Yeah, from the five to the six, we be in the mix with that rare
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for the rent. Fuck a lockdown baby.
I can't do that shit. I'll never vote 'cause I'm
fucking broke and either way I know the police ain't gonna
leave me alone on a plane by the physical and rock me.
Crypto told me I should bring the Glock with me, so I packed
up my piece and I'm sliding slide 'cause we might get caught
up in a riot. Middle finger trunk, middle
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Right as you riding you let us see it.
Those rocking, you know politics baby, we just talk to you.
From the birds to the bricks, we be in the mix with the rare
candy paint job on a whip. Who you with?
Oh, man, I thought I was getting a positive moment today because
I was in a diner, you know, a little upscale.
It's a little more upscale than the one that Tony Soprano was
meeting his family in in a very controversial season series
finale of of the show Sopranos that we're going to be talking
about. But I was in a kind of an
upscale diner having lunch. It was really hot and also I'm
looking at the diner menu and journeys don't stop believing
this plane and I'm looking around no members only jackets
that would that would have been crazy if there was a guy with
members only jacket. Bad son, bad son.
It would have been a bad, bad sign.
So I, I thought that was going to happen.
Tech issues all, let's be real, we had tech issues.
All these things happening starting 1/2 hour late, just
awful stuff. But the show must go on, guys,
as it was like a pilot, like we put a pilot together and they're
like, hey, the show must go on, you know?
Absolutely got to roll with it. Yeah, so I'm here with, I'm here
with, with Vince Nappy. And he he is really.
Yeah, he's a soldier for this because he's seen this a million
times. But it's tough to talk about
something at length. If you if you saw it, you know,
four or five years ago. There's there's things you miss,
there's stuff you find every rewatch.
But I put out my feel, as I said.
Is anyone down to talk about the spray?
I was looking within 5 seconds. It happens.
He's already was already tasked with the Tropic of Cancer.
But I think we're talking about one of the best shows ever and
one of your favorite authors in the same month.
Not bad. It's.
A bumper crop. Bumper crop with podcasts.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree.
So I don't want to waste any time because there's so, so much
to discuss. Tell me your history with this
show by David Chase's and Sopranos.
Tell me your history. I mean, did you watch it live?
Did you did you pick it up later?
What happened? So my experience initially with
the show was just hearing my father laugh maniacally in the
living room while this I just heard, you know, F bombs dropped
one after the other and sounds of awful violence.
So as a child I was bewildered because I was too young to be
watching it when it was on. Yeah.
Then, I guess in my late, late teens or early 20s, I saw it,
and the humor and the profundity of The Sopranos, the greatest
show of all time, made itself. Readily apparent it is the
greatest show of all time. I mean, it's, it's weird because
it's mean to death. I've been doing a lot of things
that have been mean to death lately, But the reason something
gets mean to death is typically because it's good.
You know like like it's it's the problem with with our society is
that we just we tender we have just a meat tenderizer yeah of
the way we consume cultural when we pound it out like just just
dead horses everything. But I'm the same way I'm born in
1990. The show comes out in 99 I think
no chance. There's no way you call CPS if
you're showing your 9 year old good Sopranos like like.
Trauma. Trauma.
You'd be giving trauma for life. Would have been wasted on me
too. Would have been wasted on me
too. I wouldn't have been able to
appreciate the Bada Bing strippers or anything like that.
I mean, come on. Nine years old, I wouldn't have
understood any of the humor. And I remember my, my dad and my
mom, we have, we lived in a small duplex, 1 unit of a
duplex. And it would be whatever we were
watching cuz it was Sunday night, Sunday night, baseball's
on or something. They go, hey, go watch it in the
TV in the room, right, right, right.
And so they had a hall door plus the door and they're like close
both doors, you know, and I was like, OK, they're watching it
live. You know, during the first
season it got buzzed. But it's not like it's not what
it was by seasons 5-6 and seven by far.
But I, I just, I've always wanted, I've been intimidated to
talk about this for the longest time.
I couldn't get cited. Watch it.
Not that he doesn't want to it just it's a, it's a commitment.
I mean, you got to watch it's hour long episodes and there's
essentially seven seasons and it's, but I, I rewatched it with
my wife recently because I was bugging her.
I said, hey, every like five years or so, I have to watch
this. She goes, I, I put it on.
She's locked in the minute we rewatch it.
Of course, I, I just remember getting after once I was about
6:15 or 16, my dad was like, think you could rent the DVDs
from Blockbuster? And then he goes, yeah, let's go
get the DV DS. Like I'll, I'll watch it with
you. You know, it's, it's time.
You know, it's like it's almost the birds and the bees talk.
You're man now, son. You're man, I watched I watched
the first season and it's good, but I'm like this is comedy.
This is analyze this. This is like HB OS analyze this
like funny, sure. What's the hubbub?
Of course you're locked in all the twists and turns it takes
all of the rebrands that it does in a in a sense, all the moving
parts around it that that create this incredible show that really
doesn't have any down moments despite what people say.
And it really not at all especially.
So Fast forward again, my second rewatch is back when Netflix was
like hard copies. I re rent.
I rented it again from the Netflix hard copy thing, like
one disc at a time. Then I believe my wife when we
first met, she for a present or some sort of Christopher has
bought me the big box set, the big massive Sopranos box set
which I do still have to this day.
Rewatched it with her. I watched it with her for the
first time on that and she liked it.
She liked it a lot, but it didn't stay in her DNA the way
it did for me. We we move into our new place,
we rewatched it again. It's about another five years
after that. He's sensing a theme here.
Five years, five years, five years.
I was in cycles. He's in cycles.
She rewatched it again, she goes, guys, this show's really
good. Finally we rewatched it again.
I think she was like, holy crap, this is a masterpiece.
Like she's like this. Finally.
It took her three times to watch it through.
But that's that's I mean, and I was just so floored by how good,
how reactionary it is that that really sticks out now is how
reactionary a. 100%, yeah. I mean it.
It's only, as you said, the more you see it, the better it seems
to get, which to me sounds like the epitome of something that is
a master work because it only unveils its secrets the more and
more that you pour over it. And The Sopranos absolutely does
that. It just gets better and better,
and the more other media that you consume just the better It
stacks up against everything else.
And I think it really does kind of sit with a crown on its head
as the best piece of television ever made.
And for for so many reasons too. I mean, I, I've spent the last I
never did it. So, so Sopranos became very
popular again in 2020 because it was kind of a show that everyone
forgot about, right? Not forgot about, but just some
people were too young for the time, whatever.
And then they go, OK, I'll watch that show.
All right, I'll, I'll, I'll check it out for the first time.
Even older. I knew people, even my age and
older were like, watching it for the first time and went, whoa,
like, OK, yeah, this is right. Meanwhile, the actors, Michael
Imperioli and Steven Sherpa, Bobby Bob Blah and Chris, Chris
Moltisanti, they start their own show called Talking Sopranos.
I never listened to it when it came out.
I never listened to that when it when it when it was around
during COVID. However, I checked it out.
Now I they go episode by episode and I really, I got to say it's
nothing that they're doing wrong.
But the magic is lost when you hear about like all of the oh,
and remember that guy, the showrunner that brought the
sandwiches? That guy, dude, you're Chris
Moltisanti. You're Bobby Bacla.
Do the episode. Is that like, I don't want to
hear your guys? That would be funny.
Yeah, I think did it in. Character just commenting on
each. Episode but yeah, obviously, but
I was they they they broke the 4th wall so much that I was
like, guys, you don't get it like how good your characters
were Like your characters were so, so good that it's like it's
tough to. But the good part is about this
is they would get an actor from the show on and chat with them
for like the first 30 minutes of the show.
And that was really nice. And they talked about how they
got the part, what they were doing before Sopranos, how it
changed their life. Really interesting answers
because the show itself, there's not a lot of really famous
people in the show in 1999. James Gandolfini is a character
actor Edie Falco's on Oz, you know, doing plays.
Lorraine Bracco would probably be the best known person on the
cast at that point. She was the star, she was the
star of the show and originally she read for Carmela that.
Would be interesting. She read for Carmela, but she
said and you know, she pulled kind of AI played a crazy
Italian woman I. Don't want to be the wife again.
Yeah, she was like anytime I see an Italian woman on TV.
Which is partially true. It's kind of a Oh my Lord, oh
gosh. Like, you know, just this, like
aghast, constantly aghast, constantly yelling she wants.
To play against stereotype. Yeah, you're thinking Talia
Shire and the Godfather, like all of these, all of these
people, she says. I like this psychiatrist
character and they're like, well, it's not going to be that
big part of the show. This is the thing.
This is TV. It's so much like, go on, go, go
on the fly. The show is made by the casting
a lot of times and and stuff, but she she reads for that ends
up being perfect. And but yeah, you know, guys
like Michael Imperioli, character actor, minor roles
here and there. Stephen Sherpa was a club
promoter and and a stand up guy, I think a stand up comic comic
in Vegas. He was making good money.
He was like, I gotta go. I guess I'll take this job, but
I'm taking a pay cut, right? And that for him long term.
Worked out for him long term. Dominic Chienis, right?
He's in Godfather too. Not a whole lot else.
No, he was living on like a one like in in his 60s before The
Sopranos, living in a loft with one little like like a like a
bachelor, like like almost like glorified air mattress kind of
stuff. And and this changed his life.
He's talking about your 60s. You know what I mean?
Doing that like he's got this shouldn't have worked.
No, none. Yeah.
I mean my God, that's he's got 2 decades on Henry Miller there so
far as late life comebacks. He is very Henry Miller.
You're right. He looks like that.
He could, yeah, he could have. He could have done a Henry.
Miller. That would have been awesome if
he played Henry Miller, that would have been awesome because
he has a really interesting kind of folksy background he used to
work at, and people who are Bob Dylan heads are going to know
this. And what this is, I don't know,
but it was a folk club in New York in the probably late 60s
and stuff. Dylan, he was kind of the
Dominic Cheney's junior soprano was kind of the MC of that
place. And he could sing a little too.
So he'd get up and do a little number.
They get him. They get him singing in the show
once he. Right, so it's it's insane the
the amount of people that are in here and it's just a lot of
people that you've seen in like the back of casino, the movie,
the back of Carlito's way, where I'm Speaking of pussy Bob and
sore. You know, he was, he's in
Carlito's way as one of the Italians.
Just, yeah, towards the end, it's, it's all of those people,
but giving them really deep, complex characters.
And it's you're basically a plan truster for David Chase the
entire time, that's all. Out for all of them.
You got and and why would you trust a guy who like isn't that
prolific either, right? David Chase at the time he wrote
for the original Mission Impossible the show.
He he's wow, that's how old he is.
And you're talking about another guy who's probably in his 50s or
something, and he's like, I want to do one last thing.
And then I we'll see. You know, it's kind of one last
score on this that we're going to do.
And boy, did it ever. Do you know how he wound up
running the show? Was it just because HBO was
still pretty new in terms of the television they wanted to put
out, so they they let this relative unknown shepherd this
thing in? I think HBO needed a hit now, I
think. But it's weird because like mob
movies, they're like, OK, mob movies.
This, this guy's from New Jersey.
David Chase, He's got all these characters.
The script seems very funny and good that their hit show at the
time was like Artless on HBO, which is, you know, it's not a
hit. It's it's pretty good.
Robert Wool. It's a sports agent show.
It's a very quirky comedy. It's it's not HBO is not does
not have all that. I think I don't even think sex.
I think Oz is there, which is a great show, but it's OK.
Oz. I don't even know if Sex and the
City started yet at this time. I'm not an expert there, but
they run. It was probably run the same
time, right? Around the same time, so HBO
kind of was like, look, we got slots to fill and we need
something to, to stick. And, and, and so they, David
Chase writes this or, you know, puts this show together.
It's I guess a lot of the last names are last names of people
he knew growing up. Moltisanti, Bakaliari, like all
these, these people are just composite characters.
And guess what, guys? David Chase, he had a weird
relationship with his mom. His mom kind of kind of a bitch.
We're going to get you right back to the episode, but I just
wanted to let you guys know of a few other things we offer at
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Rare Candy Pod one. All right, enough of that.
Let's get you back into the episode.
There's a, there's a Lydia Soprano echo going on there.
Wasn't he involved in in psychiatry himself?
And was that something that's found its way into the show?
Obviously in a big, big way. Him and Lorraine Bracco bonded
over, I guess they were both in psychiatry, you know, like they
both had seen shrinks before. So basically they were both
like, look, we want it to be this way.
We want it, it needs to be like this.
We don't want it to be over the top.
We want it to kind of brood and, and, and kind of be so I kind of
just mundane, mundane, but, you know, and then lash out.
But, you know, getting into the, you know, so much of that is
interesting. And you know, who better to
listen to than the people who made the show?
They'll tell you everything you can learn, everything you want
to know from the David Chase documentary on HBO Max talking
Sopranos. It's not really a Sopranos
podcast, but what the hell else are they going to talk about is
Jamie Lynn Siegler and Robert Iler?
Yeah. Sopranos show, it's like, what
else are you going to listen? All your fans are Sopranos
people, right? So they they can tell you
everything. And there we'll get back and
forth. I want to talk about the Pete,
the characters on the screen. I think I'm so stupid that I'm
like, no, these are all, no, I want to talk about Johnny
Sacrimoni, not Vincent Kuratola. Johnny Sacrimoni.
It's a real person to me, you know, like these are, these are
real people. Yeah, I mean, and that's just
the testament to how well it was written and how well it was
acted. Is that the fact that you can
look at all these people and you stick with them for the the six
odd seasons and you go, my God, these are they're real.
These, these are all the best roles that any of these actors
have or ever will play. Period, end of story.
You, you can't top it because each of them had an arc, as
Christopher was saying in the what's my arc, Paulie, what's my
arc? All of them have an arc.
All of them have a story that has a beginning and a middle and
an end that is reached through the show.
And each of them is tremendously complex.
It's not none, not a single person there is one sided or
just a pure caricature. And as you travel with them
through the story, that makes itself readily apparent.
And that richness and that lived in world is incredible.
And that's what that's just what keeps you coming back again and
again and again. And your favorite characters
change the more you watch it, you know, the your judgement of
their motives and their actions changes the more and more that
you watch it, you know, and, and it's funny.
I mean comedy wise and and what's funny is that like I
said, the first season is like pretty outright comedy.
The the pilot re watching the pilot.
It's so silly. The and it's good, but it's Tony
when he when he drives up onto the lawn and starts beating the
guy up like like in probably, whereas it's so much more covert
later. It's so much more like get him
to follow you here, get him to right, right.
But I was just gonna ride up on this car park in the middle of
this office building and kick the crap out of this accountant.
Yeah, junior, junior with the pussy eating.
I mean, this is all classic stuff, but it's like, here's a
complete tone shift After they know, they go, oh, this, I have
a hit. This is a hit show.
Now I get to really make these people people, you know, it
becomes a completely different show because for a while it's
like, well, we got to make people laugh.
We got to make, you know, you know, we got to have all the all
of these things, like all the stuff that gets people
interested in the show. And then after that it it gets
really dark, it gets sad, it gets invested.
But one fallacy I want to get out of the way because there
have been a lot of not to politicize this show, but I
mean, what is it? There's a lot of like leftists
now that really like Sopranos big time.
You go see any kind of big account on the Internet, it's
typically run by like a left-leaning person, like a
Bernie type person. Fine.
Why? Everybody can watch it.
It's fine. No, no problem.
I don't know. I'm not necessarily saying these
people justify it this way, but I've heard a lot of people who
are very supportive of the current thing, the current
ideology and stuff. Even Michael Imperioli himself,
who is like the turbo Lib. Yeah.
He's an old, old school New York.
Theater, my gosh, he said. Right wing people cannot watch
The Sopranos or White White Lotus.
I'm like, do you even know what show you're in?
This guy, he's, he's, his head is up his own ass,
unfortunately. Oh, and the you want to talk
about jump scares? Listening to that talking
Sopranos, it's like during the height of COVID, Yeah.
I remember, I remember when it came out.
Yeah, and it's like, look, I'm not holding anybody to what they
said back then. Nobody knew what was happening.
But my gosh, like, they're like, I'm scared to be around the
microphone. Bobby and I just so you know,
just these, these like we got. Adriana, we got Adriana Lucerba,
OK. We do, and he guess who's not?
Guess who is not invited on the Talking Sopranos podcast was
never Drea de Matteo and Vincent Curatola.
Guess what? Political ideologies, Those two
people. Hey, my name Sig comes through.
He follows me on Twitter, by the way.
That's so. Like Twitter is straight Fox
News boomer I love it I yeah, it's great it's great he'll be
like AOC. Are you a dumb yeah that's what
that's what his that's what his stuff is and it's great and why
would why would it be anything else leather.
So but one fallacy about The Sopranos is that you're supposed
to hate these people. You're supposed to hate them.
Hard to do. There's like 3 people I hate in
the show and I and it's clearly people that are villains, right?
You are going for Tony Soprano every time.
There is no point in the show where you want him to lose, to
die, to go to jail, to even have a bad day, right?
You are like foam finger go team Tony Soprano the entire time and
you're in complicit in every single act that he does because
this is war. He is a gladiator and there's
constant references to generals. He's constantly on TV watching
generals, Gladiators. He's a History Channel buff when
History Channel was the World War 2 channel.
Exactly. He would watch all that stuff
because that's it's literally with you're taking barbaric
gladiator culture. It's like blood Meridian level
and putting it into late 90s Y2K era technology where they're
starting to realize that maybe that's there's things that get
used against them, you know, and and it's it's tough to see, but
we don't want Agent Harris to win.
Agent Harris is horrible and he's eating disgusting
sandwiches and burping. He can't digest anything.
He has like stomach parasites for fighting.
Agent Harris winds up liking them.
He loves them because he just starts working in terrorism,
which guess who's not cool? Guess what?
Your subject is not cool. Terrorists in the Middle East.
Nobody thinks those guys are cool.
Well, some people do, but you know, like, like he's like, at
least Tony's like, well, let me get this salami sandwich on the
on the House. Yeah, exactly.
Russian guy's ear, you know. He takes, you know, I scratch
your back, you scratch mine, and you know the enemy of my enemy
is my friend in in this case. Yeah, so man, let's, let's just
let's free flow. Let's fire away at that.
These things, I there's no way to go chronological, just
whatever comes up comes up. Tony.
We'll just we'll just have to start with Tony because it all
runs through him. You can.
Tony is not my favorite character.
However, he's objectively the best character.
Oh, yeah? Well, yeah.
I mean, because each episode is ultimately about him, so he is.
Yeah. I mean, but wait a minute, hold
on. He's not your favorite
character. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a Chris guy.
Maltisanti fan. I love Chris Maltisanti all
right, I just I just I I mean I love him.
Johnny Sack this go round was unreal like I I did not.
I only guy understood. I didn't think I I took the
Johnny Sack pill, which this time no, these guys again, you
could kill them and the show goes on.
Tony is the guy, like obviously he's the guy.
Like it's, it's just and you know, more or less like, you
know, you're talking about like objective winners and losers.
Like he's the winner of the show.
I mean, he is. He is the.
That's he. I don't know.
Don't stop believing, man. This.
I have a take on that. I yeah, interesting thing with
that, but it but nonetheless, he's out.
He survives Ralph Ciferetto, Richie Abreel, he survives the
whole junior. He survives Junior.
Yeah, he survives Juice Band and the first season.
He survives his mom and Junior conspiring to kill him.
And a carjacking. Oh man.
Carjacking so he does win and and and he survived.
I mean many reek of the Rico case, like so much of that
stuff, you know, for the time being, within the scope of the
show, he wins. I I do, I do like Chris because
I just think he's, he's comedically great and his
spiral, he's like, he's like, he's like this Dostoevsky in
character this like like Dmitry Karamatsov, like just insane,
like brute spiraling brute who I mean, he's like, he's just, he's
he's very sensitive. I was going to say he's a
sensitive brute. He's a sensitive brute Yeah, He
he and and just his like relationship with Tony the the,
the true father son, you know, the true father.
So even though they're probably not that, I think Michael
Imperio is like 3 years younger than him but in.
Real life, That's so funny. It is James.
I don't think he was only 51 when he died.
Yeah, I know. Which is absurd.
Yeah, he he died way too. Young, he looks terrible.
I mean, he really did like like from the first when you look at
the first season. Oh yeah.
He aged so much. I mean it, it was like 2
presidential terms basically is what it seems like, like when
you see him at the beginning and the end, like like Obama, when
you see what Obama looked like after it like it's just, it's
just like they look, I mean, and why wouldn't he though, right?
Like why wouldn't Tony look like that at the end of?
Oh yeah. I mean, you, you carry around
that kind of, you know, I don't know, there's been a lot of hay
made about the hole that he dug himself into playing that
character and. Right.
Yeah, I mean, obviously it's true because it fucking killed
him. So yeah.
But I mean, Chris, Chris is an amazing character.
You know, you want to root for him, but his consistent, just
total self sabotage paired with these, you know, this bizarrely
touching sentimentality that he'll come back with and the
true love and affection that he bears for Tony.
And you know, you're on a yo-yo and a seesaw with him from start
to finish, you know? Yeah, and he does the most
honorable thing I think anybody in the show does, and that's
give up your own wife because she's a rat bitch.
I mean, like and and Tony, you know, probably the worst part
about Tony, in my opinion, like the part where I I disagree with
him the most is when he when Chris brings it up, like come
on, TI need this. Like I gave up Adrienne.
He acts like it's nothing. Oh, she was a rat.
It's nothing. It's like, hey, hey, that's not
nothing. Tony, would you give up Carmel?
I don't think he he probably would, but it would.
Well, I don't know. That's actually a tough.
No, I don't think he would. Yeah, that's what I mean.
Like you wouldn't do it. Yeah, I don't think he would.
Yeah. It's so true.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know.
God, it's. Yeah.
I mean, again, another testament to the show's greatness is that
it makes you struggle with these questions.
Yeah. And.
And, you know, really makes you think about your own boundaries
of what is and isn't acceptable, what is and isn't, you know,
good quote UN quote. And you keep in mind through
this whole show that as Tony says, he's like, I'm a soldier.
When you do this, when you're in this game, you accept that there
are certain rules and that everyone that winds up getting
killed or, you know, grievously injured, they are all agreeing
participants in this game that they are all playing.
Yeah. And he doesn't.
And through the show he doesn't. No one.
There's no civilians that go and get hurt intentionally unless
they, you know, they're, they're fucking with something big.
You know even Artie Bucco, right?
Who he he could, if Artie Bucco was any other person.
Yeah. Or he would have gotten killed,
or he would have had his knees busted, you know?
Janice, I mean, you think if Janice is not her sister and
Janice is just like, let's say she's feat Lamanna's wife,
right? Immediately cut out, immediately
cut out because look at you look at it right, you look at family
like it's kind of it's kind of crazy though, Tony, Tony has
this duality with family. Like like he would never let
anything happen to Carmela despite like punching through
the drywall. And you know, he would never
want any of this to happen. Even though they have a brutal,
you know, ostensibly separation for a little bit of time, but
you think about too, he's walking through the hospital in
season 1 with the pillow over his mom ready, ready to to take
his mom out. He never does.
There's that. Great.
See. Apparently he was supposed to
kill her, which I that doesn't work.
Not not in public, and not like that.
No, and it no, no, no, and it also just that's that's the
final unslayable dragon is the mom and that and she and the
specter of her lives throughout the whole season.
So if he's killed his own mom, but then she's she's haunting
him through the rest of the series.
Doesn't I understand like tell you could do a tell tale heart
thing, but he's not some beta Edgar Allan Poe protagonist.
That said. Well, I'm.
Scared of my mom? No, like if he killed her, that
would show this kind of that would show this kind of like I
slayed the dragon. He never slayed the dragon of
his mom. That's why he's in therapy
through the whole show. Therapy was like therapy too.
Like this was like, I'm not saying I'm I'm a big fan of just
giving people Zoloft when they're feeling a certain kind
of way, but not everyone was in it.
It wasn't just given to 19 year old people as a default thing,
right? Well, you see that with AJ in in
the the final episodes when, you know, when AJ's character Orc
finally hits a wall. But yeah, I mean, and we see how
medication works out for Tony when he is trying to get his his
prescription levels correct and he's hallucinating beautiful
Italian women in the Cusimano's backyard.
But yeah. Yeah, and can't get hard too.
Like when he thinks, which is if Tony can't get hard, I mean,
he's the most virile. Like Tony is a is a consumer and
he's this. It's not a mistake that he's
just housing like full meals every scene.
It's not it's not a drinking constantly.
He is just this absolute insatiable human being.
And every time he is, there are hardly any moments where he is
just sitting down and doing nothing and consuming nothing.
And when there are like towards the end, when he has to go to
the beach house, vacate the beach house to hide from Phil
while that while while they try to find where he is sitting
there doing nothing, It's so powerful because he's not eating
ice cream, he's not watching this good channel, he's not at
the Bing drinking, he's not anything.
He's just sitting there with his own thoughts.
You finally get that towards the end.
It's. Oh, man, that's such a good
point. Because.
Yeah, Because every scene with him is just barely pent up
frustration, rage, he's about to explode over something.
Every good mood is just a prelude to him punching through
a wall, beating someone up, screaming at someone.
Yeah, every single one. And those moments when he really
does sit there with his own thoughts, that's when he eats
himself from the inside out, has bizarre dreams, winds up having
problems. That's so true.
So many. Yeah.
He he and you know you right at the beginning of the first
season, his basically his best friend, one of his best earners.
You know, it's best friend and best earner are two things like
you're you're you got to be both.
By the way, with Tony, if you're a bad earner, but you're the
best friend, there's always so much I can do.
You're not my best friend. Because if you didn't earn why
you're not my friend. We don't what are.
You going to do about it? What are you going to do about
it? What are you going to do?
That's my one of the best when there's clearly it's something
you could have done. I love when they're at the
funeral of a guy they killed and that's what are we going to do?
What are you going to do? One of the best parts and I'm
skipping way ahead here. One of the best parts is I can't
remember the character's name, but he's the guy wearing the
Members only jacket. Yes, yes, yes, Gene, gene
ponicorvo. He wants to move to Florida,
which is hilarious, by the way. The whole premise of it is so
funny. They're in this trashy Jersey
neighborhood, him and his wife, and they get one side plot,
which is how you know he's going to die or go to jail.
These are three things that are going to happen when when a
character you don't see very often gets his own.
Episode. He gets an episode, yeah.
Yeah, where the kid wants to, he's like, my son's doing
heroin. I want to move to Florida where
he won't do heroin anymore. And so it's like all these like
which, you know, because they run in, but there's a part with
Tony. It's Tony is Caesar, right.
Tony is Caesar, yes. And very much, I mean, I and
literally he views himself that way too, and as that.
So every he gets a touch of everyone's envelope and this guy
Jean's aunt dies or wife's aunt dies, something like that.
They come into like 1,000,000 1/2 or something. $2,000,000.
$2,000,000. $2,000,000. $2,000,000 in a time back then
where like. That's a lot of money.
That's like 4 million today, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. For that.
So he comes up on that. He, he he's in the middle of
explaining to Tony what he's, what he's trying to do.
And Tony's just like kind of looking weird.
You don't know what's going to happen.
And then Jean goes, oh, yeah, by the way, here's your taste.
He goes, Oh, I wasn't going to ask.
Yeah, exactly. Not that I want to say, not that
I want to say, but. But you know, he was like, wait,
why is he not handing me an envelope right now?
And so, so many, I mean, James Gandolfini, they talk about it,
his eye, what he does without saying anything.
And I'm not a big actor guy. I don't really care about actors
that much. But he's able to just kind of do
that like, and he doesn't break the 4th wall.
He's not Jim Halpert looking at the camera when Michael Scott
does something stupid. It's very much at the person.
And Edie Falco says her favorite scenes and she's never seen the
series, but. She's never watched it.
I think she said she watched a couple episodes and it was too
much for her like. Oh my God, this.
Is weird. I don't think she watches.
I mean, she's a, you know, she she's very works a lot.
I love there's Jackie. That's an awesome show.
She's a pro, yeah. She's incredible in that though.
And but anyway, he's like, one of my favorite scenes is when I
like make him dinner and we just don't say anything for like 10
minutes. And the only thing that makes
the scene even worth being in there is all the stuff leading
to that moment. So we're all just in there
processing it. You know, Meadows got this going
on. Carmela's not a thing with the
crease. Tony was the girlfriends
committing suicide, right? They're all just having dinner.
I'm not saying. It's just the sound of him
furiously stabbing his plate of food, shuffling his his food
around. Yeah, and he so he what what
Tony has to do in his first, he he's tested immediately because
you don't know Tony Soprano in the flipped season.
You're like, well, what's he going to do?
Is he going to run away? Is he going to help somebody get
away? He loves Pussy, Bop and Cero.
By the way, I'm not lost on the fact that one of that his best
friend has the name Pussy, which is the thing Tony's chasing the
entire series. But he he says they have to kill
Pussy, Bob and Sparrow and that goes all the way into the second
season. It's a long.
I forgot how long that process is.
Yeah, it really is. Up until the end of season 2,
that's the finale. Yeah, so true.
I mean, and, and throughout the whole show you realize just how
almost every single one of his captains has turned rat.
Yeah. And he's the only one who
doesn't know. And then thankfully, they all
either die or go to prison through, you know, for through
other means through throughout the course of the show.
But yeah, I mean, he he's the only one who actually sticks to
the code of ethics that they all claim to ascribe to as members
of this family, right? Right.
Because you see this, especially when he's in the hospital after
Junior shoots him. I mean, we're scooting all over
the place timeline wise. But I'm going to assume everyone
has seen the show, you know, because it's been out for, at
this point for over 20 years, right?
But you see how everyone is willing to toss him and Carmela
under the bus when they think that he may or may not come out
of the coma that he's in. Yeah.
You know they're already like Paulie.
Even Paulie Walnuts is skeeving on, giving Tony the taste of the
$2,000,000 score that he's just gone through.
Everyone's like Willy or Wony, what's going to go on?
It isn't until he actually pops out of the coma that all of them
go holy shit and they and they beeline to kiss the ring.
But throughout the whole show, he's the only one who still
holds to the respect of and the rules of the game.
Junior kicks Junior bitches him out through the whole show.
He still shows up and gives him respect, even though he hates
his guts at times and even though he even bolt, you know,
asks him point blank, do you love me?
There's a very poignant episode where at the end of the Do You
Love Me? When Junior's losing his marbles
and but he still shows up and does homage to the elders in his
family and the people in his team.
Christopher, he could have thrown under the bus as soon as
he found out that this guy was a junkie Fuck because.
And you should. That's the thing.
He's like, like he actually doesn't follow the rules.
And what I mean is Tony, but he all his errors are things are
mistakes we want him to make. We just want him to kill Chris.
So we all want him to. So, yeah, so OK, so you're
leading now into exactly where I was taking this is he respects
the rules, but he's also had he he has a sentimentality that I
don't think any of the other characters actually show, with
the exception maybe of Johnny Sack, who legitimately loves his
wife Jenny, you know, and who also seems like a generally
honorable person despite the fact that of the profession that
all these guys are engaged in. But you realize just how eager
and easy it is for all of them to toss things by the wayside
when the heat bears down on them.
And Tony's kind of the only one that doesn't.
And Johnny Stack as well. I mean, he goes to jail for it,
but you know. I so, so Johnny is so
interesting. I found him to be the most
fascinating character in terms of that I hadn't seen before
that I that things were unlocked for me and what what his role is
in this series. So I, I got to we have to
dedicate literally like a few minutes to let's.
Talk about John. Because I, I was I've always
liked them. It's it's you always like them,
but you just kind of view him as this villain kind of.
I don't even think he is a villain.
Like I don't, I don't even think he is.
I, I mean, you figure look, Johnny Sacrimony, Johnny Sack is
the he serves. He's a captain under Carmine,
right? Like for a while.
Carmine's obviously not going to last that long.
His son is retarded funny when you realize the things he said.
I didn't even pick this up the first four times I watched the
show. Is Carmine misusing words
constantly. Oh, it's so funny.
It is the funniest thing. It kills you and you're like
this. He's just in like a pink Lacoste
shirt. He just wants He has zero killer
instinct 0 business savvy, none of it.
He has nothing to offer. So Johnny Sack is is the shrewd
guy. Here's Johnny's problem.
Johnny is so rule oriented. He is so honor based.
He thinks everyone needs to act like me.
He is this classic. If if everyone is needs to be
made in the mold of me or else they need to go.
And then you realize, well, John, you can't just kill
everybody. You need to have soldiers.
It's the new era. And Johnny, there's a there's a
part where John, when Carmine dies and they have the funeral
in Jersey. And they have the cross rosary
right draped around his and his, I think Carmine goes up to
Johnny Sack and goes, my father, what the fuck was it?
What the fuck is this? My father is your father was
very interested in what the church was doing.
And basically that. Plus Johnny Sack does not have a
gumar. I mean, that we know of.
We're never alerted that he has a gumar.
In fact, he deeply loves his obese wife.
Yeah, that's one of the greatest episodes of the show where she's
smuggling Twix and stuff. And did I ask you to do this for
me? Oh, it's so sad.
It's so touching. Yeah, it's and no, but my wife
was the sweetest thing I've ever seen.
Yeah, yeah. Like, like it's just like and
you love him, but he is such he he is just such a old guard guy.
Johnny Sack in 1966. He would have been.
The nest he would have killed Chris Molta sign.
It would have just been all he would have.
He would have been like AI mob, basically like how AI would be a
mobster. And I don't mean that from a he
would still have this great personality and everything, but
he would do. There wouldn't be the nuance
that Tony has because Johnny is like, wait, we used to kill gay
guys. We used to kill these guys like
we used to do all this stuff like what are you doing, Tony?
Whereas Tony's probably right, times are changing.
Well, they even call it, you know, they even make fun of.
He's like this yuppie fuck, you know?
They call him like this yuppie fuck, you know?
Nice cars, you know? Yeah, he still loves his his
good stuff, but it's all old stuff.
Like, it's not like he's not a strip club guy.
He's not. No, no, I'm talking about Tony.
They call Tony this. They refer to him as a yuppie.
Oh, I miss that. Really.
Yeah. So, but it's true.
It falls in exactly in line with what you're saying in that Tony
is we're talking about him and rooting for him and and and
calling him honorable and all this that in the third.
But yeah, it's true. He's willing to blur the lines
in a way that guys like Johnny or Philly Attardo especially are
not. And none of them have good ends.
Tony's is maybe a bit more Gray, but all the old school guys, all
of the old school guys, every single one of them all either go
to prison or get killed. Yeah, and, and part exactly.
And part of the thing with Johnny is Johnny's fate is
really sad. It's really sad what happens.
I think it's among the saddest things that happened in the
show, in my opinion. He.
Johnny is goes to jail.
He's arrested at the at the wedding where to be honest, his
it's like kind of a not a old school thing.
He cry. He weeps when he's build away
from his daughter's wedding where he is on basically a small
release. The wedding's going a little
long and he starts crying and people go, my opinion of John
sacrimony is not high, right? They're.
They're paying. Yeah, and maybe that is John
Sacrimony's like weak link, but it's it's family at the end of
the day, right? Like it is family.
And what does Tony say? Daughters are another question.
Daughters are. It's a different, right?
Yeah, it's a different thing. But what Johnny does is like,
OK, so Ronnie thinks that if you play by the rules, exactly by
the rules, if you are playing a board game and you have the
laminated sheet of rules, if I do everything right, I'm
probably going to be OK. And that's not the case.
He does do most things right, and you see from the beginning
how he's disrespected. He's basically saying somebody
makes a Ralph Sifferetto makes the comment about his obese
wife's. He said she had what is.
Like 100 and 8090 LB mole removed from her ass, yeah. 90
LB mole removed from her ass. And that said in front of
everybody except John, John and John is like, what are we doing
here? Why are we having a sit down?
This guy's a dead man. Like like you know, I'm right
And they're going John, it's different.
Ralph earns a lot of money. John it's different and he plays
by that rule. So he's never rewarded for not
killing Ralph himself, by the way.
He's never rewarded for that because the whole time this show
is, I won't say there's no morals to this show, but there's
clearly a new age to what they're doing that they're not.
And it's not progressivism, right?
It's clearly not progressivism. A new way to do things.
And Johnny Sack is not that guy. And he dies in he he he right,
he he doesn't rat on anybody. But guess what happens?
It doesn't do anything for his case like he he doesn't get any
breaks in prison or anything there.
He's dies of of lung cancer, of really bad lung cancer in jail
with that excellent final episode of Johnny with with
Sydney Pollack as the as. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
That's. Unreal.
And that, yeah, he's so good where they're, where they, he's
like, ah, let me look at your charts.
And all he does is give Johnny a little positivity.
That's all he does. He's the only guy to do it.
So. Good.
His wife's telling him don't smoke.
You know, all these people are in his face and he doesn't get
anything. But Johnny is this example of
guys, these are soldiers. These are you need to leave your
little moralistic things at the door, right?
Like they you can, you can say, oh, honor this honor that honor
gets you shit, all right, Like honor gets you shit.
There is nuance. You need to not everybody plays
by the rules. These guys are savages.
And Johnny's like one of those guys that's like, well, I played
by the rules, yes. So what?
So I, I, I, I, I love what they do with his character as a, as a
thing of saying like, look, this might have worked in the 60s.
Now Jack shit. We got junkies everywhere.
Yeah. Drugs.
Strippers, all of these things which you know, they always had
those, but it's a different era. Post crack, post 911, post all
of these things. Different era.
Fuck things up. Yeah.
You know, they, they took they, you know, they talk about drugs
through the show. Just you know, when, when Tony's
yelling at pussy, like don't push that big H anymore, right?
Because that's what brings the government down on your head and
that's what actually causes problems for us.
And you know, that was the case for many, many decades was all
right. You know, the mob, they're not
going to crack down too hard. And the minute they got into
hard drugs and really making a crap load of money through that
is when it a lot of things started to fall apart.
Goodfellas, that happens, right? Don't.
Yeah. Paul Sorvino.
Paul. Yeah.
Goodfell don't do. That shit, yeah.
Are you fucking pushing that? That do not push that dry.
I said no drugs. I don't care what the money.
It's not worth it, you know, and to be fair, it's true.
Everybody goes down for drugs. The drugs are the shit, which.
But again, it's one of those things, if I don't push it, then
we lose the neighborhood to the people that do.
Yeah, there's. Even do you remember that time?
When do you remember when Chrissy and and Paulie go up to
Boston because they're going to hire those hit men, those blind
hit men And he tell. And the reason that they're this
impoverished, like mongrel blind gang of, of down on their heels
hit men is because they never pushed drugs.
And that's why they they lost ground and wound up having to
take out hits in order to make a living.
But yeah, but it's so true. Like all those guys, you know,
even. Yeah.
Shit. I mean, you know, you want to
think about it, it. It tends to be the downfall of
some of the main characters in the show.
Chris, it's heroin, which winds up screwing him up.
Ralph is like an inveterate coke addict, which causes him to do,
you know, he's a shitheel anyway.
But it caused him to to do terrible things.
Pussy winds up getting whacked because he's he's pushing
heroin, you know, Yeah. It just, it causes, it only does
terrible things for everyone who winds up getting involved in in
narcotics. Through the show money, right?
Because remember when Tony does peyote, I guess, with Chris's
old girlfriend? I get it.
In Vegas, he kind of has this like breakthrough where he's
like, wait, yeah, right, guys, don't you guys shouldn't be
doing this shit. Yeah, Found a little something
with it, you know, where you realized like a lot of things,
you know, he has the peyote moment in the desert, very late
90s or mid 2000s, very classic like thing that they were doing
a peyote in the desert and stuff.
So that is, that is really funny.
But yeah, some other stuff we got to talk about here.
What did you think of Polly? I mean, he's, I, I just, I just
finished the episode where he finds out that his mother is not
his mother. And he and he's awful the entire
episode. Oh, he's terrible to his his
poor the the woman who raised him.
Mary Marianucci. Yeah.
Immediately throws her television out the window.
Says he never wants to see her again.
Yeah, Oh my. What amazing woman.
Just an absolute I'm. Saying.
Cross on the wall woman, you know, just absolute, like,
nicest, like it looks like Martin Scorsese's mom kind.
Of that's all Italian grandmother's, but yes, yeah.
Strigonona, very strigonona. Yeah, like just kind of like,
like got that look about her nicest woman ever when he when
he's you know, and I, I found him to be so annoying and I.
There was kind of a thing that unlocked, because the thing
about Paulie is, yeah, he never snitches, right?
Because why? He has no wife, no kids.
He has nothing. He has nothing except for his
own miserable, you know, his own misery.
He's a fucking cheapskate. He's a miserable character.
He was ready. He was ready to throw Tony and
Carmela under the bus when Tony gets shot and he's laying there
in a hospital bed and he's wondering whether or not he
should kick up. But he does.
He does still Revere Tony. He does still Revere he has that
that portrait of him on the wall.
He salvages the the portrait of pony with the horse.
So you know, but I but Tony snubs him one too many times.
I. Know.
And you know, you get that moment when him and Tony are on
the boat and towards the end of the show and you think Tony's
going to kill him. He finally.
Yeah, but what would do? Like my thing is, is like Polly
is topped out though. Like there is nothing Polly
could not handle the responsibility of because we see
a chance of Silvio trying. He can't.
He has worse. Panic attacks?
Yeah, exactly. Worse panic attacks than tone he
has worse Polly would be he wouldn't even have the panic
attacks. He would just be a retard like
he would do a whole reco K. Everybody would get the jail
whacked like it would be terrible, like he's just
completely incompetent. I in my opinion, Polly is a
soldier, right? And Polly was probably supposed
I was thinking this too. Paulie was probably supposed to
die 20 years prior. Like just in, in general, like
probably he even talks about he's like, oh, I survived in 77.
I survived the big, you know, gang war that you kind of think
like, I think everybody expected you to die back because you kind
of just wore one of those Brendan Fallone type guys, like
die in a bathtub. Yeah, Yeah.
Like you kind of expect him to be that, but he's just kind of a
guy that he's like this cockroach of a character, like
just surviving nuclear blasts, surviving prostate cancer.
I think surviving all of these things and you you kind of like
and I I what he did to his mom again that you talk about you
talk about how did Tony handle his mom, right, A mom who was
way worse than than Marion, like way worse than her Tony, like
till the end, still went to the hospital.
I'll be it to do things, but he went to the hospital to say to
talk to his mom and and all of these things.
Despite it just being like she's dead to me, she's dead to me.
He still did that. Paulie.
Here's one thing of bad news and that's that's that's the thing.
That's why Tony is meant to run the crew.
Tony can take bad news spaz out for like a quick second, make a
move, right? Make a move Paulie bad news, he
freaks out again. He has no why he is the the
Michael Crichton lone man hypothesis where if anyone
hasn't read the Andromeda Strain Andromeda Strain they have the
lone man hypothesis where you always want to have a guy.
You're the guy who gets The detonator.
Key is the guy with no wife and no kids.
If the lab needs to blow up is he will not think about that.
That is like he will just he'll he'll do it.
He will make a rational decision.
But guess what Polly doesn't have Despite that level of
independence. Yeah, he's stupid.
He's a child. He's just a selfish fuck.
You know to to reduce it down to a simple phrase.
RIP, Tony Serico. Awesome guy.
But just. Yeah, the character.
Yeah, the character's great. I mean, the character's guy.
I hate him, though. Like I like.
Yeah, and again, it's just like a testament to how well all of
these characters were written and how well they were played.
Yeah, Oh my God, but you're man, you, you hit the nail on the
head there. Sill couldn't handle it.
Sill, you know, is self admitted in that he saw himself as more
of a behind the scenes guy, right?
He never wanted the smoke. Robert Duvall and The Godfather
is yes. He's he's died in the wool
consiglieri. He never wanted to head the
family. And A and a smart one at that.
He's a very smart consiglieri. Yes, you want this guy as your
second in command. Yeah.
Christopher, if Chris had actually fulfilled Tony's wishes
of becoming his mouthpiece and ultimately succeeding him in the
family, he would have driven it straight into the ground.
I don't care. I don't care how sober he would
have been. He would have been a terrible
boss. And he couldn't have kids with
Adrian. So it's like then, you know,
like you figure the optics of of that, like it's, it's doomed.
The minute they say Adrian can't have kids, you realize, like
after, because when you know, when you know everyone's fate,
you start looking on subsequent watches of like, when does when
is their fate sealed right? Like is, is when you know,
that's why rewatching things are great.
And I actually learned how important a rewatch was, was
when I watched Chinatown. When you watch Chinatown, it
turns into a horror film the entire time after you know what
happens because you're just watching these things that lead
into this disgusting. Like, like it's, it's not a it's
not like noir like this. The first time you watch it,
you're just like, Oh my gosh, this spectacle, this beautiful
stuff. Whereas in The Sopranos, there's
so many like you're you're catching lines for the first
time. You're catching all these things
and you're paying attention. But when like Adrienne basically
just is at her worst when she has IBS, I think that she had
like a bad abort. Was it an abortion?
She had an abortion years ago, and that only comes out when
she's talking to the FBI agent, who she assumes is her friend.
Danielle. Danielle yes.
Who's hot, you know, But you know, But Danielle was an FBI
agent and. Chris's Chris's greatest line
was when they kind of have like a almost threesome on the couch
together when they're doing on the thing where she goes, you
said she had a nice ass. She goes, I was, she's your
friend. I was trying to say something
nice. One of the best lines in the
whole show. Yeah, but you're Yeah.
Anyways, you were saying like, yeah, she yeah, a poor thing.
You love her to death. She is so 25 IQ stupid.
Tragic, tragic, but this, this gorgeous woman is willing to
support and pump up the ego of this guy who is like even Tony
says you're punching way above your weight with this woman kid.
You know she she's totally in his corner from start to finish,
wants to support him as a screenwriter, encourages his
dreams, is in his corner even when he smacks her around, and
is is just awful to her from start to finish.
She. Warned of getting it, you know.
Chris like the, the like Chris is 11 part where Chris just like
Adrian, like pays attention to everything Chris does.
She, he knows like everything. She, he, she knows all his like
things she likes like what he she doesn't really cook, but
like if she does, she knows what to make like what the limited
skills of like, Oh, I, I made this for you.
Whether he wants it or not. Chris, I remember that part
where he's comes off on a huge shipment of like Manolo shoes,
but they're like 12. They're like giant.
Sized. Yeah, I'm a giant, like a WNBA
player and, and and and he's just like, and the idea is like
like you don't. I don't think I know my wife's
exact shoe size. I don't.
I wouldn't get it 3 sizes off. I'll just say that much like you
know. What that counts, you know.
I know. It's just, it was so funny.
I guess I'll take these back. You know, it was just like, like
it's just this. Yeah, they're they're married.
They're they have like this like William Burroughs kind of like
marriage that's happening. Like it's, it's, it's, it's sad,
it's their apartment is, is horrible.
Like everything, everything about it is just like like
total, like Pittsburgh, Goodfellas, cocaine connection
apartments. It's it's there.
It's terrible. But Adrianne talks about getting
the job with with David Chase, and she's kind of a nobody at
that point. I think she was like in with
like the Abel Ferrara crowd at that time, kind of the new.
York She was another like already scenester kid in the
city. Her mom was like part of a like
the. Big.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. And I think if I'm not mistaken.
Her mom. Her mom was was in the acting
and theater scene in the city. I see.
And so she grew up around that and she was just supposed to be
a bit player in the show. And then David Chase liked her.
I mean as, as you were, I think going to go into, you know.
She she was supposed to be waitress at Vesuvios with no
name. That was your character at the
beginning, waitress at Vesuvios, Arty Bucco's restaurant.
You think maybe at the most it was going to be already has a
thing for the Hostess for like an episode to get rid of her.
You know which they do that in a way.
But yeah, he you know. But I think what she said in the
day in the documentary, she just said ow like that, like like a
Jersey girl like, and he just goes, does that that have to
happen? Girl.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
It was exactly like that. He just goes that has and it's A
and it's a great call. The auditions for the show are
funny. I do love that's the one kind of
behind the scenes things I love about the show.
Vincent Kuratola, Johnny Sack was talking about auditioning
for the show. A lot of these guys had like
businesses. He was a stone Mason, had a had
his own masonry business. Like he's in his 40s.
He was a judge, like kind of a spot judge on law and order.
I think he still is like a judge on law and order here and there.
You know, like he was just getting little rolls like that,
but nothing that was paying the bills.
But he was he was kind of like scratching a little itch he had.
And then his wife, who was an Irish woman.
And he he makes a point to say this like, you know, she's
Irish. My wife is Irish.
And she says you should do that show.
And he's kind of thinking like this, like calm Italian comedy.
I don't know about this, You know, like, like I, this is
going to be disrespecting Italians.
Who's it going to get picked up? Like then I'm going to be
embarrassed that I was in a show disrespect.
Whatever. He he goes to the audition.
He's late to the audition. He's like, I don't even want to
do this. He goes to this audition.
The lady, the casting lady, who, I'm not sure if she's the one in
here, but it's Christopher Walken's wife that did the
casting for Sopranos. No.
George Ann Walken, she did the original.
I don't know if she's the one that casted Johnny Sack because
I think he was a later in the season, season 1 if I'm not
mistaken. He.
Doesn't show up right away at all.
He shows up when hash when they have a sit down with hash.
I think it's the first time he shows up.
But he, he said he went to the audition and he, he, she goes.
You're late. And he goes, oh, yeah.
And she goes, well, I don't wait.
I don't wait around for people to go, all right, fine.
He doesn't. All right, fine.
Kind of like Johnny Sack in that voice.
He's very much, you're talking. He's very much just.
Johnny the same guy? Yeah.
Same exact guy. It's very nice because a lot of
The Sopranos people are not their characters and it's sad.
So painful. It's I actually hate it but like
Edie Falco doesn't know how to cook.
It sucks there's no at least. Paulie was basically straight up
and down. Yeah, yeah.
Steven Van Zandt is in Bruce Springsteen's band.
It's 1 of this stuff. But but Johnny Sack does this
all right, fine, and does like that.
And then she goes, hold on, no, hold on the way you said that
you know this. Is the man.
Yeah, hold on. No, I'm going to make you read.
So they all talk about this, the cast all talks about this.
They heard from behind the wall. It was a thin wall.
You could hear people auditioning for the part which
fucks you up. I feel like that would be
insanely, insanely weird thing where you're like, do I copy
that? Do I not copy that?
Am I way off? Am I?
You know, it's like the kid who turns the test in after 5
minutes while you're on question 5, you know, like it's it's very
much you think about that. He says Johnny Sack hears
everybody and it's the sit down with Hesh from season 1.
I believe that is the scene. He sits down and and he's
listening to people. They're all yelling, they're all
screaming and he's like, this guy's the boss of New York or,
you know, he's to, to the Jersey crew, he's a celebrity.
This guy to the Jersey crew, he is a big fish.
He goes, he wouldn't need to go. So he goes in and he's like,
they can barely hear me through my audition.
I made him lean in. He goes because I don't really
need this part. He went in with his confidence,
like, I don't need it. I have my masonry business.
I'll pass that down to my son. We're fine, you know, and he
kind of does that. And I talk to him like this and
I, he's, he's talking and they loved him and it's perfect
because he is. When Johnny does raise his
voice, you kind of go like, yeah, yeah, it freaks you out a
little bit. Everybody else, Italian hands
and, you know, limbs going everywhere.
He, he's just sits there with a cigarette constantly and just
kind of goes, what the fuck do you expect me to do, you know?
And, and that's when it comes out.
It's great. So I, I love that.
Like, I love the audition stories of the of The Sopranos
people. So let's talk about Silvio a
little bit more. His wife is his wife in real
life, which is funny. He's nice, makes the hospital
seems kind of sad when he's meets his fate towards the end,
he dies. You think?
I mean, more or less, he's not coming.
You kind of leave it all up in the air for.
He's not coming out of that. He's not having the Tony Soprano
because we've we've already found out he's not Tony Soprano.
This is true. So he wouldn't come out of the
coma. You know that this is true.
It it's so he isn't going to have that happen.
But he I I like. I like SO a lot though for a guy
who has no acting experience. Yeah.
I mean, you know, you could look at him like a caricature, which
he kind of is. He kind of just plays him as
this constantly scowling guy with a with a very fake
hairpiece on, you know, just like, I mean, I'm mugging for
the camera because so people aren't going to see it, but you
all know it's Sill's face looks like.
But yeah, I mean, he's just he is the the straight man to
Tony's blow UPS. And he always seems like the
sanest person at the back of Satrie AL's or in the Bada Bing
because he's the only one who wasn't out there screaming all
the time. And he generally he tends to
have good advice for Tony and reel in some of his his more
violent impulses when it comes to the way he wants to rule on
certain things and. What's really funny is when you
find out what's his right, the Bing is his.
So when Ralph is fucking Tracy, that girl and Sylvia, Sylvia
goes to the house and drags her out and she's like, I don't know
what you meant, but that shaved twat belongs to me.
And he fucking throws her on the car.
Oh, I forgot, I forgot that he's like can kill people and like
hurt people and. Stuff, he's got it like that.
Sila's got it like that, yeah. So those two moments, there's
that and then the soccer coach who's like kind of a pedo, those
are the two moments where Silvio freaks out.
Yes. Oh man, that's so true.
That's a great, that's a great one.
That's so many good side plots. The Robert Patrick Sporting
Goods store. Oh my God, Hugs, gambler.
Yeah, like all of the, you know, it's people want to say, oh,
yeah. The show didn't find its full
swing until season 3. Yeah, OK.
I don't even know but but. Yeah, but there's so many great
episodes in every single season that just stand out on their own
as being these fun things to talk about and refer to and that
you stick in your head because they're so memorable.
Yeah, Tony's deadbeat friend. His friend from high school who
winds up being a degenerate fucking gambler.
And it's played by a guy who typically is this menacing
Terminator man. The fucking Terminator is
getting busted out sleeping in a.
Tent always a prick, like just a huge prick and everything.
And he is this wallowing loser, Eeyore loser sleeping in a tent
in his own store and he still doesn't know.
And they're like, you need to get out of here immediately.
And you learn, you learn that. And then the the Tony finds
different ways to kill people, right?
That's a great way is to kill people.
You could have shot that guy and saved his family a world of
trouble. No, he's going to bleed, believe
you dry. Another instance of that is when
Tony does it to fish Lamanna. Yeah.
Right.
What does speech Lomana want more than anything?
Never to go back to the can right Peach Lomana is is part of
a great. This is such a great thing to
introduce in the later seasons is setting the old guard guard
guys free and not realizing that shit's been happening since
they've been gone. You have Steve Buscemi, Tony
Blundetto, you have Fech Lomana, Robert Loggia, just incredible.
These guys are incredible. At this point, The Sopranos is
like casting itself and. Yes, it's true.
You need you need Robert Loggia to show up at some point in The
Sopranos. It's great that he showed up as
Feets Lamanna. Oh, I love feets, man, where he
is one of his first big comments is like these women I get out of
the joint and they're and they they're shaving their they're
shaving their pussy. Like exactly.
Yeah, girl. I mean, but it's like you're
still doing it, obviously. But yeah, he's like, yeah.
And he's like, I guess it's not that big of a of a thing, but
yeah, he but he think they think that they're going to get this.
You know, that's why I brought up the Johnny Sacks situation.
If you think that Johnny Sacks thinks that if he plays the
right way, he will get rewarded. And it gets it blows up in their
faces. These guys think, well, I did my
time, I'll get rewarded for doing my time.
No, we just won't kill you. That's why you're having time
for the deal. We just won't kill you.
You don't get. Shipped through.
They, they all get thrown under the bus.
They all think that they've got something coming to them.
And they realize that that the code that they all swore a blood
oath to ultimately doesn't mean as much as they thought it
would, you know? And yeah.
And I mean, it's, it's, it's like, it's a it's it.
You could look at it as a tragedy because yeah, they're
all scumbags. They're all, they all do really
shitty things to everyone. But they're soldiers.
They all bought into the game. They all bought new set of
rules. And you expect if you play by
the rules, as you keep saying, that Johnny Sack played by the
rules. All these guys went to jail
playing by the rules. If I don't rat, I do my time
like a man. I come out, I'm going to get
what's coming tonight. Yeah.
None of them get what's coming to them.
None of them. Lives like that.
I mean, again, you know, if you're a Christian, you might
not ever pay for your sins in your natural life.
You'll pay, you know what I'm saying?
Like so in the real this, this life that we live in, whether
you want to call it a simulation, anything like that,
an audition for the afterlife or all these things like, hey, you
might, you might skate by. But you know, these guys all
have a crazy fate happening for them after.
But there is a moment where Tony's in Melfi's office and,
you know, Doctor Melfi kind of gets taken aback a little bit.
I mean, obviously there's there's a psychosexual
companionship for them the entire through the entire series
that really makes their conversations really good.
But she says, do you think you're going to heaven?
And he goes, well, do you think soldiers go?
And she's like, fuck, yeah. I think maybe they might.
I'm like, why? It's war.
He goes. What we're doing is war.
Yes. He's like, what?
Because there's not a, there's not a government involved.
He goes, well, the government is involved.
They're trying to stop me. But he's like, whatever, you
know, it's, it's he's like, you know, obviously Tony has other
transgressions. But as far as the killing,
you're kind of thinking like, well, there's like the blood
Meridian element. It's like, well, if you want
things done, this is how they get done.
Do you want things done? You know, and, and, and you
know, if we want, if you want the neighborhood to stay
Italian, this is how it stays Italian.
If you want you know this to happen that then then this is I
know how to get from point A to point B.
You just might not like the the path we take, you know and.
He makes, he makes the point, I think even in that conversation,
he's like, what about the Rockefellers and the Carnegie's
and the melons and all these people and they let all of us
into the country to do their dirty work.
And you think that they were any better than you were than than
me? Yeah, You know.
Right. He's like, what's the what's the
difference? They didn't get their hands
dirty. They had other people do it for
him. Everything that those robber
barons did today would be condemned as human rights
violations, would be condemned as moral violations, would be
condemned up and down the line as a travesty against human
dignity in many respects. With him, it's out in the open,
you know? And, yeah.
And, you know, and you even want to take it to the point where
Tony's in his coma and he's the dream where he is.
Kevin Finnerty right and he's having his near death experience
finally towards the end of that dream where he's going to what
is presented as a family reunion.
This this like brings tears to my eyes now when I.
Split. It's insane, yeah.
Yes. And you see Tony Blindetto,
Steve Buscemi. He is.
He's just credited in the episode as man.
And he's in, he's in a tuxedo and he's got a clipboard and
he's letting people into the party.
And Tony, I'm sorry, Kevin Finnerty, he's got a briefcase
in his hand and he's trying to figure out whether or not he
should go into this house where you can heal her beautiful music
and laughter and festivities coming from.
And he's confused and he's, he's, he doesn't know what to
do. And Steve Buscemi keeps trying
to take the briefcase out of his hand going You don't need that.
Just let go. Just let go and he can't do it.
It's brutal that whole that whole series.
So I I was talking about this with my wife that gets that kind
of Kevin Finnerty, the the kind of Lynchian.
That's so true. Holy shit, that whole.
That is like a whole. It's almost a return, which the
returns no one, not even a thought at this point.
You know, like, well, it's probably a thought, but it's not
anywhere near being done. The the it's, it's, it's kind of
his Dougie Jones in a way. And when you when you, when you
think about it, he is it's Tony just going.
Could I, if I did, if I did stuff differently, if I just did
the, you know, let's say my dad's not Johnny Boy Soprano.
Let's say I'm from Tom Soprano and he owns.
What does he sell? Patio furniture?
His kind of. He smells like defense
equipment, like, you know he's. That's right.
Yeah, that's right. So he's you know, let's just say
I did that. I you know, I went to school, I
I got a degree and I am selling. I'm a salesman.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a salesman. And he and it's all these like
Kafka, like weird Kafka esque things happening to him, all of
these annoyances that are exactly the same as the things
that are happening to him as a mobster, maybe with different
kind of of stakes, but they all still kind of have the same
effect on him. And he realizes that he's like,
I was never going to be this. They're my role in society has
always existed. And there are people born to do
my role in society. And that's me.
That's my look at it. And I find those that I will say
this, I think people shit on the Kevin Finnerty dream sequence.
I think the the actual bad dream sequences are the like boardwalk
ones. Those ones are like like in my
opinion, the lighting yourself on fire on the they're OK.
I'm not saying they're bad. They don't they don't the kind
of season 2 boardwalk stuff with the only the only one that's
really worth the shit is the talking fish.
That one is that one's great with the big mouth Billy Bass
very of the time episode, But one of those.
Yeah, the the that's the those are those are way more of a but
I don't consider it an offense, but much more of a all right,
I'm done with this kind of thing rather than the Kevin Finnerty
thing, which you realize, like as you rewatch it, they don't
spend that much time on the Kevin Finnerty.
I thought it was a whole season. It's really not.
It's like 2 episodes. Yeah, two or three episodes.
It's just the right amount of time and it's this constant like
going to school naked style dreams that he's happening like.
By a Buddhist monk you know. Yeah, and even they which you
think about the Buddhist monk, they are people who have a code,
right? They have a code like regardless
of you know, life is this it's that it's, you know, Daoist all
these things like you could you could say that, but he he they
they have this code, but even they kind of go fuck you.
You owe me money. You.
Know he's the one. I take him to court.
Yeah. Yeah, so he's like, everybody
does this shit, everybody that it's like this validation that
he needs. And then you realize after a
while he's like, I'm not ready to go yet.
Some guys would, some guys would.
Hell, my own cousin would he? Did you know?
So I, I love the Kevin Finnerty dream sequence a lot.
Let's see. Yeah, no, all I was going to say
is, yeah. I mean those, you know, I think
we kind of take it for granted. But that blend of exploring the
unconscious in dream sequences, in blending genres in this way,
where you're taking this bizarre surrealist stuff and you're
mashing it up with what is, on its surface, a mobster show.
Yeah, like, original strange. And somehow it all works.
It all works. It all works.
And and he, you know, you hear James Gandolfini's real voice,
which always is a jump scare to me.
Have you seen any other movies? Yes, I want to talk like this.
And it's like, it's this weird like some like true.
Romance or Get Shorty or yes. Sporty is where he has this
southern accent that's not very good.
I just watched that the other day.
Fun movie. I just it's just as you watch
him and you're just like man you.
I know he's this like respected like actors, actor, guy, but
he's really just Tony to me. Yeah.
Like any movie I see him in, there's that Killing Him Softly,
I think was was his last movie. I think the one with Brad Pitt.
I don't particularly like that movie very much, but he's in it
and it's just like, man, I don't know.
Yeah, I think he's all right in that Coen Brothers Noir 1 back
in the day, the black and white Coen Brothers movie.
That one's pretty good. I forget what it's called, but
he he's good in that. But man, he's just Tony, man.
It's just, it's, it's the way Daniel Radcliffe is Harry
Potter. Like you, just like I look at
him like, Nah, I'm sorry. I have no interest in that,
sorry. You have no other roles.
Yeah, yeah. So you only, you only need one.
You only need one. Don Ham will only ever be John
will only ever be Don Draper, and that's all he ever needs to
be, you know? The funniest thing is when,
because HBO is notoriously cheap.
I don't know if they're still that way, but back in the day
they were notoriously the cheap network.
They were like, look, you have freedom.
You get to play like the character with us, you get to do
all the crazy stuff. This is pretty A&E.
Having Breaking Bad like this is very much like you do the things
on this show, you get to go there, but you have to pay a
damn thing 'cause we're a subscription based service.
It's not cable. You're not Time Warner, you
know, at the time. And then but they weren't paying
a lot of money. So almost after every almost
every season, the show gets more popular, more popular.
And James Gamble thing, he's like, yeah, I think I should get
more money. And they go no.
And he goes, all right, I think I'm done.
And and because the show's done, if he's done literally, yeah.
Because it's even if Michael Jordan quit basketball, which he
did, they still play basketball seasons while he was gone.
And, you know, did not have a network without Sopranos and
James Gandolfini, no. So they had they had to and and
to be fair, I guess it pushed back a lot of production and HBO
got really cheap with this, even season 6.
The reason season 6 has a two seasons is because if you called
it season 7, you had to give actors a raise for a renewal
raise and they wouldn't do it. Are you serious?
FY. That's so fucking funny.
Yeah, so they're cheat. They were cheat the entire time,
like with them, which is like this is your breadwinner 6.
I'm sorry, 6 feet under is not bringing this in.
Dude, I love. But it's it's just it's it's not
bringing in this kind of sex and the city is your winner, is your
other winner. But these are your two.
These are your two things. And so, you know, I thought it
was, I thought it was really interesting, but he would break
off. He would give everybody on the
cast. I mean, I don't know about
everybody. I think it was like you would
give, not like Edie Falco because she had, I'm sure she
was making pretty good money on The Sopranos.
And relatively speaking, they're like, you know, the guy playing
Mikey Palmichi or like these other guys like you like $30,000
or something. Be like, hey, I've heard that
kind of your money temporarily. Yeah.
We weren't sure if I was coming back, you know, and, and, and
stuff he goes, but I'm. But I'm back.
So let's talk about his family. We don't really, we don't really
talk about his family very much. His actual nuclear family inside
the house. Carmella I mean, I think it's my
wife's favorite character of the show.
I, I, I mean, I love her. It's weird.
You, I think a lot of women like her, but there's a lot of women
that can't stand her because she's an enabler.
So I like I've gone back and forth on my Carmella opinions
over the years because I think at first you want to be
sympathetic to her. Your initial reaction as a man
is to be sympathetic towards Carmela and all of the shit that
she gets put through as Tony's wife.
And subsequent viewings made me revise that opinion, not
charitably, because you realize that she signed up for this.
Exactly. She signed up for this.
She knew exactly who he was from the minute she said I do, and
before that she knew exactly what she was getting into.
How dare you act high and mighty and want to cause a stink after
you stepped in with both feet to something that you were fully
aware of was going to be exactly what it is now.
Sympathetic again, you know, but but you come at it with a fully.
You get a, a look at a character that is fully formed, someone
who has contradictions, who has flaws.
And like any human being, there's both.
There's two sides to her character, and she has to deal
with that through the show. And she ultimately does.
You know, she reconciles to the fact that I married the man I
married. I married into a lifestyle I
married into, I married for love.
But it comes with caveats, and unless I accept them, I'm
condemned to a life of misery. That's beautifully said.
She, I think she's, I think she's a like a really good
homemaker and like it's a pleasant, a pleasant hang, you
know what I mean? Like, she seems like really fun
to be around. Yes.
Just like jewelry, like clinking everywhere.
Like one of those, one of those women.
Like you could, you know, if you're a fragrance person, you
probably just figure it's like. Should be a great TPN.
Guest yes, yeah, well, I would guess Carmelo would be Edie
Falco would not be she is a but exactly.
And we E Falco's like couldn't be less of her Like she she
wears sweats all the time. You know, she's like I, she's
literally like, I don't cook. Like she's, I just don't cook
very New York, you know, like like, like I don't, I don't
cook. I don't want to hear.
This, which is I, I know. No, I told my wife I thought she
was gonna. She was like, what?
I was like, yeah, no, she's like, not at all.
I was like, yeah. And then Edie Falco on Talking
Soprano says notice you don't see any like in the way when
when you see a music biopic, you don't see the guy's face and the
fingers playing at the same time on the piano.
But she's like, notice I'm not chopping vegetables with my in
the scene. I'm not doing this.
And. But the whole time, you know,
her food is legendary, right? Or who's legendary and Junior
who's incredible at this one scene where where Janice is
schmoozing her way into Bobby Bacala after Aaron dies.
She's like, whoa, Janice brought this best brought this lasagna
over. That's even better than Karen.
And and Junior tries it. He goes, no, that's my that's
my, that's my niece Carmela. That's that's her that's got the
diced sausage on the toffee. Some guy knew that.
I know that they like she's legendary, but she gets a taste
right because she thinks she's she thinks she's mad that Tony
wants his cake to eat. Yeah, however she wants her cake
and to eat it too. Her cake, however, is not
unlimited penis all the time. That's not her cake.
Her cake is a lavish lifestyle. AI mean to be honest, she wants
Johnny Sack. However, Johnny Sacks not as
cool as Tony. Like she wants a Johnny Sack
type. I yes, I understand what you're
saying. Yeah, like I don't believe that
she has. I'm not saying she has a thing
for Johnny Sack. I just no, no, no, I get.
What you're saying? A Johnny Sack person, however,
she'd get bored with Johnny Sack.
She would. Maybe, you know, this is the
thing too, right? It's, it's and this is again.
Another added layer of brilliance to The Sopranos is
how it lays bare how the writers managed to lay bare the
politically incorrect truths that underlie power dynamics
between human relationships and men and women in particular.
Because what makes Tony attractive is exactly what makes
him repulsive, dangerous and repulsive and unpleasant to be
around. And in any previous era, these
contradictions would have existed in harmony because they
would have been accepted as as facts of life for a man of
power, of course. Well, and there's and, and, and
just to talk, to her credit, Tony is really sloppy about his
things. But a lot, really a lot of the
time she's like, why do I find out about this shit?
And almost immediately, like, you know, she's not even, I'm
not even searching for shit, but I find a fucking Gloria Trillo
fingernail. You know, it's on like in your
laundry, you know what I'm saying?
Like, like it like spills out. She's like, I women.
Tony, Where's Tony Live here? Working horror of a girlfriend
is calling my son on the phone Yeah and.
You fuck her sister who's kind of cool, you know, like.
Only has one leg. Yeah, Lana, who is based I like
this was. She was great, great.
Character, but you know, she she they're she's like you, you
literally like and then we I think we even Carmela alludes to
not alludes, but just like she fucked, he fucked like the
preschool teacher too, like of Meadow and AJ preschool teacher,
one one of their preschool teachers.
And so it's kind of like she's like you.
I get it, but like, why can't it just be some girl I never
fucking see? Yeah, why can't it like, why
does it have to be this Like you you get it to that sense where
it's like, yeah, I get it. I did sign up for this.
And. And Tony tells her a story.
He's like, look, you loved it when I used to beat guys ass in
high school. Like you loved when I was like
the tough, you know, swarthy kind of, you know, mobster.
Yeah, yeah, you you loved it, you know, and she's like, well,
I was 17. He's like, you're not that
different now. He's like the problem is and and
look, we see Carmella does have these things for like the father
intentola. She loves going after this
unattainable thing that she knows.
She loves the square peg round hole situation.
She tries to will something to existence.
She tries to will the Tony Soprano fire and intensity out
of these men who I'm sorry, they don't have it.
The principal a a JS Oh. Yeah, his guidance, that was his
guidance. Counselor.
Yeah, I forgot who. That guy.
That actor, though, he's real famous too.
I forget. Oh yeah.
And he's in everything too. Everyone in these shows is and
everything. Big character actor guy.
Yeah, he's, she's like, you saw Beta, you know, basically like,
yeah, it went back to like, it's just that the whole time, like
she's like, so she's resigned to it.
And then she just said she her big breakthrough is when she
just goes, why don't I just become a mobster?
Tony? I want a house.
Yeah, she's like it costs. This property costs $600,000.
Yeah, and he's like, even Tony, who's like, yeah, that's a
headache, but thank God. Because this is a negotiation he
understands. Yeah, OK, that duh idiot, of
course, you know, like. And their marriage is great
afterwards, yeah. Yeah, they're like pretty much
till the end, you know, for for the most like, like we start.
Going out on dates again, they're smiling at each other.
Yeah, we get the advent of sushi in America like.
Yeah, like he's there just by himself at lunch, eating sushi.
Yeah, when it's not Pierce, American Psycho, like it's like
these people actually eat this stuff now.
It's like, oh, the sushi place, you went there without me.
Yeah, there's, you know, she she buys in.
She finally realizes, yeah, I did sign up for this because
it's odd. Like one, one part that's like
kind of odd to me is that like with her parents?
Because she is Chris Moltisanti's cousin, right.
Like so so she's related to Dick Moltisanti, I think, or
something like Mary maybe she's now, I can't remember that that
gets a little muddy, but I'm always like, man, she does not
seem like she comes from a mob family at all, so.
Like her, her mother and father are squares.
But but also Dickie Moltisanti's in the fan.
So like she he he Tony alludes, he goes.
You saw all that stuff with Dickie Moltisanti, like, you
know what like this is. And he, he's trying to tell her
like you, you understand, like I, this is like what I do.
It's actually like bad optics if I don't.
I mean, as lame as that sounds, it's probably kind of true.
They start thinking you're a veto spata for, you know, yeah.
He's a fag. Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, I love, I love, I love that Meadow.
Meadow's arc is incredible in the show.
Yeah, I mean, she's amazing. She is the reactionary politics
of the show. She's the most progressive out
of any of them, but she is you. You get to watch how like kids
grow up honestly, which they don't do on TV anymore by the
way. Kids are always right.
Like if Sopranos was made now, Meadow would be like the voice
of reason in the family instead of like shut up Lib tard.
Like go in your. That's a good point.
Yeah, like that's a good. Point, yeah.
Listen to her. She would come in, she'd go, mom
and dad, stop fighting. What we need to do is donate the
money to Black Lives Matter, you know, like, that's like what she
would do. And then they would go, OK, you
know, and, and that would be the show.
That's how they write shows now. Kids are the smartest people in
the history of the world if we listen to them.
Yeah, so. But Meadow is almost a Lib tard
by rebellion to her death. Yes.
Which is that's very much the case.
That happens all the time. That's why I always laugh when I
see people. I'm going to raise my kid to be
a based Republican. No, your kids are going to be a
Lib tard out of. Exactly.
You're going to have to be able to weather that storm.
They will eventually come back, probably because they are you.
They are you in a sense. Like.
They're going to go through a phase of like, especially if you
want them to go to these nice schools that they want Meadow to
go to, they're going to become a lip tard there.
And she wanted to go to Berkeley, right?
Oh, she wanted to go to Berkeley.
That was going to be crazy. And different Joe, at that
point, that would be it. So she's fucking up and the
whole time she thinks she doesn't need her dad.
But then when she's like, people are overdosing at Lydia
Soprano's, you know, Squat house, who comes in and makes
sure nobody actually gets in trouble, talks to the cops, you
know, all these things. But then, you know, Dad, Dad's
not PC. Tony's not PC.
He will say things like Sambo, you're dating Sambo and.
Jamal Ginsberg, the Hasidic homeboy.
That killed me, Jamal. And to be fair, that guy sucks
ass. Oh, he was a twat.
He was a twat. A total.
Twat. Yeah, like is that?
It's like it's not even like racially aside, if he was an
Italian guy, he sucks. Oh yeah, he would have still
been a jerk off. Yeah, so funny.
Jamal Ginsburg. The Hasidico.
Yeah, that one, that's killer. Yeah, that because it's, it's,
it's a 1-2 punch too. It's like my daughter's dating a
Jew, a Jew body shot. It's a, it's a black Jewish guy.
It's like Lenny Kravitz, dude. You're like and and like, it's
just, it's all. It's A Knockout.
Like, what do you? Yeah, it's, it's.
And. And she eventually, after a
while, she eventually embraces her Italian part of her.
And there's that beautiful episode, which never stuck out
to me in the past, where Tony and Carmelo are separated.
But Hugh Carmelo's dad really wants him at the birthday party.
Oh yeah, yeah, Tony shows a great episode.
But but Carmela's mom has like this doctor guy who she's trying
to impress who never liked them, always saw them as second class
citizens, but she always wanted to play up to him.
So if that guy was at the party, everyone at the party needs to
be on their best behavior because they don't want us to
see that were these grease ball Italians, which to me always
looks like a really fun time, like all the grease ball
Italian, like food everywhere and beers and drinks and people
talking shit. I'm like, this is like my, I'm
not Italian at all. I, I was like, I'd love that.
I'll tell you, it is fun, yeah. I know he naps over here.
Yeah, yeah, he's he's from, from the from the new from the
Florida crew. Yeah, he's.
From from New York originally so.
You are. Yeah, it's true.
You're Carmine. I mean, you're smarter, but.
I'm, I'm better looking. I'll take that.
You know, I don't know that's smarter, but you know, you're a.
Lot smarter. You.
You haven't said. You haven't said what is it
circumstance like instead of circumstance instead of
circumference, you know? Oh yeah, he's so good.
Yeah, yeah, but but, you know, like, she, Carmela goes up to
her mom and she's like, why are you ashamed of what you are?
Yeah, which she was so. Happy that you were.
So you got married to, to Hugh, and you were so happy that your
last name didn't have a vowel at the end.
That was yeah, she's. And she was so pissed off at
her. That's so funny.
Yeah, the vowel is such an old school thing.
My grandpa is a Irishman. Ellis Island, not, he was not
from his dad is Ellis Island, but 20s New York and stuff.
And he was always like, yeah, he's like, oh, one of those
vowel guys, you know, you're always fucked.
He was in like Bronx in like the 30s and 40s.
He's like, yeah, those vowel guys doing bullshit in the
streets. He's like, you know?
And Oh yeah, yeah, that was my grandfather's youth was getting
into fights with the Irish in. The city, like was it a Polish
guys? My grandpa would always say he'd
go, yeah, their last names are an eye chart.
I fucking love that dude. Alright, rest in peace.
I love that guy. But yeah, he was, it was just,
it was just these old New York guy.
He's like, that doesn't exist in California.
Like I'm from California. We have Italians here and
they're all they do, all they do is wear like button up shirts
and sit in their backyard and drink wine and like they have
like a Ciao Bello sign in their kitchen.
That's it. That's like their Italian, maybe
some Frankie Valli playing like, oh, for like a nice thing.
That's it. They don't do the whole
tracksuit. We don't have that out there.
Yeah, it's not real. So it's like that whole all that
stuff looks really fun to me. So when people are trying to
like, suppress them, like that sounds great.
That sounds so much better from. The five to the six.
Meadow learns one of the best parts of the series is when
Meadows bike gets stolen and Tony just closes the fridge
again. It's just.
Looked at her and smiles. It's the nonverbal James
Gandolfini, just smiling. She goes what Dad and he's just
like that is insane and he basically does a 1354 Chan crime
stats thing. So good.
Oh, and it's just, it's hilarious and you know, like 911
hits and like Tony's like sad and he's like, but he's also
like opportunistic where he's like, take care of them now.
Like, leave us alone. Exactly, That's so funny it
doesn't work out in their favor just because the FBI winds up
loosening their the noose around their surveillance on organized
crime. Yeah, it reminds.
It reminds me of the Elroy. You've read the Underworld
trilogy, right? Oh God, yeah.
I I binged on on all of that. Over the RFK senior J Edgar
Hoover. Do we go after the commies or
the mob? That's what it reminds me of.
You know, like like where one's clearly a threat and the other,
you know, like the other, the other is like this known like we
can. Hand we can contain it.
Yeah, I know those guys like they, they can get sloppy from
time to time, but they usually clean their own up a little bit
after a while. Like they usually, you know,
move. But these other guys are wild
cards, you know? And, and so that's like that's
kind of the whole situation in The Sopranos post nine.
Yeah. And that shows up, you know,
occasionally when the suspected terrorist side characters who
were really only there for like episode and episode the time.
Everyone Tony's driving and he just, he's driving with his new
big bald head bodyguard guy and he's like driving and he just
sees those two guys cross the streets and he's just like, Oh
no, yes, like what? And he's like, I don't know,
something's up with those guys. And they were, I think they were
just scamming. I think they were just scamming.
I don't know if they were doing anything.
They were just, they were just scamming like credit card
numbers, which Tony was doing with like Indian guys already.
Yeah, oh, yeah. And then they all get into
gesture, they all go to they were doing the Indian car call
card scammers. And then and Tony gets that
awful indigestion. Already you didn't get it from
my scallops. Exactly.
Absolutely love it, God. He's hallucinating the beautiful
dental student in Kuzumano's yard.
Yeah, that's. Right.
Yeah. But yeah, but yeah, I mean, you
know Meadow, even at the end of the show, right, she boomerangs
all the way back around to becoming like a low grade legal
aid trying to bail out mobster butt he's for.
She's an asset. Daddy's girl.
She was always dad like a daddy's girl.
She, her and her mom didn't get along.
Yeah, she and you see, you see this.
She's trying to replicate ultimately her relationship with
dad, with her relationships with Finn and everyone else that
she's with. And they and we, you know, Finn
is great. I got to love Finn, but Finn is
a pussy. At the end of the day.
Finn is not Tony. He's the principal.
It's Carmela and the principal, Yes.
And who you know you like. Because The thing is, Finn is a
guy I'd hang out with. Oh yeah, Finn.
We would all love Finn. Yeah, I'm not in this show.
He's a San Diego Padres fan. I'll talk about baseball.
You know, it's fog he's with with Vito coming up, brushing
up. Against him, Phineas, all the
time. He goes.
It's not, it's it's not short for anything.
I'm Finn. Yeah, Finn.
Yeah, remember when he's in the hospital and Vito gets off the
elevator and he's like, he grabs his arm and he like sensually
traces? Kill dude, it's like an
incredible. Yeah, there's a lot of old movie
references and Sopranos, like a lot of like, like Hollywood like
which which to me, I didn't. I wasn't into movies the first
few times I watched it. So now as I've watched much more
movies, I'm like there's a lot more references you get.
I'm not going to go into. It Oh yeah.
I mean, well, like Tony will literally quote old movies, you
know, to people as they're going through their day, right?
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Like you'll love this because I wanted to talk about, we'll talk
about AJ in a SEC. But Tony Blindetto, he does
deserve. It's great.
He's a great character, Steve, which you always think, like
bringing in a guy like Steve Buscemi, you're kind of like, he
sticks out too much like you would think.
But man, he blends, right. I mean, he, I mean, I hate to
use an Italian cooking thing, but he just, he's this thing you
just add and it's like you haven't stirred the pot yet.
He's like, oh, that stuff sitting at the top of the pot
like that doesn't work. Stir it in.
Yeah, we've, we've boiled it all down.
It's all one thing now. Tony's in our, Tony Blundetto's
in there when he first gets out. And Tony said.
I knew I thought of you, actually, even though we weren't
doing this, we we had. I have no idea why you'd think
of me during this particular thing that I think you're aiming
at here, Glen. It's.
Obvious why I would think of you because when Tony gets out, it's
been a long time. Tony Blindetto gets out because
we we learned that Tony Blindetto basically was at a a
crime scene that Tony Soprano was supposed to be at.
He says he had an excuse for why he wasn't there.
He was sick. He actually had a panic attack
about his mom. Big reveal.
Tony should have gone to jail. Tony Soprano should have gone to
jail about as long as Tony Blindetto kind of and their
cousins. Well, Tony Blindetto gets out
and Tony Soprano goes, hey, I got you a suit.
And Tony Blindetto is like, no, I got my old one.
It's fine. It still fits and it's straight
up Don Johnson Miami. It's straight up Don Johnson,
Miami Vice suit and Artie, as soon as they walk into the suit,
you should welcome home. He goes, oh, where's Tubs?
As soon as he walks in, it kills me.
And I didn't get that reference when I was a kid.
I didn't watch my so yeah, he's got the roll.
It's the you would know the the turns better than me.
It's the suit with the white with the teal undershirt.
It's like it might have even been a salmon undershirt with.
He's got his sleeves pushed up on over his elbows.
And Todd Johnson, that's the, that's when he got locked up is
like. During like 1986.
Yeah, just the thing was probably swagged out back then,
like. You know I.
Mean, I think it still looks cool, but like it's it's it's
just funny like. Everything swings back around.
Oh man, you're absolutely right. Steve Buscemi, just because he
looks the way that he looks and because we all have these
associations of him from everything he's been in, he's
great. He's great in the show.
Did you see this is kind of a tangent, but it is related
because it's a lot of the same characters.
Did you ever watch Boardwalk Empire?
I did. I I didn't care for it that
much. OK, but I did watch it.
But. But just like I bring that up
just to say that he can play it a really solid gangster, you
know, and he could play an intimidating character when he
needs to. Yeah.
Oh, Fargo, yeah, yeah, Fargo too.
I mean, he, he, no, he, he has a, he has a like, he has an
ability to be like, I'm a retard in an Adam Sandler movie or I'm
pushing somebody into a wood. Shepherd.
Yes. He can do it and like his
phenotype, his physiognomy, whatever term people want to
use. Like he he, it works for both.
And his character is Dustin Hoffman from straight time.
I don't know if you've seen that film.
I haven't, no. Watch it immediately.
It's it's a it's a classic. It is a underrated Dustin
Hoffman film. I won't smell the movie for you,
but it's Tony Blondetto, basically guy trying to go
straight. Never mind.
I'm a spaz fucking. I'm a spaz out on everybody, you
know, like like that's the the the the theme of it and pretty
pretty much to AD that I think about it, yes, children, that's
a bit different. He has like 2 kids that they
smuggled sperm out. So funny.
Yeah, it's really funny. It's.
Really funny, but he wants to give people massages and.
Stuff I love. I love the fact that he's so
earnest and everyone takes him seriously.
Isn't he massaging Veto too, isn't?
That yeah, yeah, he's, he's doing everyone in the back of
such real. He's got his massage.
It's funny. That it's Vito.
Vito's probably like, yeah, of course.
Obviously me first, you know. And and he's so he's so serious
about like, I'm going to go straight tone.
I've been out of the game for a long time.
I want to be a nurse. I want to be a registered
massage that and nobody takes him seriously.
But Tony's like, all right. And he gets in this job with
this, with Kim, the Korean guy. We make the big success journey
I love. I love that guy.
And he does. He gets into a fight with him at
the massage parlor. He's going to stake him out.
And he's doing he's, he's doing Taekwondo at him and he punches
him out. I felt so bad for him, too.
The the Asian guy. I was like, God, he really
didn't deserve to die. That's so bad.
He was like the waiter. He was very similar to the
waiter that Paulie and Chris kill when they're on the outs
with each other, when Chris is is saddled with all the checks.
Yeah, and can't pay for the stuff because he's still wait.
Like, you know, it's like $2000 dinners every night and stuff.
And he and he and he stiffs the guy on the way on the bill.
You're like, God, I felt so bad. Like there's certain there's
some like one off kills that are like, Oh no.
Stripper, I think stands out as probably the the most egregious
example. Ralph the stripper, Ralphie the
one. That Ralphie is Tracy.
Yeah. Ralphie.
Gosh. But yeah, that brings us to
Let's talk about you. You don't have.
Are you short on time? I'm good.
We can keep going, yeah. Wow yeah exactly because a JAJ
is like David Chase is famous for talking about AJ as as a
stand in for him. That's interesting.
As a child, I think Tony is him as an adult in terms of his mom
relationship and the mom dominating every aspect of life,
every decision made. The villain that he can't beat.
Even if Phil Leotardo's breathing down his neck, you
know, Livia Sopranos actually there much the specter of her is
much more powerful than the Phil Leotardo.
But he said AJ is like was me because I was a little punk ass
skit and AJ is a punk. And it's funny how Tony really
doesn't kick his ass that much. He legitimately loves him.
He should beat his ass way more and he doesn't.
Yeah, he he never does. And AJ is?
I think he pushes him against the wall one time, like, like,
like really one time. And it's when he's living with
Tony on the separation. Yes, he push it against his
thing. Like, you want to be fucking
tough with me? Like, yeah, you know, like,
like, yeah, he's. Like you want to fight?
Well, let's go. Yeah, he throws me.
He throws material in the sink. Beat the shit.
Out of the AJ, Robert Isler's like 5-3.
Is he really? Oh, he's tiny.
He's an Irishman. He's like a leprechaun.
Oh my God, yeah, this makes me like him even less because he
looks exactly the same now, so I you know.
Immediately I know and he's he. I listened to an episode.
That's the one Vincent Kiritola went on, was their show.
And bless Jamie Lynn Sigley's heart.
She's got Ms. So she's trying her best and everything.
And she she seems like a nice girl.
She's an Israeli, I think like a Jewish girl, I think OK and
Siegler, I think that's a that's a Jewish last name.
But she and so the kids are it's funny.
The kid actors are not Italian. At all, I wonder.
I wonder if they're half and half because everyone on the
show seems to even like the cast and the crew.
You they've all got. They're all like Paisons.
They've all got. A lot of them.
Are in their names, yeah. There's a shit ton of them.
Like, like you're like, wow, they really went to the, you
know, I love it. Yeah, I know.
I mean. Well, yeah, I mean David Chase.
David Chase, you know, Chase is, but he's, he's Italian, you
know. Yeah, and I thought he was
Jewish this whole time. He looks like a Jewish guy.
Like I I just really did. But yeah, AJ is just, he's just
a punk. And there's many times where you
think he's going to become Tony. Like there's so many like,
edging moments where you think like AJ is going to just flip
that switch, even though you don't necessarily like like
that. The viewer doesn't necessarily
like, oh, I want him to become a killer mobster.
You don't, but you want him to become alpha.
Yeah, at least try. And there's so many times where,
like he almost does it, but then he weasels out of the way.
Just this is such a weasel. He's got no fun.
He he's, he's just has no character and no joy.
And I mean, this becomes a plot point because Tony feels so
tremendously guilty because he's like, he's got my dirty rotten
fucking jeans, you know? But I don't he's he's just kind
of an irredeemable character. He's terrible.
And he bumbles along because his parents love him.
Tony, who has 0 tolerance for anyone else's issues within
reason, has these blind spots towards Chris and towards his
son. His actual son, you know.
Yeah. And, and at least with AJ,
there's not going to be like business consequences with him
having a blind spot. With Chris, it's really bad
because it's like, Tone, if I did that, I'd be in a dumpster.
Yeah. You know, like so many times.
Which is true, right? Like it is true with AJ, it's
like this, like Tony doesn't want him to be a mobster, but
he's like, can you be a fucking man?
Like, you know what I mean? Like, like backbone.
Yeah. Why are the two, why are the two
modes? Why are the 2 outcomes gigantic
pussy or Jackie Apriel Junior with you?
You know, like because Jackie Apriel is just this.
I mean, you talk about like there's a lot of the sons are
just like apple rolling far away from the tree, right?
Yeah, make like a lot of the sons in here.
There's not a lot of I mean, you even talk about the Parisi kid.
He's like a nice lawyer kid, you know, and he, you know, he runs
numbers here and there, but I think you you get the feeling he
was going to grow out of that merry Meadow and have children,
you know, like that. That's, that's the where a lot
of these a lot of these character sons are and they
don't want this for their sons. Yeah.
But they're also kind of like, can you feel a little like me
though? Like just a just like, like you
don't got to kill a guy that that's, that's, you know, you
know, 250K in the hole out of a poker game.
Like I don't need you to do that, right.
But can you conduct yourself as though you would?
Act like a man you know it's. Right.
Like it is tough like tis you're like, well, if I push them too
far in One Direction, like he's going to die like he's going to
he's going to do something weird.
He's and AJ is hanging out with Paul Dano.
Yes, that's. Right.
The whole time and that and AJ is covering the bill for
everything and stuff, yeah. He's a blocker.
Kids in New York City, Yeah. He's a fucking mark.
He's a mark for that Dominican girl.
Yeah. Oh.
Man. He's a mark for her.
It's like literally gets pussy once.
And even his other girlfriend who's a rich girl, right?
Like a real rich girl, Devin. Yeah, who has the Picasso's in
her living room, you know? I know.
Remember though, like they, they asked if it was a print or
something. Yeah, like, no.
What's the real thing? And then AJ gets all
insecurities, like, I don't have money like this.
Yeah, real. Money like I, I, I it's not,
it's not ghetto fabulous. It's fabulous, yeah.
So good. I mean, yeah.
And that's so true that that line that they all walk, I mean,
you know, Pussy Bump and Sierra, right?
His kid. Yeah, exactly.
He's trying to put his his kids through school, you know, Jean
Pontecorvo, his kids doing heroin.
He wants him, but he wants better life for him.
All these characters want a better life that is not within
the business for their children. They, you know, they're all like
these bizarre, Uber violent blue collar workers who don't want
their who don't want their kids to break rocks for a living, you
know, and Meadow is kind of the only one who has the same, who
has the same instant roaring behind her eyes that Tony does.
And he looks at her one night and he's like, you're like me.
Nothing gets by you. It's true.
They are. And you know, like it's it's
absolutely true. And I it's like the Meadow arc
is like, you know, and I, you hear these touching stories of
when she, you know, Jamie Lynn Siegler got diagnosed with Ms.
like during the show, like she when she was a kid and, you
know, basically a young girl, she got diagnosed with it.
And, you know, I guess before a scene, they're sitting in the
chairs and, and Gandolfini looks at her and he's like, what's
wrong? And she's like, Nah, I don't
want to talk about it. He's like, come on.
She tells them he's like, man, you know, like any.
But it's like, it's just this like kind of, you know, she
talks about it in a way like it's just, that's really not.
I mean, I get sad thinking about it.
Like, it's just like, man, like a girl who is, I kind of think
you're getting a death sentence at that point, like a young
girl, right? Like a top of her career.
And he's just there like, hey, we'll get through it.
It's totally Tony. We'll get through it.
We'll do it. It'll be fine.
Even like Tony does that to people.
He's going to kill. We'll get through this.
It's going to be OK. Matthew Bevilacqua Do you want a
Coke? You sure you don't want?
You sure you want a Diet Coke? You sure you don't?
Want this be the last fucking thing you ever drink?
Oh man, that's a great scene. But you know, like like with
Adrienne too, with Tony, that's a that's another one that's
great, the dichotomy, because Chris is like the true son, the
true heir, but the true heir is a junkie, right?
He's not, He's he's marriage related, not blood related, but
marriage relation does seem to matter in the family.
Like it does seem to work in a way.
And he, you know, Chris, when, when Tony's like kind of close
to fucking Adrienne, like he's, he's, he's pretty close.
Like it? It would have happened if
someone hadn't walked through. Yeah, it would have happened.
And they get in the car accident together.
I have a feeling that was going to happen, yes, you know.
It would have. It would have only ended up one
way. Would have only ended up one
way, but he basically like Tony has this like final boss
mentality where it's like actually everything runs through
me, including your marriage. I can fuck her if I want to and
guess what? We're going to kill her too like
it's kind of crazy like it's it's that that part's kind of
crazy when they when they give her up.
I mean it it is the review of all reveal.
I mean it's the it's Silvio right.
I should have said that it's a good time.
Silvio freaks out. He doesn't freak out.
It's all planned, but you know like he's driving.
Oh, Chrissy's all right. He's they send Silvio because
he's. No one, no one would expect him.
Exactly. Tony's cunning.
He's a smart guy. He knows.
He knows his roster really well.
He's a coach. He's like, he's John Madden to
me. Like he's just this big, like
SWAT, like Big Swarthy. Even even, you know, even when
he's dreaming about his former coach in high school and the
coach was, you know, one of the themes that ran through the that
comes up is the coach was saying that I believe you could be a
leader. I believe in you.
And Pony doesn't hear it that way.
He's like, this guy's just trying to butter me up.
He's just trying to kiss my ass to get me to do what he wants me
to do. And then and then.
Exactly what he becomes. That that's a great segue into
junior soprano because my dad's all time favorite line from
Sopranos were sports family. You were never a varsity
athlete, never had the makings for a varsity athlete, which
that's that is a complete foil with the coach.
Yep, which you think of Lou Reed, Coney Island baby, a
little bit like just this kind of like football.
Football was my normie thing, you know, it was my even barone
Sanitation's mobbed up, mobbed up, mobbed football.
Was this like, you know, when he sees Eric Mangini, the coach of
The Jets at the at the place, he gets all excited.
They're Italian coach of The Jets.
Oh my gosh, you know, like this, this this like football was this
pure thing a JS playing football.
It's the one time he's proud of AJ.
You know, it's it's you know, people laugh at stuff like that,
but it's kind of true. It's I don't want to paint a bad
picture of my dad because my dad's my like, I love, like
we're, we, I'm just saying I've loved sports since birth.
Thank God, You know what I'm saying?
Like, like he's a sports guy. Like it's what we talk about
when we talk. It's, it's the, it's the copper
wire that's connecting us to, you know what I mean?
The, the conduit in a, in a sense, like like that.
We always have. Obviously he loves me.
Obviously I love him, but like, there's this.
But AJ has no interest in that. He doesn't want to watch the
fucking jet game. You know, he does sometimes.
And then he's like, I'm going to go hang out with Devin.
I'm going to go do this and that.
Like like well. He he, you know, he makes an
honest effort with the football, but then when responsibility
gets placed on his shoulders, he has a panic attack on the field
and he passes out. I know, which is also another
sad thing. I don't have kids, but the, you
know, seeing your flaws, Yeah, in a kid, it's got to be rough.
Where you're like, fuck, he got that too.
Fuck. Well again, I mean he literally
says this kid has got my rotten fucking jeans.
Sopranos curse, yeah. Yeah, he does say that.
But junior, man, I mean, we got to give Junior his time.
Junior is so junior. Like if you were to, if you were
to like have a clipboard and grade him like a teacher, he
sucks, right? Like he's like, you kind of
suck. But he's fucking awesome,
though. I mean, the comedic timing of
Dominic Chienice is like you get you figure you're trying to like
keep your show afloat. You know, if you're David Chase
and you can blunder so many great lines in in Dominic
Chienice and and just the like, like the old girlfriends.
I mean the the scene where Tony goes sees his his dad's old
gumar. Oh my God, yes.
And she's and and and Junior goes, oh, the legs on her.
I I wish, I, I wish I had the guts, Yep, to talk to her or
something. And she goes, yeah, he stalked
me. He was a yeah, he was.
He was calling me at weird hours and he was hanging around
outside my window. Yeah, she was.
Like blowing JFK A2 minute. Now I read James Eldroy, I can
never think of JFK in the same way ever again.
It's forever tarnished in my mind.
Yeah, You want to talk about true right wing fiction?
Yeah. Masterpiece.
Yeah.
You got to read Libra, by the way.
I'm not. It's, it's the same.
I don't think you'll like it as much.
I'm not going to say it's better, but it's a good.
I want it. I'm glad I read both.
You know, that's the way I think about it.
But yeah, for the LILO. But yeah, the the.
Yeah, Junior is, you know, Junior is kind of a Poly in a
way, when you think about it. No wife, no kids, kind of no
reason to no reason to progress. It's appointed boss after Jackie
Apriel dies in Season 1. Side note, Jackie Abreel, what
is the actor's name? He's actually good.
He's he's in a lot of things. Gosh, I can't remember something
Italian guy. He he's in a lot of a lot of
movies, but he was read for Tony Soprano and he had lost three
other parts to James Gandolfini. Michael Rispoli.
Michael Rispoli, Thank you. Knew it ended in a vowel.
Nobody. Yes, yeah, he, he his interview
on Talking Sopranos is fantastic, by the way.
He, he's, he's same voice. He's just, he's just Jackie real
great. You're great.
You're just a bro, you know, like, and he, he had lost three
parts to James Gandolfini already.
Oh, that's got to be painful. So he knows, like, all right, I
think I might get this. And then he's like James
Gandolfini. He's like fuck.
I mean, was it that much better of a reading?
I that's The thing is what it couldn't have been because they
gave you a character. That's The thing is like I bet
you a lot of people stood out. They just weren't the character
and it sucks on TV, especially on mob show.
It's like, OK, I appreciate you saying that I'm good enough to
stay on show. You might kill me in 2 episodes.
This is true. Which, yeah, Jackie doesn't die
by the bullet. That's cancer.
Yeah, I mean, he's one of the few characters with a, you know,
who dies in bed as opposed to violently so.
Which is it's like more brutal to all the people to watch.
It's like they when people get gunned down, they're like.
I get it. What are you going to do
exactly? Cancer.
They're always like, how? How could this happen?
Yeah, I mean, I know that's a GIF when Chris gets shot the how
could this happen? But that's it's just it's funny.
But Junior Soprano is like a Paulie in a sense.
And him and Paulie are so alike when you think about it.
They're both very funny. Both have the one liners.
I mean, Junior is in another league.
I mean, he is easily the funniest person in the show.
I mean, it's, it's, it's actually really sad when he gets
Alzheimer's because you know you're not going to get anything
funny out of it. Anymore becomes pathetic, yeah.
It's not funny. You're like, wow, there's no
more comedy with with Junior. And when he has no teeth at the
end you're like. It's too real.
It's like, oh, I've seen this. Because with Polly, I was like,
fucking kill him this last time. I was like, I was like, I wish
you just splattered his brains on the wall on the Tony Napoleon
picture. Like, like literally.
That would have been an interesting ending, yeah.
I'm glad it didn't and just my emotions, you know, they were
there with Junior. You're like, I still love this
guy. I still love him.
He's so funny. He's so fucking funny.
I mean the by him and Bobby, it's it is just like they could
have had a radio show together. Oh, yeah, The two, yeah.
I mean, that's that their interaction.
That is comedy. Mutt and Jeff, you know.
The garbage disposal thing is. Hands stuck on the garbage
disposal. Yeah, it's it's hysterical.
I mean, like, like Bobby is so. And what Dominic Shanice's
advice to Bob? Stephen Sherpa, by the way, was
really funny. He said use your gut.
And he's like, literally use your gut.
Your gut is funny. You're fat, basically.
Like you're a fat guy in comedy. It's automatically funny.
Whatever you say. Jonah Hill is a testament.
Jonah Hill loses weight. He's not funny.
And this is bizarrely true. And it's so true for Bobby
Bacala. Yeah.
Can. You imagine if Chris Farley went
on Ozempic. Wouldn't it worked?
Terrible. Wouldn't work.
Yeah. I mean, if Bobby Bacala shows up
to save Paulie and Chris from the Pine Barrens and he's in the
camouflage, but he doesn't have this enormous gut through the
orange vest, it would not work. It would not be funny.
The fact that he rolls up like Santa Claus with his Elmer Fudd
hat. So good.
Yeah, I know. So, yeah, you have.
But yeah, Junior, I mean, he's a, he's a tragic case, but you
know, it's going to end that way.
But again, you instead of the quick death that a lot of people
get as a mercy thing, Junior dies a slow, a slow, slow, slow
death. You know, like Michelle Welbeck
in his novels, if somebody is perfect, they get the golden
retriever treatment. That where they die way too
soon, right? And junior's not perfect, but I
just mean when somebody is not liked.
Right. They die of like horrible
stomach cancer where their ass is like replaced everything.
'S say their ants rots out. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just it's just like, you know,
it's, it's this, it's this thing and, and, and, and, you know,
it's sad because Tony's like, fuck him, he's dead to me.
But you know, in the back of his mind, every time it's like, I
wonder how he's doing. Oh, he.
Still loves him, yeah. Of course.
He loves him. Dad's brother, they play catch
as a kid, They play catch as a kid, and those vaccines are
awesome with that. So let's talk Janice.
Janice is a big deal. Janice is a big deal.
I will say this, I think Janice would like RC.
That's the sad part about Janice.
She would be, she would be, oh, you know what she would fit in
because she would be a California crunchy granola mom
anti vaxxer who would get into all of this through for like the
the wrong reasons and still wind up being directionally correct
and. Then but then.
But then lip parting out super hard over like, yeah.
No, she would go nuts over Epstein, I think.
Yeah. Me too, just like just like
yeah, any any sort of sex panic yes, you know like it like that
and then you'd be like, damn it, I'm unsubscribing from your sub
stack yes Soprano. Janice the panic and yeah.
Yeah, I loved your, I loved your COVID protocol, but I didn't
like your consequent article about Sabrina Carpenter's album
cover. You know, so true.
Yeah, it's no, that's the thing. And and she, I mean, she comes
from a great acting family. That's Turos.
Yes. She's another person that is
overweight and uses it to her advantage as a character.
I love that she was a huge slut like or.
Like I love the Rolling Stone tattoo, like placed right on her
her breast, you know? One of the greatest episodes of
of the is when they go to the cabin with Bobby and Janice.
Yes. Oh yeah, that beautiful I.
Mean it's a huge episode Bobby get gets his gets pops his
cherry yes with the Montreal guys yes and you know after that
great scene in the book he's like your dad was a fucking
beast and you know Tony put his dad out like like a savage
basically like you know Sal Bacala we're driving into the
pole and dying, which to be honest not terrible.
No, he, he went out, he actually had a good death so far as all
these people are concerned. Yeah, no, you're right.
So you, you, you know, again, you're like, well, the cancer
was going to destroy him. So, you know, I guess that's not
the worst thing in the world. And he didn't kill himself.
So, you know, you know, the God Saint Peter might have a tough
time, you know, like, you know, he might, he might weigh things
out a little bit. And then so, but the with Bobby,
you know, Bobby is like this like kind of child the whole
time. And he finally becomes like a
man, even though, you know, he's not a kid, he's a good dad.
He's he's he's a man who makes his money and stuff, but he's
he's kind of this innocent child.
But then Tony's constantly reminding people of the pecking
order where he's like, no, I get to call your wife, my sister a
slut in front of me. I get to do that like and
there's nothing you can do about it, even though I don't know if,
if, if Chris Moltisanti, who's Carmelo's cousin called Carmelo
whore, wouldn't work, wouldn't work, wouldn't work.
So Bobby, when he beat him, Bobby beats the shit out of
Tony. He does.
Well, they're to be fair, they're both.
They're all very drunk. I think Tony is, you know, I.
Know, but I think I do think Bobby is tactical.
Bobby is a tactical shooting range glasses guy.
Well, he's a marksman, as he, as he says before he shoots that
that rapper in the ass, he's like, it's OK, I'm a marksman.
Exactly. So Bob, I will say like Bobby,
is that like tactical guy who like it reminds me of when Artie
loans money to the Frenchman, Yes.
Yeah. And then the French guy beats
his ass. Yeah.
Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, it's fucking.
Brutal. You RIP the hearing right out of
orange. Such a wall cow dude.
Like it's just like, it's just like he's just one of those guys
who would just quote tweet or something like, and just like
fucking like I love Artie, but it's just yeah.
Anyways, with Janice, Janice has this like Meadow, like female
dependency on Tony where she's like, fuck, I don't need you,
but you are. You are my emergency contact.
And Tony comes through every single time.
Richie Abreel. Yeah, Richie Abreel.
An absolute disgusting satanic villain.
Don't don't shine those Manson lamps on me.
What does Tony say to? Him.
Yeah. Or or when when when when
Richie's first dating Janice and.
And Tony says there's better looking guys in the can than my
sister. What are you doing?
And he's just yeah, yeah. Her Rolling Stones tattoo is is
such a good affect. Oh.
It's so perfect. Because it survives every Janice
rebrand. Yes, every Janice rebrand.
There's the Rolling Stone tattoo.
She can't. She has to constantly show her
like fat girl titties all the time.
Like so that's there every time. It's so true.
It's, yeah, it's like perfectly placed and perfectly trashy and
it betrays every good sentiment that she expresses throughout
the show. Yeah, it kills me when she's
dating the narcoleptic guy. Have you heard the good news?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You told me last week.
Good. I think it was it was Jackie
Abreel junior who said that. Like when Jackie.
Yeah, yeah, we met last week. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I did last week. Yeah, Thank you.
Side note, my mom's favorite line of Sopranos is Jackie
Abreel when he's talking to Meadow in the car when they're
first about to hook up. And he's like, that's chemistry,
man. It's tough.
Nucleotides and shit, he's just so good.
Yeah, I like when they're playing Scrabble and he's like
poop for yeah. Yeah, just an absolute kid
that's about to get slaughtered the whole time.
Yeah. Like you just did.
There's just like, there's just this, like, guillotine hanging
over Jackie Abreel Junior's head the entire show.
It was just really. Funny.
Yeah. No, he's he's another funny cat.
That's, you know, like I think when you're if you're too young,
you know, like when I first watched the show, the the level
of humor in it went over my head in many cases because you're
just kind of shocked by the violence and how.
Brutal things happening. You're a things happening.
Yes, and then but it really is like one of the best comedies
ever put on television. Yeah, it.
Was Goodfellas too. Like I love mob years A. 1000%.
Yeah, yeah, so funny. Yeah.
Oh my gosh, the yeah. So the the two more things we
got to talk about here. Let's do it.
Vito Spatafore, which I think we can talk about Phil in this too,
because you do Vito Spatafore who you know, the whole, it's
really funny. Do you know the first scene that
that Joseph Ganascoli is in? Refresh my memory.
He's not Vito Spatafore in The Sopranos, and his first scene,
he actually plays an extra who is in the shop when Chris
Moltisanti, and I believe it's season 2, Chris Moltisanti goes
to that bakery where the guy is like, yeah.
Why is that when he's coming up to get his Freudel or something
like that, Yeah. Exactly.
So it was tripping me out because on the rewatch I'm like,
why is he kicking Vito out of the store?
I'm like, that doesn't make sense.
Vito could see that. That's like he's a mobster.
Like Vito could absolutely be there for that.
He would. They would talk like, you know,
if he was there. I think Vito just stuck around.
They did this with Sopranos. These open casting call things.
Jenny Sack is an open casting call.
They made an open casting call in like season 3 of Sopranos and
Jenny Sack. There was they had to shut
Jersey down. The line was around the block.
It was blocking streets. And yet all these mobs guys
like, Oh, my mobster shtick, I'm going to get on some all these,
I'm not going to say the W word, but you know, Italian guys and
they're they're, you know, just these guys.
Like I want to get in. I want to get in there, you
know, that you can say it. Yeah.
And yeah, they were, they were, they were they were like just
these guys, you know, grease ball.
The, you know, my grandpa told me all the words.
The, the they were. But Jenny Sack actually got an
open casting call, which is a genius thing because was
Johnny's wife always supposed to be fat?
I don't know if that was the case, but it's it makes it so
great. That it was.
It worked, and it totally worked for the show's advantage.
He can't have like a Silvio, like trophy wife cougar or like
he can't like it doesn't it doesn't make sense.
But anyways, Vito man, I mean he he is a great earner.
It's one thing we can say about Vito is he makes a lot of money
after. Ralph.
Yeah. He steps in and he takes over
that spot. It's brought up every time now.
Vito is a homosexual. He loves fireman, he likes
mustache. Guys, He's he's really you.
Know. He's really into a certain type
of guy. Well, to be fair, no, that's not
true because Finn and the fireman guy are not really the
same guy. So that's he.
He. Is he claims multitudes within
his girth, you know, yeah, that's correct.
But he's a bit he's big in the construction industry.
All those fake lawn chair jobs show up jobs thing which are
essential to mob work and mob rules and and is these fake show
up jobs where everyone draws A pension from and and and and
splits that up. He he's in charge of that now.
Vito gets caught by Meadows boyfriend who is given a job at
the construction site for the Esplanade.
I remember what they were they're building doesn't matter,
but they he he's and it's funny too.
This is such a guy thing. When Finn finally spills the
beans and they're like, yeah, I caught Vito was, you know, Vito
was doing oral sex. They're like, oh, he's getting
his Dick sucked by the security guard.
They're like, Nah, he was sucking the security guard's
Dick. And they're like, whoa.
Everyone's like, Howard Stern used to have a bit.
Howard Stern is a complete loser now.
But Howard Stern used to have a very funny bit about pedophilia.
So like, there would be a, let's say, like PE teacher caught for
child molestation in New Jersey or something.
And they go, OK, then they go and it was he, the PE teacher
molested, you know, 10 year old girls.
They go, oh, thank God he wasn't gay.
Like, that's why, like Howard said, oh, thank God.
Yeah. Like that.
It would always do that every. Time.
Right, right, right. This is the guy who won't touch
the same countertop as me right now, yeah?
RIPRIP. Yeah.
The real Jewish guys, Kobe was rough for old Jewish guys broke
their brands. It's rough.
The the hypochondriac old Jewish
guy is rough. But the anyways the the veto,
the the the whole. I guess the town that he
disappeared in is where David Chase is from.
Do you know where that actually is?
It's New Jersey town, Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know the area well enough so.
But it's in that he says it at the beginning of the thing, the
documentary he likes. And that's where Vito, like, hit
out at. Is my New Jersey.
That's so funny. I mean, that might have been New
Hampshire, so I can't remember. It's one of those things where
Vito is like this, this killer. I mean, Vito kills Jackie Abreel
June. Yeah, he waddles up behind him
and pops him. And he was like, hey, while I'm
here. Yeah.
But. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I was.
I was. When you think about that,
you're like, huh, Actually, you know, he kills Jackie Preel
Junior. He's kind of this, like in the
background fat guy. Yeah.
I'm not. Nobody's really, you know, you
don't think about him, but he's constantly around.
You're like, why haven't they killed this guy yet?
They give him the one of the best plot lines in the history
of TV, if not the where he's gay and Tony.
So with Tony, he doesn't like, he doesn't care anything about
Vito, but Vito is his top earner and he everybody's like Tony
back in the day, what would what would Johnny Boyd do?
What would your dad, Johnny Boyd do?
He would have killed him, which is true.
Like this was true back in the 100% back in the day.
They killed that guy immediately.
They slice him up at Satchel's like it's it's.
Because. Because he could have been
blackmailed. Exactly.
Above and beyond the homophobia, there would be a thing that
someone could hold over this guy's head.
James Elroy style. Exactly.
That would make him flip so. You're right, it's just like
being a junkie. Yep.
But for penis and the, you know that that's, you know, at the
end of the day, I mean, I don't know why my lighting's been the
witness protection program right now, but yeah, I'm not.
But it just does look like that. But the the the he tells, you
know, Vito, you're right. Like there is like other
implications, like there's optics obviously, like you guys
have a fag in your group, like we can't have this.
And the stuff they say is insane.
Like, and it's so funny to hear The Sopranos people justify it.
It's like, dude, guys, you don't have to.
It's a good story. All of these people would hate
that. They don't like black people.
They don't like anything that's not an Italian person.
Yes, everybody else is a pawn. Everybody else is used as either
a hole for sex or or money or or just like a person, an NPC
person, like they don't value anything other than themselves.
They're obviously not going to like a gay person.
Like it's like they're they they keep and this was a different
time. I'm like, they don't mobsters
now wouldn't like it. No.
I don't know if there is a mob now, but if there was, yeah,
yeah, I don't know. That's why I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know if there is one.
It's not an Irish one. That we don't.
We don't talk about it, that's all.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Maybe they are gay. I don't know.
I they could be, they could adjust with the times.
Yeah, yeah. But anyways, they, they, they,
you don't know if that's the case.
But with Vito, he, you know, he, he's on the run and he's married
to Phil Leotardo's cousin. And Phil Leotardo is Terminator.
Yep. And.
Zero soul. So when you talk about the
adversaries of Tony Soprano, they get, it's like the Mortal
Kombat ladder. It's like, like he's Goro, you
know, like, like he's the guy with eight arms because he
doesn't give a fuck. Phil really doesn't have a
weakness. He yeah, I mean he's
legitimately an old school hard ass gangster without the
weaknesses of all the others that Tony 1 by 1 exploits until
they're either back in jail or dead.
And he's Billy Bats from Goodfellas, First off.
Get your fucking. Shine legend Frank Vinson.
RIP. He's a legend and but he he and
he looks with his Gray hair. I they even make a reference to
it. Of Iran.
He totally looks Middle Eastern
in the show the whole time. He totally looks like a a Middle
Eastern like number runner guy too.
Like a total just scammer Middle Eastern like business owner guy.
It's like we have a lot of those guys out here.
Like we have a spot, an outdoor shopping mall called Santana Row
that's full of like departments, like nice stores and fancy
stores. It's just full of Phil
Leotardos, just a bunch of. Armenians.
Leotardos and like 28 year old girls look at them like it's
just that's like the whole thing is full of the SAT silk shirts,
everything. And but Phil is like this.
He he is the final bot because, you know, you have Richie Apriel
who's just, you know, he Richie Apriel is, is menacing, but I
don't know how smart he actually is.
Ralph Cifaretto definitely not. He's just not going to like,
he's not going to prove himself to be a true adversary.
And then you have Phil, who is this New York guy who's been
just waiting for his moment. So Johnny Sack goes to the can.
He's not getting out and he's sick too.
So regardless, he's not living out that sentence.
By the way, Johnny Sacks, his character was originally
supposed to be 71 years old. No shit.
Yeah, so it's funny when they're talking about his sentence,
they'll be like, yeah, you're you'll be 672 when you get out.
And it's like they adjusted the age of the character.
I think they meant to kill him off a lot earlier to be honest.
He looked, I mean, he looked terrible.
So yeah, I mean, I would have. I would have.
Bought I think they meant to have him last the season but he
was so damn good that. Yeah, I'm glad they kept him,
Yeah. We have to we'll just make him a
58 year old guy, you know, which is probably more what he looked
like and, and, but, but Phil is is that's what's also too is a
lot of people's age is, is like really ambiguous in this like
they're they just like that guy's got Gray hair.
He's old. That's kind of like the way you
you. Know.
Sopranos the girls too, like you get the idea of Gloria Trillo.
She's like she's older, right? Like she's you know, you'd post
the egg carton meme to to her character, but but like some of
the other girls, like you, you get the idea.
That Russian first one, I forget her name, but I really.
Yeah, she's she's probably like 20-2.
Yeah, like her character and stuff.
But otherwise, like age is very ambiguous in, in, in, in, in, in
Sopranos. But Phil is just this like, I
don't know how we're going to get out of this.
Like this guy's a freak. He doesn't have a vice.
He's not a drug guy, right? He's got a gumar, which they
killed the wrong guy trying to kill him, which that was sad,
actually, it killed the wrong. But like, other than that, he
doesn't really have any. Like one place he goes too
often, doesn't have any of these things.
And Phil's, he probably always wanted to get rid of Tony in the
same way that you want to get rid of the bug, the spider
that's on the wall. And you're like, ah, it's in a
weird corner. So right now I'll leave it
there. But if that thing comes anywhere
near me, I'll kill it. That's basically Phil's view of
Tony. Yeah, well, he looks at at the,
you know, that Jersey thing, that weird, you know, it's a
half baked crew. They.
Yeah, horrified crew. Yes.
And Phil is old school, and he's got a legitimate grievance in
that his brother gets shot in front of him, you know?
By Tony Blindetto And now we know Tony gets killed.
Tony Blindetto gets killed in a it's actually it's a beautifully
filmed scene when Tony comes out with a gun.
It's like No Country for Old Men level coldness to it.
Like, like this, this like shooting a deer, you know, like,
like the inconsequential but very consequential way of
killing Tony. But Phil's like you.
I told you I won. You're robbed in the head.
Now with Vito, Tony is hiding Vito because he's gay and Phil
is like I'm sorry this is fucking embarrassing.
Like my my cousin is married to him.
Let me just destroy this fucking guy.
Tony, why are you hold hiding him from me?
I know you know where he is. And after a while, when Phil
does kill Vito, he comes out of a closet to kill him.
Said. Coming out of a closet to kill
Vito is hilarious. By the way.
This. Is funny.
And one of the best lines. This is why I love Chris so
much, because he kills me. Other than Junior, he's the
second funniest guy in the show. When they break the news of Vito
dying, which everybody's secretly very relieved by.
And Tony's the only guy who's really kind of like, fuck my
earner, right? And he's always like, hey, you
guys need to step up. The only reason I'm not want to
kill him is because you guys suck, basically.
And when, when Vito's found, because they found out, you
don't see him really kill Vito. You don't see Phil killing.
You don't need to, but you, you know, Phil's going to make it
hurt. It's going to be Guantanamo Bay.
It's going to be death. And they, they read the story to
him and it's another guy that they kill, right?
It's this other New York guy that comes by and they kill him
because he's like this fucking fag and all that stuff.
And like, you know, it makes it look the Jersey crew look bad.
So they kill him. Silvio and I believe the guy who
ends up ratting at the end, I can't remember what his name is.
Who am I thinking of? The old guy who's like going to
testify at the end, his son because of his son and stuff
guy. Yes, it's it'll come to.
Me. He's always cooking.
Yep. Yeah, whatever.
Nonetheless, he they kill him. But the guy was saying he goes,
yeah, they found a pool. I think Bobby actually delivers
the news. And Bobby's like, yeah, they
found a pool cue up his ass. Yep.
They killed in a hotel room and it's silent for like 10 seconds,
which in real time is like 3 minutes.
And Chris goes, you think it was a lover's quarrel?
I killed me. I was, I, I, I, I haven't
laughed that part at anything that was ever labeled comedy
before. A.
Lover's quarrel Chris is riding movies so he like knows he's
like movie terms it's the fight one of the funniest things ever
said in the show and and yeah you think it was a.
Lover's quarrel to deliver. Knowing Michael Imperioli is, I
fucking hate it because he's even in White Lotus.
He's phenomenal. Like you're just like God, he's
so good, Spider. To be that guy, yeah.
And poor Spider getting his foot shot off.
But yeah, so such comedy delivered up against such
tragedy and such horror, you know?
Did you know that he did tell a funny story, Michael Imperio
about his he he after Goodfellas, you know he's in
Goodfellas, but his part probably didn't pay that much,
so he was still like waiting tables.
Oh yeah, I'm sure. So, so many people were like
making spider jokes, like waiting.
He was like, I wanted to kill myself.
I wouldn't have blamed him. Yeah, like that's terrible
because it's like you're literally waiting and you're
doing the job. Yeah, that which is a common
actor job, but like it's just like, of course, like the shoot
him in the foot, the Joe Pesci just, you know, going crazy on
him. But yeah, he's so.
Funny. Oh God, it killed me.
But you know, Vito, Vito dies that way his and then but
everybody's got to deal with the the after effects where
everybody reaches out to his son.
And whenever somebody dies in The Sopranos, they pretend
they're going to take care of the family, and they really.
Never do. Nothing happens.
Angie Papisero gets The Body Shop.
She's she's like the lone exception who actually makes it
work. And even then it was, she had to
really grind it out to make that thing work.
And so like it was, it's just, it's really funny.
And so I, it cracks me up, but that's, you know, that's when
the show really ramps up into all out warfare.
Yeah. Iraq war, essentially.
Like it's how the rest of the show goes.
Anybody's up for anybody's up for grabs.
And what's different from this show in the show, like Game of
Thrones is Game of Thrones loves to be like, we can kill anybody
at any moment. Yeah.
Which I love that show. I watched it.
It was great. I thought the last season was
ass cheeks but I did like the show.
Pretend the last season doesn't exist, yeah.
Last season's awful but but but I did like the show.
However, Sopranos is so much more powerful because the people
survive and you're like, well I got 3 episodes left, what's
going to happen? Blood rains.
It is absolute oil painting. Warfare of biblical proportions
just in Old Testament slaughtering of people.
Bobby, who? You know, a sneaky thing that I
didn't notice in any of the other rewatches I had is when
Bobby, Janice goes to Tony to whine about how Bobby doesn't
make enough money for like the last time.
When she brings the kid in the stroller, the sad she, she's all
concerned. She's like a politician.
She knows exactly what's going to tell you on heartstrings.
And she's like, Bobby needs to make more money today.
He's like, well, fucking fuck you basically, is what Tony says
to her. Meanwhile, Bobby's going to buy
a like $25,000 trains. Yep, he gets killed.
And it's sad because you love Bobby.
He gets absolutely destroyed. He gets shot like 20 times.
That's like insane big guy. You got to take him down.
I was going to say, he's got a lot of padding.
You got to. Figure out a big guy and you
know, like, yeah, not bad. Not a bad gig for Steven Sherpa.
That's a good way to bet on yourself.
He was a Vegas club promoter making like he was saying he was
making like 165 a year back in the 90s, making money.
That's good. Yeah.
Booking big hands, son. OK, Yeah.
So he was like, this is a big risk to take.
Yeah. Already had kids too, so it's
not like he was like, oh, it's just me though, you know, I'll
go take a race. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, No, like it was. He went and did that.
So he lasted. I mean, when you're talking
about. Yeah, he doesn't last through
the show acting wise. He lasts.
He had a job for that long gets absolutely destroyed.
The the the time speeds up. The Janice gets like no time to
mourn him before the show's over.
It's like hardly anything and and then and then just raining
blood. Phil Leotardo's basically like,
let's just squash, let's kill the bugs.
Let's kill the bugs. And he just Silvio, poor Silvio,
gets absolutely just get lit up. Polly Polly's exempt, which is
funny because he probably should die, but he doesn't.
He's kind of he's, he's one of the major reasons for all this
happening. It's true.
The Johnny Sack thing back in the day, he was the one, his,
his brother or cousin, Little Polly was the one who, you know,
did. I mean, you know, at the end of
the day, I think something else would have come up for sure.
That would have started a war, I think.
I think at the end of the day, New York's always had this, had
this vendetta or not vendetta, because that would imply they
were equals, this kind of hatred.
But yeah, maybe they would have New Jersey's Jersey, leave them
alone. But after a while, there's an
imperialistic tendency, I think, where it's like, well, what if
we just took over Jersey I I think it happens one way or
another. But you're right, Paul, he kind
of does. He gives him a reason.
He gives him a. Reason because he probably was
going to flip to Johnny Sacks crew.
He was going to. He desperately wanted to and it,
you know, got thrown back in his face.
Carmine's like, who are you? But anyway, yeah.
So Phil gets his though, and Phil gets his in one of the most
glorious ways. I mean, he gets shot in the head
when he's saying hi to his grandkids.
The most human you ever see. Phil, by the way, is when he's
when he's hi bye, say bye bye to grandma, you know, and and his
last words to his wife are arguing too.
So it's like they, they, they make everything terrible for
Phil. So it's a very satisfying death.
So when people say they hate the ending of Sopranos, that's
actually the ending of Sopranos, by the way, in my opinion,
because they kill Phil. Now that being said, and he gets
his gets run over the cars in drive and he gets his head
splattered it's. Hilarious.
I was going to say that's, you know, that's the.
Very satisfying. It's like it's R slash.
Very oddly satisfying. It's somebody great cheese.
Perfectly. It's like it's one of those
things. Yeah.
And the ending. So let's real fast talk about
Tony's what Tony's up against, Tony's up against.
So Phil's dead. But like the other, you know
there's other people that are going to chase after you, right?
It's not. Over.
It's not over. You're not in the castle with
the Princess. It's it's it's there's it's
never ending. And he's also found out that
one. I still I why I can't remember
this guy's name. It's bothering the hell out of
me. The, the, the guy who's going to
rap basically because his son Jason, who I know his sons Aunt
Jason got pinched for like a little a minor drug thing, but
it's basically this guy's not about that life.
His dad's going to give up Tony in a sense.
And Tony's kind of, he's kind of like something's going to
happen. I don't know what am I going to
die? Am I going to go to jail or
something? They got to split up for a
little bit. It happens once every couple of
seasons where you got to empty out the floorboards, empty out
the ceiling, empty out the guns, empty out the cash, do
everything. It's not Agent Harris anymore,
but Agent Harris is actually the guy to to Agent Harris comes out
as a as a hero a little bit, kind of gives up Phil Leotardo
in a way, in a roundabout way that won't implicate him.
And then also kind of tells him like, hey, nothing's going to
get picked up again against you. And because they found somebody
that's going to give you up. So the final scene of Sopranos,
which I Live Today, by the way, I'm so glad this came out as
well as it did, all things considered.
You guys don't know the behind the scenes, the house struggling
today, but they're at a diner. We're supposed to believe it's a
diner that they all like. We never see them at ever.
But whatever, it's the diner they love.
It appears that they're able to do this, but everyone's still
looking over their shoulder. I think it's brilliantly filmed
where Tony gets the designer 1st and scopes the place out.
If it was all bad he could say Nope no no no no no no this is
not the place. However, every NPC type person
could be the killer. This guy wearing a members only
jacket in there which is not nothing.
And you have it's a, it's, it's a, a, a nail biting level of
mundanity of just these average Meadow trying to parallel park.
Yes. Carmela pulling in, it's in
after his car explodes, which they make this big thing out of
this Marshall thing, which I didn't get where in the first
episode the BBQ explodes and then a JS Xterra explodes and
that's supposed to be this link between him and Pony.
I don't see that at all. But neither here nor there.
The ending pisses a lot of people off.
My mom hates it. I still talk to her.
Understandable. Because you.
I don't think it's understandable at all.
I think it ends perfectly. Do you want to see Tony die?
No. Do you want to see Tony in jail?
No, nobody does. So what do you want They you?
This is I'm. I know, yeah.
I know you're not. I know you're, I know you're
posing it to the the audience at home.
And I I agree with you. We love, we love Tony Soprano.
It would be, I mean, yeah, it just would have that that
wouldn't have been a very satisfying ending.
If they killed him. It would have been satisfying in
that you have some closure in that.
OK, the story's over, right? Yeah.
But but the thing that elevates that ending to the mythic that
sticks in everyone's craw 20 plus years on is that you're
denied that final closing of the book and and that open loop
sticks in the back of your head forever.
Because like the best pictures you're able to insert yourself,
there's room to live in that moment when you hear the
doorbell ring. Ding Ding Ding, the screen goes
black. And it and it's and you.
And it's one of those things where you could watch the finale
80 times in a row. Clockwork Orange eyelids held,
held open. You'll never get the beat right
when it cuts the black and and you'll never get it right.
It's it is the the cut to black is the most unsatisfying part, I
think to a lot of people is that is that we have no rhythm or
tempo to to show that where that's happening.
But I will say I don't think Tony was meant to die in that
restaurant. So what do you?
What is your speculation? I think he goes to jail
eventually. You think that he would have
gotten popped in that last scene?
That he would. Have gotten popped, see and
that's another thing. I don't want to see him snitch
even though he might have God. I don't know that he would.
Again, he might Johnny Sack and just die in jail.
And I don't see that. What I mean is like, I'm team
Tony Soprano. So like, I think the people that
hate Tony Soprano hate the enemy, and I think people that
love Tony Soprano might feel a little unsatisfied, but that's
our Golden Boy. Yeah.
We don't want to see it like it's more of a it's it's people
trying to scrub themselves of the filth of the show that want
to see him in handcuffs or dead. I'm like, you would hate the
ending if he died, I'm telling you.
And like, Breaking Bad did this a little bit where, you know,
Walter dies and and it's like, OK, that worked.
Don't get me wrong, it worked. They did it artfully.
Yeah. But I like Sopranos in this
like, look like life goes on. It's never over.
We cut it, it's not over. Tony would have battles after
battles after battles, as you could think.
Even if Tony doesn't go to jail, even if he gets off on a
technicality like he did on the last Greek group, it would still
go on and on and on. It would just be a new guy
coming in, new youngbloods, new this night, this Dante's hell
loop. I mean, could you, could you
imagine? So, OK, so James Gandolfini at
that time and Tony Soprano would have been early or mid 40s when
the show ended because he wasn't that old, you know?
So all right, 20 years on. Yeah.
They're in the. He's in their in his 60s, right?
Can you imagine that character today?
Yeah. It's like, what?
I don't know. You know, a heart attack would
have gotten them either way, I think.
Right. And again, I don't want to see
that. So it's like all these things,
any outcome you tell me, I'm like, I would hate to watch that
happen. Yeah.
So the fact that it ended the way that it did on just the book
is never closed. It's never over.
Perfect. Michelle Welbeck's possibility
of an island man. The guy goes through hell and
back, kills himself and uploads himself into a cloud service
thing. And what does he do?
He's like, hey, what's over there?
I'll just keep going. And it's just kind of like
that's kind of what happens here.
And again, you can insert I, I, I understand, I don't think it's
a cop out the way a lot of people think open-ended stuff
is. I don't think I just, I just
trying to think of literally anything you can think of
happening in that scene or post that scene.
I don't want to see. Did they shoot multiple endings?
Maybe, I don't know. Because didn't, didn't I?
This may be apocryphal, but I seem to remember reading the
Gentle Feeney and Lorraine Bracco watched it when it aired.
Cuz I don't know that either of them.
You're filming a show, you don't actually know what it's gonna.
Be. Yeah, you know, and both of them
were like, what the fuck? Yeah, cuz what if they shot a
death scene for Tony and he's like wait, I didn't.
Yeah, I'm. Like what the fuck you know?
Yeah, it's true. Imagine him saying that as Tony
said, What the fuck? You know what's in the
television exactly. Right.
I yeah, I mean, it's, it's just, it's, it's the perfect
television show. And the fact, the fact that it
has reached across every, you don't have to be from Jersey,
You don't have to be from New York.
You don't have to be Italian to enjoy it and to, to, to soak up
all of the beauty and the interest and the themes that are
there. And it is just such a testament
to serendipity and the power of a single person's vision for a
story and the collaborative magic that happens when you get,
you know, God's hands descending on a cast, crew, set, and
storyline to craft something that just is truly golden and
truly timeless and beautiful and enjoyable in perpetuity.
And people are going to be watching this for hundreds of
years and extolling it as truly great storytelling.
If I'm lucky enough to live as long as the average American
life expectancy, I'll probably watch this five more times.
At least. Yeah, so I'm, you know, there's
so much we didn't, you know, like there's so much we didn't
cover. But it's like you got to watch
it pile my all these, all these plot lines, There's all these
things that happen. It's never boring.
It's it's never dull. It's incredible.
Watch it. Get a HBO Max subscription.
You will pay for itself. Yes.
I straight up like, it's, it's incredible.
So Vincent, I I can't thank you enough for for something as
impromptu as this. I thought we really, I, I don't
know if anybody's talked about it because I, I hate the whole
like, oh, and the cast and the, and the, the showrunner.
It's like, no, these are characters, man.
These guys are fucking. They deserve their own time.
And we talked about these people as characters, which I, yeah,
you know, so that's, that's good.
Please follow, you know, all the links will be in the
description. Follow him on, on on Instagram.
I know that's where you do most of your social media work and
stuff there too. And your, and get some paintings
from them. They're fantastic paintings.
I still want the Howard Rourke one, man.
Dude, you got to make you got to make the Howard.
Your style is perfect for a Rand Howard Rourke.
I would love to do. I would, you know, that's that's
cooking. I would love to do something in
the vein of The Fountainhead or. Hat of Shrugged.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, yeah, guys.
And then like I said, he was on the Henry Miller Tropic of
Cancer, so that's available for premiumsubscribers@rarecandy.subset.com.
Another excellent episode there. So on that note, guys, if we
have a safe week and we'll catch you guys next.