The Sopranos 4/8.... spoilers?

wfw

 

Omar,

Don't get me wrong -- I prefer The Wire, too. My mention of it wasn't meant to be pejorative. I was just pointing out that Chase and Simon take different approaches to storytelling, as you noted.

As for your "what IS going to happen?" question, I'm not sure. But I'm positive it's not going to come back to a chest hair Bobby left in Quebec.

 

Bunch of thoughts:
I know some people love this part of the show and the writers clearly enjoy writing it in, but does EVERY interaction between Janice and Tony have to reference the old days, and their horrible upbringing, etc. Enough is enough, don't they ever talk about anything else?

Classic Carm and Tony in their reaction to the fight. At first Carm scolds Tony for it but then when it comes up again with Janice she takes Tony's side, saying Bobby got an unfair advantage. Tony wakes up and concedes that it was a fair fight and then peppers the rest of every convo with little digs about how it was unfair like only he can.

They couldn't throw us one shot of a wild, debaucherous pool party at casa de Saprano?

Good catch on Bobby wearing the gloves I didn't catch that. It would be incredibly lame if the DNA line and then the shirt being ripped ties in, Ray Charles could have seen that correlation. I even think it's pretty weak that the shirt ripped like that, I've never seen someone rip a patch out of someone's shirt, although I've never witnessed someone dying clutch a guy's shirt. Just didn't seem realistic.

I don't want to turn this into a Wire vs. Soprano's thread, but while the Sopranos is entertaining, it's not on the Wire's level anymore, IMO.

 

Tony and Janice do talk about other things, but they always lead back to the past and the vicious cycles they will never escape. Sad but true.

If you've never been in a dysfunctional relationship or family and don't recognize the dynamic, consider yourself blessed.

 

And? Speak up. Don't be afraid of Whitlock.

 

You're probably right on both. It gets tiresome to me to watch it (I know some think all of that stuff is what makes the show great, I love it but I guess I'm not that deep) so I can't imagine what it'd be like to have to live it.

 

Exactly right.

 

One really great thing about the final compressed season is that it forces focus -- they can't dick around with extended subplots/diversions like Tony's dream sequence (it was partly OK but could have been done in one episode, not 4-5), Gay Vito's Vacation In Vermont, junk like that.

For instance, last night, at one point Carmella and/or Tony talk to AJ on the phone from the cottage up north. AJ of course is in Mom and Dad's bed boffing his 'Rican GF, he says "let's make sure to change the sheets," then he goes downstairs, opens the doors and welcomes a bunch of his slacker friends in for a "Risky Business" style house party.

In past seasons (especially last season) that would have been spun off into an episode of its own -- look at the wild and wacky stuff AJ's stupid friends do in his house, drinking, dancing, spilling wine on the sofa, drinking Tony's expensive booze, stamping ciggies out on the rug, OMFG did I see one of his stoner buddies drop a bag of grass in the bushes, boy oh boy is Tony gonna be pissed when he gets home, blah blah, yadda yadda -- maybe even a 2-3 episode story arc on lazy shiftless AJ.

This season, they know they don't have time to waste on crap like that, so they just drop it. AJ's significance from here on out consists of whether he's gonna get involved in "the business" and whether he's gonna kill Uncle Jun or not (with one, of course, probably leading to the other).

 

geez, i'm thick much of the time. watching the ep for the second time now, and i just got janice referring to her killing richie aprile when she tells carm, "i had a boyfriend once who hit me, and i exploded. ... we went our separate ways."

 

Actually she said: "...he went his separate ways."

(Chris and Tony chopped up the corpse.)

 

She's Dominican, damnit! ;D

 

I loved--LOVED--the bloody house that got stuck to the side of Tony's face during the fight.

Then Carmela flicks it off him and it lands on the floor. Fucking great.

I echo those who mentioned the threat of impending violence on the show. Wow. Felt like things were going to explode 10 different times.

To me, the most interesting part of the episode is how the fight with Bobby--the big ol' pussy of the family--emasculated Tony. Sure, he got revenge by sending Bobby off to execute the hit. But if he can't even handle Bobby, how can Tony run the business?