I kind of love how abrupt Livia's death was. A lot of times that's how death is.

livia GOAT

I see a lot of shocked faces when I tell stories of my (Italian) mother completely crapping on me (as an example, my 2+2 undertitle came from a story of her insulting me).

I explain with a shrug, "Have you ever watched The Sopranos?"

(...and like Tony, I'm pretty ****ed up. "Do you even YTF?" is, sadly, a thing.)

They did the fade in Boca season 1
When June dips her


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lets put all our money on the Jets

This

It's amazing how well they captured the emotional ethos of the dysfunctional Italian-American family.

just saw this on reddit, notbad.jpg

and they mention that it just showed up during the big storm, which i think is a metaphor for the NJ/NY war, rather than an actual storm (because i don't believe that we were shown any kind of bad weather ... save for maybe the snow to open the finale). and if it's true that it is just a metaphor, the odd phrasing seems to connect the cat to the tornado reference in Schwinn's explanation of Schrödinger's Equation. also could the two boxers reference Tony & Phil? i think so!

and they mention that John Schwinn was a former Bell Labs scientist
(you know, all the bell ringing in the final scene, also Schwinns are bikes, bikes have bells ... DOES ANY OF THIS RING A BELL!?!)

and Holsten's is shaped like a box with a big cat looking over it

also fits perfectly with the idea that Chase, entirely unconcerned with the question of whether Tony was killed that night or not, designed a completely ambiguous ending

the show ended, that's all
maybe he died that night, maybe he didn't
we don't have the ability to know for sure
deal with it

maybe Paulie's right and he's now cursed, simultaneously alive and dead

maybe "the curse" took him out asap, maybe it didn't
we don't know, the show ended

maybe?

also the guy who evokes Schrödinger's cat to us in the finale is Walden

what an odd name, huh?

How exactly does Holstein's look like a box with a cat hovering over it?

inside?


(the entire interior seems pretty square/boxy)

do u even box, br0?

and an orange cat at that

Ok, I'll buy it

If all this is true--and why not?--then Chase is Mozart. He is Michaelangelo.

Of the television era.

I can't even...

ya, the dude is an animal

the entire show is so dense and layered it's incredible

and that ending, the fact that it can legitimately be read like 10 different ways, and people will probably debate it forever (even though it doesn't really matter), that'll never be topped

GOAT

have a few more things in the hopper i want to talk about in the coming days

ok so it's the most subtle thing in the world, but something i just noticed on my latest watch that surprised me, that being how early Chris' fate is sealed. it was obviously building for a long time, but is cemented in the 6A finale "Keisha". Chris and Murmur prophetically conclude how damning his affair with Juliana could be if Tony found out, but Chris ends up confessing to it anyway (after he's kinda busted). he's also worried that Tony might figure out that he's once again using drugs. Tony subsequently whines to Melfi what a betrayal this is, his "reward" for "being good".

then in the 6B premiere "Soprano Home Movies" the wheels are set in motion. after Tony learns that the gun charge against him has been dropped, everyone is blissfully relaxing at the cottage by the lake, and Tony mentions how he doesn't know why he can't get an awful story out of his mind. Carmela explains that it's about a toddler who drowned at a pool party in full view of all the adults in attendance. not only is it an awful thing to bring up to new parents Janice & Bobby as they watch their young daughter play in the water, completely poisoning the serene environment, but it's pure Livia. remember it was Livia back in season 1 who couldn't stop bringing up stories of infanticide after she conspired to get Junior to go after Tony.

so who does this relate to? at this point things are going quite well with AJ, it's never about Meadow, i can't think of any other surrogate sons this could be about, other than Chris. and the child drowning in full view of everyone, is that Tony's subconscious trying to alert him of Chris' drug use (which does in part cause the accident that kills him)?

anyway, right after this is the scene in the little fishing boat where Tony informs Bobby that he's moving up into Chris' position as right-hand man / human shield. and though it happens later in the episode in another pure Livia moment of evil vindictiveness, Tony seals it all by having Bobby commit a murder for him, like he did with Chris and the crooked cop who supposedly killed his father.

note that this is the episode before the Cleaver premiere in "Stage 5", the one where Tony brags about how great his understanding of the subconscious is due to his work with Melfi. the same one where he doesn't understand the subtext of Chris' movie until Carmela beats him over the head with the explanation. from then on it's clear that their relationship is over, and 4 episodes later Tony finally commits a crime of opportunity and snuffs Chris out.

it just kind of surprised me that the Julianna Skiff affair was probably the last straw in actuality, and Tony's mind (subconscious, anyway) was already made up before he saw Cleaver. you could also argue that "betrayal" was also the end of Tony trying to "be good", as he was for much of season 6A. he was very much not trying to be good in season 6B, torching about every bridge in existence.


/tl;dr
cliffs: none, sorry

alright, well if you didn't like this one, don't sweat it, i think the next one might be better!

Cliff's: Tony had decided to kill Christopher before he did.

along these lines, lettuce consider the spectacular subtext of the tiny, seemingly insignificant, throwaway moments of the show.

in "Soprano Home Movies" Tony & Bobby go to meet with some Quebecers on some business. the one guy, not accidentally i imagine, mentions that his sister is having a custody dispute with her ex. they come to an agreement rather quickly.

now think about that for a second. Canada & the US seem pretty similar in the sense that in custody disputes like this, the woman gets control like 99.9% of the time because it's thought to be worse to separate a child from their mother. but it seems like in reaching out to Tony here, this is one of those other cases. the courts have, or will, award custody to this guy, a drummer ffs, who is relocating from Montreal to Winnipeg!?
(for those who don't know, Montreal is perhaps the finest city in our fair country, very cultured and metropolitan, whereas Winnipeg is like ... Fargo, but colder, and with bigger mosquitos)

so given all this, it seems that Chase is painting a picture that the sister of this gentleman is a pretty awful woman, one that doesn't deserve or need to have children in her life. not all people are well suited to being parents remember, they'd probably all be better off if this kid went to go live with this drummer in Winnipeg. now does sound like anyone we know?



and all of this, murdering perhaps a decent man, to force a child into the arms of a bad mother, to save some money on expired Osteoporosis medication. Carmela is wracked with guilt that her spec house, built on a foundation of subpar material, could harm someone. meanwhile Tony is just trying to make more money selling junk that probably will cause similar effects in people. he's a monster.

All joking a salad it was a good write up.

alright, on to the next one...


ok so for this latest one we'll go all the way back to the middle of season 4. i was tipped off to this one by a commentor on the truly excellent Sopranos Autopsy site. if you ever go through a re-watch again, seriously read this guys recaps along with it. he picks up on an awful lot of gold. and while he's currently stalled in season 5, he's still active and sounds committed to finishing the series at some point, which is great news.
/spam
(full disclosure: no conflict of interest, i just really enjoy dat dude's work)


so the episode in question is "Whoever Did This", and much like season 1's "Nobody Knows Anything", the hour deals with these guys operating with incomplete information, which can be as common on TV as in real life. all over both eps nobody knows anything for sure, and they don't know for certain who did [this].

early in the episode Ralphie is hanging at his clubhouse and gets to thinking about who informed Johnny Sack of that fat joke about his wife Ginny. he doesn't know for sure, but he magically comes to the correct conclusion that Little Paulie told Paulie who told Johnny. Ralphie retaliates by placing an obscene prank call to Paulie's mother. now Paulie doesn't know who did that, but he magically comes to the correct conclusion that it was Ralphie, and boy is he furious. Paulie might seriously want to kill him over it:



as you can see there, Tony orders Paulie not to lay a hand on Ralphie, which he grudgingly seems to accept. but anything short of that (the ol' he didn't say i couldn't [x] thing is hanging in the air)? the issue doesn't exactly seem settled, and Paulie was never really one to de-escalate or let things like this slide. but the way the episode is structured you mostly forget about Paulie's mindset there.

not long after we're informed of the fire at the stable that kills Pie-O-My. now, this is the first whoever did this moment of the episode that we as the viewers do not know the answer to. Tony suspects that Ralphie may have set the fire and goes to investigate.



now i, like a lot of viewers, saw the ambiguousness of this situation as that either it was an accident as the arson investigator concluded, or that Ralphie did it. probably the latter. but looking at it again, i think it was probably Paulie that set the fire to get back at Ralphie, likely not realizing how much the horse meant to Tony, or about the lucrative insurance policy they recently took out on it. unless you think that Paulie has listened to enough "Sun Tizzou" tapes in order to execute a plan where he kills the horse in order to set up Ralphie for the murder that Tony won't let him commit. but i mean, he's no Prince Matchiabelli!

if you look at the above scene Ralphie doesn't actually admit to it, though i think we're supposed to think that he kind of did. but i think that his rather callous line there comes from a place of innocence (much different from how he talked to Johnny about that joke, but you could certainly argue that he just learned from his mistakes there, defending himself vehemently rather than half-apologizing). to Ralphie the fire might just have been a fluke act of god that happened to be a really good thing for him, basically the opposite of the accident that injured his son.

contributing factor: after his son's accident Ralphie goes through a transformation in this episode. Rosalie doesn't think he'll go talk to Father Phil about what he's going through, but he does (unlike Tony ever). Ralphie creates an annual $20k scholarship in Jackie Jr's name, he apologizes to Rosalie about how he treated her in the past, and proposes marriage. he also seems sick about the business they're in, and is constantly crying. and it all comes across as completely sincere. as this (at least temporarily) changed man, would Ralphie really burn that horse for the insurance money? perhaps not.

i also think that, subconsciously, a part of Tony's reaction is based on his resentment about Ralphie's transformation. throughout the series he goes FULL LIVIA and bitterly undermines the positive change of a great number of characters, probably because he is unable to do the same himself (though he does make an effort after being shot in season 6A). Tony scoffs when Carmela informs him of Ralphie's transformation, and isn't especially warm when they meet at the Bing later.

http://sopranos.wikia.com/wiki/Ralph_Cifaretto

so really Ralphie might have been doomed anyway. Tony was mad at him for a lot of different reasons, arson or no arson.

the demise of Ralphie ends up being another whoever did this moment, as Tony claims to have just found him like that in his house. but we once again know the truth about this, and even a drug-addled Christopher doesn't buy that ridiculous story for a second. and every other wise guy in the tri-state area has already concluded that Tony killed Ralphie over what happened to the horse. though they don't know.

given that whatever happened to Pie-O-My is about the only mystery to us viewers, i'm guessing that it's not so clear cut as it seems to be, and i'd almost just exclude Ralphie as a candidate here based on everything above. and really it's pure David Chase for Ralphie to get got for something he didn't do, and when was actually trying to become a better person. so it's probably either a legit accident, or Paulie's revenge.

so anything more regarding Paulie then? why yes, i'm glad you asked! in the next episode the painting of Pie-O-My that Tony previously commissioned finally arrives at the Bing. Tony looks at it, then storms out. Tony calls back from his truck and orders Silvio to burn the painting. someone remarks that it looked like he was going to cry. later when it's being burnt as instructed, Paulie arrives on the scene to salvage it from the fire. hmm. Chase's brand of irony there?

Paulie gets the painting cleaned up and hangs it prominently in his living room. in this episode following "Whoever Did This" there are 3 scenes of Paulie with the painting at his place (i wish this was on YT, but alas i don't see it anywhere):
- 1st he hangs up the painting then sits down to watch some baseball/boxing on TV.
- in the 2nd one there's a shot of Paulie, and then he turns around kinda worried like and looks at the painting, then the camera zooms in on Tony's eyes portion of it. is he worried that Tony will figure out who did that? they don't show the TV this time, but if you listen to the audio he's watching a George Foreman Grill infomercial or something and the voice is saying stuff like just set the timer and walk away as it grills your meat to perfection. hmm...
- in the 3rd shot he's again watching baseball/boxing and the camera again zooms in on Tony's eyes in the painting.

i'm still not convinced that Paulie is the one who did this though, it actually might have been an accident. any of the 3 scenarios mentioned here are certainly possible (in b4 there are more that haven't been considered here). i do feel like Ralphie might be the least likely possibility though. a lot of the Paulie stuff works either way. though he doesn't know for sure, he's probably fairly certain of what happened to Ralphie, so Paulie worshiping the painting of the Tony & the horse works on the level of those two things helped him get the revenge he wanted for what happened to his mother.

i think Paulie probably did it, but it's still ambiguous, the way David Chase loves it.

/tl;dr
cliffs: Paulie probably set the fire that killed Pie-O-My, but it's still ambiguous, the way David Chase loves it

After the Christopher and Montreal posts, I had my reply already composed in my head: "Solid work ITT, 72o!"

But the new arson theory is next level stuff...and I love it! I didn't WANT to, because of course! Ralphie's denial was BS...but watching it again (thanks for the handy link!), I'm in!

I'll even add my own stretch of an observation: the arsonist Tony mentions in the scene is named Ianucci. This name immediately made me think of Paulie's mother, Nucci. I gotta think that was the writers' intent.

I could never figure those scenes of Paulie stressing over being watched by the painting. This new wrinkle explains that perfectly. Thanks, bro.

i like it, especially because i think that scene between Tony & Ralphie is the first time they mention that name afaik. up to then it's understood that Sil is the one who set the fire at Vesuvio. so the name they make up for this unseen (and previously unspoken) character is definitely notable.

and it's particularly unnecessary because Ralphie is something of a firebug himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRJfBRSRhRQ#t=55s

but it certainly makes sense if there's something else at play...

Just finished my 4th re-watch. This show is so damn good and I hate it, because it's ruined just about every other show I try to get into....but after 4 rewatches, I'm probably done for good now. Amazing, amazing show.

I loved that scene with Carmela and this Italian thug (when they had this romantic thing going), where he tells her how poor the southern part of Italy is, blaiming it on how the north had always been oppressing and exploiting the south.

It was so funny to see a guy like that go all victimized, as if the mafia raping this part of the country for centuries had nothing to do with it.

In regards to the question of whether or not Ralphie set the fire. In my opinion, I believe he did, and I draw that conclusion from the two notable killings that Tony does later in the series, as there are distinct parallels.

The biggest parallel I see is the ongoing theme of Tony trying to change his ways and improve his relationships within his family, yet at the same time doing things so horrible that indicate that no matter how hard he tries, he is never going to change his ways. (A constant theme throughout the series, of course!)

When Tony confronts Ralphie, I see an interesting internal yet contradictory dance going on. On one hand, Ralph has changed. He's trying. He's apologetic. He's remorseful. Furthermore, he's almost--almost--sincere. Yet that's the nature of a psychopath. He killed Tracee with little afterthought, even though she seemed to mean something to him, and he showed little remorse.

In the confrontation, Ralph is quick to bring up the insurance money. Why? Because on some levels, he's changed. He's not wanting to be dishonest with Tony anymore; after all, the whole nature of their relationship has been Ralph lying, getting caught, and then having to deal with the consequences, often when confessing might have caused him a lot less headache. But it ends up getting him killed.

Yet I think he didn't think twice about doing it. IIRC, there's reference made to how he's going to be able to afford the mountains of medical debt he is going to have to endure. To a psychopath like Ralph, killing the horse is something that he has to do. Not as a revenge against Tony--but because he needs the cash. Killing the horse is absolutely not meant in that manner. I'm reminded of the classic line from the Godfather--which, of course, isn't accidental when thinking of The Sopranos--"It's not business, it's personal."

Tony takes it personally, and thus, the end of Ralphie. Ralph didn't understand how much the horse meant to Tony, that it was something that Tony loved dearly.

Yet later on in the series, he kills Tony and Chris with no afterthought, two people whom the world would think he has much love and affection for. "It's business, not personal." Does he have regrets? Yes, but....

Ralph is a complex creature, for sure. The most telling bit in the episode--and one that shows just how deceptive Ralph could be--is when Chris is cutting Ralphie up, and his wig comes off...and Chris had never known that he wore piece. Nobody did. It never got mentioned in the series, IIRC--and these are people who would be quick to mention/mock him for it had they known about it. (The only reason that incident doesn't surprise me is that I've followed Joe Pantoliano's career for years--he was great as Vinnie the informant on NYPD Blue.)

There's also a wonderful foreshadowing line when Silvio is talking about Vin with Tony, after learning Vin is in debt to Pussy; Sil says something about how "no telling what we would do to pay off that kind of debt," to which Tony nods in agreement.

As for me, the subtle line I love is when Tony's talking with Janice, they're talking about the weather, and he says, "It's colder than your tit out there," and she just rolls her eyes and continues on the conversation. That is such a wonderfully perfect sibling thing to do....

yes, but i think the point they were making in that particular episode, and driven home in the subsequent dream sequence, is that Ralphie might have been sincere about change, unlike Tony basically ever. two sides of the same coin is a fairly common storytelling technique.

that's Tony in his best moments basically always.

i thought they were quite clear about how little Tracee meant to him. she meant way more to Tony ffs lol, if only in that she (perhaps just subconsciously) reminded him of Meadow. they really drive that point home in "University".


anyway, just to reiterate, i think the mystery of who killed Pie-O-My is, like the ending of the series, intentionally ambiguous. there are several mysteries in the episode, and iirc the only one we don't know the answer to is who set that fire. i don't think that's an accident, and it's probably the major reason that the episode is called "Whoever Did This". there are at least 3 good possibilities, we aren't given the answer, and i highly doubt that Chase will ever give us the right one. but if i had to guess, his sensibilities seem to suggest something out of the ordinary.