The Sopranos (HBO) TV Show • Page 55

Chris is far and away my favorite, but i think as far as character transformation goes Bobby is one of the best characters.

 

I love AJ just for the wardrobe. But Chris is prob my favorite.

 

season 3 episode 1 aj has the best wardrobe

 

Is that the slipknot jacket? Cause that ruled.

 

That's 303

 

An underrated character is Furio. He has very little development at first, but is one of the highlights of season four. You really do believe, if only for a moment, that he is going to kill Tony.

 

Furio is great. I actually 'aw''d when he came back from Italy and didn't bring a present for Carmella and had to sit in the car cause he couldn't love her.

Aw furio!

 

Paulie is far and away the best character, but all the majors are great except Vito, who is pretty clearly outclassed in acting terms by everyone else on the show

 

I love the sopranos but the overall narrative and style of BCS I find much more compelling. Sopranos episodes feel a bit more episodic, which can be good in some situations, but sometimes things feel like they don't matter that much because they only focus on it for one episode. Everything feels very significant in BCS. But that's just me

 

Idk, at least in the later seasons, it becomes apparent every episode seems to build to something greater

 

A lot of the things that seem to be dropped in the show are actually serving a purpose. Pine Barrens is probably the most obvious example; the Russian never comes back, but it serves to drive a wedge between Paulie and Tony while also bringing Tony closer to Bobby. They might not be mentioned directly, but those two relationships are on very different long-term paths and the episode works as part of it.

 

The B-story with Gloria and Tony reinforced the fact that he is attracted to toxic women that reminds him of his mother.

 

I'm not gonna say anything about dropped storyline cause I'm not done yet but the one I'm happy that got forgotten was that weird moment when Artie was in love with Adriana.

I know that was built more to show his lost interest in his own wife but still when that happened I yelled haha artie!! Wtf u doing???

 

But that is part of a larger arc for Artie, which is his desire to be like Tony. He sees Tony and his men with young women all the time, and as his wife gets older he starts to gravitate toward his young hostesses (he does it multiple times). He isn't really in love with her, he just wants her, which we see transfer from one hostess to the next.

 

Yea, Artie’s whole arc is based on jealousy. He grew up with Tony and Sil but chose a legitimate life as a business owner and yet is jealous of other’s successes. He also resents Tony for destroying the original Vesuvios. Artie is also jealous of Benny since he got to have Martina as his mistress despite having a pregnant wife at the time.

 

He ends up being courageous, though. He is going to spend the rest of his life working long hours, always at the whims of small profits and competition, but he is never going to have to look up at the door every time someone comes in because he did not choose the path that his other friends did. He comes close to screwing up, like investing in the wine scam or trying to go head-to-head with Benny, but he comes out in the end with his dignity. Liquid Terminator is the tragic version of Artie because he lets Tony destroy his life.

 

Another character I like a lot is Little Carmine. Everyone thinks he is an idiot, but he ends up being the wisest of the bunch, choosing to largely stay to the sideline instead of fighting for power. While everyone else is getting killed or going to jail, he escapes unscathed. He will make twenty Cleaver sequels and sleep on a bed of money.

 

Obviously there are things that drop off that do loom over the whole show but some things just kinda happen idk, I still love the show!

 

I’m convinced Artie was the inspiration for Matt in The Leftovers. The obvious parallel is simply that both tend to have their single focus episode each season. But also that they both struggle so deeply with the temptations around them, and even when they overcome those temptations they still end up seeming like absolute sad sacks.

 

Wanted to rewatch a random episode and went with Walk Like A Man. Shit is so good.

 

I didn’t watch it when it came out of course but were people disappointed in season 3 at release? Cause my girlfriend feels like Ralphie is just Ritchie again and Jackie jr is a retread of Matt and Sean, and without knowing where the season goes I can sorta get why she’d say that

 

the Ralph stuff is going somewhere legitimately essential

Jackie Jr is generally considered one of the worst arcs I think, but not really the writer's fault. there was a season long arc planned with Livia, but Nancy Marchand died suddenly, so they pretty much improvised Jackie Jr as they went. also hence that truly nightmarish CGI Livia scene in episode 2

 

I wasn't watching it at the time, but a lot of people turned on the show around season four when it started to change tonally.

 

Ralph is up there as one of my favorite minor characters, dude's such a shithead.

 

Joey Pants is the best