Sopranos - Season 1

I've watched the first two seasons and have the 3rd box set -- I kind of want to wait until I get the whole thing before I watch the rest of it in one ugly week.

College is probably my favourite single episode of The Sopranos.

it was weird to see the old episode where Patsy wants to kill Tony for killing hiw twin bro (this episode also notable for the Police/Peter Gunn mash-up use), given how much closer/more connected they become in the last few episodes (i am bad on the show's early history due to only ever watching it halfway thru after randomly switching to it for so long and never catching up/watching from the very beginning).

AJ really always has been TV's most unlikeable character since day one

Most unlikeable character in the Sopranos is really quite an achievement. Especially if, like AJ, you haven't even killed anyone.

Hang on though, more unlikeable than Livia?

uh, JANICE, people

^^^

Actually, it pretty much is the non-violent characters who come off worst, isn't it? There's that horrible weasly priest guy as well.

that priest stuff is GREAT.

i still think aj is the worst. cuz he's so impotent. at least livia and janice wield some sort of power. i mean i guess he's pretty manipulative in the same way... but he's somehow worse.

Who's the most likeable then? Melfi? Bobby?

Artie

No, Artie's a weak-willed creep.

ya artie's a bitch.

most likeable is probably... tony!

ok or carmela.

Sil is the most likeable.

Yeah, Sil's pretty decent for a gangster.

Actually, Bobby.

Personally I adore Uncle Jun and Paulie, but I'd hardly call them a nice people or anything.

i actually dont think this show would have worked if it werent tony.

not nicest. most likeable

I kinda regret seeing Patsy's brother get killed and not knowing that the same actor would stay with the series till the end.

John Heard's character was probably the most unlikeable.

My favourite Jun moment is in the epidsode in which he keeps getting himself invited to random funerals to get time out from jail, and he's sitting there beaming and stuffing his face at some little kid's wake.

Best Junior moment - "If you're gonna lie to me, tell me you got Angie Dickinson outside waiting to tongue my balls."

Melfi most likeable - boring tho. Meadow too when not blubbing over boyfriends.

Making Tony likeable the whole time he wasn't killing/beating/threatening someone made it work yeah.

I think Gandolfini can largely claim the credit for that. What a terrific actor.

Edie Falco's doing some new sitcom I hear.

Is Melfi not asking for Tony to kill her rapist a "good Melfi" moment or a "bad Melfi" one?

Uncle Junior and I, we had our problems with the Business. But I never should have razzed him about eating pussy. This whole war could have been averted. Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this.

^ this is possibly my favourite episode.

Just thinking back to season 1 - there was such a different dynamic to the show when Livia was alive and Junior still had influence.

Edie Falco's doing some new sitcom I hear.

-- blueski, Thursday, February 28, 2008 9:31 AM (Thursday, February 28, 2008 9:31 AM) Bookmark Link

If anyone can find for me the pilot that Falco did for a television show based on Fargo, let us know. I'd love to see Carmella Soprano playing Marge Gunderson.

wha??????

The IMDB entry.

Directed by Kathy Bates !?!?!?!

That was EXACTLY my reaction.

that's BIZARRE.

i was just talking abotu kathy bates's career--specifically about her tv directing--in a meeting!

i'm actually still in that meeting!

You are sitting in a room.

It's all weird that this pilot was filmed in 2003. What would've happened to Carmella had this spin-off actually been picked up by a network?

moved to michigan?

it's a good thing she didn't leave really. i thought the whole divorce thing might actually happen but it would've surely dragged the show down too much. and bumping her off would've just been stupid.

definitely. she's one of the best thigns about the show. it's as much about her as it is about tony. that would have been a really palpable loss.

She's one of the more morally interesting characters for sure (in a programme that pretty much hinges on moral ambiguity!) - in her day-to-day interactions she's generally a 'good' person, but she's COMPLETELY complicit in Tony's activities.

ralphie or janice was most unlikeable. my favorite character was actually richie aprile because he was such a thug. a.j. was usually just acting like an average adolescent male, imo.

Oh yeah, forgot about Ralphie. What a cunt.

most likable = Bobby, hands down. A soft-hearted guy who's never shown doing anything mean to anyone until the very last season when Tony essentially blackmails him into doing a hit.

best actor on the series = Livia. man she is amazing. kills every scene.

"oh I wish the Lord would take me noowwww"

Livia laughing at Tony when he trips and falls down the stairs = K-lassic

A soft-hearted guy who's never shown doing anything mean to anyone until the very last season when Tony essentially blackmails him into doing a hit.

That was heartbreaking. They like to throw something in like that to remind you what an irrevocable arsehole Tony is now and again.

the essence of Tony's character is that he corrupts everything around him

I liked it when Bobby offered to shoot that rapper dude in 'the fleshy part of the thigh' (but hitting the buttock instead). this was him being nice.

hey he was doing the guy a favor!

going really out of his way!

haha yeah

i really liked the dude robert loggia played. such a badass his own crew had him sent back to prison!

Ade is likable.

And Svetlana, in her own way.

oooh the Russian girl, yeah I love her. kind of a minor character in comparison. Adriana is more pitiable than likable.

Svetlana's cousin is the hottest woman who's ever been in it.

The trouble with you Americans, is that you still expect good things to happen. That's why Americans are so dissatisfied and end up turning to psychiatrists. The rest of the world doesn't share that expectation.

http://nondo.net/images/sa/pauliegualtieri_sm.gif

This is still the only animated .gif that I have ever truly loved.

I was just totally hypnotised by that for about three minutes.

the episode w/ that .gif was fantastic as i remember. lots of paulie being insane

Might be time for a best Sopranos character poll. Maybe leaving out Tony for fairness' sake.

Svetlana's cousin is the hottest woman who's ever been in it.

i think sarah shahi (in the final season ep where tony lives it up in vegas) wins this - altho we never saw her boobs

im just running through these now and lol @ the episode where christopher and his girl try to make money and get famous by GETTING INTO THE MUSIC BUSINESS - i guess it worked back then but i have so many lols now

the otm part is when MASSIVE GENIUS (this is a pretty good fake rapper name tbh) goes and checks out some band that is like a rip off of staind and he turns out to be totally into it - everyone knows rappers love horrible rock music

this is a horrible, awkward episode now - this dialogue about music is awful

ya any time the sopranos tried to be witty about showbiz it just failed completely... always makes me cringe

awful, awful episode - i guess there had to be one

what an irrevocable arsehole Tony is now and again

haha, the guy's a murderer

ya any time the sopranos tried to be witty about showbiz it just failed completely... always makes me cringe

C'mon, you gotta love Lauren Bacall calling Chrissy a cunt after he runs off with her goodie bag.

i just finished this season, am working my way into season two.

(fam bought me the first two sets years ago but i haven't had any free time to watch til now)

there was something brilliant and evil about the show during the first season, a real sense of "anything can happen and maybe will" that season two lacks - i mean, watched these episodes years ago, but revisiting them now, it all just feels like weak sauce. maybe it's just a different vibe, with psycho aprille and janice in the house, or that the soprano kids are older and are getting into the swing of playing their parents like fiddles. but i should prolly save all this for the season two thread

I loved Sopranos seasons 1-3, but they lost me in Season 4 when it erupted into full-on soap opera mode. never even bothered to watch second half of Season 6, was just so bored.

finally started watching this show, it's good i guess, v watchable, but not brilliant imo. i enjoy it but there are clichéd characters all over it. also what's the story with the music? it's fucking awful throughout both s1 and s2, hardly any scenes where music is well used yet tons where they try and fail.

use of Dirty Work in season 2 is maybe my favorite music+TV moment ever

finished S6 and went back to S1 (since I had skipped S1 in this latest re-viewing) immediately after, which was lol

man def some rough spots starting out! definitely hitting their stride by "College" though.

some of Melfi's behavior in this season is pretty o_0

funny to see what a fully formed character Paulie is right out the gate.

Fucking great, better season than I remember

Yah, you betcha.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkzhtodh921qa9siqo1_500.png

Some of Tony's comedy lines are very Archie Bunker: "Fadduh Jughead was here?"

The taking-Meadow-on-college-tour episode is an obvious highlight of the first seven. Also the one with flashbacks to his late '60s Newark childhood -- well, all the references are very familiar to me, as I was a kid in the North Ward, not "down neck."

I do think they moved TS's infatuation with Melfi along too quickly, but I guess Chase thought one season might be all there'd be.

They do too much circular panning sround the actors, too.

czechoslovakian, what's that, that's a type of polack, right?

Actually, it pretty much is the non-violent characters who come off worst, isn't it?

haha, you people actually ARE morally disgusting, and not just in comedy polls.

btw Melfi is the most dispensible character, or maybe they should've gotten a better actor

Wasn't Bracco originally cast as Carmella, then they moved her into the Melfi role?

dunno

lol'd when in the midst of Tony's Prozac delusions, the Tindersticks came on. Paging Claire Denis!

"Tiny Tears," right? I remember that cue.

show would be a fair bit better minus ~90% of melfi

"Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this"

"You know what I think Father, I think that you like the-I don't know what to call it-the whiff of sexuality that never goes anyplace.... and that whole Carmela "intervention" scene.

There is some seriously killer dialogue in that last episode.

rewatching s1

in my 20’s i thought Tony was charming & handsome but i also kinda fell for them styling him like he was fat & balding so i never felt any kinda way, like that he was super attractive?

however

I gotta say now as a grown woman in her 40’s i would climb Gandolfini like a goddamn tree, no two ways about it. Lord.

and conversely, Carm’s hot priest is about as appealing as a wet noodle

Something yesterday that amused me. You've probably heard of Memmo, where you can pay to get a celebrity birthday message sent. I used it for my brother-in-law's birthday; Jack Armstrong, the Raptors' crazy on-air analyst, for $65. The message he recorded was pretty great.

I was scrolling through some of the names yesterday, and even the most famous local athletes like Darryl Sittler would run about $150. Meanwhile, Joseph R. Gannascoli--Vito Spatafore--was $270!

https://memmo.me/ca/en/profile/joseph-gannascoli

whoa

i dunno if i would pay that much for Vito tbh

lol

the thing that gets to me now is the scenes between Tony & AJ, the way AJ looks at him, the natural moments when Tony says something that makes him smile ... its v moving. Ages ago I heard the kid, Iler, talk about how he still has never watched the show bc Gandolfini was like a dad to him irl.

and i read that when he was alive, Gandolfini would call Iler’s manager to make sure Iler wasnt spending too much money on rent or hanging around the wrong people, and he would tell the manager not to tell him that he called

<3

oh shit that makes me sad all over again for JG

AJ and Meadow have a podcast together and... oof.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNnuZdKAHZC/