Sopranos

I feel like I’ve been Mandela effected with the Ginny Sac joke arc, I swear that was like a season-long boondoggle but I rewatched and it was set up and resolved in like 2 fucking episodes

They think they don't need no wheel, but they aren't talented enough to tell a new story a new way, so it just sucks.

It gets brought up a few times later on in the show (most memorably during this scene in my opinion)

One of my favourite moments was when Tony was asking Ralph about who was snitching and as soon as Ralph started bitching to Tony about how he was paying out of his own pocket on the HUD scam in a split second there is like most subtle shot of Tony easing off and reclined back in his chair. If he wasn’t completely sure of that I doubt he would have supported him the way he did.

It was only a really big deal in the one episode, it gets mentioned a few times later but it’s not that important

The OP episode is probably where it’s most important because Tony is legit considering killing Paulie because he’s such a blabber mouth. It’s why he keeps trying to get Paulie to admit he told John about the joke

I always thought of those single episodes arc as kind of a way of saying "hey sometimes things in life just fizzle out and nothing more comes of them" like Janice doing anger management for one episode. Sometimes things just don't stick, and it makes sense for someone like Janice. Tony even accuses her in one episode of always being out there trying to find herself and never being around to pick up any slack.

I had the same thing with the Traci the stripper incident. I thought it happened over at least two episodes but when I rewatched they managed to cram it all into one. It was surprising as well since that was also the episode where Tony completely turned sour on Ralphie for a while to the point of considering killing him until he was forced to make him a captain.

One I remember is Janice being forced to go to anger management by a judge after beating up a soccer mom. She seems to reform but Tony can’t stand it, so the episode ends with him provoking her into raging out because he doesn’t want to see people improve and thinks it’s fake because he hates himself and doesn’t want to improve himself

This was the episode that solidified the sopranos being the best show ever made, and one of the funniest.

sacre bleu where is me mama!?

Followed by walking on a thin line by the kinks with Tony walking out feeling like a champion by fucking with his cunt sister. I remember cheering in my room alone by myself.

Writers all think of themselves as Homer writing some grand epic like the Illiad. What a bunch of pretentious twats.

It's like irl though. Something like that is only a big deal to one person, in this case John. No one else really gives a fuck. Carmine even tells him as much. It does have a knock on effect with Tony as mentioned but it's only John who cares about it.
That's why the Sopranos is such a good series. If it were made now that whole thing would be the plotline for an entire season and everyone be discussing it because modern writers are hacks.

that joke has a domino effect though because it basically is what begins the war with New York that dominates the later parts of the show. the joke itself is only referenced in a couple episodes, but the reverberations it causes make it a bigger deal. which is what is so brilliant about the show, most episodes can be viewed as standalone stories but they also weave this greater web.

The show is great because there isn't many colored folk and you can skip those parts anyway. AI should be able to clean it up without much hassle. A reddit show like The Wire might be watchable in the near future with AI.

most episodes can be viewed as standalone stories but they also weave this greater web

My absolute favorite example of this is the painting of Tony and Pie-O-My. Paulie's autism and desire to preserve the artwork is what ultimately led to Tony killing his cousin in cold blood. The way this occurs over the course of multiple seasons due to something so seemingly inconsequential is absolutely brilliant.

Why are you trolls so lazy nowadays?

that also relates to the episode in season 1 where Tony thinks an innocuous painting in Melfi's office is about death.
the point being because he's a psychopathic thug, his relationship with art is always going to be based on projection of his own violence.
and it comes up again in the final episode when Carmela is complaining about AJ being taught about Yates because she prefers to blame it for his suicide attempt. by that time she's adopted that aspect of Tony's mindset.

This is true, and you're also a faggot because you don't believe it

24 episodes shows were always network series not HBO

based

A lot of tv shows follow this formula. Peep show did this for every episode. Like that episode where Mark and Jez go on a river cruise and meet those 2 girls. When the story starts to seem like both their life problems are about to be permanently solved the writers make Jez eat one of the girls dogs.
Then theres the episode where they go to that hippie band camp and Mark starts getting on really well with the band manager lady until he finds out she believes in crystal skulls and then it all goes to shit and they're back at square 1 for the next episode.

Because David Chase hates the audience, and because Joseph Gannascoli wanted air time, Chase happily turned vito being a fag into a 4-5 episode arc. Meanwhile actually important plot points like Junior's trial and the war with New York happen over a single episode.

the point being because he's a psychopathic thug, his relationship with art is always going to be based on projection of his own violence

This is some good stuff. In a similar vein, I think it's important to observe Carmela's relationship with art and how she cries at the Met, and then subsequently cries at a fucking dog food commercial shortly afterwards. All the characters in the show have a unique relationship with art. Chris is obsessed with movies, but is also kind of retarded and doesn't understand why certain movies are better than others - he also doesn't understand why the demo he records with Visiting Day is terrible until Hesh explains it to him. Paulie is similarly tasteless, but understands that "art" can be quite valuable from a monetary perspective, which is why he preserves the painting of Tony and Pie-O-My. I think one of the more interesting ones might actually be how the two Soprano kids engage with poetry assignments at school: Meadow sees it almost like a puzzle that needs to be solved (essentially just a means to an end, without truly internalizing what is written), whereas AJ is actually extremely sensitive and the somewhat nihilistic/chaotic and morally ambiguous content of The Second Coming really shakes him to his core. I'm sure there's way more examples too.

Why did this post make redditors seethe?

Explain the spoiler? How does it relate

Long time since I watched

what would tony do if his son starting with petty crime but he would be happier in life, not as depressed anymore because he is out doing dumb stuff with the other gangster kids
eventually he would be killed but rather live a few years like a king than a life as a slave eh?

It was the realization that Paulie not only kept the painting from two seasons ago, but he also had it touched up to make Tony look like a Napoleonic general. This made Tony understand the extent to which his crew looks up to him as a leader. And as a leader, he is ultimately responsible for extremely difficult decisions like killing his cousin.

how was this acceptable, why did they do our boy like that

The scene where Meadow gets salty because a shine stole her bike and Tony rubs it in

Yeah I swore the Ginny Sack joke was a whole arc and not just Johnny Sack venting then calming dawn over the course of a single episode

Junior should’ve gotten another season or two on the street

While I agree more gangster Junior on the streets would have been entertaining, the show needed an old school and elderly character to show that if you survive that life without going to prison, your life is most likely still going to miserable.
Watching an old man try to still maintain the respect he had as a young man was funny and depressing.

I remember cheering in my room alone by myself.

Why were you cheering for that scene?

I thought he fucking hated the painting

Drag on a successful franchise until it’s not longer profitable.

it's "I'm Not Like Anybody Else" you retard

He hated it because he didn't want to be reminded of pie-o-mie
But the touched up painting as anon mentioned reminded him he needed to make a tough decision as a leader

obviously he found it annoying but he hated being reminded of his responsibilities more than anything

Fun fact. They actually filmed Tracee to show up in the Test Dream episode. In the part where Tony is at dinner with his family, and Finn’s parents

We see Finn swap out with AJ, and at some point Meadow was meant to swap out with Tracee (I guess indicating he saw her as similar to meadow in some ways)

Pic related. Wish they’d kept it in

The fat joke didn’t start the war lol. You may we we’ll argue a butterfly flapping its wings did at that point

The war started because

A) Tony B killed Phil’s brother

B) Phil is a stubborn old school gangster

C) Tony’s poor handling of the situation diplomatically as boss. Let’s Vito fuck up relations because he values money so much. Let’s his cousin get away because he feels guilty.

it didn't directly start it but it got the ball rolling. that's when trust started to break down between the gangs and the first time we saw Paulie playing both teams. there were later events that were more directly influential but you could argue that it would have played out differently without that event.

You may we we’ll argue a butterfly flapping its wings did at that point

I understand what you're getting at, but that's an exaggeration, we're talking about an actual plot point within the show, and one that even comes up again later with some importance.
really there's a thousand little pieces that lead up to it, it's not just one, but the joke is a piece nonetheless. you could say the more important aspect was Paulie the snitch, because him spilling the beans to Johnny about the HUD scam plants the seeds for Johnny plotting against Carmine and losing trust in Tony, but like I said that's all set up in the joke episode.

Disagree with Paulie only seeing the monetary value. He wastes money on it being altered because he sees sentimental value in it

Chris certainly saw art only in terms of wealth it generates. Ironically I think if he had more time he’d have made a pretty good killing with the low budget, straight to DVD movies made with little carmines help

Low budget horror movies are extremely profitable, and the expectations for quality are very low to begin with in that genre. That plus carmine’s existing porn business meaning they’d be making the DVD’s themselves would make it very profitable

And remember Carmine himself said he was expanding out of porn because of how well it was doing, AJ gets a job with Carmine by the end as a script reader I think

Of course, I assume part of this is also just another way to launder money for the mob, as in buying these DVD’s with illegal cash to make it legit income, but it’s still a good business

Chris may have been a bad writer but he can still just come up with ideas for actual writers to flesh out

Wish we’d seen Chris watch that movie Jon Favreau was making back in season 2 and get mad they used his stories

Of course, at the end of the Ep where T kills ralphie, there's a picture of Tracee on a mirror at the Bing that T looks at, and obviously part of T's hatred of ralph was for being a young girl to death, so those two things would make it seem like that wasn't just one episode.

Low budget horror movies are extremely profitable

low budget movies are great for money laundering and overseas profits in general. makes sense the mob would get involved.

This was essentially Junior's "Logan" episode. I'm Asian and that Asian guy is literally me, cheering on Junior to "inject the serum and become Wolverine again.

Because it made me laugh harder than I have in a long time and moments like that are burnt into my mind because I rarely laugh because im an extremely lonely and miserable person

retard

Correct

"bro tv is a lower artform..."

directs that amateur slop that is many saints of newark

also the better episodes of the sopranos were written by the mad men guy. david chase is the ringo starr of television

1. he didn't direct many saints
2. weiner only started writing in s5
3. she was a hooah

Vito a fag gave the show so much more staying power and some of the best one liners from the show. Vito’s actor may be an annoying loser personal chef but he wasn’t wrong in suggesting it, though I suspect Chase is the one who actually came up with it and Joseph Gannascoli needed to save face.