While I feel I should point out that I'm as big or bigger of a fan of the show than anyone, that's not to say I don't have my nitpicky complaints. It's possible to be a huge fan of the show over all, while still being objective and having specific criticisms. Here are some of mine.....

1. While the whole show revolved around Tony, including his psyche, sometimes the dream sequences took up too much time in an episode.



2. I never really found the plot point of Furio falling for Carmella believable. And it sucked to lose his character over a reason like that.



3. While Ralph was a character you loved to hate - he had some of the best lines - he was somewhat remincent of Richie; i.e. basically put there to be a pain in Tony's ass. And Ralph being personally killed by Tony was a perhaps a little too reminicent of Richie being personally killed by Janice.



4. A short beating (which we never saw) of the Russian by Tony and Furio as payback for Janice didn't seem enough.



5. Let's be honest. There is no way Tony and the crew could talk as much as they did in the Bada Bing or Satriale's in real life. But familiar settings are important in a TV series.



6. Little Carmine suddenly gives into Johnny Sac in the war when he seemed pretty intent on taking over.



7. Like above, but even more so, in the last season you had Butchie pushing to go to war and Phil holding back. Then suddenly, over some rather inconsequential things (like his name Leotardo) Phil suddenly decides to take a harder edge, eventually going to war after Coco's beating. Wait? That was the final straw and his brother Billy wasn't? And going to war was what Butchie wanted all along but then we find him wanting to call a truce towards the end. Both characters do a complete 180 from their previous positions without much of a reason.



8. It sucked that Junior had less of a presence as the show went on.



9. I think Tony B was killed off too soon. And in fact, like Richie's character from season 2, he was supposed to be around longer in the original plans by the writers.



10. The occassional and uneccessary celebrity cameo.



11. Tony being shot a little reminiscent of Chris being shot. But that plot point still had some great scenes.



12. Blowing up Phil's wireroom, in response to Vito getting killed, wasn't very realistic.



13. Too much time spent on the whole Vito being gay thing. "Cleaver" also.



14. Over time you get used to David Chase's way of leaving loose ends open but there was really nothing to explain Meadow and Finn breaking up. Just all of the sudden she's dating Patsy Parisi's kid.



15. Ray Curto suddenly keeling over. Rushing things much?



16. Tony and Chris flipping the car was too reminiscent of Tony and Adriana flipping the car. And it seemd like they were just looking for an excuse to off another major character towards the end.



17. Tony screwing every woman under the sun. We know he likes to play around and has girlfriends like most mob guys do, but he's not a porn star for crying out loud.



18. Notice the music in the first episode when Tony is chasing the guy with the car. Very doowop and too reminiscent of many mob movies. Chase later apologized for that and from then on the music in the series was one of it's strongest points. The whole idea of The Sopranos was a modern day crime family and the doowop music hails back to an earlier time.



19. Like I pointed out in the other thread, season 5 left everything set up for a strong and concise final 6th season with the regular 13 episodes. However, probably to just make more money, they release a 12 episode part I and a 9 episode part II. Why? Especially when there really wasn't enough strong material left? And then it's like they suddenly remembered the end was coming up and things got sped up way too quickly in the last few episodes.

Well, if we're just going to nitpick the "realism" of the show, I really had a hard time believing that a relatively small Jersey family could get the okay to kill a New York boss (Phil Leotardo). But we all hated Phil, so we looked the other way. And from that point of view, that's why I think Tony dies at the ice cream shop, in retaliation for Phil getting whacked. But that's a subject that's been done to death here, so I'll leave it alone.

He did turn down (albeit at the last minute) the real estate agent, Julianna Skiff (played by Julianna Margulies). But then again, given that she was so hot, that may have been unrealistic in itself!

Actually, most of the things Ivy League mentioned are things I've thought about myself at various points throughout the series.

But The Sopranos is really art — and therefore imperfect — and not science. That's how I justify these things to myself when I rewatch the series. It's still my favorite series of all time.

AJ's battle with depression toward the end started to annoy me. He became such an obnoxious and boring character at the end that I was wishing they'd just kill him off.

You and me both. I was really rooting for that weight in the swiming pool .

One of the most annoying things throughout the entire series has to be James Gandolfini's breathing. Some of the best scenes are eclipsed by that obnoxious heavy grunt/panting - whatever you call it. Forget prozac, Tony, take an antihistamine!

But none of your criticisms are particularly objective.

But for the sake of discussion...

Disagree. "Fun House" and "The Test Dream" are not only great episodes in themselves, but significant in their narrative development. In "Funhouse", Tony's willingness to repress doubts over Pussy's involvement with the Feds comes to the fore through a dream. "The Test Dream" works in much the same way regarding Tony's suspicion of Tony B.

Chase has referenced David Lynch as an influence on the dream sequences, and it shows; there's very rich associative, suggestive surrealism in these sequences.

Don't forget that was there (more) for Carmela's character development too. It allowed us to further explore her behavioural patterns and domestic/sexual frustration as Tony's wife, as seen already in season 2 with Davey Scatino's brother-in-law.

More so in the beginning, until Ralphie's character went further than Richie's arc. Also, Ralphie's brief romantic involvement with Janice in itself demands a comparison between the two characters. When Janice pushes Ralphie down the stairs, what are we to make of it? She killed Richie, of course; what sort of implications might we read into that, with a view to Janice's sex life?

They certainly risked repetition with Feech, but handled that nicely...

Meh. It's possible and probable Tony didn't want to complicate the matter; plus, Janice got into the situation herself.

I managed to suspend my disbelief. And I'm not convinced this is inaccurate. Chrissy and Georgie are seen in Season One scanning the place for wires.

It's to stop things getting way uglier than they had already become at that point.

These are political opportunists more than stubborn Napoleonic power gluttons; they go with whatever situation favours them most. Butch calling a truce with New Jersey helps him to start earning again - and in backing a hit on Phil, he also betters his own position within the NY hierarchy. It's all about the money; seemed pretty logical to me, and telling of how fickle these guys are.

Remember Paulie's would-be defection in Season Four? His initial desperation to jump ship, and the speed with which he goes back to Tony's corner when things don't go his way...?

But it was logical, given the development of his character. Tony: "He's dead to me."

Tony B's entire narrative arc is to show the impossible difficulties of "going clean", especially after returning to the world after institutionalised incarceration. It's a doomed arc, effectively depicted.

They're kinda fun though, no? The Kingsley and Bacall cameos of "Luxury Lounge", and the whole Cleaver thing with Danny Baldwin, add another dimension to the show. I'll return to this below...

No more so than any shooting resembling any other shooting. And they're very different.

I guess so; no less so than Silvio walking away from Artie's restaurant in the pilot. Sent a message.

I've never understood this criticism, and I've come across it plenty of times. It's probably the most significant ongoing plot of the entire series - by focusing on it in the way that they do, the writers explore and develop everybody else. It also happens alongside the whole Cleaver subplot, with the cameos you mentioned, etc.; Season 6A really is about the audience and the show itself as much as anything else. It's telling us how to view the show and asking how we view it, too. It's actually very clever.

I've heard people say in response to the homosexuality thing that "The Sopranos became a soap opera!" Haha, it couldn't be any richer or more intelligent. Such criticisms say more about the critics than the show.

It's not inconsistent with Meadow's behaviour, though. None of her relationships have been anything more than adolescent and fleeting. Even the whole engagement to Finn is superficial and based on a desperate whim. In finally 'settling' with Patrick, she comes full circle: don't forget she was seeing the very same Patrick at the beginning of the series. Resignation?

He was barely in it anyway; he made very brief cameos until that point and with the whole Eugene thing in that same episode, it was a pretty effective way of not only returning to Curto, but to end that particular subplot. Also helps magnify the desperation with which the Feds want to push Eugene; in turn, to magnify the desperation of Eugene's situation.

At first I thought killing Chrissy off came out of nowhere; upon revisits, Chris and Tony are on the outs way before this. Regarding the car-flip, I think the repetition was deliberate. In itself, we're asked to associate the two crashes and ask what they might offer in terms of symbolic, thematic developments. The show actually has many car bumps and crashes, some real and some fantastical. Tony has many car crashes - Melfi dreams of one of them; Phil Leotardo's neck-injuring crash; Livia bumping over her friend; the two crashes you mention; Christopher's first introduction, in the pilot, deals with a car-crash of sorts - that of his Lexus into Mahaffey - like Meadow's arc, Christopher's comes full-circle, of sorts. In the show, relationships are collision courses: in "Whitecaps", the Season Four finale, Tony and Carmela's eventual break-up is foreshadowed when Tony drives his car up the driveway only to feel a sudden 'bump' in the road - he drives over the golf clubs Carmela has de-domesticated via defenestration.

Infidelity is a major theme in the show.

That tune is also used in A Bronx Tale. It's just Chase trying to get to grips with his own material while being consciously indebted to all the great stuff made before him.

Actually, this manifests itself thematically too. From the outset, Tony confesses to Melfi that he feels he came in too late, that the best is over. It's a comment about generational disillusionment in American society in general, but it could also double as a self-reflexive concern about the show itself.

You say the series is about a contemporary crime family, but you can take out the crime; its main concern is contemporary family values in general, with crime as a significant backdrop. Tony's mid-life crisis is embedded in and stems from his relation to the past - as anyone's does in general. The choice of music is quite fitting in this regard, I think.

A similar technique is used later in the same episode when Christopher, concerned with his self-image and desperate to make a man of himself, whacks Emil Kolar. As Christopher shoots Emil, we cut away to the faces of three classical faces from the past: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and Dean Martin. The backing song? "Mannish Boy" by Muddy Waters - which also featured briefly in GoodFellas, one of David Chase's favourite films (he originally wanted Lorraine Bracco to play Carmela).

Final acts are always fast. I don't think it came down to cynical money-making schemes. I think Season 6A is the richest in terms of material; none of the episodes in 6B are short of excellent.

Exactly this was one of the few things i didn't like about the show. They made the Jersey mafia at the same level if not bigger than the New York mob. For anyone who does not know The Sopranos aree based on the decalvacante family. They were about half as powerful as any other NY Family. John gotti even referred to them as the minor league mafia. I know its a show but I think instead of having tony kill Phil they should of had Butch whack him

That could have been a security measure though, much in the same way Johnny Sack tried to get NJ to take out Carmine in Season Four. If anything it's actually quite indicative of NJ's inferiority - they're being used, though not for nothing.

If anything went wrong with the Phil hit, Butch has enough time to delay any backlash to him directly.

I agree Ivy, there are tons of UNFORGIVEABLE mistakes in this show which make it almost unwatchable! Like in "For All Debts Public and Private", Tony is wearing shorts.. SHORTS! A boss would never wear shorts! And doesn't Carmela get her hair styled differently in an episode? How come we don't ever see that haircut!

I kid, however must of your criticisms of the show are maybe reaching a little to far?



I'm pretty sure Steve Buscemi was only ever supposed to be around for one season, despite you saying it was supposed to be more. Frankly, though I love that Steve was in it and I think he did a fantastic job, I never fell in love with the character of Tony B enough for me to want to see him more.



What.. really? Besides Kingsley, Bacall and Baldwin (Which Cosa Nostra already mentioned), Sinatra Jr. and Annette Bening I can't really think of anyone else. So in the 86 episodes there where 5 celebrity appearences, though Lauren Bacall and Ben Kingsley appeared in the same episode. None of the celebrities, save Danny Baldwin, had anything to do with a plot line that extended out of the episode they were in. Does it really matter?



Again.. what? How so? Like Cosa Nostra said, these two shootings are similar in that they are shootings that resulted in comas. Was Ralphie's kid being shot by an arrow (OMG, outside, just like christopher, see the connection!) similar to Tony's? Not at all.



See Nostra's response. Probably one of the best plot lines in the the entire show.



I'm sorry, but again it seems like you're really just nitpicking. Ray's death was obviously used in order to intensify the situation that Eugene was in. The FBI needed another informant and the pressure they put on Eugene because of Ray's death is the straw that breaks the camels back. Why didn't you have a problem when GiGi Cestone had a heart attack in the bathroom?



Simply put, Tony was involved in a world where his power got him everything, even woman. Infeldity is a HUGE part of this show.

Sorry if I came off a bit strong! Of course, everyone has the right to pick out aspects of a piece of art that they don't like. What's great about the Soprano's is that there can be so many points of view regarding very small things, which really makes watching and rewatching the various seasons an awesome experince each and every time!

It's funny because Carmine chastises Tony for wearing shorts. (A boss should never be seen wearing shorts.) And Tony isn't seen wearing shorts again around his crew until after Carmine's death.

Haha, I didn't pick that up about the shorts thing!

Re narrative repetition, by the way, I actually think it's one of the show's many strengths - not only in how it faces the 'problem' of repetition (because life can often seem like a series of situations we've found ourselves in before, whether we've cared to learn from them or not) but in how it subverts these situations and forces itself down different narrative paths. There's a fine balance between affected realism and nuanced drama here.

As just a few examples: The central premise of the show is somebody suffering from panic attacks, so he actively seeks help with them. But this 'somebody' happens to be a gangster, and a large part of Tony's worries concern contemporary values as decayed extensions of a more romantic past. History looms large in this show: the final episode is called "Made in America".

A large part of Tony's view regarding contemporary values is the loss of honour and loyalty in La Cosa Nostra: perhaps the biggest in-joke - intended or not - in the show is its title. A soprano is a female singer, and this series is about otherwise models of masculinity 'singing' to the Feds. So naturally, Tony's biggest concerns are three-pronged: on a personal level there's the problem of recurring panic attacks; on a business level there's the lingering problem of people ratting him out - the biggest early fear of this culminates with 'Pussy' (the meaning becomes two-fold) 'singing' to the FBI; and related to and enveloping both of these recurring fears is the threat of familial and domestic security.

Toward the end of Season Two the writers look back at the end of Season One: Tony's leadership is preventing Junior from earning enough to pay for his legal costs, and so Richie Aprile tries to push Junior into whacking Tony - again. Junior, in a different position to what he was thirteen episodes earlier, decides against it and the series moves on...

Don't forget the recurring habits and lifestyle choices (from which recurring storylines seem only natural) such as Christopher's drug addiction; Janice's relationship progression from Richie to Ralphie to Bobby Bacala; the problems of upstarts who all resemble one another: Mikey Palmice, Richie, Ralphie, Feechy (Tony re the latter: "Didn't I learn anything from the Richie Aprile situation?"); the several times later on in the series where an NJ-NY war seems to happen, not for the fun of it but as a result of economic/business ebbs and flows as much as personal vendettas....

Suicide also plays a large part in The Sopranos. Several characters surrounding the show's central character - the 'somebody' whose recurring depression is the very point of the show - attempt to or do commit suicide: Vin Makazian, Eugene Pontecorvo, Gloria Trillo; Artie Bucco, Davey Scatino, Tony's goomar Irina... and most notably, AJ.

A further note:


At this point the series is coming to the end of its second season, knowing very much that there's a third in the pipeline. It's quite an obvious case here, self-reflexively speaking, of the writers voicing their intentions through Junior: not only is the show moving on (beyond its first and second seasons), it's doing so with such confidence in its own creative capabilities: don't forget how very different Season Three begins stylistically: "Mr Ruggerio's Neighborhood" is largely from the FBI's perspective, while its follow-up, "Proshai Livushka", begins with that 'rewind' affect, quite knowingly drawing our attention to its 'unusual-ness' (as a side note, the frequent fade-outs in "Neighborhood" seem to me to go too far - the narrative premise is unusual in itself, the edits seem quite clunky). And don't forget the impact Nancy Marchand's death had on the show: Livia, such a central presence to Tony's and the series' narrative development, has to be killed off early in Season Three, finally forcing the writers down paths they might otherwise not have imagined.

It's as if with that critical moment when Junior decides against Richie in favour of Tony (Bobby to Jun: "I'm in awe of you."), everybody's saying "This show has a future; life repeats itself - especially the kind of lives these people lead, when you're only as good as your last paycheck - and we're going to face that repetition and make what we can of it. We're not going to repeat ourselves, but we're going to rely on that kind of narrative because life is like that."

Would Tony need permission since Phil started the confrontation.

ill come back and edit and finish, im tired now, see u guys later!

While I agree that the high amount of murders in the series was unrealistic, you're information about no made guy in New York getting killed between 2001 and this year is not correct. Genovese captain Al Bruno was killed in 2003, although he was hit up in Massachusetts. Genovese acting captain Larry Ricci was killed in 2005, later to be found in the trunk of a car in Jersey. Genovese soldier Rudy Izzi was killed in 2007, as was Lucchese soldier Frank Lagano. And Bonanno soldier Anthony Seccifico was killed last year.

Frank Lagano was killed in East Brunswick, NJ

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Joseph_T...amily_dies.html

Rudy Izzi was allegedly "retired" or "on the shelf" with the Genovese so he technically wasn't active from all the reports I have read in the NYC papers.

Seccifico technically is/was the only made guy to be killed IN NYC. Obcourse, there were probably some other guys who disappeared from radar screens and never heard from again...

First, being retired and being on the shelf is not necessarily the same thing. A guy can be put on the shelf and still be active in the life, like the Colombo brothers were. I've never heard of Izzi being either retired or on the shelf, but if he was, that doesn't mean he ceased to be a member. Once again, you don't stop being a member until you die or flip.

Phil had best line on the show, in the episode where they kill Vito, he says "I loved him like a brother in law, sorry but that funny shit. For all its faults, its the best Mob show on television ever.

Apparently the shorts thing came from a real life Associate or Made Man who watched the show and contacted (somehow) Chase and congratulated him on the accuracy of 'The Sopranos'. He told Chase the only thing he got wrong was that Tony wore shorts and that a Don never wears shorts.
Apparently (though I haven't checked) Chase never put Tony in shorts again.