Sopranos - Season 2

ya the couldn't sell it thing is so perfect.

no one ever gets into the disparity between Junior's lifestyle and the younger generation's either. Compared to all the other guys (Silvio, Paulie, Hesh) its clear that Junior was never all that great at being a gangster, otherwise he wouldn't be living in a wood-panelled home with a shitty TV and eating his dinners at a card table.

i don't know, i always got the feeling he was sitting on a pretty big "nut" but he was too stingy to spend it. also, no wife to pretty up the place. ALSO, really big legal bills.

i think he's the kind of character who would be eating at a card table even if he was raking in millions... just generally miserable.

i don't think it implies he was worse at being a gangster tho.

maybe I'm reading too much into it - but there are plenty instances in the series where he doesn't make the smartest calls and he does things that end up costing him. Exhibit A: the crew he surrounds himself with - Mikey and Richie and Bobby all fuck things up for Junior at various points (like Mikey killing the guy who took out the contract on Tony right in front of Junior, or the coke dealing thing, or blabbing to the plant in the doctor's office, etc.)

well you definitely get the feeling he's slipping as he's losing his mind. but i also always got the feeling that he was originally pretty sharp and good at what he did.

the overall message of Junior's arc seems to be that you can work hard and struggle and succeed and still not end up with anything, not even your memory.

great season but probably would have been better with snakes

ya, imagine richie aprile... with snakes

would love a listing of every single song used in the entire run, so many perfect moments

rubbish finale tho

like, its kinda a miracle that Junior survives as long as he does given the line of business he's in, but in the end he ends up like any other hapless senior.

x-post

wow, just checked wikipedia and apparently the finale places in the top 5 sopranos eps

I thought it was garbage, really put me off watching season 3 after watching seasons 1 and 2 in quick succession, and subsequently I never went back to the show

are you nuts, the last episode is amazing

take it to that thread tho, this is for S2!!!

the one with the fever and the dreaming? barf

no, the finale to season 2, I hated it

I probably just need to watch it again (bcs it sounds like I'm in a minority) but I found it v.frustrating and a bit of a letdown (too sombre) after the rest of the season

agree w.all above re:richie aprile, brilliant

and dude, you so need to go back to the show...

ja I know

think I'll re-watch season 2 and torrent 3/4 in the meantime

it's a pretty minor moment but the scene where carmela kisses the decorator is so amazing, her 'oh jesus' just before it happens - perfect. i rewound that over and over, just wowed by edie falco. other falco greatness in this season: the ep where tony goes to italy and she tries to convince pussy's wife not to divorce him, really trying to convince herself. <3 u edie.

her character really opens up in Season 2 - agreed about the bit with Angie Bonpensierro (is it me or doesn't a different actress appear as Mrs. Pussy in season 1?). Honestly going back over season 1 made me think Carmela was a fairly one dimensional bitch for most of it. Although the stuff with the priest is A+++ classic. what a loathsome dude.

"rubbish finale tho"

WHWHAHTHT?!?! The finale of this season is incredible! This was the last great season IMO, although 4 is pretty strong all the way through IIRC.

I was just gonna say, the food poisoning episode is a masterpiece

Btw my favourite minor character in this show is rosalie aprile... So good

I don't think I believe in this list anymore.

Best HBO/Showtime series?

yeah they introduce some great characters in Season 2 that really broaden the show, primarily the women - Janice, Rosalie, Angie, plus more screentime for Adrianna and Carmela

Although having not watched most of these seasons in ages, I might be better off trusting haha.

I think my favorite musical moments are usually when people are driving:
- Janice unironically rocking "Mother and Child Reunion"
- Tony totally ironically rocking "Dirty Work"

i seem to recall info somewhere along the line abt junior never really getting paid

Yeah I think they are shorting him once Tony installs him as a figurehead, but I don't think that = he's not as good a gangster as Paulie.

Hesh is obv kind of an exception though.

paulie also lives rather meagerly

WHWHAHTHT?!?! The finale of this season is incredible! This was the last great season IMO, although 4 is pretty strong all the way through IIRC.

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 23:43 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hey! I said I probably have to watch again but I remember at the time being disappointed with it... I have v.little patience for dreams

but letting yrself get shorted obv is not being a v good gangster - tho that could just be him slipping w/age

yah all the dream shit is one of the things i really hold against the sopranos - some of them were well done but i mean come on serious dreams plz

i will never not love talking fish in dreams

paulie also lives rather meagerly

Does he? My memory is of him being a few steps above Chrissie and Junior, he's got his own place that's pretty nice, he takes care of his "Ma", etc. Maybe I'm wrong.

I think the first few dream sequences (particularly Chris's) are really not well done, fairly clumsy. By the season finale though they are on some next level.

the Wizard of Oz dream is very uh waht

(great music editing in it though)

rubbish finale tho - "Whaddya Talkin' About?"

http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/img/episode/season02/ep26_fish.jpg

see! hilarious!

sets up excellent Xmas gag too

Does he? My memory is of him being a few steps above Chrissie and Junior, he's got his own place that's pretty nice, he takes care of his "Ma", etc. Maybe I'm wrong.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, December 9, 2008 7:10 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he lives in a rather bleak apartment as i recall from the whole decorating it w/tonys horse painting scenario - did obv have some cash to drop on the retirement home tho

^^^thought it was a house...? I dunno I can't remember - I'll take notes when I get to that episode.

Paulie cuts coupons, but is that leaving meagerly or just thriftily?

leaving = living

Well I think it's clear from the show that Tony is a much much more successful gangster than Junior is, but that Junior is still a cut above most of the rest of these guys.

My fave Richie quote from this season...

Tony: I thought I told you to back off Beansie!
Richie: I did. Then I put it in Drive.

he lives in a rather bleak apartment as i recall from the whole decorating it w/tonys horse painting scenario - did obv have some cash to drop on the retirement home tho

If memory serves, I believe this was based on a real-life NYC/NJ capo who was pretty high-up and wealthy but lived rather spartanly in an apartment over a butcher shop.

"I'm gettin' ready for the George Sanders long walk here."

Manson lamps

That was a brilliant episode: Junior and the cop widow (Mary Louise Wilson) too; Melfi sinking

also, Junior lives in the town where i was born

I remember being happy Richie got plugged but was so pissed it was Janice who did it.

Tho Richie was one of the best Tony foils

good thing i already knew that with 2 episodes to go *sigh*

bye threads, see you in a few years

NO YEAR 2000 SPOILERS

Lol bagels wtf

Lol sorry it's 2015 and I'm drunk

I am seriously sorry tho I didn't read far enough upthread.

"I'm in ore of you."

btw Tony explicitly tells Junior to live on "the pile of cash you're sittin' on" in this season

Tony, putting Janis on the bus: "All in all though, I'd say it was a pretty good visit."

I caught many a bus right on that spot (Newark Penn Station).

Bus scene is a beaut. "We buried him on a hill"

Do they check ID on Greyhounds? Or is that the quite obvious reason why she's not flying home.

haven't ridden one in a while but I think they just take your 'boarding pass'. and Greyhound is so disorganized that even if they do they probably forget half the time.

esp pre-9/11 (which this was)

i was fine with the finale, animated talking fish always are a plus, as is Asbury Park in winter.

god that finale was devastating.

lol i thought of 'we buried him on a hill' this morning

always lol at janice's "I loved him so much!" in that scene.

is season two when aj gets existential and livia's 'poor you'?

"Nitch"

i kinda think you guys laugh at the wrong things sometimes at least per D Chase's intentions.

strange, HSB, i don't get "devastated" by these scumfucks

immoral gangsters or not, Tony having to ice his childhood friend was still a rough watch.

i mean no I don't even remotely "root" for Tony in the conventional sense (same w/ Walter White on Breaking Bad), and it's always more interesting watching Tony continually trying to rationalize his shitty actions by stretching his code well beyond its limits. but that whacking was diff than the others cos of who it was. even if Big Puss was also a terrible human being, which by all accounts he certainly was.

The key to the sequence was how wobbly, weak and pathetic all four of the characters were.

Tony having to ice his childhood friend

was Pussy ever identified as such? cuz Gandolfini was about 15 years younger than Vincent Pastore.

yeah i don't think they grew up together or anything. T did refer to him as his "best friend" multiple times tho

yeah Pussy is Paulie's generation

lol thought y'all were talking about tony b at first

...banderas?

NO SPOILERS

Posted this in a different Sopranos thread - pretty sure Big Pussy's name came from a Roth novel published in 1998:

Related to Sopranos origins and Newark, this is from Philip Roth's I Married A Communist (1998):

He got his name (Little Pussy) because he started out professionally as a cat burglar, sneaking across the rooftops and going in through the windows with his older brother, Big Pussy. In grade school they were already up all night stealing. When they even bothered to come to school, they sat sleeping at their desks and nobody dared to waker them up. Big Pussy died of natural causes, and Little Pussy was bumped off in 1979 in real gangland style...three bullets from a .32 in his head. The next day Ritchie Boiardo tells one of his cronies, "Perhaps it was for the best--because he talked too much."
― the one where, as balls alludes (Eazy), Wednesday, 30 July 2014 16:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

Chase:

…people say “What the fuck are these dreams doing in my gangster movie?” Well, from the get-go, this is a story about psychology…so much of psychotherapy has to do with dreams. But because its a psychological show, the dreams often have to be interpreted. Because they have to carry a point. And so – “Funhouse.” That came about because I couldn’t bear the fact that we were going to have to do some kind of procedural in which Tony found out Pussy was a rat. Like he was going to have to call up some cop, or some guy would come to him and then he’d follow up on the lead. And they’d stake out Pussy’s house. And they’d follow him to the FBI. Blah, blah. I fucking would have wanted to kill somebody. So I thought, “How can he just know it?” Can’t we skip all that crap?

http://sopranosautopsy.com/season-2-3/funhouse-draft/

Lol at carmela crushing on the wallpaper dude “anybody ready for another sandwich?”