Finished it last night and I’m so blown away at how amazing it was. RIP to James Gandolfini, he was a treasure.
To me, Tony was obsessed with the past because he was born at the end of the history of the Mafia. Their days are numbered as the FBI hunts them down and social changes assure they won’t get new guys in. Him watching WWII films when “men were men”, Gary Cooper, blaming Carmella for AJ because she coddled him all reflect his worldview.
Tony was wacked because if you remember in one of the last scenes Butch was walking through Little Italy and somehow ended up in Chinatown. The world has changed and they’re a bunch of old men killing each other for a lifestyle that’s dead.
Melfi was the perfect foil to Tony.
I don’t if that is a coherent response because my mind is still swirling after finishing it lol.
To me, Tony was obsessed with the past because he was born at the end of the history of the Mafia. Their days are numbered as the FBI hunts them down and social changes assure they won’t get new guys in. Him watching WWII films when “men were men”, Gary Cooper, blaming Carmella for AJ because she coddled him all reflect his worldview.
David Chase has said before one of the themes he was shooting for is how everyone is a hypocrite in life. You can see this with how Tony treats AJ and it's no different in a way from how his own father treated him. Tony's father was a monster and he becomes just like him.
Tony was wacked because if you remember in one of the last scenes Butch was walking through Little Italy and somehow ended up in Chinatown. The world has changed and they’re a bunch of old men killing each other for a lifestyle that’s dead.
One of the main themes of that show, is that it was supposed to demonstrate a fictional account of the decline of the mafia through every possible way it could. This scene shows how corporatism has hurt their rackets of extorting small businesses. It's often lost in discussion that the Italian mafia began to truly decline around the late 70s and early 80s. I used to read mafia history and have went through dozens of books as a hobby. The NYC families closed the books for new membership in the 60s and when they finally re-opened them in the late 70s, they changed the blood rule. It used to be that you had to be 100% Italian, but after they had declined through the 70s, the rule was changed that you had to be at least half and your father needed to be Italian. Lack of made men in the families through a decade explains why someone like John Gotti was able to skip the soldier position and outright be a capo as soon as he was made.
Their decline was coming for a number of reasons with the FBI, changing of culture and society and one major thing - they couldn't stop killing each other. If you research mafia stuff from the late 70s through the 80s, you'll find all these mobsters who were walking serial killers and had crazy high kill numbers. The most notorious is probably Roy DeMeo who arguably has the highest kill numbers of a mobster on record. The infamous DeMeo crew literally were serial killers; they found killing to be fun and would get "depressed" after going a bit of time without murdering anyone. DeMeo is only one guy out of many (but easily the most interesting. Check out the book "Murder Machine" by Jerry Capeci); Gaspipe Casso, Sammy Gravano, and Greg Scarpa were also serial killers.
Phil Leotardo is one of my favorite Sopranos characters and he is a good fictional depiction of the war lord bosses that took over families. Carmine was hands down, the smartest boss on that show. He was old school and more worried about his money and trying to avoid bloodshed. Phil was the complete opposite of this, and it fits with how some of the NYC families ended up having crazy blood thirsty bosses that were willing to bring the entire thing down to kill their enemies.
The way the NYC mob in that show treat Jersey as a joke is 100% accurate to real life. The Jersey family was seen as a joke, or a "glorified crew" as it's repeated about the Sopranos (and they really are a glorified crew. Outside of Silvio, Tony really don't have another guy who is a great earner unless you go back to Vito or Ralphie who both end up dead).
Tony is truly a terrible boss on that show and brings that entire family down. Every season, he makes absurd dumb decisions for the family while satisfying his ego. They really drive it a point all through the show he's not a good boss.
Thank you for this write up. I appreciate it. It really hammers home the themes of the show. Carmine really was the best boss. Calm, collected, and always logical.
Also thank you for saying Tony was a terrible boss because I say the same thing all the time and I always get blank stares.
"This is Scarface, final scene, fucking bazookas under each arm.''
RIP Gandolfini indeed. This is a cool video I recommend to see him outside of the Sopranos. That man was a treasure. Never heard a bad story about him. He was one of those actors who you could put in a lousy film with a crappy script and he would elevate it with his performance alone. I seen him in the remake of All The King's Men and he was the only memorable part of that movie.
The Sopranos is a classic show. It actually understood it was a TV show and didn't try to be something it was not. The characters aren't black and white (good vs evil), there's plenty of grey and one of the major aspects that made it appealing was how it all centered around a dysfunctional family. There's bits and pieces you can relate to in it, outside of the mafia stuff. Even considering the mafia theme of the show, the main element was demonstrating the decline of the mafia and they did that very well.
It's not terrible at all. It's probably the best show to come out in the past 30 years. It's so well acted and had some strong writing it in. Everyone of the main cast and most of the guests puts in A+ performances in acting.
Yeah people forget the show started more as a dark comedy and then toward that 3-4 season it starts to take itself very seriously.
I actually didn't like the later seasons of the show that got way too involved with episodes about his children. They started to lose me. I liked it strictly as a mob drama. I am sorry but I don't give a fuck where Meadow Soprano goes to college or who her stupid boyfriend is.
