Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Your aunt and my husband. As soon as she touched his buttons, my husbands goes, "it's over." I barely had time to comprehend the scene while my husband is saying during it -- that's exactly what Carmela just did: Wife in mind, nothing will happen now. I didn't even get the chance to evaluate Tony, because of what my husband was saying during that scene. I would have missed it on my own.<hr></blockquote>

I thought (and hoped) that with Carmela's buttoning of T's shirt, even before he left to meet Julianna that Tony might back out at the last minute. I thought it might happen because he seemed to acknowledge Carmela at that moment and what she gives him as a wife. I hoped it would happen predominantly because I felt that had he gone through with being unfaithful it would have made a mockery of any previous comments with regard to him changing - both in terms of what he has said himself, and not least by what has been said on this forum. This was the first time he had an opportunity to be unfaithful and had he taken it, he would in large part be back to square one with regards to his own "redemption". (Something which i feel, as has been said many times on these boards, must happen - at least in some level - by the series' end).

The fact that he has set this precedent means, IMO, it is unlikely he will be unfaithful in future. I also attribute the same importance to this exercise of self control as Melfi did when she had been told (albeit untruthfully) that Tony had refused Adriana in S5.

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Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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"She did her best."

Carm forgot to stock the refrigerator with some smoked turkey, and now the big guy's pissed because he's been out 'busting his ass' all day and comes home to this act of 'gross negligence' :-)

My quote above is of course, from his later session with Melfi where she implies that Tony may have feelings regarding Carmela's significant part in AJ's problems. He thinks about this for a second then (avoiding eye contact with her for quite some time during his reply) says: 'I don't know -- no -- she's a good mother'.

I think it's interesting to say the least that his rant at Carmela is artificially spawned out of (in his eyes - ) her 'not pulling her weight' in the home; that he's been out all day (signing away part of his heritage) but generally, 'busting his ass' and she isn't keeping her end of the 'deal' - you know, the good little housewife part where the man works and the woman nests.
Tony can go out and do 'certain things' at 'work' - (fuck - steal - did I say kill yet?) and her responsibility is to look after the home -- and of course, the kids - AJ.
His son just recently tried to carve up his own turkey of an uncle and it's here I'm thinking how Tony's view of his and Carm's 'parental guidance' over the years may just be changing for the worse.


But let's not forget: where Tony 'comes from' (and boy was it reinforced in this one), things happened 'differently' - (men were men; the old 'lady' and her 'values'; the ancestry of the neighbourhood; and (although not centre stage here) where women were confined to the back-seat of the car and kept at home with the children.

Tony's 'kept' Carm as the housewife since Day1. In a way, to him, she's more responsible for the children. Their son is armed and dangerous now - does Tony accept some responsibility for this? Or does he solely blame Carmela for not...doing her job?

He knows that he has kept AJ a million miles away from the Mafia (whatever AJ 'picks up' by just being around this and his father, he still (right or wrong) believes he steered his son in the right direction re: this) yet, here he's pulling a Michael Corleone with regards to avenging the father, albeit botching the job up.

He has to confront the issue that the simple act of watching a film with his son, does more to predetermine AJ than all the teaching and influence that he should rightly expect from Carmela. Tony thinks he's done his best to keep AJ out of it, now he has to question why his boy is so into it.

Hold that thought.


When he can't go through with the extramarital sex (and the shirt/buttons reference is a killer here guys -- completely missed it, too caught up in the will he/won't he moment), Carmela weighs heavily on his thoughts, as does 'everything she did' for him during his recuperation (caring/dressing etc.) -- 'you think I'm going to betray that?'

We know he doesn't betray this; we know that the lack of poultry in the fridge isn't his 'real' reason for yelling at Carm; and we don't know if he really thinks Carmela is responsible in any way, shape or form for how their son has turned out/is turning out - (but when he says 'she did her best', there is definite disheartenment there).


To the point:

I think Tony is so angry because this is what he's coming home to, this 'bad smell'. He's giving-up a lot here, the old ways. And the feelings that Carmela helped him through the 'nightmare', dressed him, nursed him, feelings that say he owes her something for this, are getting in the way of his hard to put down desires.
Of course I'm not saying he doesn't truly love Carmela, but when he has to reason that he can't do what he wants to do (re: Juliana) because he 'owes' Carm this at-least, he is reminded (by recent AJ -- the 'smell') that she really hasn't been keeping the house in order (not that it's just down to the mother you understand, in a perfect world and all that).
That both he and Carmela made sacrifices here; that he had a baguette the size of a...baguette for Juliana, but that he can't butter it (so to speak) at the moment because, boy, look how good his wife has been to him throughout all this.

I go back to when Tony was almost out for the count and how during her unshared devotion solely to him, AJ was falling apart at the seams. Tony knows what happened with AJ when he was 'gone' -- AJ Vs. School etc. -- (I mention in an earlier post how NDE-Tony felt okay about Carm's sole responsibility to, and success at, looking after the kids, who were described as being quite younger here than in-reality), but at that time, may not have been feeling quite the way I think he's feeling now - he sees her BIG devotion to him (Back then - care. Throughout (wedding day +) - love yes, but betrothment to the buck substantially).

To reinforce this (and the central-premise):

Carm's devotion to Tony all along (therefore devotion to money and how he gets it etc.) may, in Tony's eyes, have gotten in the way of her commitment to the kids (here, specifically AJ), but Tony is finding it extremely hard to concede he owes her anything other than what he has given her throughout, especially now as AJ is showing extreme signs that he could go through with murder.

The irony to all this is of course that it's because of who Tony is, therefore who he knows, that AJ doesn't get charged with attempted murder here. Like the scene in the hospital where a cold-hearted killer and big mob goombah impart some advice to AJ that his father 'doesn't want this life for him', in those few short moments - the Mafia did more to deter AJ from 'the life', than the boy's mother ever could.

"Putting aside the moral and legal issues, clarity can't be a bad thing."


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Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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I was trying to decipher the reasons for his outburst. I received some insight from an HBO (maybe it was cinemax) movie the next day. Scent of a Woman was on and in the final big scene, where Pacino is pontificating to the Headmaster and student body he says, paraphrasing "When I came to the crossroads in my life, I never took the righteous path because it was too damn hard".

I think this is what Tony discovered. Doing the right thing, the moral thing by Carmella is hard, not as stimulating or satisfying as completing the act, at least on the base level. And to continue to do so means turning down a lot of such opportunities.

Combine this with the fact that Tony, at least for most of his life, has been, well, a sociopath. His life involves predatory crime: extortion, outright stealing, assault and murder. Therein lies the internal conflict which could be the source of his outburst. If the voice of his conscience is now so loud that it dictates his actions regarding his encounter with the realtor, maybe he now questions these other aspects of his life. He lashed out at the "source" of his guilt as it existed that night.

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Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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Betrayal is the key to the outburst, but I believe it is Tony's betrayal of the neighborhood, its traditions and culture (by agreeing to sell his building) more than anything else that provokes his outburst.

The subtlety of negotiation between Tony and Julianna is awesomely accomplished by the writers of this episode. Tony resists Julianna’s initial simple monetary offer, but the ever-escalating price, and the pursuit of sex, dissolve his will.

        After he refuses the first offer as being too low, he makes his pitch instead for her body. Julianna declines Tony’s sexual advance. Tony has exercised self-control on the temptation of money; Julianna has exercised self-control on the sex.

        Julianna returns with a higher monetary offer. The money is now becoming tempting, but Tony again refuses, this time asserting that he does not want to be an accessory to erasing the cultural tradition of the neighborhood. His sexual advance becomes more insistent. But again she begs-off.

        Julianna returns with a monetary offer Tony can’t refuse, but he implicitly makes his acceptance of the offer conditional on her agreement to fuck him. Even though Tony has agreed that the money is satisfactory, Julianna knows that if she refuses to have sex with Tony he may not actually consummate the sale transaction: she has to agree or lose the sale. Both have negotiated for what they wanted.

        At the critical moment, Tony signs the sale papers but stops himself from, once again, cheating on Carmella. As a result, he has betrayed the neighborhood and its proud cultural heritage and traditions, and all he has obtained in return is money.

        It is this realization that he has become a “Judas” to his “people” and his loudly professed lip-service pride in those hallmarks of the neighborhood that, in my opinion, lead him to his late night outburst about the lack of smoked turkey in the house. Despite his desire to be vigilant in maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood, he has fallen prey to greed and libido. And, he has also become an accomplice to the continuing disempowerment of his own “family”: another “old-world” mob profit center for protection money (Caputo’s) is to be replaced by another corporate franchise not susceptible to extortion (Jamba Juice).


</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... ac72261</A>
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at: 5/2/06 10:08 pm

Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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FOMW....YES...and not to beleaguer the point...most of T's extramarital sex has been either female-superior or oral, hasn't it? Now, this can't just be a concession to his girth because though he's a big guy, he's not the fattest dude around. I don't know the answer as to why there seems to be very little non-standard sex acts of any kind in the Soprano household...and I'm not talking Ralph Ciforetto nonstandard, I'm talking run of the mill stuff.

Another unbuttoning the shirt thing....and other posters may have touched on this while I was away from the computer yesterday...Skiff is another pay-for-lay girl, isn't she? She closes the deal (real estate) and she'll close the deal sexually. Just like his father's goomar (Fran? the one who smoked even when Johnny had emphysema), just like the rest. Maybe it's not as straightforward as the deal Chrissie cuts with the hooker with the coke in "Luxury Lounge", but everybody pays something.



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Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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billymac, that's an excellent analysis. Hadn't considered it from that angle at all, but it makes sense. I was more inclined to think he was resolved on the sale when he said "sold" on the phone. But there was that business in her apartment about having second thoughts and the Ben Franklin close.

I guess my reason for wanting to explore this question so deeply is that I think it helps answer to what extent Tony is likely to remain faithful in the future. If his anger is truly aimed at Carmela, I don't think it bodes well for his future fidelity. If instead it was over the simple fact that he had an unresolved hard-on or wanted to provoke her so she would punish him with a tongue lashing or was really angry that he'd betrayed the neighborhood for a piece of ass he didn't even collect (all good theories), I think it bodes much better for his future fidelity.

I wrote in the general thread:

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>As I thought about the portent of it on subsequent viewings, it's probably all the more impressive that he did stop it in progress rather than simply resist the temptation initially. The force of the "brakes", the willpower, he had to apply to alter the sexual inertia of that encounter far exceeds the willpower he would have to apply to simply squelch a whim or a thought or a temptation to "hit on" a woman.

I agree with the poster who compared this act (somewhere on the forum) to the one last season with Ade. Melfi called that one a "milestone" under the assumption that it played out more like this one. If her assessment of such behavior is correct, then this was an actual milestone.<hr></blockquote>

We know from season 6 previews that Tony hands a loaf of salami (or perhaps a baguette?) to Julianna in a store. That is certainly going to be a highly symbolic gesture, one that, at this very early stage, I surmise could be him turning down an offer to get together with her again. By handing her the loaf, he could be saying "this is the only salami I'm giving you from now on." We'll see how it plays out.

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Re: Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex?

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Why was Tony so angry after he stopped the Juliana sex...?

Because he is so precious, adorable and as uttlerly predictable as a primitive little child...in certain ways, that is. Clients like Tony whose psychological task it is to cultivate/refine a conscience, get sober, manage anger, and the like, go through a period of resentment toward the installation of conscience, super ego, value-laden judgement, whatever you want to call it. As they approach the actual experience of engaging in old "bad" behaviors there arises a new conflict: "I want to do it" vs. "but, now I know it's inappropriate." Often there results resentment toward the superego which is displaced onto others viz a viz Tony onto Carmela. I also am amused by the fact that people in this sort of transition also often express the entitlement of needing/demanding/exacting gratitude from others for their new and decent behaviors: "I've been sober now for three months. Aren't you going to thank me..?"

Bottomline: Tony (with heightened sense of conscience) could no longer enjoy former "extracurrilar-type beheviors." Not yet able to sit with this sort of self denial, he displaces his frustration onto Carmela. For what it's worth, IMO it was not so much sexual frustration, but the fact that he could no longer experience a psychological free pass with such pecadillos, that lead to the displacement of primitive yet transparent rage.

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... vingEgo</A> at: 5/4/06 10:18 am
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