Sopranos - Season 3

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!