Great Episode

62
Junior's Funeral story does tie into Tony's story. Junior relizes that he is all alone after years in crime. All he has to look forward to is funerals to allow him an opportunity to escape his house arrest.

Junior starts to cry just as Father Phill tells the funeral story of the husband and wife who died weeks apart becuase their love was so strong.

Somewhere inside I think Tony will start to relize that the most important thing in his world is his wife and kids. I only hope it wont be too late!!.

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Re: stop trying to make this episode look good

63
<blockquote>Quote:<hr>So please stop defending this episode. IT SUCKED!<hr></blockquote>

Perhaps you should realize that this is a forum for the public expression and exchange of opinions and analyses about The Sopranos, not your personal forum, the content of which you're entitled to dictate.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Johnny's goomar was painful to watch, not in a heart wrenching way, but in a poorly written, poorly cast way. . . . The "Happy Birthday" scene was possibly the worst scene and maybe the jump the shark moment of the series.<hr></blockquote>

She became increasingly difficult to watch. By the time of that "Happy Birthday" fiasco, she was fully exposed as a carcass, the picked over, decayed remnants of a professional goomar whose whole life was built on seduction and flirtation and receipt of flattery, who traded sex with powerful men for furs and vacations and love nests and broken promises and never gave nor received real love. She wound up aged and alone with nothing but memories to show for it all.

Now if you were uncomfortable watching that, if you wanted to look away as much by the end as Tony did, you had the exact reaction you were intended to have. That is the greatest compliment you could pay to the writing.

Her plight paralleled Junior's in some ways, with his realization of an empty life spent pursuing money and things that don't sustain in later years.

All of this was in contrast to the 66-year marriage of Tony's aunt and uncle who had a huge and ostensibly loving family and were so close they even died within 2 weeks of each other. Their relationship made some impression on Tony, as he spoke rather admiringly and wistfully about it to Fran, who obviously couldn't relate and was happy to move on to flirtation with the waiter who delivered their wine.

All these things would seem to be important in Tony's current psychological constitution as the question of whether he and Carmela will ever reunite, and what must change in him for that to happen, looms large over the series.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Can anyone tell me one genuinely funny moment from last night? <hr></blockquote>

Many. The exchanges about dogs between Janice, Tony, and Bobby & kids was hilarious to me.

Janice: He dragged his a$$ around on the carpet just to scratch it.

Janice: He was gassed.

Tony's innocent look of shock and incredulity, followed by Janice saying: "He's so cynical about everything else."

Little Bobby: I'll pick up his pee and poop.

Janice: Start with your underwear.

Then there was Tony's unintentionally hilarious emoting when he saw the picture of "Tippy", aka "Freckles" in Fran's house.

Tony: Aw Godd@mnit! That's my f---ing dog!. I'm sorry but that was my dog! His name was Tippy.

Tony's defensive denial to Melfi of an Oedipal attraction to Fran.

Tony: Don't cream yourself! I do not want to f--- my mudda!

And of course Tony getting sexually turned off by Valentina's command to show he "loved" her and suddenly getting turned right back on by a Wiemaraner in a fur coat. Aside from the Fran symbolism, that was just freaking hilarious to me.

Maybe the funniest line of the show was Tony narrating how his aunt died.

Tony: They think it was a heart attack. Uncle Zio (?) found her on the couch after Meet the Press.


</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub132.ezboard.com/bsopranolandf ... fisWall</A> at: 4/19/04 11:23 pm

Re: stop trying to make this episode look good

64
I thought the last episode was in the top 3 of crap for all time!

This one is not far behind!

I find myself looking at the clock, and saying "come on"!

The stories from the old lady ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh geeeeee! I felt uncomfortable! HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYYYYYYYYYYY DEARRRRRRRRRRRR TONYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! OUCH!

We are down to 16 or so shows,,,,,,,,,, there is no need for a dink!

Forget, the color of the socks or the fish on the floor,,,, or the dog on the wall!





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Re: In Camelot

65
First-time poster, thanks for this chance and forum, i've been lurking and can't contain myself after one of those episodes that neatly illustrates the huge appeal of this show -- and its divisiveness.
i call this a very good episode, the only thing between it and greatness being that grafted-on Chrissy storyline which had little heft to it (thought it did provide some laughs).
Couple points relating to previous posts: i thought there was the usual amount of black humour (Junior's funeral-of-the-week searches, his "the chicken's good -- very spicy" line) and Bacala humour (they tell all the kids that. there must be 17 million dogs at that farm. dog s*** piled up everywhere). not funny? no way.
as has been pointed out much better by Fly and others, this one's about Tony's journey to some form of enlightenment. He goes to his parents' gravesite, has a chance meeting and proceeds to literally walk in his father's footsteps at the side of Fran. Except that she's shown to be a fraud, and so is Tony's father -- and most incredibly, Tony realizes all this (if this is boring, give me more!)
But he's also looking into his future, as it stands now -- The mistress, who can't pay her phone bill, has nothing but dubious stories -- and more importantly, Junior. Alone. Taking meds to deal with his condition -- and broken down and black-dog depressed when the meds wear off. Some future.
As for Fran's character, she's run her course. She won't be back. She served to turn another crack in Tony's foundation into a chasm. As soon as he gets to the edge of it he (typically) backs away. He's still lying for his father at the end. (You'd think his father was Sammy G and Fran was Judith Campbell for all he turns Fran's story into -- talk about a fish story. First her whopper. Then Tony's.)
As usual, great details: "Cannon" on TV during the flashback ... Bacala, Janice and the kids, such a warm family ... JT playing Snood instead of working ... Jackie Gleason theme to close ... Emmy in the pawnshop ... "You shoulda called me!!!" ... and once again, Tony relating to animals better than people.

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Re: 'In Camelot' ~ Review

66
I thought a couple of things were interesting. First, the idea of addiction-enabler or in the broader sense sinner-enabler of sin. In this series, very few people do the wrong thing repeatedly (drugs, cheating, whatever) without having someone close to them enable that. That is, without having someone close to them who KNOWS that the Behavior X is wrong, and that someone still helps/allows it to progress. We see as early as Tony's teens him being forced to cover for his father's monumental lapse of judgment in choosing his whore over his unborn child/wife.

Second--the very last scene. Tony defends, and even inflates, the portrait of his dad's comare (and by extension, his dad) by making her into some paramour in the harem of JFK instead of what she was--a *maybe* one time, one night stand. Incredible. The look on his face at the end--when he swallows the drink? It's like he has to wash the bad taste of the lie out of his mouth. But if he exposed the lie, he'd have to admit that he and everyone that lives "the life" is living a lie too.

Speaking of "living"...what a great casting choice as the younger Livia.

sofia

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...

67
I think the funniest line of the episode belonged to Chris, when, after laying out the terms of Tim Daly's repayments, quipped: "Don't look at me like that. This is your problem, not mine. I will not #&$% enable you."

Hysterical stuff...

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Camelot

68
cutthroat,
You're right, it was the "jump the shark" point of the show.

Poly Bergen having to sing "Happy Birthday Mr. President" was just plain embarrising. She's quite a trooper to agree and then go through with the "performance".

flyonmelfiswall, HUH?

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The Singing Comare

69
My take on it was that it was embarrassing in the way that
Christopher killing Cosette by stoning out on top of her was--awful to watch, makes you cringe, but critical if we are going to understand Johnny Boy's comare, or Christopher, etc.

Tony attempts to find something noble or admirable in this woman and discovers that she's what Valentina, or Irina, or whomever will be one day. Which is what makes the very last scene in that episode all the more interesting. What will win: his desire to see his actions (the comare life) as defendable and traditional, or his sneaking and growing suspicion that in his own way, he's been as despicable to Carm as his dad was to Livia.

Just a respectful counterpoint, not much that hasn't already been said.

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Sub-par episodes

70
If there's one thing I dislike about these message boards, it's that no one likes to admit when an episode is not very good. Just because an episode has subtext does not make it exciting to watch. I like to rewatch most episodes during the week, this won't be one of them.

I was one of the more vocal dissidents of season 4 for the same reason - I found the episodes "deep", but not particularly interesting. I never did buy S4 on DVD though I religiously rewatch the others.

This is not to say this episode, or season 4, was wholly terrible. There's always something to like about each episode. My least favorite of all is "A Hit is a Hit", but it still contains some great moments.

I'm not one of those people who need a killing every episode. At the same time, I don't like boring episodes where nothing much happens, and very slowly at that. It is possible for the shows to be compelling and fast-paced.

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