Sopranos - Season 3

so ya, this.

about halfway through and i'm not feeling it quite as much as 2 but there's some amazing, amazing stuff. the episode "university", about the dancer, is just unbelievably brutal. the melfi rape episode.

in general, it definitely feels a bit like chase was derailed by nancy marchand dying, which he of course was. and "the scene" with her is just horrible, just so bad, i would have been tempted to do a george lucas and just snip it if i was he.

the kids stuff is really fascinating. jackie jr is SUCH an unsympathetic character; i always remembered him as being more likeable, more plainly tragic. i was trying to figure out last night if chase has a grudge against the kids' generation, or whether he's just treating them teh way television shows never do: just like the adults, manipulative, self-serving, capricious. is it just more jarring because kids usually get a pass on tv (unless they're portrayed straight-up as demonseed brats)?

best thing about season 3: Svetlana

i love what's-her-name, tony's gf, in that one episode "where is my knight in white satin armour?"

"University" episode is definitely a high point - the brutalization/victimization of women seems to be a recurring theme in the entire season but that episode in particular, the way it juxtaposes Meadow and the dancer's dilemmas, is real genius.

Best thing is Pine Barrens episode.

"where is my knight in white satin armour?"

they loved this joke so much they use it twice!

"University" episode is definitely a high point - the brutalization/victimization of women seems to be a recurring theme in the entire season but that episode in particular, the way it juxtaposes Meadow and the dancer's dilemmas, is real genius.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, December 15, 2008 7:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

totally, and of course the title echoes "college"

also, ralphie sifforetto--most hateable sopranos character?

In that episode, yes.

In general, no.

who would you say then?

Beats me, I hated all of them pretty much by the end.

re-watching these, the only character I feel any real sympathy for is Adrianna. Materialistic and dimbulb-ish as she is, I think she's probably the only main character who's never shown doing something horrible to another person out of greed or malice.

Ralphie is a good character but kinda unconvincing as a hardened gangster. I mean, I don't for a second believe any of the other ultra-violent alpha-male pyschopaths in his circle would find someone like him threatening.

but yeah every major character on this show is pretty despicable in one way or another.

they all seem to find him a big nuisance--no one is really SCARED by him. also, they all acknowledge that despite that he's a really good earner.

xxxpost I think you could make that claim about Bobby too.

But that's pretty much about it yeah.

i admire how the show basically shows you how people like this probably are, which is totally unsympathetic and awful and petty and stupid

but it also makes them so unlikeable that it's kinda difficult to feel anything about what happens to them, though it's totally entertaining whenever something does happen.

xpost I admire that too. But I had a lot of trouble caring about them after a while.

Which is basically what you just said.

Bobby is pretty sympathetic. But then they make him do that totally pointless and brutal contract killing in season 6.

but it also makes them so unlikeable that it's kinda difficult to feel anything about what happens to them, though it's totally entertaining whenever something does happen.

fwiw while I do agree that in the main the show's characters are all horrible people, but the central conceit of the show is in many ways to trick the audience into identifying with, and in many cases, rooting for them ("hey! I have trouble raising my kids too!" or "man it sucks to be a teenager!" or "shit, I hate my job but damn I need the money" etc.) How well the show succeeds on that level is probably directly related to how much a given viewer appreciates the show.

That episode made me more sympathetic towards him, frankly.

ya. i mean the whole thing with this show is that it'll always pull the rug out from under you, especially when it comes to nice & cuddly mobsters.

i love when janice is dildo-ing ralphie and ro calls and ralphie talks to her like nothing's going on and after janice goes "we're so wacky. no regard for nothing."

Janice's rejection of Ralphie ("you didn't take off your shoes!" followed by pushing him down the stairs) is really funny. Although it is not entirely clear to me why she ditches him - is she really genuinely moved by Bobby's mourning, or is there some point where she realizes he'd be a better counter against Tony than Ralphie...?

Janice's rejection of Ralphie ("you didn't take off your shoes!" followed by pushing him down the stairs) is really funny. Although it is not entirely clear to me why she ditches him - is she really genuinely moved by Bobby's mourning, or is there some point where she realizes he'd be a better counter against Tony than Ralphie...?

― There was even a brief period when I preferred Sally Forth. (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, December 23, 2008 7:24 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it comes right after ralphie ditches ro for her and wants to make it official... clearly it loses a bunch of the thrill now that she's not fucking someone else over

also, as her therapist points out, it's as much about a tony-substitute than it is about confronting tony

love her therapist's reaction when Janice tells her Bobby works for Tony

hahaha totally. "no, he's different!"

As I said on the other thread, I never liked Ralphie. Didn't like his name, didn't like his goofy blond hair, didn't like how he was introduced: He wasn't introduced, he was just there all of a sudden.

I really wish he had been kind of a small fry in rank, but somewhat untouchable because he was a huge earner - kind of like Pesci in Goodfellas - not some "made" guy who comes out of nowhere and starts going ballistic all of a sudden. I wish his story arc would have ended with Tony beating him to death outside the strip club after he killed the stripper.

I wish they would have dealt with the death of Tony's mother by starting season 3 out with them at her funeral. Flashbacks to previous conversations would have easily taken the place of those terrible CGI scenes.

He wasn't introduced, he was just there all of a sudden.

this is true and I thought this was kinda clumsy (although it DOES happen with other characters, altho none so central as Ralphie). Somewhere in S3 its mentioned that Ralphie had been in Miami, the implication being maybe he was in w/Little Carmine or something (which would also explain why he was initially tight with Johnny Sack)

"I wish they would have dealt with the death of Tony's mother by starting season 3 out with them at her funeral. Flashbacks to previous conversations would have easily taken the place of those terrible CGI scenes."

Amen except I still like the way season 3 actually begins with the awesome FBI trying to get the wiretap into the basement episode.

i dunno, i always got the sense of this huge web of people, connections, family, personalities... i liked that you didn't see everyone from the start, but that as things shift and the circle expands our changes more characters enter and leave. xp

"I wish they would have dealt with the death of Tony's mother by starting season 3 out with them at her funeral. Flashbacks to previous conversations would have easily taken the place of those terrible CGI scenes."

Amen except I still like the way season 3 actually begins with the awesome FBI trying to get the wiretap into the basement episode.

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, December 23, 2008 10:04 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also it's not nancy marchand gave them notice that she was going to die in advance

That'll be in contracts from now on.

I still like the way season 3 actually begins with the awesome FBI trying to get the wiretap into the basement episode.

this episode is really funny and contains Steely Dan's Dirty Work + Polish couple ("In Minsk I was a research engineer!") but its also clearly a placeholder episode in that nothing much really happens in it. I do like how the lamp becomes a running joke throughout the season, it gets ref'd a bunch of times.

i dunno, i always got the sense of this huge web of people, connections, family, personalities... i liked that you didn't see everyone from the start, but that as things shift and the circle expands our changes more characters enter and leave. xp

yeah, they make the most of this. There's one guy who shows up in Season 4 as a capo who's never even appeared before and then all of a sudden he's there in a meeting getting yelled at for not making enough money.

this guy

"He first appears in a meeting of Tony's crew in the first episode of Season 4, but there was no explanation as to where he came from and how he became part of the gang's inner circle. Carlo is not even directly referenced by name until the sixth season."

"but its also clearly a placeholder episode in that nothing much really happens in it."

Unlike every other episode in the season?!?

The payoff on the lamp is great!

it also directly leads to the chain of events that ends with them going after adriana...

Does it?

Unlike every other episode in the season?!?

I just mean that all the characters' relationships remain static throughout the episode. Majority of the episode is spent following the Keystone Kops' routine.

yeah they opt to pursue Adrianna via undercover agent cuz the lamp is a dead-end.

Oh yeah I guess that follows.

I wish they would have dealt with the death of Tony's mother by starting season 3 out with them at her funeral. Flashbacks to previous conversations would have easily taken the place of those terrible CGI scenes.

also it's not nancy marchand gave them notice that she was going to die in advance

Also it was only one two-minute scene. People blow it out of proportion. I'm not saying the episode wouldn't work without it, though, I think it would.

This is as good a thread as any to ask - can anyone who thinks the series drops off after this put into words why they think so? All I ever hear is that it "got boring" or that "the writing got worse" and I'm kinda confused by that. And I don't mean to challenge anyone personally with the q, just genuinely curious.

It is a very distracting two minute scene.

I don't think the show got worse, I just stopped caring as much about it and I think that was mostly a function of the fact that a certain point I grew very fatigued living with these characters (who let's face it are not exactly pleasant.) Was there a way the writers could have prevented this fatigue? Probably not or at least not without being untrue to the subject.

Also I think "boring" = the show went on for so long that it began to recycle plot points. Which is true to life obv, but doesn't always make for great for TV cuz after the umpteenth uh oh Tony has a problem with a guy who works for him or Carmela gets upset about Tony's infidelities or Chris slips up and starts using again it gets a little dull.

i think season 5 is incredibly strong, and season 6 has some amazing high points, and 7 is awesome.

Chris slips up and starts using again

Chrissie's an unrepetant user up through what, Season 5?

Chrissy first went to rehab at the end of season 4, if I remember right. He relapsed a buncha times, but I always kind of admired that about the show. Without getting too personal, certain relatives of mine have had similar relationships with drugs and alcohol. Again, maybe not great TV to some, but truer to life than almost any other show.

i am all over the place with which season's which, so i'm waiting til a final season recap to opine, but the tension and release of clean chrissy versus bad ass bada bing smashing car crashing chrissy is amazing.

I was going over some synopsis of the seasons, and it struck me how fucking bleak season three is. There's the whole story with the psycho Annabella Sciorra character, the Melfi rape, the cancer, the awkward Artie crush on Adrianna thing... it's just unpleasant to watch.

im 26 mins into the first episode and already had two lols

- they show meadow's roommate walking through the dorm hallway and you overhear a "conversation" between two men as she passes. the "conversation" is one guy saying to the other: "jello shots". COLLEGE

- the couldn't find anyone to cast as carmella's tennis instructor besides jon favreau's assistant from season 2? really? who does she know?

okay maybe it's not her

the remembrance scene is amazing

It's definitely not her.

the remembrance scene is amazing

yeah many lolz

"You would have to get every person that ever lived together in one space... and that's not possible, even with computers..."

Nice, too, how Carmela mentions that very incident during Chrissie's intervention, one season hence.

He wasn't introduced, he was just there all of a sudden. I thought this was kinda clumsy (although it DOES happen with other characters, altho none so central as Ralphie).

Worst example: Vito Spatafore - that same actor played an unnamed random civilian back in Season 1, for chrissakes

I don't get the outrage on Vito - he had one line or something. David Milch used the same guy in two pivotal roles and got applauded for it by some people.

I like that the general idea on Ralphie was that he was working down in Miami, then came back up to New Jersey and starting causing trouble for everybody just by existing basically, but they could've handled his intro a little more deftly, for sure.

Worst example: Vito Spatafore - that same actor played an unnamed random civilian back in Season 1, for chrissakes

Patsy Parisi's introduction as the identical twin brother of a guy who got whacked was always a little too Days of Our Livesish for me.

Yeah that was a bit weird - he didn't even impact on the plot in any kind of major way.

Is Vito the guy who comes into the bakery right before Chris shoots the guy in the foot?

Yep.

Just checked on Youtube. "Gino!"

Patsy's a good character tho, they definitely get some mileage out of him (and the murdered twin thing)

The final scene of "Second Opininon," with Carmela going to the psychologist in NYC, is maybe my favorite scene of the whole series.

is that where she tells him to fuck off after he gives her a bunch of shit for being an enabler

Carmela Soprano: He's a good man. He's a good father.
Dr. Krakower: You tell me he's a depressed criminal, prone to anger, serially unfaithful. Is that your definition of a good man?... You must trust your initial impulse and consider leaving him. You'll never be able to feel good about yourself. You'll never be able to quell the feelings of guilt and shame that you talked about, so long as you're his accomplice.
Carmela Soprano: You're wrong about the accomplice part, though.
Dr. Krakower: You sure?
Carmela Soprano: All I did was make sure he's got clean clothes in his closet and dinner on his table.
Dr. Krakower: So "enable" would be a more accurate job description for what you do than "accomplice". My apologies... Take only the children - what's left of them - and go.
Carmela Soprano: My priest said I should work with him, help him to become a better man.
Dr. Krakower: How's that going?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carmela Soprano: I thought psychiatrists weren't supposed to be judgmental.
Dr. Krakower: Many patients want to be excused for their current predicament because of events that occured in their childhood. That's what psychiatry has become in America. Visit any shopping mall or ethnic pride parade, and witness the results.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carmela Soprano: What we say in here, stays in here, right?
Dr. Krakower: By ethical code, and by law.
Carmela Soprano: His crimes... they are, organized crime.
Dr. Krakower: The Mafia!
Carmela Soprano: Oh Jesus.
[wipes tears from her eyes]
Carmela Soprano: So what? So what? He betrays me every week with these whores!
Dr. Krakower: Probably the least of his misdeeds.
[Carmela gets up to leave]
Dr. Krakower: You can leave now, or you can stay and hear what I have to say.
Carmela Soprano: You're gonna charge me all the same.
Dr. Krakower: I won't take your money.
Carmela Soprano: That's a new one.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Krakower: Have you ever read Crime and Punishment? Dostoyevksy?
[Carmela shakes her head 'no']
Dr. Krakower: It's not an easy read. It's about guilt and redemption. I think your husband ought to turn himself and read this book in his jail cell and meditate on his crimes every day for seven years, so that he might be redeemed.
Carmela Soprano: I would have to get a lawyer, find an apartment, arrange for child support...
Dr. Krakower: You, you're not listening. I'm not charging you because I won't take blood money, and you can't, either. One thing you can never say is that you haven't been told.
Carmela Soprano: I see.

yeh that is awesome

loved this season, maybe my fav so far

loved the emergence of gloria, the woods episode, the "another toothpick" episode, the jackie jr. arch, the emergence of ralphie (altho it's pretty stupid that gigi died on the toilet, seemed like a cop out - altho it kinda goes along with the idea that even tony the supreme gangster has to get lucky sometimes, be it the old couple making it impossible for that guy to shoot tony on meadow's college trip or the whole lamp thing), chrissie's trials as a made guy etc etc

i would love for someone to make a compilation video of all the times someone gives an obv lie of an excuse and leaves the room so two people can have a private conversation - one of my fav running gags in the history of television

also am very excited about the adrianna/fbi informant story - she's a great person for the show to target both because it's presumably realistic and because she's the most lovable character imo and the idea of her unwittingly being targeted by the fbi is kind of heartbreaking

So it is this season that she gets hooked.

Always wanted to see the scenes where Fairuza Balk plays the agent, even though her scenes have been replaced in all subsequent releases.

whoa!! they replaced her scenes?

that settles a really confusing argument i had once

There was another actor used for George Costanza's dad in one episode, but they did the same thing when they brought Jerry Stiller on board.

What was your argument?

season 4 was AMAZING

What was your argument?

― Pleasant Plains, Saturday, July 4, 2009 7:47 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

someone was like, they had a different actress for that agent in season one and i was like no duh i just watched it they totally didnt

it was a really fascinating argument iirc

janice forcing bobby bacala to eat his wife's last ziti with her was honestly one of the most shocking and crushing scenes i've ever seen on tv

it made me think of

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~vincent/4500.6-001/Cosmology/time-goya-painting.gif

which is pretty appropriate considering janice

the first episode of this season is soooooooo great

(the lamp thing)

cinema

features my favorite music moment of the show - Tony singin along to "Dirty Work"

chase pulling that episode out of his ass when marchand's death messed up the whole season arc he had planned = clutch

season 3 might be favorite season, honestly

livia's wake is just exquisitely uncomfortable

the episode does have a placeholder feel to it to me, but yeah it's much better than it has any right to be

love Hesh at the wake - "between her mind and her mouth... there was no interlocutor"

another major lol from this season: tony and carmella's first session together with melfi.

"you're both very angry"

"well you must've graduated at the top of your fucking class!"

& yeah, carmella with the other therapist (mentioned upthread) is an amazing scene. like, you actually see her measuring the huge costs changing her life would entail ('i would have to get a lawyer," etc.) and starting to figure out how to rationalize.

that dude is the best

Jewish analyst dude is one of the rare moments in the series where none of the characters in the scene are trying to bullshit/lie/evade the others

"those were some TOUGH JEWS."

love Hesh at the wake - "between her mind and her mouth... there was no interlocutor"

― Harvey Cartel (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, August 9, 2012 12:07 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

was just savoring this very line

"His brother was worse!"

haha

I think I miss my ferrets.

someone help me find a stream for s04e10

weird have been watching s3 today to take my mind off things

this show is the fucking greatest btw

otm

nearing the end of my third or so viewing of the whole megillah

best show ever imho

huh - decided to rewatch the series and just wrapped up s3 not long ago! not the best show ever for me - but still very good.

come on, just admit its the best COME ON COME ON

ugh this ep is impossible to find

u_u

couple random thoughts

- man the music in this show is so weird. I had no idea that "I Saved the World Today" (which is used at the end of Season 2 but whatever) was a Eurythmics song from the fuckin 90s! I thought it was Supertramp or something
- Russians very afraid of psychiatry. means political rehabilitation. means gulag
- Ralphie sort of appears out of nowhere. I think him popping up at Livia's funeral is his first appearance, and he's already in the middle of shit.

yeah it was kind of sudden, he was down in miami and came up after one of the capos got killed, richie i think

right, at first that's only implied though. the first time he appears the Barisis are pissed at him for blowing up a garbage truck (which yeah implies that he took over for Richie)

am i alone in thinking 6b is the best? every episode is like monumentally great

im enjoying 6b right now.

i wouldn't have 6b the best (although if i thought about it awhile i might) but it is somehow overshadowed by the vito subplot in 6a (so ppl always say final season is padded out which is true unless you actually recall it as it aired in which case 6b feels like a separate season) and the final season of the finale (which obv incredibly overshadows the finale itself enough so that ppl who want a movie or whatever seem to forget just how decimated tony's crew is, esp w/ the strong foreshadowing that paulie's not long for this world either). that final run is incredible though.

the crew isnt only decimated, its basically tony himself who does it... it always sort of freaks me out to think about how tony basically kills every one of his best friends (pussy, tony blundetto, christopher) as well as ade, who if not super close to him, he definitely had what seemed like a meaningful connection with

plus effectively his best friend's son w/ jackie jr. totally off the top of my head and hence very subject to change but i'd guess i'd go s1>s5>s6b>s3>s2>s4>s6a.

and apropos jackie jr, he's the reason i don't really love this season. i think i'll go s5>s4>s6b>s3>s1>s6a>s2

That's about my ranking, too.

love how tony never seems to be remorseful about his personal hits but was always worried someone would find out about matthew bevilaqua, think he asked 2-3 times over the course of the series if people knew about it or told the feds. figured it was MB's last second cry out for his mother and tony's own mom issues.

you guys rank s4 so highly eh? to me it's the weakest, although i don't really think there's a "bad" season. and i am a p big s2 stan actually. but i put s5 and s1 first i think

love how tony never seems to be remorseful about his personal hits but was always worried someone would find out about matthew bevilaqua, think he asked 2-3 times over the course of the series if people knew about it or told the feds. figured it was MB's last second cry out for his mother and tony's own mom issues.

― sug ones (omar little), Friday, November 2, 2012 2:34 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love how after he kills chrissie he tells everybody about the tree branch that went through the baby seat and how it would have mutilated the kid beyond recognition

yeah my instinctual response if someone had asked me what the best tv show ever was woulda been to say "the wire" without hesitation, but then last spring/summer i watched the whole of this again for the first time since it was on, and now i dunno. it's really something.

the flaws are more glaring than the wire's -- at least until s5 of the wire, though s2 had its moments -- but i actually think it's forgivable because they were trying for so much more, scope/character/theme/plot-wise.

plus, it's funnier.

it's the funniest show ever imho

the flaws are more glaring than the wire's -- at least until s5 of the wire, though s2 had its moments -- but i actually think it's forgivable because they were trying for so much more, scope/character/theme/plot-wise.

I am basically being a random googler here (I literally misclicked on the never-used Blog View and saw this), but I'm a little surprised by this - I didn't get through more than s01e09, but it seemed very much local to one maybe two viewpoints and a specific social range, where The Wire runs up and down through Baltimore. Different themes each season (most of them admittedly variations on "It's all fucked"). Did the Sopranos get out of where it started, or did it just get very good at the situation and the characters in it?

wait, you judge shows by the number of milieus they try to represent...?

oh god strongo def set off an alarm by saying the sopranos "were trying for so much more" -- DON'T YOU KNOW THE WIRE WAS ABOUT POOR CHILDREN?

Haha I went back through the post before hitting the submit button and removed one possible two instances of the word milieu - for naught, for naught :)

And no, focus can be a good thing, I'm happy enough to consider the Sopranos as something that does its thing and I don't get it and that's fine, it was just the claim that it had more scope than The Wire that caught my eye is all.

The Wire was about Poor Black Children J0rdan, you colossal racist.

The Wire ran up and down through Baltimore, but The Sopranos examined the passageway between New Jersey and the unconscious mind.

Sopranos go all over, this "limited milieu" criticism is total bullshit.

I think Tony fixated on being exposed for the Bevilacqua hit because it was a hit he a) was personally involved with and b) it was someone outside of his immediate circle, and thus something that would be harder for him to control. everyone in his immediate circle basically accepts that they could get clipped at any time for any reason, and none of them are going to talk to the cops about it.

also FBI informant Big Pussy was the other guy who killed Bevilacqua with him - the other murders only involved Tony and non-informants

to be fair, the weakest moments of the sopranos were when they tried to go outside their wheelhouse... why david chase was so obsessed with exposing the quiddities of the rap world is just a mystery to me

Massive Genius in the house yo

I'll agree that the non-Italian/NJ characters are largely incidental and the show doesn't shift focus as dramatically as the Wire does with the whole every-season-an-entirely-different-set-of-characters approach but I don't think that approach is a virtue in and of itself.

some of the movie stuff is pretty rough as well. though i kinda like the way it all comes together with cleaver. and punching lauren bacall of course.

but i totally agree with you.

Little Carmine very convincing as low-budget producer imho lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJggSqCftgA

you guys rank s4 so highly eh? to me it's the weakest, although i don't really think there's a "bad" season. and i am a p big s2 stan actually. but i put s5 and s1 first i think

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), 2. november 2012 14:41 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just love the mood of season 4. And Whitecaps is amazing. Yeah, it does have 'Christopher' and some other stupid stuff, but every season of Sopranos has its problems. I hate season two, Richie and Janice and Livia are insufferable in it.

Although Sopranos is a landmark and all that, The Wire is a far better series. As is Deadwood and Mad Men imo.

you hate Livia in season 2

I wish the lord would take me now

richie is one of the best characters in the show imho

i'm old SCHOOL

also when you realize that janice is just using him as a surrogate is amazing

you gotta love how the shows' antagonists are just a steady stream of guys released from prison

also this watch-through it really hit home how when tony kills ralphie it's not at the height of their mutual antagonism but quite the opposite—it's when richie is at his lowest and shows his vulnerability for the first time

recidivism

it's an ugly word

this go-through I've got a lot of love for Janice - really an amazing role

ralphie is definitely one of the best characters in this show

the one rap episode is prob one of the worst things i've ever seen on TV

this doesn't really mean much BUT what the sopranos did with their gay storyline is >> the wire being all OH BTW OUR VILLAIN IS GAY AND HIS PARTNER IS HIS PARTNER

there was the other rap episode where bobby gets paid to shoot the up and coming rapper so he'll have street cred. so embarrassing.

there is more than one rap episode

i'm just thinking of the main one where they go to the guy's house

there are like fifteen rap episodes

rapisodes

how can you hate on an episode that brings Lord Jamar and Hal Holbrook together

Honestly, Ralphie to me felt a bit to much a product of 90s-sadism-hitman-LaBute Very Bad Things pop culture. Within that he definitely had shades of character, but Blundetto's constant passive-aggressiveness, and later Phil Leotardo, were better antagonists.

i loved Leotardo

he hasn't appeared yet (I'm midway thru s3) but yeah he's amazing as the totally humorless hardass

just a seething mass of resentment

shah of iran

he's actually not totally humourless... it's just he's a mean, resentful (not entirely unjustifiedly!) character and his humour is usually pretty cruel

like when he's taunting tony

yeah his humor mostly involves inflicting suffering. (not really unique among the characters, I suppose)

I like when he won't come out of his house and is yelling at them from the upstairs window

^ that

and this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a02tQoGjEY

he really reminds me of a guy i used to work with. so good at what he does, yet at times an intolerable human being.

I think I miss my ferrets

richie aprile is my fave tony antagonist (blundetto doesn't really belong here) but leotardo is a close second. love the way 'omerta' is exposed time and time again as bullshit, something that will be betrayed immediately if there's a dime to be made, and that the one character that buys into it at all it's only as a vehicle for his resentment, blundetto writ large. god i was so stoked after this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTpsWgaYnS8

i laughed when he told vito jr that he "looks like a puerto rican whore"

Man you guys are reminding me that I need to buy season 4

ya that entire chickentown ep is so amazing

death of johnny sac etc

i feel like there's a whole essay on the last 30 years of american capitalism compressed into the scene where they try to shake down a fucking jamba juice or whatever. except it's funny.

"it's over for the little guy."

Vic: You hear? A goddamn juice place moving in here?
Patsy: What Jews?
Vic: Juice. Jamba Juice.

I think it's a Starbucks, right? Paulie complaining about how they stole cappucino from the Italians?

there's this bakery near my house where wizened old dudes in newsboy caps and junior glasses are always sitting outside shooting the shit in italian and get real hush-hush as you walk by and i always kinda wonder if i've found the satriale's pork store of my neighborhood.

I think it's a Starbucks, right? Paulie complaining about how they stole cappucino from the Italians?

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, November 2, 2012 5:49 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

different eps

there's this bakery near my house where wizened old dudes in newsboy caps and junior glasses are always sitting outside shooting the shit in italian and get real hush-hush as you walk by and i always kinda wonder if i've found the satriale's pork store of my neighborhood.

― throwing john shade (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Friday, November 2, 2012 5:55 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SO many of these in my neighbourhood. one of them is a tiny shoe shine place where the owner shows up every morning in a rolls royce.

The protection shakedown is definitely in an unnamed-but-clearly-Starbucks chain coffeeshop.

fuck now i want to watch the whole shebang again.

ive never regretted it

can we talk about Angie Bonpensierro's character arc? jesus

Best thing is Pine Barrens episode.

― Alex in SF, Monday, December 15, 2008 2:57 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

based on my recollections, pretty much this.

can we talk about Angie Bonpensierro's character arc? jesus

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Saturday, November 3, 2012 12:25 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes!

Honestly, Ralphie to me felt a bit to much a product of 90s-sadism-hitman-LaBute Very Bad Things pop culture.

i can sorta see this but think this sort of does a disservice to how weird of a character he is

ya he is such a freak

it's interesting that angie is not iced out of the family because of Pussy's betrayal, that she's allowed to grow into a different role (difficult as that transformation obviously is). she goes from trophy wife to beleagured widow to useful (if minor) player in the operation, something that happens almost entirely in the background.

also lol @ her first scene alone with Tony involving him smashing her car, and then she ends up running Pussy's old body shop.

up to Pine Barrens. Chrissie accuses Paulie of waiting til he was asleep to "choke him, so then there would only be your version of events"

sleep bit aside, this is pretty much mirrors how Tony kills Chrissie

whoa

also, said line delivered while they're in a non-working car in the middle of nowhere during winter etc

i finished it all last night

man... that last episode still delivers. perfection.

it's not clear to me at what point Angie takes over the body shop. After Tony goes after her asking for more money/smashes her cadillac, the next time she appears is at a dinner with Rosalie and Carmela complaining about the shit they put up with from their cheating husbands, so obviously she's been welcomed back into the circle somewhat...

also been thinking this time around how Rosalie connives in a similar way to Janice to get closer to the central power. she suffers so much it's easy to forget that at one point SHE was in Carmela's position, ie, top wife, and she spends a lot of the show trying to reclaim/retain that prominence

hmm and then at the beginning of Season 4 Carmela stumbles upon (and hides from) Angie handing out free samples at the grocery store

ya, must have happened after that

Season 4 is kind of odd. Starts off introducing a whole bunch of key plot points rather abruptly - Chrissie doing heroin, Ade's FBI sting, Carmela's crush on Furio - all introduced in the first episode. then it kind of meanders through this Paulie-Johnny Sac-Ralphie conflict... five episodes in it seems a bit more aimless than S2 and 3.

the weakest season fersher

but still lots of good stuff

gotta love how the joke about ginny sack's ass more or less catalyzes the entire series' plot

if I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag...

penissary contact with her volvo

not crazy about the opener's Peter Gunn/Every Breath You Take mashup

ooof yeah I remember that music cue, wtf

lots of Public Enemy spoilers in the Livia death ep

this season takes a bit to get going. but booooooooy does it get heavy

i remember rly loving that scene, weird tense infiltration sopranos a thrilling place to be in

like lamp painting procedurals, gimme more

apparently Chase's wife came up with the idea for the mash-up

it was a different time

cut to Janice tapping Livia's walls with a hammer and listening through a glass for hidden loot was one of the biggest laffs.

I was about to raise the fact that Tony seldom voices overt racism in the first 2 years as a chickenshit element, so i was pleased (characterwise) when he called Meadow's black Jewish bf a moulinyan and told him to get lost.

yeah you won't leave this show with any doubt that T's a pretty out-and-out racist

Haha yeah that gets a fair amount of mileage.

The police music cue is awful but otoh episode also has Dirty Work iirc

the dirty work bit is amazing

Would it not be a fair assumption that one of the points of having dedicated season by season threads for this is that one wouldn't come across a fucking list of major characters Tony kills in subsequent seasons?

Anyone?

I'm not sure you can complain about spoilers for a show/season that aired in 2001.

Specific context of a thread titled sopranos season 3, cmon now

i'm assuming morbs just isn't scrolling up to read the rest of the thread. since everyone knows that he's watching it for the first time, we can agree to not be dicks and post spoilers

Would recommend not watching "University" right before bedtime.

i'm taking a break bcz i know the next 3 episodes are 'rough'

"University" is not an easy thing to watch but it is easily one of the series' best episodes imo

Morbs I look forward to yr reaction to 'Pine Barrens'

the dirty work bit is amazing

this season has two of my all-time favorite TV music cues (the other one is a certain Paul Simon song)

if u mean Mother & Child Reunion, that's s2

There's also this in s3 ep2:

Later on, as the group gathers to talk about Livia, to fake some happy memories of her, a male figure descends the staircase just over Tony's shoulder, out of focus. He peers down toward the group gathered in the living room, then re-ascends. Who is he? It's unknown. (Wikipedia suggests, due to his glasses that he may be the young Junior Soprano; to me, the actor looks vaguely similar to the one that plays Tony's dad in flashbacks.) More importantly is that he's supposed to be unknown. He's out of focus for a reason, just another ghost checking in on the party. You can explain him away rationally, but the way he just suddenly appears in frame and the way the show never returns to the man wandering around upstairs suggest we're meant to be as unsettled by him as we are by the glimpse of Pussy.

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/the-sopranos-proshai-livushka-47326

if u mean Mother & Child Reunion, that's s2

ah yes that's what I meant

also, Peter Riegert!

i don't think it hit me until "Employee of the Month" that Melfi's husband is played by the other Mean Streets supporting hood.

enjoyed the swansong hit performed by Burt Young as Bobby Baccala Sr in horror-comedy fashion.

and Tony went shopping at Fountains of Wayne.

the hacking, so much hacking

It takes a major suspension of disbelief for me to buy Pantoliano as a fearsome rival. Step on the little weasel.

Thought both "University" and "Second Opinion" erred excessively on the side of making Tony a softie after beating death of the Bing dancer. (In spite of him going apeshit on the staffer who bought the Billy the Bass that unleashed his Big Pussy guilt.)

I see Shakey made a similar point about Ralph / Joe P seven years ago

you already know this i'm sure but i think part of the ralph storyline is how he's a made guy and also the best earner in the organization, so he's considered kind of untouchable despite being a psycho. he always seemed less a rival and more of an extremely troublesome ally.

don't read the whole thread though! plenty of spoilers from later seasons.

i don't put a premium on that, generally speaking

I think the series may have been building toward Carmela telling her one-and-out shrink "His crimes... they are, organized crime."

Cifaretto's pronunciation of whore as "hoor" is def a Jersey thing i heard, I wonder how much elsewhere.

2001 is Big Mouth Billy Bass peak moment.

Jewish analyst dude is one of the rare moments in the series where none of the characters in the scene are trying to bullshit/lie/evade the others

― Harvey Cartel (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, August 9, 2012 9:29 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

peak/key moment of the series

Restarting this season watch, cept i couldn't remeber where i left off... Wound up rewatching "Second Opinion." "You can't say you weren't told."

Hope to get up to and through "Pine Barrens" tonight.

ha I was just wondering where you were in yr series viewing the other day

i'm a busy guy, suspect i will get to the show finale around the week Trump is "reelected"

"We shoulda stopped at Roy Rogers!"

"AND I SHOULDA FUCKED DALE EVANS, BUT I DIDN'T!"

pine barrens is the GOAT

I wonder how often younger fans research the pop references they have no business knowing, like Rogers-Evans above. Or when Tony calls Machiavelli "Prince Matchabelli."

Also liked the flinch Tony gave Gloria (Annabella Sciorra) when she said "Poor you," Mom's old line.

Last scene of "Second Opinion" is definitely one of my favorites from the whole series.

Would love a reunion scene of the crew sitting around the backroom debating Trump.

Don't know about Paulie Walnuts, but I'd bet Tony Sirico is on board.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/donald-trump-tony-soprano

Trump basically is one of "the crew", there would be no debate.

Paulie and Trump both germaphobes too, dont forget

I was amused:

The forest scenes for the episode were filmed at Harriman State Park in New York after, at the last moment, the production team was denied a permit to film in New Jersey (at the South Mountain Reservation) by the Essex County commissioner who called The Sopranos a "disgrace to Italians". The same commissioner was later incarcerated for corruption.

Haha!

I didn't listen to the Steve Buscemi commentary (he directed) on "PB," but whoever winged out Paulie's frozen hair in the late scenes was a genius.

to wit

http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/7/8/2878.jpg

lol otm

I wonder how often younger fans research the pop references they have no business knowing, like Rogers-Evans above. Or when Tony calls Machiavelli "Prince Matchabelli."

Rogers-Evans doesn't seem that obscure to this Gen Xer, but the Matchabelli one I didn't catch (never heard of that brand - apparently still going though, so I dunno how much of an "old school" reference that is?)

They had highly visible TV ad campaigns in my (and Tony's youth) though.

my comedian friend did a private party last night and posted a photo of himself between Junior and Pussy.

!

lol @ Pussy's house being across from a graveyard

I think I miss my ferrets

"one-shoe cocksucker" is one of my favourite non-sequitur insults

I think tho it may be overlooked bcz it directly follows "Pine Barrens," "Amour Fou" is probably one of the very best episodes, from Carmela crying at the Met on.

In the last 2 episodes of this season, they end scenes by fading to black, which I don't remember seeing before, except for the last shot of most shows. What gives?

as opposed to just cutting to black?

No, forget the endings -- between scenes, unless I'm hallucinating, they would always do "hard cuts" from one sequence to another mid-show. Here, they fade to black on Jackie Jr and his goombah watching Basic Instinct on cable, then fade in on the next scene.

ah sorry I misread you. I didn't notice that particularly but I've kind of caught up to you in a re-watch and was thinking there were a number of things (edits/shot composition/etc) that made it feel like their visual game really steps up midway through S3 and into S4. Anyway yeah I'd agree that hard cuts are generally the rule, not sure why they would opt for fades at certain points all of a sudden.

This is kinda fascinating re the s3 finale "Army of One":

In the original 2001 broadcast, Agent Deborah Ciccerone was played by actress Fairuza Balk. However, due to scheduling conflicts, she was not able to return for season four. For the repeats and DVD releases, Balk was replaced by Lola Glaudini, who went on to play the role permanently in 2002.

Also this episode is a period piece; when the parents are arguing about sending AJ to military school, one of them (Tony?) says "The US military doesn't even go to war anymore."

The one episode directed by Mike Figgis in season 5 contains the most bizarre and jarring screen dissolve I've seen on television.

S3 is right before 9/11, right...?

One of my "things you can't find on the internet" is any screenshot or clip of Fairuza Balk playing the agent.

lol I can't find any hi-res shot/screen cap from the show of Paulie's resting bitchface, which is really bumming me out cuz I had a t-shirt design (similar to my Elliott Gould/Solid Gould shirt) in mind

good thing Chase wasn't producing Bewitched when they changed Darrens

S3 is right before 9/11, right...?

yes, season finished airing May 2001

Baccala refers to 9/11 in the season 4 premiere with one of the show's best malapropisms.

A buncha mob wives praising Hillary Clinton for “set(ting) up her own thing” -- rich

rewatching sopranos now for the first time since it was originally broadcast on uk tv. the start to middle of this season seems like the first lull of the show to me. and employee of the month and university being arguably the two most disturbing episodes so far and only being a few episodes apart is difficult watching.

didnt find it so

i have 2 or 3 eps to go here

... i think?

stopped watching 18 months ago

shit, i did see Jackie Jr get whacked. on to s4. i can't believe they kept Ralph Cifaretto going another year.

i don't mind ralphie. but the problem is he is so obviously telegraphed as a potential problem for tony - i think pauly or someone even mentions that he's so out of control there's a danger he might try something against tony - that it seems silly that tony doesn't get rid of him earlier. the rationale that is explained on several occasions is that he's a great earner, but that doesn't seem significant enough compared to the seriousness of the risks keeping him around entail

by earlier i mean he isn't around for the whole series, not trying to spoilerize

strikes me how similar jackie jr and matthew bevilaqua's arcs are, but jackie jr's wacking elicits much less sympathy

the Ralphie thing is pretty interesting, i think in the show his earning isn't just high but like extremely high, like he's for whatever reason exceptionally good at it while being bad at everything else. Also being a made guy, they can't just kill him without better reasons. And I do remember Patsy Parisi saying to someone after that if Ralph was killed "over a horse" (which was the rumor, though i think anyone watching realizes Tony did it at least partially bc of Tracee) then any of them could be killed for any reason. Which I do actually think comes into play a bit over the final stretch of the show, maybe even specifically w/Patsy (if you believe that very convincing blog analyzing the end of the show, the link to which I've lost.)

this is the patsy kills tony theory?

yeah...i'd have to rewatch to see if it has any merit but it makes sense as much as anything else. I don't think the reason for Tony getting killed (which he did let's face it) was something that was supposed to be unknown, that doesn't seem like Chase's M.O. I think viewers just have to do a little digging. Keeping in mind I didn't do any digging, it was done for me; hat theory seemed to be based on extremely close and intelligent analysis though!

i think Chase is quite happy with ambiguity in the Sopranos.

ambiguity can be a good thing, and it def was in this case

Tony had a lot of enemies and led a life that required him to be constantly looking over his shoulder cuz he knew at any time some random thing he had done could come back and lead to his demise. Patsy is just one of many in that respect.

if anything the ending is about *that* - the constant paranoia, fear and tension (even in moments of apparent respite), death ever-present

I think it’s def ambiguous and great bc of it. But I think Chase had a notion in his mind of who and why, at least a backstory that we may very well see peeking into the main narrative. That doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be solved, or anything. There are red herrings too.

I had no idea that "I Saved the World Today" (which is used at the end of Season 2 but whatever) was a Eurythmics song from the fuckin 90s! I thought it was Supertramp or something

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 November 2012 02:09 (six years ago)

Same.

Just finished watching from 6a/b (which I hadn't seen) through round to the end of this season.

Ending it with that Aphex Twin track is an amazing note to hit in terms of music placement, and I'm not the biggest SAW II stan.

FINALLY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rff7-6ejd9Q

Big reason why the Sopranos is great: Chase made a point to do all the things networks never let him do. For example, he has a vicious hatred of 'walk and talk' scenes. They mean nothing. The scene has to be grounded in place. So he banned them.

— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet) June 20, 2020

i would love for someone to make a compilation video of all the times someone gives an obv lie of an excuse and leaves the room so two people can have a private conversation - one of my fav running gags in the history of television

Furio: "I gotta make two phone call"

“Let’s get back to the gabagool”

Bracco rules

I wonder if Bracco was considered for the Carmela role
I think she could have brought another level to the role
Falco is talented but a little one dimensional. Or is that the role?

Rolo Tony fuck

“So I told him…take those Duncan shiek records and shove em up your ass”