Best Season

I've got season 1 and 2 on DVD and I'll be getting season 3,4,5 very soon. So could regular viewres please give me their opnions on the best season?

The best are probley 1,2,3 in the "critic world" but my favs are 4,5,6 but it depends on what you want.

Many people on these boards have good views on each season.

1. Season 2
2. Season 1
3. Season 5
4. Season 6, Part II
5. Season 3
6. Season 4
7. Season 6, Part I

I aggree with De Niro 4,5,6 for me where amazing storylines

All of them is the obvious answer but i quite liked season 2. i think i was expecting it to slump after such a brilliant first series but it did'nt. It got better
I liked Richie Aprile as well..
He was a good baddie

i hated season 2 buts thats because i fucking hate Janice and i wasnt keen on Richie either

Richie was such a great character...."What's mine is not yours to give me."

I'd say seasons 2-3 are my favorites

I would say my favorite season is 2, as the trip to italy was spectacular. Also, the opening episode was great The ending of the season was good. I like season 1 a lot, and then season 5 was good.

The best ending in the whole show for me is at the end of season 1 where you find out the FBI are on to them when they having a meal together.Where all the waiters are undercover.

To me the best season is Season 1, just the freshness of the whole Mob thing in a TV show was great..
Season 2 was a little letdown, but still a good season. Season 3 is the only season, IMO that can actually matchup with Season 1, the drama in that season was very well done.
Season 4 was okay, and Season 5 was just an inch under Season 3. Season 6 Part I was shit, while Part II was amazing except "Chasing It" which was, IMO horrible.

To me, I thought the show got better as the actors fully developed their characters over the years (notice the accent differences between season 1 and 5). It added a realistic feel to the show. But, come on, its The Sopranos! All the seasons were great!

My favs are: Season 5, 4, 6 Part II, 3, 2, 1 (mainly because I don't watch it as much as the later seasons), and then 6 part 1.

Season 2 and 3 for me.Love those episodes.Just started watching it again recently.As for Richie Aprile,i agree,he was a good baddie,but the actor who played him,reminded me of a Pacino rip off for some reason.Just some of the same subtleties in his acting.

Seemed to me in Season 6b the accents got out of control! Tony especially sounded so different than he had before.

You know, Longneck, you're 100% correct. If Gandolfini had one flaw in the eight years the show was on tv, it's that his New Yaaaawk-New Joisey accent got stronger each year. It wasn't there at all in season 1.

True, I think his best accent was in season 5. In 6B, it did seem too strong (but then again, Tony lived in Jersey all his life, so wasn't it befitting of the character?).

I think that season 1 was the best season out of all of the seasons of The Sopranos.

I'm currently up to season 3 in my continuing retrospective. My rediscovery reminds me that, as far as single, self-contained episodes go, it's my favourite season.

The opener, "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood", is possibly the most unique of all episodes; it probably made a lot of people gasp when it first aired ("Fuck, where's this show going?"), but it's different, well-paced and fantastic - the FBI scenes are extremely witty. "Another Toothpick", "University" and "Second Opinion" is a great mid-season run of great consecutive episodes - possibly the most consistent since the first five of season 1; "Employee of the Month" and "Amou Fou" are top rate, and "Pine Barrens" might be the best episode ever.

Season 3 is the turning point in the show: the serialised narrative becomes more disparate and fragmentary with episodes becoming more self-contained, characters coming and going, and audiences more frustrated.

I'm a sucker for it, though, because the writing becomes richer, the acting more established and confident, the humour darker and the visual style more crisp and profound.

After watching them all again over recent weeks,im changing my mind and going with season 1

After season 2 the show started to go down hill. After season 2 it turned into a sop opera.

ds

How so?

I completely disagree with you.

I thought it got BETTER as the seasons went by.

I didn't really like season 6 at all.

None of it? Not even the final nine episodes?

I think re-watches help - and watching three to four episodes at a time also helps bind plots together; when you're watching it oncea week every Sunday night you tend to find trouble linking certain episodes to the next and previous; it's genius that Chase finally in the latter seasons pulled his ambition off: making each episode a stand-alone mini-movie, and part of an ongoing serial.

I'd currently rank the the seasons thus:

1. Season 4
2. Season 3
3. Season 6B
4. Season 6A
5. Season 2
6. Season 1
7. Season 5

Oh..I meant Season 6a.It's called season 7 down here.

Too much Vito? Think of it this way...

Chase and co. took the most sinful of all Mafia practices (being a fanook) and explored what happens when it pops its ugly head up for all to see. Bringing Vito's homosexuality to the centre of the season narrative arc allowed the writers to really dig up sides to characters previously in the dark: we see complex sides to Phil, Patsy, Sil, Carlo, Paulie, Chris and of course Tony. Also the effects on the immediate family side of things. You might argue that Vito's homosexuality is unlikely to begin with - and from that stems possible "soap opera" criticism - but I don't think it is at all: a lot of gangsters are known to be at least bisexual, and Tony himself tells Carlo at one point "C'mon, we all know he isn't the first."

A lot of people are rubbed up the wrong way by seeing male-on-male kiss-scenes, tending to say they're "gratuitous" or something similar; no more gratuitous than seeing Tony kissing Carmela, or the implied blow-job that opens up his birthday in season 6B.

Vito's human too. Showing him in the scenes with Johnny Cakes shows what's really at stake, and illuminates some of the absurd and violent reactions such as those of Phil and Carlo. Of course, masculinity is a major theme in the entire series, but it comes to the fore in the last two: everybody's questioning their own identity and it's almost as if Chase and co. are questioning who these characters are too - where they are, how far they've come, where they're going. It's a predominant preoccupation for the entire sixth season: Tony in the afterlife as somebody else, having lost his identity (then recovering and having a new zest for family life), Paulie finding out his mother isn't his mother, the entire thing with Vito, and don't forget the self-reflexive movie-within-the-show plot, with Christopher and Little Carmine brushing shoulders with "real-life" people like Ben Kingsley and Lauren Bacall.

Masculinity is embodied, in its most macho form, in the "Old School" Mafiosi like Phil Leotardo (Feech La Manna too, as well as Richie Aprile). Take Richie; he was old school but he had impotent problems - he couuld only get off with a gun to Janice's head; note too the significance of where Phil Leotardo stems from in the scene where they finally catch up with Vito: out of the closet. His watching Vito get a pool cue shoved up his ass borders on sexual sadism, too: how he holds the bed-sheets as Vito gets beat up.

It's a very powerful and complex scene; Phil's reaction to Vito throughout the season is much like many viewers' reactions to the scenes including Vito. I'm not saying everyone's gay, but it's an interesting notion and very deeply embedded in its own fabric - it's very self-aware of what it's doing.

Great post Capo.

I actually don't dislike season 6a the most because of the Vito story,It just seemed rushed and a bit empty to me for some reason.I don't hate the season,just it's my least favorite.

Who knows,maybe subliminally i dislike because of the Vito shit.

I actually thought the very final season was the most rushed of the lot, full of cheap wrap-ups and narrative development. But watching it the second time, I realised how effective it is.

How many times have you seen 6A? Like I said, re-watches reward greatly with this show - especially if you find time to watch two or three episodes at a time (the length of a film).

yeah i dont know if anything is going to beat season 1 for me...

Just finished season 6A again today. Fantastic. I love the exploration of sexuality - not so much the "Vito in exile" scenes, which are there to shed humanity on his situation (and thus the severity of his murder), but the reactions in others toward his being outed.

I'm convinced, now, of Phil's repressed homosexuality. The particular anger with which he reacts to thoughts of Vito, the haste with which he denounces it as a disgrace the family, his emergence from the closet in the scene in which his henchmen murder Vito, the lingering shot of his hands gripping the bedsheets as they beat Vito to death, the clear unease he feels when there are muscled-up, virtually-naked men on TV in the aftermath of Vito's death, that shot of him lying there awake at night after Vito has been killed (really, he should have been relieved of putting an end to the family shame, not lying awake at night thinking about it).

Also: when Tony says to a bloodthirsty Carlo, re Vito being a fanook, "Carlo, let's be honest here, we all know he ain't the first". And Tony to Melfi, about him understanding men's sexual needs when incarcerated in the can... How many years was Phil in the can? Twenty. And, for all he talks of honour and not ratting anybody out, he seems especially antsy about the time he spent in there.

Anyway...

"The Fleshy Part of the Thigh" is an amazing episode. So is the season opener, and the two consequent episodes with the whole Kevin Finnerty thing, but the one straight after, with Tony now awake but still in hospital. I like the philosophy put forth in it, a slant on pantheism, with everything made of the same particles as everything else, etc. I love the final scene, where Tony sits in his garden looking at the trees, and his POV (a shot of trees in the wind) is edited as a visually flawless transition to another scene: Paulie beating up Dick Barone's son. One scene is horrific and violent, the other relieved and tranquil, and yet both are part of the same fabric.

I rewatched season 6A recently as well, and I noticed something that I didn't before. At the latter end of the season Tony begins to phase out Paulie and Christopher from his inner circle. He views Paulie as incompetent and Chris seems to care about his movie career.

This is where Carlo and Bobby take their places to Tony. They make their way into his inner circle. Remember when he likes shitting on Bobby in previous seasons? Giving Carlo Vito's Esplanade construction site? This is an underlining plot for the season almost in the same way the battle for Michael's 2nd in command in Godfather, Part II.


PS. Have you gotten a chance to read episode 10 yet?


Regards,
BDuff

For my AP English class, I did a presentation on the three episodes "Member's Only, Join the Club, and Mayham," comparing the Finnerty storyline to Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown as magic realism.

Capo, I agree on the Phil thing, but just a bit differently. I think Phil got his dick sucked in the can(He looks like that type of fag) so that's why he explodes in a fit of rage about the whole thing. Bringing up memories of times he'd hate himself for.

Yes, I thought that was one of Chase's finest strokes (no pun intended). I remember reading BB member's reactions to those scenes and finding it quite ironic that they shared the same feelings that most of Tony's crew did. Brilliant stuff, Mr. Chase.

6A is without question my favorite. The Kevin Finity and Vito's sexuality story-lines represented Chase taking the narrative to another level. We were all waiting for the show to absolutely floor us, and season 6A did!!!

But I have a special fondness for it b/c of personal reasons. My dad went into the hospital about 3 days before season 6A began. His condition was uncertain at the time, and I could feel every emotion exhibited by Carmela and the kids while Tony hung on for life. I found a great solace in the hospital episodes, and it was almost as if God had willed the timing of the whole thing to correspond with my dad's illness. And then Tony recovers (about a week after my dad did) finding a new outlook on life -- I did too.

And I cried along with Carmela when she held Tony's hand and played Tom Petty's "American Girl" (she read somewhere that music helps coma patients). It was their song when they first started dating: 'She was.. an American girl.' I fucking love that.

Season 1...
because i just started to watch...:D

Welcome, D_G! A word of advice: as tempting as it is, don't visit this part of the forum too often, because it's laden with spoilers. One of the best features of this show is its ability to surprise. Happy viewing!

As I'm nearing the end of my current retrospective, I think season 6B cuts too many inexcusable corners to be counted as the best, most coherent corners - it certainly warrants another three or four episodes, for me. It does, however, boast some of the greatest single moments and scenes the show has ever produced: the drunken Monopoly game at Tony's birthday party ("Soprano Home Movies"); the entire sequences of scenes between Tony and Paulie in Miami, culminating on the boat with Tony frustrating himself because he has no good reason to kill Paulie ("Remember When"); Tony's further alienation of others around him, Chrissy ("Walk Like a Man" is a great episode), Carlo, Hesh and even Carmela (think of "Chasing It", and Tony's his unwarranted, cruel backlash to the first during a car ride, the humiliation and intimidation of the second over a loan, and the callous explosion of violence with the latter over a lost bet); AJ's suicide attempt and Tony's subsequent rescue; Tony almost killing Coco over the latter approaching Meadow; Phil's death (the most satisfying of the show); Agent Harris finally helping Tony; the final scene (best ever).

So many good memories. I love this show,

After finishing another retrospective, new season rankings:

6A
6B
4
3
2
1
5

In my classes, I show the final scene off of YouTube. I then show the Clinton parody of it to illustrate to my students the melding of election campaigning and the popular culture.

As time goes by, I intend to use other scenes from the Sopranos to illustrate other points about government.

What do you teach, Olivant? At the college or high school level?

6B was choppy and rushed, 6A dragged on, less Vito, more corners please.

But, for being choppy and rushed it also had a lot of great moments like you mentioned.

College government.

After watching the entire show over 4 days ( I've been sick so no work) this is my new list for fav seasons:

3
2
6b
1
4
5
6a

Damn! Did ya pull any all-nighters? lol

If only the rest of us were lucky enough to be that sick...

I have only seen up to Season 3

and I think it is the best season so far

Yeah, I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. Not complete all nighters, but basically, I'd sometimes fall asleep at about 5am. I could get through a season and a half in a day easy depending on when I started for the day. It's great watching it from start to finish over a short time. So many things you pick up and little bit's that Chase has thrown in, that are obviously meant to be seen in a row. Great show.

1. 2
2. 1
3. 3
4. 5
5. 6B
6. 4
7. 6A

the best season was season 2.

ds

Whatever your thoughts are on the show, it's quite obvious that Chase intended 6b and 6a to be the best. The difference between 6 and the rest is like comparing algebra at the high school level to a college level course -- one is relatively an overview of the subject, while the other continues the mode of thought in it's naturally progressive state -- and that's what we see with Chase's arc as a writer. He and the show seek to be a progressively intricate, complicated, contemplative work, one that's always improving and evolving...Such is the nature of life, such is the nature of art. The same can be said about the character arcs in the show.

6b was intended as Chase's crowning piece, followed by the penultimate 6a, while 2 and 3 represent the classic, vintage era of the show when it first took off with American audiences and was at it's peak in terms of viewers. Of course, there's no telling where the show might have gone had "Lydia" not died.

Nancy Marchand's death forced, I think, a creative impetus onto the writers. But it's interesting watching it evolve after they kill Livia off - and with it, ostensibly, the entire opening premise of the show... But at what points does Livia crop up again, in Tony's therapy? In relation to what? When is her presence most noted, after-death?

6A and 6B are amazing; for me, the peak of television drama, along with season 4 of The Wire.

Or maybe Phil is so angry because the thought of homosexuality had crossed his mind but he still went without for the duration of sentence.Thus if he can resist temptation for such an act whilst being so desperate, theres no way he'd be able to understand Vito.I didn't get any feeling that Phil had felt sexually confused in this way.As for clutching the bedsheet, it's just suggesting how in a rage he really is.He wants to be beating the life from Vito.It's he's family dis-graced.