I know this sounds like a silly question however, after reading all the fantastic posts, analyses and opinions/interpretations of posters here in the "HBO TRAILER" thread re: Tony and Ralphie and how Ralphie, regardless of his faults was actually someone who played by "Mob" rules, if not civilian ones when Tony over the past 5 seasons has continually flouted them....

I was reminded on the ep. where Tony beats the crap out of Mikey in the street and staplesd his own parking ticket to his chest with an industrial staple gun...it just stood out in respect to the points i make above.

When Tony hit Ralphie in the Bing carpark over the Tracee incident, in the aftermath, as much as people may not have liked Ralphie, many people, Silvio especially, acknowledged thar Tony had wronged in hitting a MADE guy, regardless of how bad the Tracee killing may have been as, in the weird world of Mobster, Ralphie had a legitamate beef in that "she was not related to Tony by blood or marriage, she was not his goomar...", Ralphie hadnt broken any mob rules and all the guys were gossiping secretly at how Tony had f###ed up in a sense.

As Mikey at the time was Junior's consigliere i would assume he was made but yet why was Tony's beating of him, not met with the same backlash??

Could it be that Junior and his crew (and indeed Livia) had more things to worry about in showing good-face in light of Tony surviving their murder attempt on him or could it even be a more clinical reason in that as all this with Mikey happened in the first season, the writing team were busy establishing elements of the charachter profiles and laying down what would become the backstory for subsequent seasons that there therefore werent required to delve as deeply into the inner mafia feeling on issues such as hitting a made-man at that time?

Just stands out for me, especially as it was one of Juniors guys.



On the subject of Mikey - regarding his ghost appearance in "TEST DREAM", Tony turns to him in the back of Johnny's Cadillac with a look of disgust and proclaims along the lines of "I know i'm dreaming a$$hole" to which Mikey responds "One way or another, i have no opinion"...

i was always pained to understand exactly what this meant within the context of both the scene and the whole show.

Was it simply meant to mean:

Im a figmant of your imagination right know so i dont have the power to answer back to you - anything i may or may not say is still being projected by YOUR own subconscious / suppressed feelings of me.

Or is there something more symbolic and far-reaching to Mikeys remark as when he says it, he seems strangely and erriely at peace within himself IMO.


Giuseppe Soprano



</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p196.ezboard.com/bsopranolandfor ... m>Giuseppe Soprano</A> at: 2/25/06 6:22 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>As Mikey at the time was Junior's consigliere i would assume he was made but yet why was Tony's beating of him, not met with the same backlash??<hr></blockquote> This was the first season, maybe the writers didn't know that mob-rule. They didn't know that 'the don wasn't supposed to be wearing shorts'. Some real-life wiseguy pointed this out and later Chase added it to the story. (Carmine was lecturing Tony about wearing shorts.)

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In Meadowlands episode where Chris is ready to go after Mikey for killing Brendan Tony says what are you doing Mikey Palmice's a Made Man. So they do actually say he's made even though I would have asumed he was made anyway being as he was Juniors right hand man or consigliere as pointed out.

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Maybe it's different because Ralphie was hit by Tony right in front of everyone.


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Its a good question. Does someone remember why exactly Tony was so mad at Mikey here? I guess there are exceptions in certain cases.

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this may be out there a little, but I remember when Silvio explained to Tony about how his hitting Ralph was bad news, Sil said that Tracee (the stripper Ralph killed) was not Tony's goumar and not his relative by blood or marriage so T had no foothold in hitting Ralph. However, Tony beat on Mikey P because he setup (on behalf of Junior) the mock execution of Christopher in the Meadowlands. Because Chrissy is a relative, maybe it was deemed OK for Tony to ruff up Mikey a little. But that's just what I always told myself to explain this...

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I completely agree with you bacala, good post. The reason why Tony's beating of Mikey wasn't frowned upon by everyone as much as Ralph's was because of the reasoning.

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I loved Tony's jokes about Mikey.

Tony: "Hey, Mikey. How's the boy?"
Mikey: "What boy is that, Ton'?"
Tony: "The one you're sleeping with."

<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin">

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I liked the scene with T beating up Mikey. And I think Bacala has a good point about why it was OK for what Tony did.

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But didn't Tony seem to have a dislike for Mikey even before the mock execution? Didn't the staple incident take place before that?