Never watched the Sopranos. What am I missing?

Same here OP.

I rewatched it recently, still holds up. Watch it.

Definitely worth watching. There’s a lot there.

You're missing probably the best TV show of all time. And good news for you, who should watch it: It's not one of those "you have to watch this" things that feels like a homework assignment. It's fun to watch.

The show is harrowing but it's also hilarious much of the time. And it always keeps your interest. It never really fell into repeating the same old thing as many TV shows do after a while. The writers and directors were bold with the choices they made, with occasional avant garde episodes you don't see coming.

It's not just a mafia story. I don't like those stories myself but I do think The Sopranos is probably the greatest television series of all time.

Two of the greatest characters ever created, miserable both, but brilliant: Livia Soprano and Janice Soprano.

It's about a mafia family, but it's about everything else.

After Uncle Junior, you may have a struggle to curb our phone answering habits.

My suggestion: watch an episode at a time and let it build rather than try to wade through the first season in a day or a weekend. For many people it grows slowly on them rather than all at once; it takes a while to get the rhythm of things and the rhythm of things always changes.

It's extraordinary for the writing and for the acting as well. Forget what you think you know or what you expect it will be and watch it.

It's a riveting show and unlike when it was first on tv, you don't have to wait a week for the next episode.

A mob show that, among other things, is a showcase of absolutely brilliant female acting talent.

I have to 100% concur with all the above comments. The best bit of TV EVER! It's timeless. I've started to re-watch episode by episode.

The most amazingly written/acted characters on television (EVER)!

How often do you see more than two or three people on DL agreeing with one another rather than arguing and calling one another childish names for having a different perspective. The consensus above, OP, should be enough to convince you to watch.

The episode "Long Term Parking" is one of the best hours of television I've seen. It's in season 5.

Even if you don't think it's the best series you've ever seen, chances are strong you will think it was excellent and one of the best you've ever seen by the end, OP.

Unless you are unusually sensitive to violence and misogyny—which are featured in the show, but in a social context that undermines them as values—I can't think of much that would make anyone dislike it.

There were two plot points/things that happened to characters that made me stop watching for a while when the series originally aired. They actually made me feel traumatized and deeply disturbed. That's to the show's credit. I went back and appreciated its brilliance.

I can imagine some Millennial and Gen Z people not being able to watch it because some of them take everything only at face value and want to boycott even fiction that examines challenging aspects of human nature. But if you're over 35 or so, you should appreciate it. If you're under 35, watch the new genderfluid She-Ra instead, and bless your heart.

I've never seen it either. A couple of months ago, I watched the first episode, and left it at that.

How would you compare it against Breaking Bad?

Coming in this late you run the risk of feeling it’s over-hyped. But it may help if you remember that in its time nothing on TV had ever been paced the way that show was. Everything on TV had always been choppy, always building up in increments of a couple minutes to something that would hold audience attention through the next commercial, or ramping up to next week’s episode. The Sopranos took a longer, slower view that was unlike either movies or TV and when you hear all the stuff about how groundbreaking it was, that’s what they’re talking about.

The characters are still just characters, after all, and their dilemmas were what they were, but the show let us live with them in a way we never had before, that you may take for granted now.

Truly one of the best works of craftsmanship in TV or films ever. I would put in the Top 10 of either genre.

And it was a show that 80% of the public didn't even understand the depth/subtest/symbolism of.

I actually think that David Chase hates most of the "fans" of the series. As all they wanted was blood and violence- but there was SO MUCH MORE.

For me- without giving anything away- these were the highlights-

Janice- This character has grown on me through my 5-7 times of rewatching this series from start to finish. She was a more than worthy successor to Livia and actually is my favorite character on the show at this point. Just a complex contradiction of human qualities and absolutely HILARIOUS. You can tell that Ada absolutely savored every moment of that once in a lifetime character.

Uncle Junior- Jesus Christ- The most foul mouth and hilarious character ever.

Gloria- Holy fuck- What a sexy explosion of a character.

Valentina- Tony's most underrated goomah/goomar- One of the most "normal" women ever on this show. Intelligent, funny, sharp. I really liked her. Also- sexy as hell.

Carmela- Every bit as bad as Tony and a complete hypocrite. Absolutely fantastic character and actress.

Tony- Everything was in Gandolfini's eyes- I have yet to see another actor with those eyes.

Truly some of the best episodes of television ever. Pine Barrens, Long Term Parking, Whitecaps (the best acting on the series- period) and I include The Blue Comet and the finale Made In America.

And I loved the ending.

The weakest season is Season 4- but its a true mid point of the show on all levels. And Whitecaps makes the season worthy.

For some reason Season 3 is my favorite.

Ha! I love it R10!! I like when you are typing a long post and you see people that agree with you already!!!!

Why don’t you just start fucking watching it? We gotta line up to convince this prick when it’s sitting right there in front of him? The balls on this asshole. Press the fucking button! It’s not like you got anything better to do with your time or you wouldn’t be on here in the first place.

Op is a lazy whore and should be whacked.

Because she was such a hypocrite, I found Carmella to be more loathsome than Tony.

R16 sounds like Uncle Junior!

R18 Carmella was an innocent victim.

The thing I loved about The Sopranos and still do this day was moral relativism. The idea that these people can live in society and be somewhat functional and do horrid things is fascinating to me. As R18 said Carmela plays the victim but she is as complicit as all of them because she continues to live and profit off of the lifestyle. Its fascinating.

And fuck me, I meant subtext. Not subtest. Dear.

The show’s depiction of contemporary America as relentlessly banal and hollow is plainly at the core of the current interest in the show, which coincides with an era of crisis across just about every major institution in American life. “The Sopranos” has a persistent focus on the spiritual and moral vacuum at the center of this country, and is oddly prescient about its coming troubles: the opioid epidemic, the crisis of meritocracy, teenage depression and suicide, fights over the meaning of American history. Even the flight of the ducks who had taken up residence in Tony’s swimming pool — not to mention all the lingering shots on the swaying flora of North Jersey — reads differently now, in an era of unprecedented environmental degradation and ruin.

Just a bunch of gabagool

[quote] The idea that these people can live in society and be somewhat functional and do horrid things is fascinating to me.

Because we all do it, and in our minds we see ourselves as "a good person" and in entertainment we often see characters as primarily good or primarily bad. Less often do we see characters who regularly make us wonder if we are any better than they are.

Of course, it's more obvious when watching mobsters, but we all engage in moral relativism. I have a friend who judges people for leaving lights on when they leave a room, but she drives a gas guzzling SUV and has plenty of excuses for why. She, like many, defended the Biden admin abandoning Afghan people but was insanely irate when the Trump admin pulled out of Syria and abandoned Syrian people to die. (I mention this specifically to raise hackles here and point out everyone's moral relativism since I know most people here feel the same way.) The same friend has joked about famous people's affairs but when her husband told her he had an affair, her whole world fell apart. I pointed out to her when she kept drawing me into conversations about it how common it is, because she seemed to feel like it's something that no one else could ever understand, and she totally rejected that because it's *her* marriage. So we all do it in all kinds of ways. Most of us both love and despise things about our closest family and friends because we are all morally complex in extreme ways, and The Sopranos was better at depicting that than most.

I think this show will/should be required study in any film/tv school. Maybe it already is.

One flaw, to me, was too much time was spent on the dull and annoying Meadow and AJ characters, played by dull and talent-free actors.

[QUOTE] She, like many, defended the Biden admin abandoning Afghan people but was insanely irate when the Trump admin pulled out of Syria and abandoned Syrian people to die.

We don’t need your neocon bullshit in here, R25. How wackadoo does somebody have to be to come into a Sopranos thread and somehow squeeze in an Afghanistan reference.

R27- I am going to agree with you on this. Definitely the weakest aspect of the entire series.

Two less uncharismatic actors there ever were.. However, in some ways, it made them more realistic?

The guy who played Jackie Jr was HORRIBLE as well (exceptionally handsome, but a truly horrible actor). But somehow it worked as they almost seemed more real.. I cannot really explain this. They really seemed like they were from New Jersey.

R28 Oy, I am not a neocon. I'm far more liberal than many people on this site, including supporting women's rights and transgender rights. I'm just giving an example of moral equivalency, and if you can't admit that becoming upset about abandoning one population to a hostile regime but not another population to another hostile regime is moral equivalency, then you're just proving my point that we all do what Carmella does in some ways, clutching our pearls at some harm and turning away and refusing to acknowledge other harm.

R23, the NYTs has an obvious, predictable and tedious agenda. Gangstas and villains have always been popular because they let us live out our darkest fantasies through them. It is adolescent to think something speaks only to oneself or of one's era.

R18, I loved when the psychiatrist told Carmella that he wouldn't let her pay him for the session. After telling her he wouldn't take her on as a client (and why) he said, "I don't take blood money."

R31- That was one of the key scenes of the series for me. It was perfect.

I had dinner with David Chase once. Jealous? I think so.

VERY!!!!! R33!!!! He seems like an extremely intelligent and cerebral guy. Probably very introverted? A man of few words?

Very jealous-

OP, don't watch while you're hungry because Tony eats constantly and the food looks good.

Look at me.

*bangs fork against plate*

Your uncle was a rat.

R11, you are insanely out of touch. There are plenty of people under 35 who love and appreciate the Sopranos.

R37 I love that this is true!

Start with "Pine Barrens" in Season 3. Then, go back and watch all of Season 3. Continue on through the last episode. Then, go backwards and watch Seasons 1 and 2.

I don't like Seasons 1 and 2. Also don't Meadow and AJ. They ruin everything they're in. There's actually a B-plot in "Pine Barrens" that involves Meadow. Too bad.

"The Pine Barrens" best episode

I would not start with that episode. Part of what makes it great is that you are in the groove of the show and think you understand it and then that one just comes out of the blue and makes you appreciate the series in a new way.

Carmela was no victim.

It’s probably the best television show ever made, but watching it depressed the hell out of me. There were some moments in particular that had me feeling dead inside. It’s the story of a man who has enough of a soul left to understand he can either work to save himself or give in to destroying himself, and you watch him give in to destroying himself.

Edie Falco in particular is a genius. The smaller moments of humor throughout (especially at any family meal) are great. I even loved the surreal dream sequences and the risky ending. But by the end I was almost despondently sad.

What are you a mamaluke? Get in there and watch it and meet me at the Bing afta.

R42 One of the astute plotlines in retrospect was the way the Sopranos got Meadow into college (no spoilers on where!) and then the college shook them down for money relentlessly. It was hilarious and it feels more real and less fictional post-Varsity Blues. The Sopranos, never having had any involvement with universities, went into it naively with no idea they are all about money, too.

I think the show needed useless, angry AJ and useless, hypocritical Meadow to illustrate how the moral rot their parents created within the family ruined their children. Meadow’s career choice after years of her yapping about her morals was the icing on the cake.

OP, you’re missing The Sopranos, which is enjoyed by being watched. Watch it and see if you like it.

You think we’re going to beg you to watch it? Go fuck yourself.

“So, what— no fucking ziti?”

R43 that is the true art of great writing....you watched and left having had an actual reaction to it. It moved you to sadness.

OP, if this is what’s holding you back - I thought the Sopranos was very much worth watching even though I largely dislike blood and gore / violent shows. I was more of a Mad Men person than a Breaking Bad person—interestingly, it’s very clear how much Mad Men’s creator (who started on The Sopranos) borrowed from David Chase.

R48 LMBO!

I will never get over the “Long Term Parking” episode.

The Sopranos seemed violent at the time, but it was before Game of Thrones took violence to a new level and desensitized us. It's not that bad by comparison.

However, as some have noted here, it is worse in a way because unlike with Game of Thrones, you feel the violence much of the time, and in some cases, it's devastating.

You are missing the best TV series of all time….

R52 Yes, and we all knew we'd end up parked there inevitably but the tension building up to it over seasons (!!) made it so hard. That episode really, really fucked with my head and I was actually angry and devastated. It's amazing that a TV show can do that. My roommate at the time had to keep reassuring me that it's just a fictional TV show. When I think about the series, it is the focus of my thoughts. Really extraordinary long-range writing and acting. It's sad that Drea de Matteo's career fizzled out. I think almost everyone fell in love with her in a way.

Fun fact: James Gandolfini (RIP) said that he was often contacted by real members of Organised Crime groups to compliment his authentic performance or give him advice. Most notably he was given advice after the pilot aired to never wear shorts again. This conversation was incorporated into Season 4 of The Sopranos where Carmine tells Tony that, “a Don doesn’t wear shorts.”

Uncle Junior played Johnny "Sicilian Messenger Boy" Ola in The Godfather II.

R55- Agreed- That was the episode where I finally realized that all of these characters were unmitigated scum. Once that event happened it opened my eyes. I was around 26 when that aired and I remember that Monday at work. I was STILL devastated. Like something happened to someone I knew.. Television could really be a powerful medium. And the little trick with the car and it looking like the outcome was going one way, it then cuts to the reality.. Reminded me of a dream that is so good and you wake up and feel utterly tricked and disappointed that it was all a dream...

R58 exactly how I felt - just nauseated with fear when that reveal happened.

The ending was left open so they could do another season or movie. Which obviously didn't happen.

As if numerous other shows haven't used a similar plot device, but because The Sopranos did it it's supposed to be "deep" and "edgy".

When the show first ran, I deliberately avoided it, since I'm not really a fan of mobster stories (Scorcesi usually leaves me cold and/or repulsed). But the buzz for the show kept growing, so I watched an episode from season 2, was intrigued and then was fully hooked later in the series.

Unfortunately, there wasn't an easy way back then to go watch the original season, so I've never seen it. Since I just watch Newark, I'll be doing that and I fully expect to be binging the whole series as a result.

I generally do not care much about mafia movies or TV shows but The Sopranos is so much more than a mob story. It’s a moody, well-written, long form work of fiction that is fine with some ambiguity, on many levels. It’s also hilarious at times, REALLY witty. It’s almost as close to a dark comedy as it is to a tragedy.

Carmela was a 21st century update of a very certain type of Italian woman who looks the other way from a philandering husband (because she enjoys the lifestyle his career brings), and who thinks Catholic guilt and piety can absolve all sins. This woman was more commonly seen in prior generations, but well, she still exists and here she is!

I enjoyed the johnnycakes episodes.

Carmela was a very realistic character…actually, the writing and acting was so great that they all seemed like real people!

IMO there's 3 series that deserve the "Best of All Time" classification: Sopranos, The Wire, and Mad Men. They bear repeated watching because you will find new stuff every time you see it.

OP, what you didn't see, you didn't miss.

Your sister's cunt!

Does everyone agree with R39 that it's OK to start with "Pine Barrens" in season 3? I'd like to give the show a try, too, after all these years.

R69! NO! Watch from the beginning. You want to see Paulie and Christopher's relationship (and others) prior to that episode.

No, R69, start at the beginning. You won't have the best sense of it without seeing Tony's relationship with his mother and his early meetings with his therapist.

Edie Falco and Aida Turturro: two of the best TV performances of all time.

But I think Nancy Marchand even outshone them. Livia could have been a one-note nasty old woman, but Marchand brilliantly executed a relentless self-pity that covered up for the power she really held. She could be horrifying and funny, often in the same moment.

And talk about a performance without vanity.

It’s so hard for me to watch early 2000s shows because everything, and I mean every ticking thing, is hideous. The clothes, the technology, the lingo, the stench of the 90s masked with the cheap Axe Body spray type of coverage. Even the cameras where still film and everything was shot so dark in that time period. Just blah. Don’t get me started on the architecture and women’s hair styles.

I tried to watching The Wire. Goid show, but I just can’t with the early 2000s. It’s weird because that’s my childhood period, but it’s so appalling how ugly it was.

Employee of the Month was a great episode and showed that Melfi was the only genuinely good person in the series.

Hi Paulie Walnuts at R16 :)

There are enough "left me sad/depresed/angry/tricked/disappointed/devastated/nauseated with fear" posts to be serious de-motivators.

I've never watched this show, "Mad Men," "Wired," nor "Breaking Bad." And yet, I don't feel culturally deprived, though I grant that I probably should.

But then, I watched "GoT" and thoroughly detested it for its outrageous misogyny and how viewers just accepted it.

Fuhgeddaboutit.

Mad Men is like a candy-coated, beautiful-people version of the Sopranos in which the lead destroys people emotionally instead of getting them whacked and the workplace is more about art than violence. A little more shallow, but still very meaningful.

This show made everyone in America think they know the ins and outs of Italian-American culture.

R78 I loved the episode when Dr. Melfi and her ex talk about Italian-american stereotypes at the dinner party.

Livia was a great character.

It was the first "series" night time show. It was great.addictive.. but it spawned a million crappy wanna be's series. Hollywood truly has no origonal thoughts.

It is my second favorite show of all time (only Homicide: Life on the Street was better). I agree with all the positive comments above, but I wish as well to emphasize how much I enjoyed every scene Rosalie Aprile (Sharon Angela) is in.

Also, I grew up in North Jersey, in a neighborhood that was equal parts Irish, Italian, and Jewish, and though I am not Italian, it feels pretentious for me to pronounce "gabagool," "pasta fazool," and "shfooyadell" correctly.

Why did Carmela always pronounce ricotta pie as "re-cott pie"?

What was going on with Matt Bevilacqua and Sean Gismonte? When Furio pays a surprise visit to their apartment, the two are lying around in their underwear getting high and he mutters under his breath (in Italian) "I think they suck each other's cocks".

It's more like "ruh-GOAT," r83. The southern Italian immigrants dropped the last vowel or syllable, so "ricotta" became "ruh-GOAT" (mozzarella and fagioli, same difference).

I guess the "C" came out as a "G" in ricotta, and in fagioli, the "G" sounded like a "Z" (I'm no expert).

R79, the show really was on the mark with some of its quieter, more subtle Italian-American cues (my dad is from NY and I have family there).

I can't believe David Chase didn't grow up Catholic. What an oddity.

[quote]showed that Melfi was the only genuinely good person in the series.

There was also Charmaine Bucco and Carmela's therapist.

Does Adriana belong on the list of good people on the show?

R88- She was really just a younger less experienced Carmela. However, she TRULY loved that piece of shit Christopher.

She started from so far behind someone like Melfi, that I almost consider her decisions toward the end a sign that she was good at heart.

[quote]Carmela's therapist

This scene with Carmela's therapist was so gratifying because he unsparing revealed that she was basically just an accomplice who feels sorry for herself.

First episode: good

Madonn’. Took this cocksucker three days to start watching it?

* Father Phil walks in looking for some manicot *

Nancy Marchand was so brilliant as Livia. Before Pauline Kael's death, she gave an interview where she talked about her love for The Sopranos and how Marchand gave her best career performance as Livia Soprano.

Do you need HBO to watch it?

And watched 2 more episodes. Still good. The matriarch is a bitch.

season 1, episode 5 is when I got totally hooked

I hated Adriana's nails. I can't believe some women thought that was a good look.

I LOVED it the first time through, but it didn't hold for me upon rewatching. I quit after Livia died since she was still a hoot.

Season 3 is the show's best.

You really need feedback from an anonymous message board to decide whether or not to watch a TV show, OP? Youre a pathetic little shit. Veal Parm Sandweech, my fuckin' ass.

I never watched it until the spring of 2020 when I basically stopped leaving the house. I was hooked from season 1. I've since binged on it 4 times. It's worth watching. Now the new Soprano thing on HBO, with the guy who played Tony's real life son sucks. It's a one time thing runs about 2 hours and those 2 hours felt like a week. I kept thinking it would get better. It never did.

Poor you, r102

I thought the new movie was terrible.

It’s a real slice of life….the life of a psychopath. But very well-acted and produced. An all-time favorite of mine.

It wasn't very good. Between Christofah post-humously narrating, and the 2020 woke shit imposed on 1960s Sopranos? A fuckin disgrace, ya ask me, Tone!

He could play Biden in a movie about the 2016 election and/or the Obama years.

The Sopranos is my favorite TV show ever but the new movie was awful. It just didn’t work and I kinda hope they just leave it alone and don’t make any more Sopranos installments. Sounds dramatic but they are risking ruining the show’s legacy.

[quote]I think the show needed useless, angry AJ and useless, hypocritical Meadow to illustrate how the moral rot their parents created within the family ruined their children. Meadow’s career choice after years of her yapping about her morals was the icing on the cake.

I totally agree with this; the show suffered in later seasons because it focused on the lives of the then adult children & they were such terrible people, you didn't care what happened to them (unlike Tony, who was also terrible, but he was compelling to watch).

I watched the recent Sopranos marathon & I was struck by the irony that Tony & Carmela (and their peers) justify the things they do because their kids go to good colleges and presumably can go on to lead "straight" lives. But their kids, like Jackie Jr, AJ & Meadow are so spoiled and corrupt, they're incapable of living in the straight world and always revert to shady behavior. Also, JJ & AJ lacked their parent's street smarts so when they tried to emulate the "wise guy" life, they failed miserably.

The kids grew up watching their parents choose to embrace the corrupt benefits of the mob life rather than go straight (even if the kids didn’t consciously realize this), so they didn’t have a model for making a different choice. I actually wish we had a seen a bit more of the dynamics of Carm’s family and Tony’s sister who got out, but it was telling that Meadow and AJ didn’t seem to have a relationship with those cousins (if they existed) or even close feelings about Carm’s parents.

Carmela's parents benefited from Tony's influence, and Carmela said so. (Her father got bids awarded to him thanks to Tony, for example.)

Barbara (Tony's other sister) is really the only one to escape the Mafia's orbit, and we only see her a handful of times during the entire series, even though she lives nearby.

Update us OP!

[quote]I hated Adriana's nails. I can't believe some women thought that was a good look.

In the end, it wasn't such a good look for Adriana, either.

I'm rewatching now. A favorite line when the FBI decides to send the woman undercover to be Adriana's friend, the agent asks her "How big can you make your hair?"

Getting deeper into S1, and they spend a lot of time talking about being Italian-American.

Livia Soprano. Wow. A monster.

It's nuanced and the villains created are also genuinely sympathetic (within the Soprano family anyway), so worth watching.

I don't understand how people aren't sucked right into this family, and show.

In the 'post-golden-age-of-tv' that was the 70s, the Sopranos is as well written and shot as a Scorsese film, it's on the opposite side of the spectrum but Twin Peaks is probably the only TV show that could be legitimately comparable.

It's a a fantastic building of a complete, believable world. There's never a false moment, or time when characters act inconsistently. No throwaway dialog or scenes. Even minor characters are fully-realized. Remarkable, especially with hour-long episodes over 6 seasons.

It went downhill after Nancy Marchand died.

R85, Sicilian immigrants also dropped the final vowel from their surnames (as my great-grandparents from Palermo did) and/or Anglicized them because of prejudice.

I would suggest watching the clips on youtube with Dr. Melfi--Tony's psychiatrist. I found that (for me) watching an entire episode straight through was too dark and depressing (and violent).

Yes the movie is weird because it has the same pacing as a TV episode. Plus I really question why we needed yet another movie about racism. I liked the prequel movie to Gomorrah a lot more.

I'm rewatching Season 2, wherein Meadow is trying to get her driver's license, and during a scene at the dinner table she casually mentions that she has trouble mastering parallel parking.

I busted out laughing. Those were some clever writers a few years later.

I finished Season 1. As I noted above, the mother is a monster. The show is very well written, but it's not unique. I know, I know - it was different in '99 and everyone copied it.

I was expecting Dr. Melfi to get on my nerves, but they managed to keep her from being too "sit in the chair and tell me your feelings".

[quote]The show is very well written, but it's not unique. I know, I know - it was different in '99 and everyone copied it.

And one could say that The Sopranos was already treading in the well-worn footsteps of The Godfather and (especially) GoodFellas, both of which are many, many hours shorter and probably not a lot less profound. I don't doubt the skill behind this show or the sincerity of its many passionate advocates, but whenever I contemplate watching the whole thing (as opposed to many isolated episodes here & there) I run up against the problem of wondering if I really need this much mob shit in my life.

Rosalie: “fucking nosy, finish your manicott”

Fuck - Furio in the brothel was brutal

R126 I understand that. I don't like mafia stories at all in general; however, I do think The Sopranos is arguably the greatest television drama. It's not because of the mafia plotlines but because of the writing, direction and performances. Likewise, I have no real interest in Danish, Scottish, British or other royal histories, but that doesn't affect my appreciation for Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Richard III, et al. I value them because they're just all so smart and intricate with different aspects to appreciate, ranging from unexpected humor amid tragedies, supernatural and paranormal moments being presented as real parts of everyday life and existential questions being explored throughout. The royal histories are just the scaffolding onto which the layers of human dramas are built. I think of The Sopranos the same way. And I thought the same of Game of Thrones, choosing to shrug off the idea of stupid ice zombies because of the world that was created—but Game of Thrones proved to be nothing more than an illusion of a great story created by using a cast of 150 players and amassing a ton of tropes together that in the end were nothing more than genre schlock that did nothing transcendent, whereas The Sopranos was almost always more than just a mob story.

Watching Tony rub one out would have been hot as fuck!

The actors playing Meadow and AJ are at opposite ends of the skill spectrum.

Meadow is a real character.

AJ is some kid who lucked into a show.

But the dreams. Geez. For a show that's "real", there are an awful lot of Meaningful Dreams.

Adriana was just murdered.

Every character is expendable.

Its the episode where I learned that these guys weren't joking around. I was sick for 2-3 days! I remember that Monday at work!

The woman who played Adriana was great. Getting pulled out of the car, called "cunt", and shot while crawling away - geez.

They should've just given the masturbation scene to Michael Imperioli.

I was very, very, very surprised at the scene where Vito's kid purposely shits in the high school locker room shower and steps on his steaming turd.

Now I gotta take points away from The White Lotus. This kid is the OG shitter.

It's clunky and pretentious. And real mobsters have said it's thoroughly unrealistic.

[quote]And real mobsters have said it's thoroughly unrealistic.

Henry "Goodfellas" Hill said that it was the closest portrayal of real day to day Mob life that he'd seen.

Not every episode was gold. They seemed to have trouble writing the female characters at times. I thought the second season was weaker than the first. I also thought Nancy Marchand was miscast---I grew-up with a lot of Italian-Americans and she seemed out of place. OTOH, Falco is great as Carmela and Bracco is good as Melfi, but often doesn't have enough to work with. Adriana is probably the most watchable of the female characters. Lots of great character actors in the male parts. Violence aside, the morality here is probably no different from what you'd find in Jack Welch's General Electric. I

And I’ve finished.

I cannot tell if Tony’s murder of Christopher was mercy killing to save the baby. Tony kept looking at the car seat, but I couldn’t tell if he killed Christopher to save the baby or because Christopher was so reckless with everything, he would likely bring Tony down - and the car seat was just an example.

Bobby - I didn’t see his murder coming.

Still, Adriana getting shot while crawling in the woods was the biggest surprise.

[quote] Adriana was just murdered. Every character is expendable.

Except Christopher. David Chase admitted that, in real life, Christopher would've been killed because he was a liability with his drug addiction.

FBI informants either get killed or disappear. (Adriana was an informant.)

Big Pussy: David Chase won't admit it, but the actor who played him was terrible. Sounded like he was reading off of cue cards.

[quote] I also thought Nancy Marchand was miscast---I grew-up with a lot of Italian-Americans and she seemed out of place.

Nobody ever says this, but it's true. I don't think she's Italian and most of the actors are really Italian. I think she just didn't seen Italian and whoever the wigmaster was did a bad job on her wig(s). (I'm not Italian, so I could be very wrong.)

It is no OZ.

Agree about Big Pussy. The Sopranos had a few actors who were uniformly TERRIBLE- like high school play bad.

Jason Cerbone was another. There were a few of the really supporting type mobsters who were terrible.

Fuck, even Paulie Walnuts was pretty campy at times- but he got better as he went along.

But somehow I found that it really worked on the show-

Jason Cerbone Was great eye candy but that was about it.

You know the BEST example of a horrible actor who was absolutely PERFECT on this show.

The lady who played Paulie's mother- NUCCI!!!

Holy shit she was horrible! But hilarious and adorable. And it worked.

Steven Van Zandt was hilarious to me as Sil with that wig and his speech pattern. Van Zandt did a great job.

R127. Rosalie was great.

Chase said in an interview that if Adriana had had the balls to go to Tony right away about the FBI trap, he'd have figured out a way to play the feds by giving them false information via Ade and she would have survived. Her other alternative would have been to squeeze the FBI for every perk she could on her own, like Ray Curto did, knowing she'd betray Tony but save her own skin. OR, she could have cut and run much earlier. Unfortunately she did none of these things.

“College” is another great episode.

If you are going to watch one HBO Max series, it should be Gomorrah. Like The Wire, you need to give it a couple of episodes before it starts to make sense. And like the Wire, at first it seems just like any other crime drama. Then it hits you in the gut. By contrast, The Sopranos romanticizes the mafia and makes you sympathize with the characters. It was ground breaking at the time but I lost interest after a couple of seasons and never went back. Gomorrah is far superior in every way.

If you don't watch it, it's gonna be a rainy night in Lyndhurst.

Jason Cerbone (Jackie Junior) was, indeed, hot but horrible. I rewatched "Pine Barrens" (S 3) just b/c it's a great episode. What I forgot was that there was a B-plot involving Cerbone and Meadow. Jamie Lyn Sigler, another horrible actor. I found myself fast forwarding through the scenes with those 2 (Jackie Jr & Meadow - whining as usual).

The Sopranos, like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and other hour-long dramas, were masterful in continuity of story lines, costuming, and plain old story telling.

The thought of watching (yet another) Mafia story was not interesting to me in the least. And I didn't start watching until the third season after a friend recommended it to me. I had always respected that friend's taste in TV shows. So I streamed the first two seasons on demand, then was hooked.

Few shows are as tightly written as The Sopranos. Its hard to say if so-and-so would have been a better fit for such-and-such in any of the roles now. But I respect the hell out of how well the material was written.

* and FEW other hour-long...

“ By contrast, The Sopranos romanticizes the mafia”

Not really. Any show that depicts a whole person will capture good and bad. Also, any show that takes a key character out to the woods, has her dragged from the car while being called “cunt” and shoots her as she crawls away on all fours is not romanticizing anything.

It's you, the viewer, looking the rose colored glasses.

I'd like to rewatch, but these endless therapy sessions were so boring.

Nucci is a SHITTY ACTRESS (like Scorsese's mom) but it just works.

On a show like this- it just works

Yes, Adriana's death was brutal, but it came after the viewer was drawn into sympathy with her over two-three seasons. Family drama and nostalgia drive the storylines. The reality is that the mafia in the US is dying. Tony Soprano's headache is that there isn't a new generation to take over. And Tony Soprano is a familiar character: he lives an upper middle class life the viewer can understand and can relate to. Whatever the show has to say is about American masculinity, family and class anxieties. The Sopranos was ground-breaking but how many shows about troubled middle aged guys do we need?

Gomorrah is far more interesting because the mafia is an actual problem in Italy. It is not some obscure way of life that people look back at with fondness like in the US. Gomorrah condemns the its stranglehold on the Italian economy and shows how communities are destroyed by organized crime. It's not polemical but it definitely has a message. There are no extended scenes of family dinners or father-daughter bonding. And certainly no therapy sessions.