Re: The confrontation between AJ and Tony

32
AJ is an idiot and most everyone knows that. Does he ever listen? No....I doubt it.

While it was a heartfelt speech from Tony to his son I doubt anything sank in.

AJ is probably loving all the attention he is getting being Tony Sopranos son from those club kids. I bet he is gonna keep trying to find a way into Tonys life and I think its gonna be a continuous battle between Tony and AJ.

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Re: The confrontation between AJ and Tony

33
It was one of the best scenes of the season, except for when Junior. shot Tony. Tony pointed out to AJ in that discussion that Junior will be locked up the rest of his life in an institution due to his dementia and shooting Tony. Recall how Tony set up that guy that got out of jail to return him there and not be a challanger to him rather than kill him. Of course sending that guy back to jail and having Junior in the institution rather than killing either of them is also a painful penalty, perhaps more so than killing them. Tony has a perverse sense of morality. It is ok to Tony to kill someone who is a real threat to the mob (Big P, Adraiana), or someone who kills/hurts the innocent (Ralphie who killed the horse and the go-go dancer) but not those who cannot control those actions or are innocent or not in the mob.
Another part of the scene to me suggests that Tony and AJ both have serious mental health problems (shown best by the panic attacks) so they have a unique bond as father and son. He fears that AJ won't make it in the mob world, and not sure if he will ever make it elsewhere either. I suspect that Tony will give AJ some minor side deal to take care of, but that it will lead to AJ's demise when he screws up or something beyond his power hits him.

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Re: The confrontation between AJ and Tony

34
Moved from another thread

SkinnyGinny

Civilian
Posts: 22
Posted: 5/1/06 9:52 pm
AJ
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I have been watching the season closly as far as AJ goes. now many people dont like him but i do, i think that he is intresting. Tony tries to keep aj out, babies him, keeps him from "the life" and now AJ is a pussy and wants into a life where their is no room for pussy men. but i will tell you this, im not sure how much of him trying to kill JR was to avenge his father or impress people. at the club he seems that way but when they catch him he screams that he tried to kill his father. i was thinking about it, if AJ does get involved i would like to see him do it right. have Tony school him, it would be like watching tony come up. i dont want to see AJ fuck up and have that be the way the show ends. thoughts?


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edfarst

Civilian
Posts: 4
Posted: 5/2/06 2:24 am
Re: AJ
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I feel like we dont have enough episodes left in the series to see a huge change in AJ. I don't think theres really enough time for AJ to follow in Tony's footsteps convincingly. I do think there will be resolution with AJ, and it doesn't look like he is gonna get a normal job and live happily ever after. Honestly I can't fathom anything good happening to him at this point.


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Splishak


Civilian
Posts: 26
Posted: 5/2/06 4:14 am
Re: AJ
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Very well reasoned, Ed.




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Re: The confrontation between AJ and Tony

35
I thought it was funny that Tony kept calling AJ a "nice guy." He should have told AJ what he really meant-- "AJ, you are a spineless pussy without a backbone or a work ethic. You'd last about 2 minutes in this life."

If you think about the characters and think the situation through, do you really think AJ would have been able to pull that stabbing off?

I thought the thing that pissed Tony off the most was not the goofy murder attempt, but watching AJ cry and puke. Not much of a wiseguy in the making...

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Re: The confrontation between AJ and Tony

36
<blockquote>Quote:<hr>He was motivated by a complex of factors, including a desire to "live up" to his father's enormous image<hr></blockquote>

Unlike with Meadow, we saw great many scenes with AJ being questioned about his father. Unlike with Meadow, who asked for the thuth at the first season, we never had seen AJ asking anything from his father.

Carmela's crying and worrying in Melfi's office that the lies cannot be kept up anymore is true, the only problem is that none of them (Carm, AJ, Med) would know where to start questioning Tony.

Thoughout the entire episode I felt so sorry about AJ. Aside from the botched murder attempt (which Fly had pointed out very well- I did not immediately realized the paralell between this and the Friedkin film! ) he tried to be discreet about the family dealings as "we don't talk about these to others" by which he tried to close out that dumb massaging girl. But he is really weak. Which would raise the question: why did he ever stopped sport?

I believe that if he is the one who had the concept of sharing early on, then he had also was able to figure out the large walls of secrets between his parents-mostly raised by Tony. This could be a reaosn why he is not telling them anything.

This might seem a bit off, but when after the Columbine shootings, the parents had to face the true level of decidedness of their sons to commit the shooting. I will never forget one mother's (Kliebold's?) reaction to the fact that his son was carrying a large bag packed with guns in and out of their house: "I thought it was his BB gun."

In the episode of the last season when AJ got his eyebrows off, I thought that Tony evetnually sucked in AJ's lies. But my girlfriend had a point: Tony realizes that AJ is moving on the same crazy level as he does and he then tried to cover it up from Carm.

How could that happen that both parent's insight into their kids mind is so little? Why can't any of them see and talk to him?


</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... >wizdog</A> at: 5/2/06 8:06 am

Re: The preview scene in the video store.

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<hr />I haven't seen anyone yet discuss the scene in the video store wrt the fumbled attempt to knife Junior.

I'm not sure of the significance. Can it be just to show AJ's ineptness? Surely not. There has been more than enough so far to show that.

We have him showing moves to his friend, perhaps showing off, perhaps suggesting that he has actually prepared for a fight with a knife.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to why we are shown the scene in the video store shortly before he fumbles the knife attack on Junior?

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Re: The preview scene in the video store.

38
<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Does anyone have any thoughts as to why we are shown the scene in the video store shortly before he fumbles the knife attack on Junior?<hr></blockquote>

My take on that scene was to give us viewers the impression that he would be able to efficiently handle a knife in a combative situation. We all found out soon enough that it was AJ just showing off to his friend. When confronted with the real situation he failed miserably.

This entire episode was geared to showing the viewers that AJ is truly a born loser.

--
BobbyBuz
"Everything happens for a reason"</p>

Blockbuster fight & sympathy for AJ

39
Splishak, I discussed this briefly upthread:

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Of course against these motives are all the contrary subconscious motives, like doing the right thing, not killing another person, let alone a family member. And the clash results in delay after delay after delay followed by a poorly thought out plan that was almost certain to end in his arrest (killing or no killing). In the culminating moment of truth, in contrast to the tactic-driven, physically competent moves he showed in the "fake" knife fight at Blockbuster, he is so flustered and uncoordinated that he drops the knife before even being able to draw it from his jacket. The subconscious motives of the good little suburban kid that "had the concept of sharing before any other toddler" won out and kept him from betraying who he really is.<hr></blockquote>

To me it was there to show not that AJ lacked the physical deftness or coordination to kill Junior but that his fundamental aversion to actually doing it would act to sabotage his physical capacity in the moment of truth.

I must say that I'm shocked at the complete lack of compassion for AJ and the repeated dismissals of him as a stupid loser.

He's no Meadow, but I don't see him as stupid at all. He's probably a little above average in intelligence, just never studious. So he's never "raised his IQ", as my father used to joke, by learning.

And I see his "loser" status as not at all set in stone. He is still a kid at the cusp of adulthood, afraid of what adulthood, in his context, really means. To me it's no coincidence that he started to wretch when Tony told him he had to "grow up" and had the panic attack when the guy in the club, alluding to AJ's ability to command Mafia "muscle" for his friends, called him "the man". He is afraid of what it means to be a man in the culture in which he was raised and in which he is currently immersed . . . where the father he revered as a boy is a violent crook; where "uncles" are sociopaths like Paulie, who openly fights to drive him home just to score points with the boss; where cousins are guys like Chris, who abuses the heck out of his girlfriend and forces AJ to seek refuge in another home when he threatens to kill his father; where his grandfather figure shoots his father because he's lost the ability to regulate in any way his evil impulses; where "friends" are leeches looking to exploit his name and Mafia pedigree for personal gain, entertainment, and image enhancement in front of a gaggle of naive onlookers, like a 15 year-old club hopper who thinks AJ is "intense" after he threatens to avenge his father's shooting.

I don't see how AJ isn't terribly sympathetic in this scenario. As a nice, regular, soft suburban kid who loved video games, hanging out at the mall, and cartoons where characters fart fire, AJ grew up like many boys, thinking his father hung the moon. And he couldn't accept otherwise, even after he began to learn around age 13 that the heroic image he had of him was extremely flawed. He is not Meadow. He doesn't have her intellect or academic bent. He wasn't therefore genetically equipped to take the path of learning to "success" in life. And, most importantly, he doesn't have two X chromosomes to shield him from the comparisons to his father and expectations of what manhood entails.

I feel more sorry for AJ than I ever have before. The kid would not have been a "loser" if his father hadn't been in the Mafia.

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... fisWall</A> at: 5/2/06 10:17 am

Re: Blockbuster fight & sympathy for AJ

40
I agree with you. Melfi told us ages ago why AJ is messed up and Meadow is not. She said it in relation to Tony as a child, but it still holds true: One day AJ may be called on to "bring home the bacon". No wonder the kid's troubled. It's a thought that attracts and repels him all at once.

I was struck by how casually AJ asked his dad on the boat (wrt Junior), "So what are we going to do about it?" He wanted to just fit right into his dad's world. Tony's refusal to bring Aj in on some revenge made AJ believe that his dad just doesn't think he's "good" enough to be a mobster (which is true). So he tried to do it on his own - to prove himself. And it ended in (for AJ) the worst result possible.

AJ doesn't understand that the mob is over, either. Not the way Tony understands it.

Did the knife scene remind anyone of when Tony dropped his gun after he tripped in front of Livia? I thought of that right away.

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