The Sopranos
SPECTRENumber1
L.O.Posts: 75MI6 Agent
I have recently gotten into this show, and I'm watching all the seasons to get ready for April 8, when it returns for its final nine episode run. I finished watching the first season, so I've got a loooong way to go.
Who else watches this show, the greatest of all time?
Who else watches this show, the greatest of all time?
Comments
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I am a HUGE fan of The Sopranos, the hands-down best show on television. Like Loeff, I own all the DVDs. And like SPECTRENumber1, I got into it late, one or two seasons into the show, when I was alone one Thanksgiving, my son having gone to visit his mom. On a whim, I bought the first season in DVD format. I wound up watching all 13 episodes, one after the other. I just couldn't put it down. If the second season had been out at the time, I would have watched 13 more in a row, it's that good. I did that for the next three seasons or so, because I didn't have HBO at the time. I finally got the channel in large part because I figured that with the end of the show near, there was no way I could avoid hearing about the finale before it came out on DVD.
What I appreciate most about the program is how it pulls no punches whatsover. It makes zero attempt to make anyone sympathetic, which writers are always tempted to do with their protagonists. But of course no one is evil all the time. So just when you think old Tony isn't really such a bad guy after all, he turns around and does something so brutal, cruel and depraved you're just stunned.
In fact the only time the show might have pulled a punch is when (don't want to spoil it for SPECTRENumber1):
Although it's the kind of show you can watch over and over, I wish I could erase it from my head and watch it fresh all over again. Enjoy, SPECTRENumber1. I guess none of us will be on this site on Sunday nights between 6 and 7.
I totally agree. There is no better show on TV. There really is no aspect of this programme that I dislike. The acting is phenominal, the writing is always fresh and exciting and just when you think it's getting safe they hit you with something massive right between the eyes.
Brilliant television.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
They are a little pricey, but you do get 13 hourlong episodes. What's nice about them, too, is that some of them standalone, while others, while holding up on their own, also move the series plot along. You've gotta see "College," the first or second show of the second season, I think. It alone is worth the price of the whole box-set, but there are a lot of gems there.
I've been starting to get into Rome. I may have to pick up the first season (isn't it now in its second?) on DVD to catch up. every show I have seen, I've liked. That redheaded actress who plays the scheming Roman noblewoman does it for me.
One thing that kind of annoys me about HBO is that they don't number the episodes, at least on the cable guide, for any of their series. So you don't know where you are.
I can't possibly recommend the first season of Rome on DVD highly enough B-) You won't be disappointed.
They just ran Episode 8 of the 2nd (and final) season this last Sunday night. I've got digital cable, so I usually watch them 'On Demand' after my boys are safely tucked in bed :v
Four more episodes left in the series...I'm going to miss it
And then I may very well cancel my HBO...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Me too. On the other hand, the fact that there is an end in sight makes it more exciting and gives the series a chance to go out on top. But I know what you mean. You hate for something that good to end.
I just hope the ending can live up to all the hype it's likely to get. And -- more importantly -- I hope the anticipation of the hype didn't warp the writers' sensibility. It's kind of like that thread about Bond 22 "topping" CR. There's always the danger that in the understandable desire to produce a slam-bang followup that that's all it will be: empty spectacle. A lot people who never watched the show or who stopped because it didn't always focus on murder and mayhem are going to expect just that for the finale. I hope the writers have something a little more thoughtful in mind than a simple score-settling bloodbath. Chase has already gone on record and said all dangling story threads will not be resolved, because life itself is "messy" (Something the critics of CR's ending might keep in mind).
Why aren't I surprised that you would find a way to include criticism of CR critics in a 'Sopranos' thread?
What can I say? I'm a misocriticinist dinosaur. :007)
But there is a real point to be made here, outside of CR. A lot of people, for example, have wondered what happened to this one character who vanished somewhat mysteriously during a show in the third season(I don't want to say which one for fear of spoiling it for people who haven't seen the episode). There are people who even today, three years later, obsess about that character, insisting that the thread has to be resolved. And the fact is, it doesn't. Chase is right -- life is messy and we don't always get nice, tidy explanations for everything. S*** happens, as they say. Those people may be very disappointed by the finale if the thread isn't resolved. But they're jousting at windmills and really just spoiling it for themselves.
(Although, I do love the Soprano family's usual explanation for colleagues they rub out themselves: the disappearance is always explained as "he joined the Witness Protection Program." Beautiful
Sure -- (I offer you my apologies in advance if your one of those folks, Dan
It from a classic episode:
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Probably won't happen, but it's cool to think that such a thing remains possible, however unlikely...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I can't imagine what they have in mind. But I think I read somewhere that Chase has known how it would end for some time. But it's a pretty guarded secret -- and I hope it stays that way. I'm entirely in favor of "clipping" any SOB who reveals it on a blog, TV, anywhere before the show goes on the air. Of course, if it turns out the way I suggested I'll hire myself out as a clairvoyant.
Oooh you should pick up Rome it's fantastic! I remember watching the first couple of episodes and thinking it was pretty good, and then either in the fourth or fifth episode once the characters are better developed and the story starts going somewhere it just really grabbed me! Trust me the whole first season really delivers from then on, and I loved it.
Is there a second season on already?
Yep, surely a classic! Remember Paulie's hair?
SLIGHT SPOILERS!!! (sorry, don't know how to hide them
Honestly, where do you guys think the story will go? When we left off they were on the verge of another gang war with the big apple, but Johnny Sack (one of my favorite characters btw) was on his back. Think they're saving some fierce bloodshed for these final episodes, or will it go another way? Could Tony be removed as boss, or even (gulp) retire?
For spoilers, just lead off with the word "spoiler" in brackets ([]), then at the end put "/spoiler" in brackets.
Actually, I liked Season 4. The fact that it focused a good deal on Tony's family life was a plus, I thought.
As for where it's going, who knows? I hope it isn't just a gore-fest, though. That would be a little too simple. Just kill everyone and it's all over. Whatever it is, I hope Chase has something unexpected in store that will cause the whole story arc of the series to resonate.
A tidy finish? Fahgeddaboutit.
Tim Goodman
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, April 2, 2007
"Is this it?"
There is a scene in the first episode of "The Sopranos" where Tony and Carmela are jolted out of bed by loud banging on their door. The camera moves in slowly and Carmela says those words.
We are all of us waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Viewers, characters, even the actors involved -- everybody wants to know how it's all going to end, what's going to happen to everybody's favorite antihero mobster, how one of the finest TV offerings of all time decides to write its last chapter.
There are so many questions that remain about "The Sopranos" but this is not one of them -- the series remains as vital and interesting as ever and will go down in history as one of the truly brilliant dramatic achievements on TV.
And yet, that doesn't answer Carmela's question. (Don't worry, no spoilers of any importance will be leaked here. HBO only sent two episodes to critics, and while there's much to discuss in them, it's not like Uncle Junior has come home to finish the job on Tony or the Russian has come out of the woods.) Here's a question beyond Carmela's panicked musing: Will these final nine episodes make everybody happy? Will the question be, at the end of the run, "Is that it?"
Answer: No question.
Those fans looking for tidy resolution are watching the wrong show, created by the wrong guy. If you think David Chase -- after coming this far by producing a landmark television series that incorporates banality into two electrically dangerous families, meshes pathos with misogyny to create one of the greatest antiheroes ever, boldly leavens violence and sex with adolescent humor and malapropisms and promotes unspoken character evolution over wordy exposition -- is suddenly going to become predictable and formulaic just so you'll go to bed happy, forget it. "The Sopranos" is likely to leave story lines, budding plot developments and favorite characters frozen in time, their end game merely something to guess at forever.
There may be no better (or realistic) way to go forward into this "Sopranos" swan song. Expect an ending of some sort, just not the one you thought or even wanted. Leave yourself open to mystery, like life itself. Not every story has to slam the door shut tidily behind it. Not everything requires an O. Henry twist. If you take what Chase decides to give you instead of what you so dearly want, you might ultimately be more happy.
Ah, happiness. And endings. Those appear to be big themes in the continuation of 12 episodes that started this extended sixth season. Christopher (Michael Imperioli) wanted a taste of Hollywood, of the movie business; perhaps secondarily a promotion in the family and a wife and kid of his own. Carmela (Edie Falco) wanted her own career, her own power, her own self. Tony (James Gandolfini) at first wanted to live, then to find happiness in his home life and also settle the demons in his head. Not everybody is going to get what they want. But you can bet that a couple will get what they've got coming.
These last nine episodes, accounting for the notion that Chase will not wrap up everything, are likely to focus primarily on Tony's "other" family -- the Mafia -- and the impact that will have on Tony's real family. The guess here is that Tony and Carmela will be the central focus (naturally), with Christopher and possibly A.J. following up with predominant implications. In the first two episodes this idea of endings -- as you can judge from Carmela's question -- is very much in the air. Johnny Sack (Vince Curatola) is still in jail, ailing, and wondering if his whole life in crime has been worth it.
Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) has recovered from his heart attack but appears not only to be past his grudge battle with Tony, but also wary of the stresses of power. Tony, too, has that look. Like Phil, he's just overcome a near-death experience. Three bosses facing mortality. There's a power vacuum on the New York side and a power malaise on the Jersey side (does Christopher want to be the man anymore, or would he rather make movies -- and when, if ever, is A.J. going to step up?).
Clearly, succession is on Tony's mind. He cites yet again the numbers -- about 80 percent of guys like him end up in jail, most of the rest dead. He spends his 47th birthday at a beautiful lakeside cabin near Canada that Bacala (Steven Schirripa) has had in his family for ages. There is much gazing into the calm waters there for Tony (water continues to be a powerful metaphor in "The Sopranos," and however you want to read into it there's an awful lot of it in the first episode). Unlike Johnny Sack and Phil Leotardo, Tony seems to have some spark for "this thing" still in him, but he knows he needs to plan for the future. The only problem is that his options are less than encouraging. And once he sees "Cleaver," the movie Christopher dreamed up (starring Billy Baldwin as a thinly veiled Tony), he slowly realizes his master plan has a fatal flaw in it.
Two episodes are not nearly enough to divine which direction this series is heading. Coupled with the fact that after a near-perfect start to the first 12 episodes "The Sopranos" arguably bogged down in the gay-Vito story line, it cements the notion that fans will ultimately be disappointed by the conclusion. Or will they? If anything, the two episodes sent to critics re-establish a couple of enjoyable easily overlooked aspects of "The Sopranos."
First, through the use of a small group of directors who have never been off the page with Chase, the cinematography on this series is lush and stunning. It may not be important to everyone, but the visual storytelling is just amazing. And in the first episode, titled "Soprano Home Movies," there's a crushing sense of foreboding, whether it's Tony driving, Tony glimpsed from outside a window, Tony staring into the water (a lot) or a very clever re-examination of a scene from the Season 5 finale (where Tony is running through the snow and away from the FBI) all shot from a different camera. There's rarely a scene when you don't expect something awful to happen. And in the next episode, "Stage 5," there's a mind-jarring slow motion scene that has never been used before.
The second underrated aspect is the humor. Chase loves comedy. And "The Sopranos" rejoices in the strangest kind, from stupid jokes (Tony, Paulie, etc.) to malapropisms (Christopher, Little Carmine; the HBO Web site has a video collection of some of the best, by the way.). These first two episodes are filled with laughter (how can they not be when Christopher is screening "Cleaver"?). We might not all be laughing in June when the last episode airs, but it's good to see that characteristic hasn't been cut in the mad dash to the finish line.
Of course, it could be that there is no mad dash after all. The culmination of this series could be an all-too-short, less than definitive nine-hour stroll that leaves our soul unsatisfied but our lives enriched. There's an ending to "The Sopranos." But prepare yourself now that it may not be the one you imagined.
if they aren't, i'll send paulie walnuts round to sort that larry david out.
I thought all the HBO programming was the same everywhere it's broadcast, just different times of the day, obviously.
I'm also a fan of Curb Your Enthusiam. Like Seinfeld, only meaner. I think the series is supposed to continue, but I don't know.
Day of reckoning
As "The Sopranos" enters its final chapter, Tony reluctantly faces his past -- and we reluctantly face the end of this brilliant series.
By Heather Havrilesky
Salon Magazine
Apr. 05, 2007 | "All those memories are for what? All I am to him is some ******* bully." -- Tony Soprano
As the curtain rises on the final season of HBO's "The Sopranos," Tony is considering his legacy more than ever before, even more than he did after his brush with death. He's wondering not just how he's seen by Christopher, who portrays him as an aggressive thug in his new mob-horror movie, but how his other associates and his wife and kids see him. How will he be remembered? What will he leave behind? With all of the unrealistic expectations we each have of our lives, the big goals we want to accomplish, the hopes we have for those we love, how can we not be a little disappointed in the end?
The same questions apply as we near the end of this epic mob drama, a TV series that redefined our understanding of the Italian mob and explored the fragile nature of family -- the kind we have with blood relatives, and the business relationships that are sometimes just as intimate and as complicated. Expectations were enormous at the start of the first half of this final season. A two-year hiatus didn't help, of course, nor did the fact that television dramas in general were improving, following in the path cleared by "The Sopranos" itself, which brought a smart, imaginative, dark sensibility to the small screen and broadened people's perspectives on what a drama could be. The show set the bar so high that the low stakes of Vito's disappearance and Christopher's falling on and off the wagon felt downright anticlimactic after such a long wait.
What could we do? We expected a lot. For eight years now, Tony Soprano has been so much more to us than "some ******* bully." He's been this big, bearish patriarchal figure with a soft, vulnerable center, an angry, violent man who also loves little ducklings and frets over doing right by his men. We've watched Tony growl and sigh and snicker and gorge himself and quarrel and get drunk and tell bad jokes and become depressed. We've watched him lust after women and order hits on old friends. After years of seeing this man glower and chuckle and mope, he's become such an archetype, such a larger-than-life fixture, that it's hard to imagine him suddenly disappearing. More than anything else, Tony has captured our sympathies over the years. He may hang out with self-serving thugs and aggressive, one-trick ponies, his wife may be self-righteous and hypocritical, his son may be a shortsighted, shallow dummy, his daughter may be wishy-washy and overly dependent, but Tony, even at his most merciless, dodges our harshest judgments. We forgive him for his countless crimes and mistakes, for his recklessness and his rage. The man is full of sadness and longing and we can't turn away from him, no matter how depraved or unfair he becomes.
As the first of nine final episodes opens, we find that Tony (James Gandolfini) may not be looking back as fondly as we are. Most memories aren't welcome for him. When he and Carmela (Edie Falco) join Bobby (Steven R. Schirripa) and Janice (Aida Turturro) and their daughter Nica at Bobby's lake house to celebrate Tony's 47th birthday, Tony seems relatively calm and happy, but there's a feeling of dread hanging over the man. While the other three adults laugh and bring up old times, Tony glares out onto the lake. He doesn't want to talk about Bobby's father, because it reminds him of his own dad. He doesn't want to talk about the house at the shore that he and Carmela almost bought, because it reminds him that they almost got divorced, or it reminds him of old friends he's dumped into the waves -- the past is so littered with emotional potholes and tragic turns, it's hard to tell which one he's avoiding. He doesn't want Janice to tell crazy anecdotes about his dad "because it makes us look like a ****ing dysfunctional family" -- as if anyone is under the illusion that they aren't dysfunctional. And when Janice gives Tony a DVD of home movies of their childhood, he struggles to act grateful, but you can see an uneasy look spread over his face. His childhood is the last thing in the world he wants to think about; it feels dangerous to even consider it, particularly when he's been drinking.
"I'm old, Carm. And my body has suffered a trauma that it will probably never fully recover from," Tony later says to his wife, but it's hard to tell if he's talking about his gunshot wound or the burden of so many gloomy recollections and regrets he carries with him. While it might seem odd that the final episodes would begin with a trip to the lake, for a man who works hard to distract himself from the heaviness of his past and the weight of his mistakes, vacations can be more harrowing than day-to-day life.
Meanwhile, Carmela is up to her usual tricks, battling to keep things on an even keel, busying herself with her real estate work, turning a blind eye to Tony's doubts and dark moods, and putting on a happy face. When Tony indulges in some bad behavior, Carmela is the first to scold him, but she's not about to admit his most troubling flaws to the outside world, least of all to someone as untrustworthy as his sister. "Tony is not a vindictive man," Carmela tells her, willfully ignoring the past 20-odd years with the man. The doubting, wishy-washy Carmela of the first few seasons is gone; buoyed by a streak of warmth and relative peace in her marriage, she's determined to convince herself of her husband's solid character. Even so, we see hints in the second episode that she continues to be plagued by Adriana's death, suggesting that this murder, which Tony and Christopher and the rest of the men have clearly put behind them, could prove devastating to Carmela if she discovers the truth.
For the moment, the family is united in support of their patriarch. Even Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), the only vaguely ethical family member and the one who's always been skeptical of Tony's behavior, has taken her place at her father's side as one of his fiercest defenders. As it was last season, it's unclear where Meadow is headed or what exactly she wants from her life, but we can see that she's closer to the fold than ever, as is A.J. (Robert Iler), who looms around the Soprano residence with his wife and kid, looking like a teenager playing house. In contrast, Christopher (Michael Imperioli), who's always seemed like more of a son to Tony than A.J., is lost in his Hollywood fantasy, putting the final touches on his movie, which looks just awful enough to become a huge hit. In a few artful scenes, we're shown Tony's ambivalence toward Christopher: He's glad to see the kid doing something with himself, safe from drugs, but there's a tinge of jealousy over the attention Christopher's getting, particularly when it looks like he's leaving Tony and the mob behind.
Like Tony, the heads of the New York family are struggling to make peace with aging, death and what they'll leave behind when they're gone. Johnny Sack (Vince Curatola) has grown sick in prison and seems to be questioning every decision he ever made. "I got here, I quit smoking after 38 years. Exercised. Ate right. And for what?" he asks, but no one can give him an answer. Later, Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) stares at old pictures of relatives on the wall and echoes Johnny Sack's sentiments. "I'd like to do it over, boy, let me tell you. I ****ing compromised everything. Twenty years inside, and not a ****ing peep. And for what?" The repetition of this question "For what?" is clearly intentional, as it connects these aging mob leaders, wrestling with the meaning of their past decisions. The question also serves as an omen of big changes to come: When the patriarchs of a family start questioning the basic fabric that holds the chaotic mess together -- to stay the course, no matter what, and never, ever rat on your brothers -- it seems clear that a catastrophic shift may be in the works.
The future is so uncertain for the New York crime family that Tony actually wants Little Carmine (Ray Abruzzo), a man whose power he's undermined for years, to step up and run things. Little Carmine tells Tony about a dream he had in which his dead father gives him an empty box and says "Fill it." Tony assumes the dream means that Little Carmine should finally take over and become the New York don. But Little Carmine has a different interpretation: "That dream with my father, the empty box? It wasn't about being boss. It was about being happy."
Much as "The Sopranos" explores the absurdities and ugly realities of mob life, the show has focused, above all else, on the struggle for happiness. At the start of this last chapter in the family's history, we can see that, as they age, Tony and his family may seem more at peace than ever, but they also have to work harder than ever to keep a grip on their happiness. And unlike the first half of this final season, in which peripheral stories like Vito's murder distracted from the bigger picture of Tony's ultimate fate, the ominous mood is hard to miss in the show's final run. At every turn, characters refer to the meaning of family and the haunting lure of memories, looking back and laughing at old scars while trying to make fresh wounds disappear overnight. "We're family! Jesus, these things happen!" they tell each other, as if trying to convince themselves. "The whole thing's already forgotten!" But the troubled history of this family seeps into every detail of the landscape, and Tony, for one, can't escape it.
The first two episodes mark a return to "The Sopranos" we fell in love with, every scene rich with humor and sadness, every moment heavy with echoes of the past and omens of things to come. Creator David Chase and the other writers have always done an exceptional job of coloring each scene with the vivid palette of distant memories, and this skill comes into play now more than ever. Even as Tony sits, staring blankly out onto the water at the lake, we hear Nica in the background, singing with her nanny: "Four little ducks went off one day, over the hills and far away..." The doleful memory of those ducks in Tony's pool in the show's first episode sneaks into the edges of our consciousness. We're invested in Tony as a character, for better and for worse.
Viewers have predicted countless twists and tragedies that might await Tony and his clan, and expectations are running impossibly high. Even so, the engrossing details and resonance of these first two of nine final episodes make it clear that, no matter what happens, if the events that unfold have a profound impact on Tony -- and it's hard to see how they won't -- then they'll have a profound impact on us as an audience as well. Like the ducks in his pool, the smallest symbols and relics from Tony's past have the power to move us. His darkest fears and nightmares feel like our own. Recognizing this, Chase signals in these episodes that we'd better hold on tight, because we're in for a breathtaking, bittersweet ride.
-- By Heather Havrilesky
Cosmo -- you might want to see if you can tune in to this relgious cable station Pax TV. They show the Sopranos. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmX-SSJO-ug&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmX-SSJO-ug&mode=related&search=[/quote].... ha ha ha cheers for that highhopes;class stuff