4/22 Sopranos: speculation and eventual spoilers

he was the guy who played "karouke don" in "keeping the faith," yes? ??? 8) ???

 

I think I read it somewhere that Tony Sirico only agreed to do the show as long as Paulie never became a rat. If that's true, there goes that theory.

 

Yes! And he was great.

Love that movie.

 

The Cheney thing had me laughing so hard I had to pause the old Tivo. Classic.

Also, not to fall into the setting up the rest of the season trap, I think it did one thing that had to be done before all of those hoping for bloodshed get their wish.

Before a full out war escalates between NY and NJ, there had to be some closure to the NY power struggle. We got that. Phil's the guy and now it's on.

Also, I'm glad that the body under the house wasn't something cheesy like Adriana or something that a lot of people were speculating about. The way it played out was much better and it had more meaning this way.

I'm not ready to declare this the best season ever or anything, but Chase's fastball is getting some MPH back.

 

Paulie's story about his first trip and giving the name Barney Fife to the Southern cop was hilarious, and I've never even seen a single episode of the Andy Griffith Show. I wonder how many people under the age of 30 would know who that is?

 

Never seen Andy Griffith and am under 30. But I knew the Barney Fife reference. Classic Paulie. Lots of good stuff about his history tonight and why he's such a loose lipped mob guy (kind of like a jumbo shrimp). I don't remember ever getting the background about his relationship with Tony's dad. Good stuff.

 

I think his angry snap at Carm was proof of that. He was feeling guilty that he wasn't trusting the one guy on his crew he can probably trust the most.

 

Very mediocre episode.

Tony And Paulie's Miami Getaway immediately brought to mind Kevin Finnerty's Weekend at the Hotel California -- a month of wasted episodes.

They don't have enough episodes left they can piss them away on crap like this. Everything significant that happened tonight could have been handled in 15 minutes of screen time.

 

To see this show fall this far is painful. Absolutely painful. It's embarrassing. I'll catch it on TiVo from here out.

I'll repeat: The show is awful now because HBO could not meet the salary demands of the actors. Everybody is working less, so you see Tony and two or three other characters dominate an episode. The Junior scenario was just like the Johnny Sack scenario. Introduce some new character (Asian inmate and murderer/doctor) who will work for cheap and use him for an episode to learn about a main character (Junior or Johhny Sack).

It's obvious Tony is going to walk away at the end because he'll realize the life he's chosen has made him unable to trust anyone he cares about. I like the message overall, but Chase is telling it in the most unsophisticated manner possible.

Thank God for David Simon and The Wire. I'm not surprised that a former journalist is the best storyteller in the history of TV. Long live David Simon! No one can dispute that The Wire is clearly the best thing HBO has ever produced. It ain't even close.

 

Jesus Jumped-up Christ :

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/40489/

 

Paulie was definitely asking a lot of questions to Tony that involved time and place.

 

More takeoffs/tributes/ripoffs from the Godfather series tonight:

The Family Boss realizes he may have to whack one of his father's most trusted sidemen (Michael Corleone v. Sal Tessio, GF I, and Frankie Pentangeli, GF II).

The Family Boss makes a trip during which he consults a trusted old friend of his father, now wheelchair-bound (Michael Corleone and Don Tomassino, GF I and III).

A rival gang boss gets taken out with a shot in the eye (Moe Greene, GF I).