Watching The Sopranos again since the first time in the 90s

Annabella Sciorra and Aida Turtorro were two of my favorite performances on the show. I also loved Drea de matteo. So many great performances.

Gandolfini was pitch perfect too of course. I wonder what he would be doing with his career now. Has anyone watched the prequel film? I haven't watched it and am wondering if it's any good.

I haven't yet either. Waiting to finish the series. Again. God I forgot how good everyone is. I fell off of 6 month keto run because I wanted pasta

What was the point of Meadow's nutty roommate? That story never really went anywhere. She did MDMA, got fucked and was cured? That's what it looked like

R1, James Gandolfini was an amazing actor. What a loss

My favorite character was Rosalie Aprile.

Love the Sopranos. Hated the “Christopher tries scriptwriting” plot. It was both tedious and absurd, if that’s possible. The rest of the show was perfect.

Nancy Marchand was so good as Livia Soprano, despite portraying one of the vilest characters in the history of television. The fact Marchand wasn’t even Italian in real life (she’s a New York WASP) made her portrayal of Livia even more intriguing. I do wonder wonder what Olympia Dukakis would’ve done with that character had they cast her instead of Marchand.

I’m in the middle of the last season - 20 episodes in all, 10 more to go!

The plots involving Meadow and AJ were usually boring & dumb.

[quote] It was a little frustrating how they just dropped plots. Especially The Pine Barrens.

How much further were they supposed to go with Pine Barrens? Reveal the fate of the Russian? I think that plot was sufficiently tied up. It created further tension (and cohesion) between Paulie & Christopher for the rest of the seasons.

The show never recovered from Marchand dying. It never reached those giddy heights again.

I loved Tony’s coma episode when he went to Hell’s waiting room: Costa Mesa

My favorite character was Johnny Sac!! One of the best episodes ever was his daughter's wedding ("Mr. and Mrs. John Sacramoni Request.") He is hauled off in tears by the FBI, at which point Ginny Sac faints dead away. Fabulous. This was also the episode where Vito is moved to sneak out to the leather bar.

One thing this series did masterfully is insure that (nearly) all the characters get their comeuppance sooner or later: Johnny Sac dies alone and sick in prison; Silvio lands in a coma; Christopher dies (literally) at Tony's hands; Uncle Junior is left alone and befuddled in a crummy nursing home; and Paulie sits alone with that cat stalking him...

Not to mention the fates of Ralphie, Richie Aprile, and poor Adriana! And who gets off scot free? Tony, Carmela, Meadow and AJ - well, maybe...

I recently rewatched it and didn't like a lot of it the second time around. It was such a revelation the first time. But there are some really great episodes and characters. Nancy Marchand as Tony's mother is always a hoot. Tony and Carmela's fight in Whitecaps is another highlight.

"Shooting the Sopranos" (6 episodes) is "free" on Amazon Prime. Hosted by Gigi Cestone. I just watched Episode 1, re: the making of the episode where Tony causes Phil Leotardo to crash into a truck.

[quote] My favorite character was Johnny Sac!! One of the best episodes ever was his daughter's wedding ("Mr. and Mrs. John Sacramoni Request.") He is hauled off in tears by the FBI, at which point Ginny Sac faints dead away. Fabulous.

I like Johnny Sac, as well. (The actor, IRL, is a deplorable, though, I think.) Anyway, I found it out of character for him to start bawling like that at Allegra's wedding. (Allegra really did look like Ginny Sac.) Phil's reaction, though, was classic Phil (Frank Vincent). (I can never trust Johnny Sac again - look how easily he cracks.)

R15, Johnny, like Tony, was, perversely, capable deep feeling. (Note that Tony was the only one who defended Johnny’s bout of tears).

That's why all the hoods turn on him, R15 - not because he got nabbed by the FBI but because he cried in public and showed weakness - a greater sin than any crime. He was at the top of the NY family - powerful, wealthy, perfectly tailored in those camel hair coats--his fall was long and hard. Loyal and loving to his fat wife Ginny - when he catches her with her hoard of candy in the laundry room, he's kind to her - he has a nice little monologue with Tony where he describes how great looking she was when he first saw her "in the fur department at Wanamaker's" - it's great. She stands by him till the end, visiting him in jail, even though her circumstances are vastly reduced.

I also liked the Gloria Petrillo plot line with Anabella Sciorra - she and Tony had real sexual chemistry until she went, um, a tad crazy...she avoids a fate that wouldn't be "cinematic" but ends up as a suicide anyway.

Any relation to Sophia?

They did Ade so dirty. I am dreading those episodes.

Adriana had to die. She was an informant. That's not "doing Ade dirty."

It was just so damn violent and scary

Gloria Trillo, Globe Mercedes.

My favourite character even though she is an unmerciful annoying cunt has got to be Janice. Reminds me of so many lazy, entitled fraus from my hometown. Often with 'illnesses' like Chronic Fatigue etc that entitles them to be fat, never work and live on disability. For Janice it was her chronic carpal tunnel from working the steamed milk machine 'no worse pain'. From her very arrival you know she's a total C.

Tony : "Look at you, ya look like a teenager" Janice : "My therapist says I'm regressing"

Or when she's in the ER after the Russian mobsters attack her and she's finding Christianity. "Janice we've been here before with the eh Vishnu and Richard fuckin Alpert and the coyote spirit and it always spells trouble for the rest of us"

Got her good after she did that anger management course though "What's French Canadian for I grew up without a mother" T could be a vicious bastard. They were all Livia's kids at the end of the day.

Most people hate Janice and wish she wasn't on the show, but I loved her too. So terrible.

Mama's lil tramp. Mama's lil whoooooooah

People who hated Janice miss the point. She was written to be hated.

This did crack me up when I saw it last week

They'd all be Deplorables now. And trying to rip people off with bitcoin and NFT

Poor Adriana.

Janice was, indeed, a great character. Her character was brought back after Nancy Marchand (Livia) died. As sort of a replacement for a female family villain. David Chase's mother, IRL, was a villain, so he had no qualms with creating female villain characters.

Janice was a grifter, fake Christian, yeah I think she had fibromyalgia. She had anger management problems. She abandoned her child. She fucked Ralph Cifaretto and Richie Aprile (who she killed). She then dumped Ralph, which was funny.

I think they'd all be Trump supporters for sure. Especially in 2016.

R31 ummm I dunno the gals did like Hillary

^Well, they'd definitely see right through Trump & look in amazement at the grift operation he established, duping dopey rednecks that he'd call the cops on if they showed up on his doorstep. But I think Tony in particular would've been outraged by the 1/6 riot ("shitting on floor! That's fucking disgusting!") because I think Tony views himself as a patriot. Plus, Meadow would come over and ream him out for supporting Trump. Plus, Trump wanted to undermine the government & it was in Tony's interest to keep the government grift going.

You could talk endlessly about the Sopranos but I one of the things that kept me tuning in was for a mob boss, Tony had the same problem everyone else did: he wanted to love his family, but they got on his nerves, he had to deal with idiots at work who frequently fucked up basic directions, he had little self control and he was baffled by a quickly changing world.

Christopher's intervention has to be the funniest scene in human entertainment history. So many memories came back reading this thread.

Please let's not turn this into a fucking Trump thread. Some of you are so fucking obsessed with the guy, it invades everything you do and think! Trump in a Sopranos thread, fucking really?

Tony killing Ralphie was an exceptionally well done episode.

His hair was in the toilet water, R34.

It's crazy how timeless the fashions are. Apart from Meadow's stupid low headbands and some of Tony's more 90's golf shirts, everyone looks pretty normal. Except for Furio, who wore those Versace shirts that were crazy then

Yeah, Christopher's intervention was a good scene.

I also liked the scene where Paulie sees a psychic.

My favourite of Janice was when her therapist told her to break up with Ralphie

"Speak the truth Jan, but with the compassion and respect that you're famous for."

And then he comes over with his belongings to move in "Janooootski"

And she throws him down the stairs because he didn't take his shoes off LOL

She was a psycho

I loved that one too, R38. Some real black magic shit!

R39 this was the moment she knew she needed him gone

Yeah R37 pretty sure there's still lots of old guys in those velour tracksuits Paulie wore.

I was always fascinated by the psychology of it all. How people can be so horrible and be mainstream at the same time. The fascinating part of the show for me was just when a character would lull you into “oh they aren’t that bad” there would be a scene like Tony and Chris chopping up Richie in the bathroom and bagging him up. It would shock your system back into oh yeah they really are sociopaths. All of them. It just gets better with each viewing.

So many quotable lines from this show that still stand up today.

Favourite characters were the truly awful ones : Phil Leotardo, Ralphie Cifaretto, Richie Aprile, Johnny Sack. Truly masterful performances from all those actors.

"Maybe the fact you stick your dick into anything with a pulse, you ever thought of exploring that as a root cause?"

Exceptional writing and acting

You look like a Puerto Rican whore!

I remember thinking how terrible Steven VanZandt and his real life were the first time around. Now I'm pretty charmed by them

*

And the Emmy goes to...

Binge re-watched during lockdown (like so many of us). Had to take a break when I found myself muttering oaths as I threw open the fridge and was unimpressed by the contents. Became a bit road ragey too. ‘Cocksucking motherfucking asshole!’

What an incredible actress Nancy Marchand was.

Is there an article about Chase's mom somewhere? I know she was the inspiration, but that's all I ever read.

Paulie Walnuts. He never failed to make me laugh.

I really enjoyed Tim Daly as handsome privileged addicted loser JD. I think that his death was one of the most shocking in the show.

Carmella is a butterface, but I get it.

I love that Carmella had the original Karen Haircut

Lorraine Bracco got a raw deal. She gave a great supporting performance but was pushed to Lead where she ALWAYS lost to Edie Falco.

Then she finally gets in supporting for the last season but loses to Katherine Heigl.

I don’t like the first season. The second season might be OK. 3rd season is when it gets good.

Big Pussy was a horrible actor and that’s why he was made to be an FBI informant and then taken out to sea to be killed.

“Where did this come from…the bread museum?”

“Is this about the Easter baskets?”

I loved it the first time around, but after watching Gomorrah, I couldn't get through it again.

I don't get it r60

I thought that Gomorrah packed more of an emotional punch without being sentimental like the Sopranos.

A favorite scene.

I found some of the men on the show hot as fuck.

Jackie Jr was so sexy

[quote]Big Pussy was a horrible actor and that’s why he was made to be an FBI informant and then taken out to sea to be killed.

That reminds me of one of my favorite episode: the first Christmas after Big Pussy's demise. Outwardly, they're all talking shit about him & glad he's gone, but inwardly, they miss what he brought to the group & they try to figure out the point at which he turned on them. It was a rare episode where everyone in the group was emotionally impacted.

On Chase's mother: I heard an NPR interview in which he talks about how his mother left her first husband & ran off with Chase's father (hence the generic "Chase"), but life didn't turn out to be what she thought it would be & she was angry at her husband & children for disappointing her. She gave up everything for this? And you can see that in Livia - she's angry & bitter and it's everyone else's fault.

Ralph I’ve

Pantolino who played Ralphie, used to work out at my fairly basic gym in CT during the time he was on the show. He would dress in an all white track suit, gold chains with a beret type cap and bring an entourage. He definitely thought highly of himself, full swagger.

R66, that was a good episode featuring Bobby Bacala as a shitty, grouchy Santa.

This one of the most amazing, moving episode ending of the whole show.

^^^the clip should have included the scene before this when Tony says something to the effect "I don't know what is calling you out there but you have to decide if you stay or leave." He goes out and hears the siren's song of a deep life or something but he turns his back on it to lead a life of evil that eventually destroys him.

My late mother, who was Mrs. Staunch Catholic, loved mob stories, mob music, etc. When this show started, they didn't have HBO, so I would tape the episode on VHS and drop it off at their house on my way to work. When I asked her how they liked it, she says, "I was EMBARRASSED to be SITTING THERE next to your FATHER!! Who TALKS like that?!!" Needless to say, Helen was not used to hearing the F bomb dropped every few minutes, much less the Bada Bing girls doing their thing. So I said, "Okay, I'll quit taping it then," and right away, she says, "Oh NO!! Keep taping it!" Of course they ended up watching the whole thing but every time I'd try to talk to her about it, she'd be like, "Oh - such LANGUAGE!" hahaha My father, of course, had no problem with it at all. They killed me.

I hated the fever dreams of the Tony in a Coma episode the first time around but this time I really enjoyed them and could find deeper meanings. Goddamn I miss James Gandolfini

R72, that story has cracked me up 3 times now

I loved the FBI - the Soprano’s flooded basement, the faulty water heater, the lamp that Meadow took to college - all with “Every Breath You Take” throbbing in the background!

r59 I still sometimes try to come up with what exactly they did with those Easter baskets.

R66, that episode -- ...To Save Us All From Satan's Power -- is probably my favorite episode of the series.

Season 3 of this show was SO, so good.

The Meadow and AJ actors were awful. Especially Meadow, because more was asked of her than sullen AJ.

Eh they were good enough. There were some top notch actors involved. They held their own

I didn’t finish the series (I know, I know) and The Pine Barrens is still a legendary episode to me.

One of my favorite behind-the-scenes stories about this show: There was a scene in season 2 in which Tony was telling Melfi about sending Furio into a nail salon (I think?) to rough up a guy who owed money. While that was going on, Tony waited outside in the car, aware that the guy was being beaten up in there. Melfi asked him how that made him feel, and Tony said "I wished it was me in there." The episode's writer was reading the script aloud in the writers' room, and another writer on the staff cracked, "Giving the beating, or taking it?" David Chase liked that line so much that he gave it to Melfi, and it became the most memorable part of the scene.

"Lake House" is one of my later-season favorite episodes. Tony, Carmela, Bobby, and Janice "relax" at the lake house for Tony's birthday. They get super-drunk, sing karaoke, and play Monopoly. Tony can't stop insulting Janice and he and Bobby come to blows. It's a knock-down, drag-out fight. Bobby wins and has to pay for it by doing his first hit.

The plot with Carmella and Furio was out of nowhere. It had potential to be better, but the writers didn’t give them enough backstory. It also ended too soon.

Who was the worst villain in the show? Richie? Livia? Ralphie? Phil Leotardo?

That episode is "Soprano Home Movies," R82.

Worst villain, IMO, Johnny Sack. Not really a villain, but a backstabber. Using the blabbermouth Paulie to gain insights into the NJ operations.

To me, Ralph Cifaretto wasn't even that bad. Crude, asshole, pervert? Yes.

Richie was obviously not going to last, with his attitude. So, he wasn't really fleshed-out like Johnny Sack was.

[quote] It was a little frustrating how they just dropped plots.

Nah, having every plot tied up in a neat little bow is so teevee.

Was I the only one who thought Svetlana was really ugly?

[quote] The plot with Carmella and Furio was out of nowhere.

Actually, it made sense to me. Tony was constantly fucking around on Carmela.

Carmella was lonely and had had flirtations with Father Phil and then the Vic Musto guy (who did her wallpaper or some other home improvement project).

Furio was kind of a fish out of water, young for Carmela, but it still made sense.

I thought Season 4 was hilarious with all the Carmela and Furio scenes. "Want some coffee, Fur?"

Show is on my watch wish list. Too bad Prime doesn't include it with their subscription service. I don't wish to pay per episode on top of paying the monthly service fee. That is bullshit.

It was included with Amazon Prime for a while. Maybe they'll bring it back as "free" on Prime.

[quote]To me, Ralph Cifaretto wasn't even that bad. Crude, asshole, pervert? Yes.

Well, there was the whole "killing Tracee the stripper by beating her to death" thing. That was one of the toughest scenes of the whole series.

Sylvio manhandled Tracy, as well. Sylvio also killed Adriana. JMO, but the murder of Tracy was one of many murders. Frankly, I think the writers were surprised at the audience’s reaction to Tracy’s murder. Later, the writers had to walk it back a bit, making Tony all sad about Tracy. Again, JMO, but I don’t think Tony or any of the gang would’ve been that affected over Tracy getting killed.

"Sentimental Education" in season 5 was one of the episodes written by Matthew Weiner, later of Mad Men fame. It's the episode in which AJ's teacher says to Carmela, "You strong-armed me using the only weapon you have: your pussy." That line was like a slap. I recalled it later in light of the allegations made against Weiner by women who worked on Mad Men. He's talented, but his work suggests he needs a whole storage bin for his issues with women.

Wonder where Harpo's having his Thanksgiving dinner?

🤣 I love you r95

I'd argue, R94, that the line is supposed to feel like a slap. Carmela needed a substantial wake-up call about what her life will be like if she divorces Tony: None of the power and money she enjoys as Mrs. Tony Soprano, just unsatisfying relationships with middle-class douchebags. Nice guys like Vic Mustone will run a mile away from her. Later in the season, the first time she verbally articulates that she's going back to Tony is when she runs into Wegler at her son's school.

Of course, Carmela could still have made a life for herself away from Tony, but it would have been extremely hard. In the end, she preferred to put up with Tony's whoring and moodiness in exchange for material comfort.

[quote]Wonder where Harpo's having his Thanksgiving dinner?

That was another aspect of the show I enjoyed: Tony & Janice constantly needling each other, saying downright cruel things & yet they have this loyalty to each other, maybe because they both survived having Livia as a mother. As actors, that had great chemistry.

I’ve rewatched the whole series 3-4 times and I’m constantly surprised at how funny it is. That’s something Chase understood that other vaunted showrunners don’t seem to get: comedy helps underline the heaviest themes better than unremitting darkness.

The pilot feel more like a film than the show. Between Tonys translation of events that would be appropriate for Dr. Melfi, to the 'real' story was relly funny, and Carmella getting out an AK on Meadow in front of the priest right out the gate made it start on such a good foot.

It's a rainy night in Lyndhurst.

[quote] That’s something Chase understood that other vaunted showrunners don’t seem to get: comedy helps underline the heaviest themes better than unremitting darkness.

I've heard / read David Chase say, a couple of times, that he wasn't sure whether Sopranos was a comedy or not. Point is, I don't think he necessarily thought of it as a drama.

But, yes, the Sopranos is funny as hell.

Janice is like me this Thanksgiving. Don't help with the cooking or the cleaning up just sit swilling wine.

Was Christopher hawt? I thought he was hawt.

Christopher is still hot but seems so damn pathetic. After re arching it I find Tony, Furio and Johnny Sac hotter

[quote] Janice is like me this Thanksgiving. Don't help with the cooking or the cleaning up just sit swilling wine.

Janice wasn't known for her good cooking. But she had cooked dinner for Richie Aprile right before she shot and killed him.

Everytime they ate pasta on that show, I wanted to reach in and take a bite. It looked delicious.

I will never forget how totally shocked I was when Janice plugged Richie Aprile right in the forehead!!

It was a funny show sometimes, but in the later seasons, they went overboard with the dumb-guys humor, specifically the malapropisms and mangled idioms. There were early ones that worked and were believable ("albacore around my neck"), and then the writers started straining to include some "hilarious" verbal gaffe in nearly every episode, as if it were part of the winning Sopranos formula. It got too sitcommy.

[quote]The pilot feel more like a film than the show.

Chase does say in the pilot commentary on the DVD that if they hadn't been able to sell the show, they were going to shoot some kind of ending and release it as a low-budget film. The "Mulholland Dr. strategy" before Mulholland Dr.

The Little Carmine line: We’re at the precipice of a huge crossroads - that was a good line. That’s a badly mixed metaphor, though.

But agree that there were a few too many malapropisms.

I wanted to be raped by the entire male cast. Yes I'm a whore.

R111 you'd have been like that 'Born-Again Christian' secretary at Barone Sanitation.

Giddy up!

James Gandolfini had incredible charisma. His looks were beyond ordinary, but he elevated his persona with his off the charts charisma.

This is how you deliver a pie.

The writers tended to run out of steam with the female characters. Melfi seemed like an afterthought after the first season and Carmella had dead end story lines like her spec house. Marchand was terrible casting---having known many Italian-Americans of her generation, nothing rang true about her. Adriana, who was time limited but story advancing, was, on the other hand, incredible. Great casting and directing. She could have beenan awful stereotype, but instead was a tragic character whose death had real pathos. that was an accomplishment for a show where someone was wacked at least once a season.

I'd put Melfi's "afterthought" period a little later. I found her interesting and vital for all of the first two seasons and up through season 3's "Employee of the Month." After that, the role had peaked. She was just still there because they wanted to keep Lorraine Bracco as part of the cast. Chase has even admitted that they didn't "need" Melfi as much in later seasons, because Tony's mind and the ways it worked were by now clear to the audience.

I wonder if Bracco ever regretted passing on Carmela. She had been offered that role first, but she felt it was too close to Karen Hill. She was more intrigued by the psychiatrist, and playing someone controlled and cerebral was a departure for her at that time.

Chase considered doing an episode in one of the later years that was nothing but a session between Tony and Melfi in real time, which might have been good. But he abandoned the idea and just used some of the writing they had already done on it for shorter scenes in various episodes.

R115 I disagree completely. I think the female characters story arcs were really done in spite of not being apart of the main focus point of the show, the mob. Tony's side pieces were even excellently written.

Long Term Parking, Pine Barrens, the season 4 finale, the episode where Chris shoots his screenwriter friend, and Home videos are amongst my favorite.

Marchand was iconic. She didn't have to be like the Italian women you knew in person, R115. She *was* Livia Soprano.

One of my favorite supporting characters was Artie Bucco. A friend of Tony's since high school, but never got drawn into the life, possibly due to the strong woman he married, Charmaine, who wanted absolutely no favors from Tony or anyone else connected, and who had a little bit of history with Tony, but soundly rebuffed him when he tried to approach her.

I liked the story line of Artie's ill fated crush on Adriana, when he got his ear pierced and showed up at her nightclub. And the night he whipped up the rabbit dinner for everyone when there was a power outage.

Yes! Loved the Artie Bucco character and actor - so funny. He was one of David Chase's favorites.

That was a good episode, when Artie "invested" in Armagnac (brandy), borrowed money from Tony, and got his ass kicked by the French guy.

Artie was one of the few characters who talked to Tony any way he (Artie) wanted to talk. That was because they knew each other from way back. But, then again, a lot of them knew each other from way back and they still kissed Tony's ass.

I liked the feud between Artie and Benny (played by Max Casella). I always felt Max was doing his best Joe Pesci impersonation as Benny.

I'm on the Vito and Johnnycakes episodes now. Thank God for the subplots and that Johnnycakes is hot.

R121 Artie had great timing with his suicide attempt and Tony finding out about Gloria hanging herself. Any other time and he'd have been another Davey Scotino.

Mikey Palmice was one of my favorite characters but was killed off early.

The Johnny cakes episodes were odd. I enjoyed them and liked seeing some gay characters but I kept wondering why he’d want to date a guy who looked like Vito. Must be slim pickings in small town Vermont for gays.

The handsome guy who played Johnny Cakes died by suicide. Sad.

I’m watching Commendatori from season 2. Con Te Partiro plays 3 times.

I think Commendatori was considered one of the worst episodes.

Was it really? It’s not one of the most exciting episodes but it encouraged me to keep watching.

Simon juggles Tony being stuck between the old and new, Carmela’s social and class anxieties and the petit bourgeois 1990s HBO’s audience’s concern for authenticity masterfully. Carmela in her McMansion, decorated tastefully beige, doing laundry and mooning to schlocky, earnest and passionate Andrea Bocelli is genius.

I liked "Commendatori," and it's an important one in the long term for bringing Furio into the fold, where he'll remain for the next two seasons. I did not have many complaints about the show in its first two seasons. Season 3 was when it started to decline a bit, but the standout episodes of that season, such as "Employee of the Month" and "Pine Barrens," were some of the best of the series.

I looked at IMDb's user grades, and they have "Commendatori" ranked 49th out of 86 episodes. So, many above it and many below, but it settles in the upper part of the lower half.

The lowest-ranked episode of the 86 is "Christopher," the notorious Columbus Day-themed episode.

I don't get teh love for Marchand. She just doesn't seem Italian-American. Falco, on the other hand, seemed like so many Italian American women of my generation. I could tolerate the writers' inability to keep coming up with good plots with her because she played the role so well.

I didn’t like Seasons 1 and 2 and never rewatch those episodes. Season 3 is when it got better, IMO.

Tony Soprano, in Seasons 1 and 2, reminded me of George Costanza.

The Sopranos podcast is worth listening to, although Steve Schirripa is molto annoying.

I just listened to the Commendatori episode of the podcast and Steve Schirripa cracked me up when he whispered that the actress who played Annalisa is Scientologist, like he’s a yenta at a coffee klatch, before launching into his Scientology recruitment story.

Was Big Pussy a popular character? Because I didn’t watch the show until 2008 or 2009 with my father when he first became ill (miss you, pops). But I remember from when the show was on people talked about his character a lot (maybe because of his nickname?) but he died as early as season 2.

I hated that character (Big Pussy) and the actor, Vincent Pastore, as well. It always sounded like he was "reading lines." He was on Celebrity Weight Loss Club and his personality was oafish. My guess is that David Chase realized how bad his acting was and had him be an FBI informant, hence killed off.

Adriana got killed off for being an FBI informant, but that was season 5. IMO, the show suffered after that. Christopher's new wife was boring.

No one's mentioned the awful CGI in "Proshai, Livushka."

Marchand had died in between seasons, and rather than recast the role or simply write her out as dead, they did some TERRIBLE CGI that took her facial movements of old scenes and pasted them over the face of a body double. Go look it up on YouTube. It'll make you puke sideways.

It would've been far more impactful for Tony to get a call in the night that said "Tony, your mother's dead." Then he could've spent the next day moping around the house, wrestling with his complicated feelings for the old bitch and pissed off that he'd never get a chance to finish the unfinished business he had with her. They could've even spliced in some flashback scenes of a young Tony and a young Livia (played by different actors) to show specific moments where Liv was loving or monstrous to her son. Flashback scenes, if you will. And just end it with Tony sitting on the diving board, staring into space.

THERE'S your fuckin' Emmy, boys!

I loved the series, but always wished they had a little more flashback scenes; I remember the one where young Janice rides along with Johnnyboy to some carnival. I would love to have seen glimpses of Tony and Carmela dating - maybe with Charmaine Bucco somewhere in the mix, along with a young Artie...

I loved when Janice stole the Russian bitch's prosthetic leg.

You look like Puerto Rican whore!

I'm surprised Tony didn't kill Christopher sooner, like when he killed Adriana's dog. Accidently but Tony liked animals. OP, I'm convinced the Russian climbed a tree in Pine Barrens and that's why they couldn't find him.

Tony didn't know that Christopher killed Adriana's dog until the intervention. By that time, Tony had already killed Ralph because of Pie-O-My, the horse.

Paulie Walnuts was quite the looker back in the day. He attended school with Woody Allen.