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Even today in the era of Netflix I'm not great at binging shows, just one episode right after another like it's a can of Pringles. I did to that with the second season, though. I mean I was already in on it, but I think it was the when Richie takes a coffee pot and just smashes it across Beansie's face. I've probably seen way worse even on TV now but there's still something about it. It's also the only show I know that did something significant with Big Mouth Billy Bass. "Anyway, four dollars a pound."
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Mar 7, 2019 03:44
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Kevyn posted:I’m not crazy about the dream episodes in this show, but Funhouse is just so good. My second favorite episode after Pine Barrens. There's something about Spoons shrugging when Tony tries to apologize for having him killed, too.
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Mar 7, 2019 13:21
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It is kind of funny that Analyze This came out the same year as the first season and if you just looked at the pilot you might think that it was also going to be some sort of profanity-filled dramedy what with stuff like "Nuthin.' We had coffee." and "What're you complainin' about? HMO, you're covered!" Or the joke about how two crews have a guy nicknamed 'Pussy.'
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Mar 11, 2019 01:32
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pentyne posted:I still love that the pilot has Tony as the boss of the family and then they just pretended like Jackie was the boss the whole time when the show started. That is funny in hindsight, as Tony's house is on a scale bigger than the Apriles' (unless Rosalie moved after Jackie died, which I guess is possible) and that would probably be a no-no. Every other Jersey guy we see lives in places considerably smaller.
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Mar 11, 2019 02:09
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Man, Jackie's story is sad. The kid just isn't very bright, and his two main role models both don't actually try anything save 'threats' and 'give him a gun' and shockingly none of that works. It does also feature Meadow's full transformation into Future Mob Wife.
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Mar 11, 2019 13:48
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Jerusalem posted:It was never quite the same once she was gone, as the mother/son dynamic gives it something special that otherwise can't be emulated. But goddamn if Janice didn't give it the old college try when it came to filling that void. I do feel like Janice kind of fell by the wayside after season two, although it did pick up again she latched herself onto Bobby.
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Mar 12, 2019 15:43
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Midgetskydiver posted:Chase just had no qualms about showing how evil the characters were. He wasn't trying to make anyone redeemable. It's interesting you bring that up as I was recently trying to get through another series about OC in Sons of Anarchy and there it seems almost schizophrenic, jumping back and forth between 'these guys are just scum on Harleys' and 'no, wait, they are noble outlaws.' In The Sopranos, everybody is if not likable at least engaging (mostly) but we don't ever think, I dunno, Johnny Sac's going to turn it around.
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Mar 12, 2019 21:12
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pentyne posted:Season 1 and 2 were really good and worked well because the overall theme was something like Hamlet but meant to evoke a sort of Shakespearean feel. That falls off when then they go to Ireland for whatever reason and Jax finds out he has a half sister. Kurt Sutter wanted to have them gently caress in the show for drama and was apparently talked down from it. Also Adam Arkin and Henry Rollins as the seasons' villains were amazing. Not gonna lie - there was something really, deeply weird to me about Sutter's seeming obsession with mutilating the character he played on the show. Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Mar 13, 2019 |
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Mar 13, 2019 13:45
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"Well, you remember one thing - this you'd better hear! You want a talk of this old school bullshit about the rules? Well here's a rule you might remember. I'm the motherfucking loving one who calls the shots!"
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Mar 13, 2019 23:35
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It's interesting going back to watch the seed for Pussy flipping being laid here with being made to play P.I. for no particular benefit to himself.* While Paulie doesn't care, it's also because Paulie doesn't think about things as much. Or to paraphrase One, "Pussy was always smarter." *Yeah, I know it gets retconned for him having been informing for a lot longer, but that never sat so well with me.
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Mar 14, 2019 15:58
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Another good one is Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather: The FBI and Paul Castellano which details what it was like in the Gambino crime family and how the FBI went about building their case against him. The two agents going into detail bugging Castellano's house reminded me a lot of the season three premiere.
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Mar 15, 2019 13:57
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Mikey Palmice is such a useless moron and I love it.
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Mar 17, 2019 13:43
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Re-reading the the AV Club's retrospective on this episode, they pointed out what neat thing is that Charmaine gets established as kind of a nag but at the same time she doesn't ever get compromised. And in fact made her choice to not be such a long time ago. Edit: Another interesting bit which I'm sure was just re-casting but at the same time could absolutely be something more if you want it to be is how in the pilot Tony's dating a blonde girl on the side and then the next time we see his cumare she's a brunette... like Melfi. Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Mar 17, 2019 |
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Mar 17, 2019 17:44
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One thing I always remember with Gloria is that last scene with Patsy, where he tells her if she comes near Tony or his family ever again its his face she'll see and it won't be cinematic.
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Mar 18, 2019 13:30
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JethroMcB posted:I don't know if the whole scene counts, but I think this is my favorite moment: I still remember thinking, "Wow, he didn't even say anything to Johnny." Of course why would he - if Johnny decided to leg it with him then that just means the Feds will run after him harder if they haven't already - but what really got me was all their talk of being friends and such vanishes in the mere instant it takes from Tony to look away and look back.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:02
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Solice Kirsk posted:Pretty much this whole scene is great. Paulie being himself, Tony getting more and more flustered, followed immediately by Tony making one of the few actually funny jokes he makes. That is a great one. Tony getting increasingly irritated at failing to subtly shut Chrissy running off at the mouth is /chef's kiss.
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Mar 19, 2019 13:10
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ruddiger posted:That poo poo is funny, but goddamn what a brutal scene. Tony even makes poor Patsy kiss the ring later on in the episode and forces him to say "I put my loss behind me" so Tony could fee better about having his twin brother clipped. One thing that stands out here is we're calling him 'poor Patsy' when not a few posts ago we're also talking about how he was threatening a woman on something he absolutely would carry out if she kept bothering Tony. Just a testament to how complete this show's characters still feel.
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Mar 19, 2019 20:42
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More Goodfellas casting: Tony "Larry Boy Barese" Darrow also played Sonny Bunz in Goodfellas, the club owner who eventually gets busted out. Darrow also got some of that real-life mob action when he and a Gambino soldier were arrested for extortion some years ago. Apparently had no criminal record prior so he was really shooting the works, and only got house arrest. If anybody's super interested, 'the Colombo war' they talk about is covered under the 'Third Family War' entry on the Colombo family's Wikipedia entry. Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 13:28
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Mahoning posted:Also, in case anyone missed it in the news, the boss (acting boss, really, as Peter Gotti is still the boss behind bars) of the Gambino family, Franky Boy Cali, was murdered a week ago. Holy crap. I read an article on Franky Boy's funeral just now, and a big mob funeral today sounds pretty much like one seen on the show. A lot of unmarked sedans and gentlemen with high-powered cameras several feet away from the proceedings. The killer himself is a true Darwin Award winner. Not only does he kill an acting boss of one of the Five Families, he also makes sure to give the cops the most incriminating evidence right before doing so.
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Mar 20, 2019 17:03
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Jerusalem posted:At least it didn't include boops and beeps sound effects like most tv shows would have done. Or used completely random video game effects. They did however turn off the TV to turn off the game which irritated me even as a kid when I saw it elsewhere. quote:I didn't specifically mention it in the write-up, but the earlier discussion about dialogue being unconvincing for anything not involving middle-aged men was on display in this episode, most notably with the kids (and Yo Yo somewhat) with lines like,"You fat fartknocker!" I wonder if they asked their kids for more appropriate insults and the kids told them that, not willing to admit they actually said things that would have made even hardened mobsters blush.
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Mar 20, 2019 23:48
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COMPAGNIE TOMMY posted:Also, pretty sure the actor who played Albert Barese became involved in irl organized crime after his exposure on the Sopranos, capitalizing on it From an article on Maldone - New York Post posted:A drug charge that could have sent “Sopranos” cast member Richard Maldone to jail for 15 years was thrown out yesterday by a Queens judge on the grounds that District Attorney Richard Brown does not have jurisdiction over the case.
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Mar 21, 2019 02:29
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Basebf555 posted:Watched the episode last night where Artie somehow gets it in his head that he has a shot with Adriana and goddamn that stuff is extremely hard to watch. So much cringe. Props to John Ventimiglia for doing one of the best mid-life crises I've seen on TV.
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Mar 21, 2019 16:51
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pentyne posted:Literally the only time it gets referenced is when Ralphie gets a beating. Even when Johnny Sac beats up that guy it doesnt even get a mention. Although sometimes it's hard to tell 'made guys' from 'associates.' But even then like a lot of things with the Mob it depends on who makes the most money in the situation, I expect. Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 23:34
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There's assuredly a list of 'if you ever watch only one episode of a series' out there where you get everything you need to know about the series and its main characters from just that one episode, and 'College' is definitely on that list. I'm not quite sure the series ever did as good a self-contained episode ever again.
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Mar 22, 2019 12:39
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Pedro De Heredia posted:College is good, but all the stuff with Fabian selling drugs and trying to go after Tony is clearly something the show would not have done even in season 2. It really does show how Sopranos had no illusions about the type of characters it was portraying, to again compare and contrast to SoA. The line that stands out for me was the 'for us wiseguys, the hustle never ends' which I feel ties in greatly with the series' final scene.
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Mar 22, 2019 15:11
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Jerusalem posted:Tangentially, I always find it interesting how the characters in the show reference their understanding of the mob via media representations. Meadow and her friends think it is kinda cool Tony is in the mafia, because they dug the aesthetic of Casino. Christopher was like Henry Hill in Goodfellas (which Michael Imperioli was in!), as long as he can remember he always wanted to be a gangster, and when he thought a war was brewing he thought of it in terms of Scarface. AJ likens Uncle Jackie's funeral to The Godfather, a movie that Tony and his Crew frequently reference. Even Tony himself spends an evening watching The Public Enemy when trying to reconcile the film relationship between a mother and her gangster son with his own relationship with Livia. I think part of that is shorthand for viewers for whom their connection with the mob (hopefully) is via film, but it says a lot about the characters too in that they mythologize the past and apply it to the present through the lens of dramatized and meticulously constructed fantasies. The last bit even happens in today's mob, where you'd get things like Gotti being a big fan of The Godfather and clearly thinking he's Michael Corleone.
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Mar 23, 2019 00:59
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That seems a horrible thing to do to a perfectly innocent hot dog.
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Mar 23, 2019 23:59
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crispix posted:My favourite moment in Anger, Denial, Acceptance is when Artie loses his temper and throws that bit of meat at Tony and for a good 2-3 seconds he is just frozen there with it hanging on his face. Artie realises that he has just thrown food into the face of Tony Soprano. Nothing is said but Artie's relief when Tony throws that first bit of food back at him is so palpable. You have to wonder what Tony was thinking. If this had been at the pork store or the Bing, he probably couldn't have let that slide but since he was surrounded by people he didn't especially care about if he looked 'weak' in front of, sure, yeah, food fight.
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Mar 24, 2019 19:26
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I always thought the ending of this episode was amazing. Paparazzi really sells it.
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Mar 25, 2019 13:17
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Jerusalem posted:I think what I love most about it is that it bears no relation to the events of the episode, but when it happens it still feels like the culmination of a lot of stuff that has been happening. The FBI has been basically around since the first episode, but only as references to a kind of nebulous thing that exists as a passive potential threat. To actually pull away from the show's central characters to see that this is very much an active thing happening RIGHT NOW has a surprising level of impact, and ties in nicely using that chart to demonstrate that at least one of Tony's strategies is paying off. It's interesting that Johnny Sack already suspected Tony was running things behind the scenes but the FBI, for all their surveillance, seem unaware. It was revealed mid-series, I think, that Ray Curto was talking to the feds and that never really gets covered much aside from "this thing is happening" and this episode makes me wonder when they flipped him.
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Mar 25, 2019 23:53
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knox posted:The money is always gonna flow up, from the street drug dealers kicking up to Chris who kicks up to Tony who kicks up to boss who also pay New York. Does Tony actually kick up to anybody in New York? I was under impression they just split stuff like the Esplanade project instead.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:11
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DarkCrawler posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCavalcante_crime_family I guess that John D'Amato cat is where we get Vito's last story arc.
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Mar 26, 2019 20:20
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Another great recap. I think I personally enjoyed the flashbacks with Johnny Boy enough that I'm kinder to it, but what I think now is I really wish we'd gotten some late-stage Johnny before he passed away. It would have been nice to see the truth of the conflicting stories - like how Tony complained he left Livia with nothing but Junior snarks Tony doesn't know what he's talking about and Johnny left her with enough money to choke an elephant.
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Mar 27, 2019 14:00
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Oh man, is that's the first time Tim Daily's character shows up. Chris turning the AA stuff around on J.T.'s gambling addiction was always funny. J.T.: "What is this, Pulp Fiction?" Paulie Jr.: "I dunno, I didn't see it."
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Mar 27, 2019 23:48
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pentyne posted:When J.T starts talking to Chris about how he never enjoyed games of chance before, but now there's this unexplainable rush and excitement from playing, Chris pauses and looks at him silently, knowing exactly what is going on and where it will lead, but says nothing and distracts him by saying he smoked some pot just to see if he could be normal. I just realized it might be a callback to Tony and Davey Scatino. Sure, Tony "tries" to keep Davey out of the Executive Game, but scorpion/frog.
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Mar 28, 2019 02:33
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Mahoning posted:The family therapist is loving hilarious. Amazing delivery of all of his lines. What's funny is I've known people with a super-tangential relation to organized crime talk about it in the same kind of hushed and reverential tones, like they climbed the fig tree to see Jesus.
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Mar 29, 2019 21:06
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Given Tony's hand gesture I thought it was something to do with Grasso's mother and certain orifices, which still made his response not the most clear.
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Mar 30, 2019 14:28
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MrBling posted:My favourite bit of Italian "racism" is when Livia is in the hospital and Artie goes to see her. He has brought her some nice homemade food, because we all know about the hospital. To tie in it's also funny that the reason Furio doesn't like Christopher Columbus is he's from the north.
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Mar 30, 2019 21:41
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goodog posted:Despite all the talk about respect and hierarchy, the constant of the Mafia since the beginning seems to be people ignoring the rules and taking over because they feel like they're not getting theirs. Its why Lefty in Donnie Brasco was such a poor schlub, because he actually believed in the code. We'll see it ourselves with that pack of elderly hitmen who operate out of New England.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:02
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crispix posted:And Jerusalem that was a very interesting analysis of a major theme in the show. It always struck me how the men superficially appear to be affectionate with each other to an extent that would make heterosexual American men (at least in the 1990s) generally uncomfortable yet their definitions of masculinity and opinions on homosexuality are so backward for the time. Yeah, the key to remember is it's all performative. You have to make a big show that there's no beef or else people will talk and you might have to do something even if there's only talk. Remember all the trouble that Ralph got into for refusing a drink.
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Mar 31, 2019 17:07
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