Sopranos - Season 3

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