New York isn't going to side with Tony on an issue just because Little Carmine asks them to. So I really don't think Phil would think twice about making GBS threads all over Little Carmine if he felt like it, and in this episode he felt like it.
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Apr 30, 2020 14:35
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I can only think of the most veiled of hints as possible evidence like the gripping of the bedsheet when Vito was getting brutalised, the fixation on him having gay sex, the shame about his surname, but this is my second rewatch and I still get the distinct impression that Phil is a deeply repressed homosexual :/
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Apr 30, 2020 14:57
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COMPAGNIE TOMMY posted:I would say the Vito thing belongs on the list of grievances. I don’t think Phil considered this a victory- it only would have been so if Tony had done it first because he would have been carrying out Phil’s bidding. The fact that Phil had to have it done and was able to do it first was another strike against Tony for “disobeying” him and “evidence” in Phil’s mind that Vito had Tony’s full cooperation. I think this is what Phil was lying awake thinking about- that this is only one slight on an ever growing list and perhaps a deciding moment that he needed to take a harder line against Jersey. That's why "won" was in quotations, he kind of got what he wanted by killing Vito, but your spot on in that it was another time Tony pretty much brushed him off and disrespected him.
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Apr 30, 2020 16:17
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crispix posted:I can only think of the most veiled of hints as possible evidence like the gripping of the bedsheet when Vito was getting brutalised, the fixation on him having gay sex, the shame about his surname, but this is my second rewatch and I still get the distinct impression that Phil is a deeply repressed homosexual :/ That part where he comes out of the closet... Creepy as hell.
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Apr 30, 2020 23:44
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Seriously Like a loving horror movie villain.
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May 1, 2020 00:57
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Jerusalem posted:Seriously You have to zoom way in and even then it's hard to tell they're not just sliding open like Star Trek doors.
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May 1, 2020 01:15
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crispix posted:I can only think of the most veiled of hints as possible evidence like the gripping of the bedsheet when Vito was getting brutalised, the fixation on him having gay sex, the shame about his surname, but this is my second rewatch and I still get the distinct impression that Phil is a deeply repressed homosexual :/ I'd say it was more to do with his prison experiences. "You get a pass for that". He did a lot of time.
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May 1, 2020 02:05
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