Re AJ and Carm

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That is a good possibility, AJ could get more involved with drugs and alcohol.

I don't want to sound like a *sshole, but Carm got what she wanted, I don't feel bad for her one Iota. She choose to marry Tony and get involved in that "world". If she wanted to enjoy buying a new car ever couple months, gorgeous house, etc.. She would have to deal with the life of a Mobsters wife. That means "tolerating" the cheating, not knowing where money comes from, violence. etc.. You can't have your cake and eat it too. She probably never thought of how alone she would be. I also think Edie had an amazing performance in the last episode!!!

Anybody think Furio might make a return, or have any more mention of him?

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It's been awhile since I've read Madame Bovary, but A.J.'s school counselor told Carmella that it was a story about a lady who got trapped up in this fantasy world and ended up a tragic figure because that fantasy never became reality.


I guess I thought this was actually referencing Carmella and Furio. Makes more sense to me.

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more on carmella

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Writing that it might get more tragic due to the possiblity of A.J. not surviving season 5 was just pure speculation on my part.

I guess one of the endearing things about this show from my perspective is that I'm actually rooting for the Soprano family as a whole. I want to see them do well and I want to see them reunited into one big happy family that can somehow endure what has happened to them and still seem to come out on top. Maybe they had to endure 25 years of a mob-marriage between Tony and Carmella and maybe they had to endure Carmella's vice of materialism and Tony's vice of immorality and crime. It sounds unbelieveably cheesy but I'm hoping for love to trump all of it and reunite them all. I think this is what FOMW is rooting for too when you read a lot of her comments on the finality of what the Sopranos might look like in the end.

However, it just doesn't seem like it might be a reality. One thing that makes me say that is the seen in "Whitecaps" where Tony just got the Chinese takeout and he, Carm, and A.J. are sitting down to dinner and A.J. says the F-word and Carm says he's fined $3 and that her policy is going to work. A.J. replies that it's "too late". It's funny, I watched the commentary on "Whitecaps" on the Season 4 DVDs and I was hoping that David Chase might comment on that exchance a lot more than just saying that A.J. was right in the fact the family has been cussing forever so it's too late to try and stop it.

My take on that exchange was, yes, it was too late to try to get A.J. to use cleaner language, but I thought it also could mean that it's just too late for the Soprano family to change as a whole; there is no hope for it to become this idealized family that Carm so desperately wants it to be. It's just too late for Carm. In a way she devoted her entire life to A.J. and Meadow and she ruined it completely. Meadow shows no loyalty or love towards Carm at all and now she even seems put out by Carm as evidence by last week's episode. Granted, Meadow is at Columbia, but she's not doing particularly well there unless dating boys is success. A.J. is a lost cause and now Carm doesn't have her little boy anymore either.

Even Carm's marriage is over. I'm one who thinks Tony is an absolute genius and I figured that coming into Season 5, we would have seen Tony a little more contrite over losing Carm, and although I think you can still see that there is genuine love between the two of them, I just don't see Tony that broken up over losing Carmella. What we've seen in the first 4 episodes is Tony telling Silvio that he gets to do what he wants, fuck who he wants, stay out as late as he wants, and having a different "mindset". We also see Tony pursuing Melfi, although that probably never happens.

OK, now to A.J. not surviving. In my opinion, it just seems that it seemed Season 4 was a dark season, but Season 5 is almost starting out even darker. I want the Sopranos to end on a sunny note, but we all know that isn't going to happen and it's going to get even uglier than what it already is.

I'm guessing that Tony will survive for the entire series, but I could easily see him ending up like his uncle with nobody around him and just tragedy in his wake. Meadow and Carmella seem to be locks on surviving and that only leaves A.J. and something has to tragically happen to the Soprano family and not just the "other" family.

It's just too late for everything. That is why I think the bodies will start piling up. Blundetto, A.J., Adrianna, Chrissy, Sil, Paulie, Benny, Bacala. The emotional ramifications on Tony losing everyone could take up a 13-episode season, and I can't imagine the fans not getting to see the aftermath.

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15
sounds too much like the Godfather III, which was horrible. Michael Corleone dies alone because of the family business. i know there have been many parellels to the Godfather series in the Sopranos but I would hope that David Chase thinks of something more original. Im not saying that AJ dying couldnt be spun into something more original but right now it reminds me too much of the Godfather III.
Im with you in that I want to see this Soprano family reunite and live happily ever after. I hope that Chase goes with the theme of Tony being a bad guy, but not entirely evil and somehow he will come out on top.

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What's in the cards for Carmela?

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<blockquote>Quote:<hr>It's not like she has been working as a lawyer for the last 20 years and now decided she wants to be a doctor. She's made some choices that aren't easily eraseable and it's very very unlikely she can start over from scratch. <hr></blockquote>

Excellent insight, Pizzaland. What is of particular interest to me is what her employment prospects will be like now. How is she going to support herself? That really piques my curiosity. In addition: I've never read Madame Bovary, but if the consellor was right in his synopsis of the book, then it really was the perfect parallel to Carmela's own experience, and it's hardly surprising that she responded so excitedly to the counsellor's description of the book. I think that deep down, she does realize that she is exactly the same type of tragic figure as Madame Bovary.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>sounds too much like the Godfather III, which was horrible. Michael Corleone dies alone because of the family business. i know there have been many parellels to the Godfather series in the Sopranos but I would hope that David Chase thinks of something more original. Im not saying that AJ dying couldnt be spun into something more original but right now it reminds me too much of the Godfather III. <hr></blockquote>

I agree completely. Part of the genius of The Sopranos is that it's conceptually different from any mob story that ever came before it. Enough tales of the rise and fall or the exploits of a gangster or crime familiy, a la Godfather, Scarface, Once Upon a Time in America, Goodfellas or Casino; it's been done too many times already.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Im with you in that I want to see this Soprano family reunite and live happily ever after. I hope that Chase goes with the theme of Tony being a bad guy, but not entirely evil and somehow he will come out on top. <hr></blockquote>

I agree with the second sentence and disagree with the first. I think everyone agrees that Tony is not fundamentally an evil human being. Richie Aprile or Ralph Cifaretto, maybe, but not Tony. Ruthless, yes, but not evil. Definitely the ending of the series should be consistent with that. But I don't think that entails the familiy reuniting and "living happily ever after". First of all, that's hardly realistic. Second of all, too much acrimony has built up between Carmela and Tony and between Carmela and her kids; there's no way to sweep all that under a rug now and pretend it never happened. What's more, IMO, that family was never a particularly happy or well-functioning one to begin with. We've seen that already and the end of the series will, I think, make that more than abundantly clear.

But then, what the hell do I really know?












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