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by Splishak
I would add Tony's line, "You're a momma's boy!" which he said to AJ during the therapy session with AJ, Tony, Carm and AJ's shrink.
It's not so much the words he spoke, but he spoke them in exactly the same intonation as Junior used to use when he said cruel things to Tony. I seem to remember one thing he said to Tony or about Tony, "He was a hothouse flower." I don't know what it means, but it sounds like a synonym for "wimpy". It is like watching Tony devolve into Junior and passing this behavior along to AJ who will pass it along, in turn. Holy Shit!
Anyway, Junior has said other things (I think one was, "He never had the makings of a varsity athlete") and if you check some of those scenes and compare them to Tony's saying, "You're a momma's boy!", I believe you will find the exact same intonation.
It's interesting that lately Tony is saying the same things that both Livia and Junior have said in the past. If not the exact same words, then the same intonation. It's as if I was listening to Junior say that line. Clementine made a stunning point in another thread along the lines that Tony married his mother. I had never seen that before, but now, I can see it in so many ways, Carm is very much like Livia. And now we see Tony devolving into his mother and his uncle too. What does it all mean? Are we all powerless to escape our upbringing? As we get older, do we all transform into stereotypes of our parents and the other adults who raised us? Or, is it just those of us who have failed to grow up that get caught in this trap?
I'm not at all sure as to the meaning of Tony behaving like his Mother and/or Uncle Junior or Tony marrying someone like his mother, but I have a feeling this all relates to that and that we may be getting closer to some kind of breakthrough in our understanding of the series. It seems like a major point to understanding this entire saga is about something that Hair on Melfi's Twat said,
"Just more explanation of how disfunctional families pass on the behavioral cues that keep future families disfunctional. If AJ lives, this is just how he will speak to his kids, and his kids will do the same, and so forth. Unless, of course, someone in the family decides to break the crazy chain... Meadow, if she lives, has the potential to have a moderately health family if she stays away from her own family, if they live. Isn't this sick... "if they live?" What a life, huh?"
Oops. I am editing this post but it appears previous to HOMT's post two posts below. But I want to refer to his post here. Sorry. That must be confusing. But I don't want to try and take any credit for posting this point. It wasn't my brainstorming that resulted in this idea. It was both Clementine and Hair on Melfi's Twat and maybe some others too. It was very clever thinking and seems like it is a major concept in understanding this saga about The Sopranos. One of the major planks in this platform is the notion of how this dysfunctional behavior is passed along from generation to generation. That is mostly the idea that I have to acknowledge belongs to Hair on Melfi's Twat. But it is a great concept! It seems to be one of the major concepts in this entire saga.