Best ' Whack ' on The Sopranos.

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Wildest cat from montana, Jun 2, 2021.

  1. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Indeed. Great character dev with Meadow confronting her dad about being in the mafia for the first time, the priest showing up for movie night with Carm right when she finds out that Melfi is a female, having communion, the murder and then of course the great Hawthorne quote, "No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."
     
  2. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    I agree with it being Janice whacking Ritchie. Angers me so much to see someone striking a woman like that. I just loved it when she wasn't just a victim and retaliated. Janice is no victim - gotta love that about her. I would have loved to see Adriana do that to Christopher - but completely different situation and personality type. I wanted to see Christopher get whacked so bad, it's disappointing he went via the car crash, with a little help from Tony (but he likely would have died anyway).

    In fact when Tony or any of the "big guys" went it was great - they were all horrible people. Too bad Paulie and Uncle Jun were still hanging in there in the end. Sil was unfortunately still alive, but probably good as dead.
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2021
  3. jwoverho

    jwoverho Licensed Drug Dealer

    Location:
    Mobile, AL USA
    I watched the entire series again several months ago- it was still just as amazing.
     
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  4. Big Jimbo

    Big Jimbo Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Junior might as well be with his Alzeheimer’s. As for Paulie Walnuts, when Pavrati (Janice) first sees him in season 2 she is amazed he is still alive. But virtually nobody in that show is really admirable…maybe Charmaine Bucco who warns her mob-worshiping husband to keep away or the seldom seen younger sister Barbara Soprano who lives in Brewster NY, apparently keeps away from Mob activities and shows up for hospitals, funerals and holiday dinners.
    Although I do have a certain admiration for Little Carmine who eventually realizes he is not cut out to follow his father, and gets rich from porn movies and stays alive and out of jail…by listening to his wife.
     
  5. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader Thread Starter

    Location:
    ontario canada
    Tony killed eight people.
    Just sayin'...
     
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  6. When Malfi got whacked -oh wait, that was just a dream I had.:angel:
     
  7. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    Not to mention senselessly beating that bartender at the Bada Bing several times and other people as well. The whacking of him at the very end was another great moment.
     
  8. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    Tony beating and humiliating Assemblyman Zellman was, to me, the worst of all the violence he perpetuated.

    And to what whacking are you referring? :)))
     
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  9. BEAThoven

    BEAThoven Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    The Sopranos is definitely one show you can watch over and over as different layers seem to get peeled back on successive viewings. Some of my thoughts after a couple of viewings:
    • Ralphie is actually a more insightful character than he appears on the surface.
    • Adriana was probably the closest to an "innocent" on the show.
    • Melfie's "realization" at the end of the series is actually to show the viewers that they've been "had."
    • Meadow and AJ inherited their father's "delusional sickness" and will end up as tedious, hypocritical people.
     
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  10. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader Thread Starter

    Location:
    ontario canada
    That poor scmuck! Didn't Ralphie clip him in the eye with a chain as well?
     
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  11. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    It was good writing: Tony had broken up with Irina and pushed back against all her attempts to keep seeing him. It's not uncommon for people who instigate a break-up to get jealous when their lover starts seeing someone else. In this case, Tony needed to control Zellman and so once he got nostalgic about Irina, through "Oh Girl" by the Chi-Lites, he had every motivation to drive over there and reestablish his dominance.

    The real gift of the show is to write characters so true to life yet living outside the rules that everyone must follow. Tony makes you feel something strong. Gandolfini and the entire cast channeled their acting talents into those characters in a way I'd never seen before in a TV show. I read that Chase had a policy of ripping up the first two drafts of the scripts that the writers brought him and challenging them to come up with better dialog and story lines to take the characters where he needed them to go. Pretty great policy. Wish more shows would do it.

    As mentioned above, some characters would be shot when violence emerged unexpectedly with almost no lead-up, like those bikers loading cases of wine. Others would take an entire season or more to reach a resolution, like Steve Buscemi's character. The show constantly kept you on the edge of your seat and refused to fall into the trap of other shows where there would be a resolution in each episode that was tied up neatly. That was one of the keys to being so realistic.

    You can certainly watch the show as Tony using Melfi to practice his brand of manipulation and alexithymia, but I think as written he genuinely did care about his people and his family; he just chose murder and violence in a calculus to fulfill his ambitions and expectations. I think he owned it and was really trying to get help from Melfi to understand how to not short-circuit, not make bad decisions, and not misplace his anger. Ultimately that's pretty normal for people to see a shrink--he just had to be careful to not reveal his crimes. As disgusting as much of the violence is, there is a great deal of humor in some of it and a great deal of truth in humor...just a show after all.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2021
  12. Jack Lord

    Jack Lord Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Bobby getting whacked in the model train store and causing multiple derailments on the very elaborate train set was the most creative.

    Big Sal's exit was the most painful. Exposed and trapped with nowhere to go. And he knew it was coming- from his own pals no less.
     
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  13. modrevolve

    modrevolve Forum Resident

    Christopher getting whacked by Tony (while justified) maybe bummed me out the most.
     
  14. AirJordanFan93

    AirJordanFan93 Forum Resident

    Yep
     
  15. x2zero

    x2zero Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn USA
    Jimmy Altieri
    “Why don’t you call for help on your radio mic, you ******* rat”
     
  16. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    Regarding Melfi dumping Tony in the last few episodes, that was one of the few times I was disappointed with the writing. Sorry, but after treating Tony for several years, the only reason she would come to the sudden realization that Tony was a psychopath was to help wrap up the story line. She had known for their entire relationship what Tony was. And dumping him like that should have been a very dangerous thing for her to do.
     
  17. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    It seemed realistic to me. She had fired T at the beginning of Season 2, and had been very conflicted about whether to continue treating him ever since. She resisted it when her own shrink told her about the study that ultimately convinced her to fire T in the episode after TJ attempted suicide. The show carefully highlighted the section in the paper that resonated with Melfi. Specifically, it was about the criminal relating more to animals. It seemed plausible this was the final straw because of the way Tony was more upset by Pie'o'My than Christopher's death, for example. Like Carm, Melfi was coming to a realization that she was acting as Tony's enabler, and that was where she drew the line. She did seem conciliatory and offered to recommend another therapist since she knew Tony was in crisis. She was firm and professional about it, and they both seemed to have an understanding that she wasn't going to be in danger over this. Tony was facing much bigger problems.
     
  18. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    They may have laid the groundwork storywise but I understand what he's saying. For viewers who have been through so much with Tony and Melfi, having her call it quits at this point in the story was emotionally unsatisfying.
     
  19. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    While she was not a sociopath like her boyfriend and his mafia cohorts, Ade was hardly innocent. She was not unlike Carmela in that she had no problem living it up and enjoying the life of being a mob wife/girlfriend while pretending to look the other way, except that Carmela was not a user and seller of hard drugs like Ade was. And let's not forget the murder that Ade helped cover up. Relatively innocent? I disagree big time. Heck, let's not forget how she turned her friend Tina in to the feds to be petty simply because she was pissed because she flirted a little with Chrissy. In relative terms, she wasn't close to being one of the worst people on the show, but she was still not an innocent or good person.
     
  20. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    Oh, and to answer the question posed here, it is tough. The shocking ones are hard to beat (Ralphie, Richie, Christopher), but the entire sequence leading up to his three friends whacking Sal is just amazing TV. You can tell it tore them all up, especially Tony, but it's something they felt they had to do, and we had already see how much the guilt of being a rat was getting to Sal (see: him crying at the end of D-Girl). Right after killing Sal, just that 10-second shot of Tony and him saying, "get the weights," is just killer acting by Gandolfini. He managed to convey sorrow, anger and assertiveness in both his body language and voice tone there.
     
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  21. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    This one works on a bunch of levels. Yes, Ralphie did some terrible things and deserved it, but he ends up getting whacked for something he probably didn't do when he was acting like a fairly decent guy.

    Another fun trivia fact about that episode: Raid bug spray was paid for product placement for that episode. But they didn't know how their product would be used. Apparently they weren't happy.

    Anyway, my answer to the OP is Big P**ssy at the end of season 2. To me, that was the highlight of the series.
     
  22. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    Yep, it's clear that Ralph did not kill the horse (Joey Pants is on record as saying that he played the scene as if Ralph did not kill the horse after getting a non-answer from David Chase as to whether Ralph did it or not), but his cavalier attitude about the horse's death is what did him in. To his "credit" (as much as we can give Ralphie), he was ready to let it go after Tony's initial insinuation about it, but once Tony asked him about the guy Sil used for the restaurant fire, that is when he had enough and pushed back. Their fight was great, as it was two guys fighting dirty and doing whatever they could to get an advantage, but once Tony got Ralph on the ground and on top of him, it was over.
     
  23. Big Jimbo

    Big Jimbo Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Not a conventional “whack” but Tony realizing that Feech La Manna was a repeat of Richie Aprile and would always give him problems was a great solution. Capitalize on his greed by letting him have a stolen plasma tv. Get him to keep a truck full in his garage and arrange for a different parole officer to show up unexpectedly and find Feech in violation of his parole. Back to the slammer; probably the rest of his life.
     
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  24. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    I like this storyline too but I think it was written mostly just to get rid of Robert Loggia, whom Chase & Co. supposedly disliked.
     
  25. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I thought there was a pretty clear admission after denying it: "No, I did not! But so what!?" He's saying to Tony he did it and then says that it's just an animal, which makes Tony even more angry. Ralph had a history of murder and leaning on inspectors who ruled the fire an accident. He also had a history of not taking care of the horse, and saying it was more trouble than it was worth. The real question is not so much why Ralphie killed the horse, which was perfectly in character, but why Tony would let himself kill Ralph. He had promoted Ralph to captain, supported him through the tragedy with his kid, and tried to bury the animosity after Ralphie murdered Tracee. Ralph was his best earner. Purely as a business decision, killing Ralphie was the biggest blunder Tony made. All the other captains became nervous and suspicious, and it was a tremendous liability to confide in Chris, who was increasingly passive-aggressive and unreliable.
     

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