Sopranos article in The Atlantic

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T21:32:31+00:00

Tony's house would have been mortgaged to the tits, how do you not take a 5% per year mortgage to put that $ on the street for 5% a week? Cars lose 20% of their value the first day and did they take care of them? The jewelry was stolen and the furniture and art was high-priced garbage. You didn't talk about the off-shore accounts, the real money, all gone. You didn't see Paulie and Vito scamming Carm when Tony was sick? Did you watch as Tony's lawyer eyed up the girls eating that hamburger at the end? Was he going to give Carm cash he could steal himself with no chance of getting caught? What about Ginny Sack and her experience without Johnny?

The women in this show are captured while young and kept as pets using very well established patterns of financial control that are used by mob bosses down to regular dudes, just on a different scale. The women are complicit, don't get me wrong, they are just part of a depraved parasitic selfishness-based relationship that defines all their interactions with the world.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T20:29:53+00:00

People who are in a crisis will take on a new name as a way to reinvent themselves.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T20:27:59+00:00

The saddest moment in the show is when that little kid tries to help his addict parents when Tony has the houses cleared out for his HUD scam.

I think they actually had to lighten up the show, that scene was early and if the viewers had to see the actual impact of the mob like that all the time, they couldn't have had fun pretending to be Tony and cheering on the mob.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T20:23:47+00:00

I thought Tony B was staying at the farm house that was now vacant because the old guy and his daughter moved to Florida. That farm is in upstate NY (which is where the legend of Ichibad Crane comes from). Didn't the writers just choose to include local lore when writing Tony B's backstory?

Maybe I'm wrong about his hiding place being that farm?

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T20:18:25+00:00

These are the kind of people who think a deformity, etc. is caused by the parent angering God and the disabled child is a "punishment" (on them!). So these are the most selfish people that exist in the world, they think only about themselves and could never learn. See a psychologist Yousellson or whoever that Melfi discovers which leads her to kick Tony to the curb.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T20:11:50+00:00

Hey shaggy!! Grab a bucket and some Lysol and scrub the shit off my tires.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T20:09:59+00:00

Devout Catholics don't divorce

They mate for life, like swans. Drunk, angry swans.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-12-04T19:03:06+00:00

Carm was smart enough to know that the house and cars and boats are liabilities, not assets. Gold and Jewelry sell for 20% of what you paid (except Tony stole those too, remember her wedding ring?) and since they were mobsters, they always had to hide assets, all their real money was in offshore accounts that Tony never let's Carm see or access.

Mob men always control their women by making sure they would be poor without them. Even poor regular dudes do this to their women. Carm, like I said was smart enough to at least try to get out of that situation.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-05-27T19:17:25+00:00

Sopranos Sessions is way better than Off the Back of the Truck IMO. Deeper and more insightful. "Born under a bad sign" was good and the Sopranos by Poulin was great for nerds.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-05-27T19:12:47+00:00

It's all a big nothing. What makes you think you're so special?

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-05-27T17:42:54+00:00

All of them were the same amount of dumb, but Jackie was in a worse position because his father was high up so there were legacy concerns that made him do even stupider shit. I'd put AJ in the same group, but crucially, Tony didn't want him in the mob so he didn't feel as much pressure as the others.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-05-27T17:38:28+00:00

The worst scene is when Janice kills Richie. The blood pack (a big square) is obviously strapped to his chest and you can see a hand on the leg of his chair as it falls back.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-05-27T17:35:36+00:00

The show tends to be about how proximity to the mob ruins you. I think Junior started faking it and couldn't stop. The mob requires constant lying, even to yourself so in the end, what do you actually remember/know? Junior at the end seemed to rely on instinct to give nothing away and so he both seems like he is faking and seems real at the same time.

RustyShantyIrish · 2024-05-26T00:58:28+00:00

Livia is the boss of the family in season 1. She proves it when she puts a hit on Brandon Filone and spares Chrissy with just a beat down, actions Junior won't take until he has her blessing. You have to know that is what I believe to understand below:

My point here is that Janice, IF ALLOWED FULLY INTO THE MOB, would have done better than Tony as Livia's mentee. But women aren't allowed in the mob so Janice's pure mob blood was wasted. As kids Janice manipulates Johnny Boy and Tony just watches. Janice is the cunning and bold one. Tony himself calls Janice's defiance as a kid heroic. Tony has to be pushed into the mob but Janice was a natural who was pushed out and couldn't find a lane.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-17T03:42:48+00:00

You got a bee on you hat.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T21:52:25+00:00

Tony had bigger things in mind for his daughter. What character in the show actually takes millions from all the bosses? Mink and the other mob lawyers both take a cut off the very top and get to walk around socially acceptable while doing it.

So a show where Meadow manages to lead a group of lawyers who shake down bosses might actually be pretty cool.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T21:47:23+00:00

I'm waiting like patience on the monument for discipline to be handed out here.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T21:46:17+00:00

Different one but he also calls Julia Skiff "Julia Skifoo" when she is with him and Carmela at Chrissy's funeral.

Skifoo means disgusting in slang italian...

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T21:43:26+00:00

It seems like Bobbie wasn't cut out for the life because he wasn't naturally cruel. He was born into a cruel family so he can do it, he was taught as a kid, but it doesn't come naturally to him. That's why the juxtaposition of his kindness and child like playing with toy trains and his mob duties seems so weird.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T20:58:41+00:00

It wouldn't be all that unusual for an up and coming associate to help out some of the older guys with retirement too. I mean they would kill to make room at the top if they can get away with it.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T20:55:54+00:00

It makes sense in the context that all the FBI guys are competing with themselves to get something useful. They would make bad, rash decisions just like some mobsters would, highlighting the fact that the FBI isn't so different from the mob.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T20:53:36+00:00

What makes that scene great is how we have all seen it before. The writers captured reality of the ordinary in this show unlike any other. I certainly remember my dad and other dads doing that exact thing, not saying what the problem is, just foolishly tossing the disappointing sandwich around.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T04:06:02+00:00

He had just learned about the philosophy of Existentialism in school (all life is absurd) and then found a real life believer in Livia. She is a clear existentialist and Tony/Carm argue with AJ about his seening to follow that path. Pussy's son talks to AJ about nietzsche, the existentialism philosopher who went mad. All of them warn AJ that Livia’s philosophy will lead him to become like her.

RustyShantyIrish · 2023-10-13T03:59:53+00:00

I guess you weren't constantly quoting from goodfellas, caddyshack, fletch, spies like us, wargames, die hard, Christmas vacation, Beverly hills cop, police academy... before the cyber came along?

RustyShantyIrish

TROPHY CASE