The Sopranos 5x04 Reaction
Added 2025-02-24 00:15:22 +0000 UTC
Comments
100% by their logic why don’t they cut Tony some slack
Ruben Welsh
2025-03-10 22:01:59 +0000 UTCHard disagree. Yeah, he is not the best behaved kid and we can’t put all the blame on the parents, I’ve said that much, but he is far from a Narcissist. He is a good dude, and he has empathy.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-26 09:22:26 +0000 UTCRewatch that scene; Angelo’s dialog about Tony B is clearly dubbed, indicating they changed some storyline in the middle of shooting season 5.
Octavio
2025-02-25 03:52:55 +0000 UTCAJ is a bad kid, period. Its less to do with upbringing (Meadow turned out alright) and more to do with himself. Not sure what the medical term is, but I think he lacks emotional intelligence and empathy for others. Some form of narcissism. The older he gets the clearer its becoming to me.
David Skipper
2025-02-25 01:59:45 +0000 UTCYou both act as if AJ is never responsible for any of his actions. It’s always someone else’s fault. Just because someone was raised poorly doesn’t mean we can excuse them for everything and chalk it up to simply, well he’s a kid and wasn’t raised properly so not his fault.” At some point you have to also take responsibility for your actions. There’s plenty of of people who had it worse than AJ and turned out not to be an asshole.
Tyler Jackson
2025-02-25 00:34:34 +0000 UTCI think works fine mainly because we know how much they value having a family in this subculture. People like junior and paulie are seen as the abnormal ones for not being married and having kids. So i can see tony, whose guilt is already well established, agreeing to something like helping tony b get kids while he’s incarcerated.
Veya
2025-02-24 17:01:42 +0000 UTCWhen Tony says to Carmela: - He loves you, it's just you're his mother, it's different. He views AJ relationship to Carmela as he saw his relationship to Livia. And also he father should be more of a joker who spoils kids that's why he buys all the stuff to Carmela. In this episode then Carmela has enough and don't want to play the villan any more.
Rok Zupan
2025-02-24 16:43:02 +0000 UTC@enchantertim Good point! I forgot about that. Still, their existence does seem somewhat contrived for plot purposes.
Abacus
2025-02-24 16:40:52 +0000 UTCI agree overall but I’d throw a bit of bale to the fact that AJ IS technically still a kid (in that he’s not an adult legally and developmentally) but that’s also what my broader point was: that my sympathy for AJ wouldn’t just disappear once he becomes an “adult”. He’s an adult because he’s an adult doesn’t really say much. It just seems like an arbitrary emotional cutoff. We see how he’s being brought up (and his parenting isn’t really one dimensional) and nothing about biologically and legally turning into an adult changes any of that.
Veya
2025-02-24 16:25:38 +0000 UTC@Abacus The twins were mentioned when Toby B. first arrived. He asked about them during the party in the 2nd episode.
enchantertim
2025-02-24 16:22:55 +0000 UTCI think teenagers themselves are simply easy to hate. It's just that time in their lives in which they are at their most disagreeable, entitled and honestly hateable selves.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 15:40:55 +0000 UTCYet Meadow was raised by the same people at around the same time period and in the same culture, and she turned out fine (flawed, sure, like all of us, but overall fine). We have to hold AJ accountable to some extent. Tony for instance had a WAY worse upbringing and that's part of the reasons he's a sympathetic character, but we still judge him and hold him accountable for his actions as we should.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 15:35:29 +0000 UTCYeah, I feel like there's an underlying attitude from the girls that whatever AJ does it's completely Tony and Carmella's fault because they raised him, but Meadow is turning up to be an overall decent woman and we don't see them saying that's completely thanks to how she was raised. You can't have it both ways. You can't look at one rebellious child and put all the blame on the parents, and then look at the other well-put together child and think that the parents didn't have any influence in that when both were raised by the same people. It's usually more complicated than that.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 15:29:34 +0000 UTCAngelo being Tony B's best friend in the can was established early on in the season in the scene in which Carmine Sr has the stroke in the golf course eating with Tony S, Angelo himself and Johnny Sack, it wasn't a retcon.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 15:17:47 +0000 UTCThat's sad how his real life mirrored his on-screen character so well: trying hard to fit in a younger man's game but simply not having what it takes anymore.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 15:16:05 +0000 UTCMaybe it’s a cultural difference, but of all the “bad things” a 17 year old can get up to, smoking some weed and getting their eyebrows cut it’s pretty low on the list LOL. I’d much rather it be that than hard liquor or heavy drugs. At the end of the day the point it’s not how bad AJ fucked up, it is pretty standard teenage shit imo (apparently not for you and that’s fine, maybe your upbringing and culture were different). The point is how Tony and Carmella deal with AJ’s rebellious phase, and in that we see their character flaws: Tony decides to immediately deal with the problem with violence and agression, followed by letting AJ off the hook moments later but without any guidance in order for him to grow and learn from their mistakes, which further enables his path towards self-destruction. The carrot and the stick, same way he usually conducts business as a mob boss, especially towards Chrissy (basically his second male son). Carmella on the other hand also does what she usually does, avoid the problem and throw it somewhere else because she can’t bear with the guilt of being responsible for his son and feeling she failed as a mother, so she’d rather him become Tony’s problem so Carmella can look the other way. It’s the same way Carmella decides to completely ignore the fact that the lifestyle she loves so much is financed by murder and extortion because she can’t deal with the guilt, so she chooses to actively look the other way. Both their reactions to the problem at hand showcase perfectly how they are as humans. That said, AJ is not a kid anymore and he still needs to be held responsible for the things he does, you can't just put the all of the blame on his parents. Plenty of people had parents way worse than Tony and Carm and they were never that disrespectful.
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 14:11:39 +0000 UTCA nice touch in this episode is that Tony commends Meadow for covering for AJ instead of ratting him out. Meadow keeps omerta.
Abacus
2025-02-24 09:30:19 +0000 UTCAJ needs a male role model. Someone he can relate to, someone who'll help him understand his parents, and then himself, but pretty hard to find. Meadow would probably have good advice for him. He also needs some wins - get a good grade, get a job and hold it down, improve at footbal and be rewarded for it.
Ben G
2025-02-24 09:23:09 +0000 UTCIt always makes me laugh how Joey Peeps comes in drinking from a dainty little cup and saucer when they are whacking Lorraine. Trivia — Lorraine Calluzo was based on a real-life journalist who complained that there wasn't enough action and killing in season 4. That's why Johnny Sack complains "never enough body count for Lorraine!". Then she gets killed off, lol. Also it's funny that Lola didn't seem to realise that AJ's eyebrows were shaved until later, just like Tony.
Abacus
2025-02-24 09:06:40 +0000 UTCyeah ol'Leo/Lev Tostoy: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" The only thing I really remember from Anna Karenina is Levin's mowing in the fields with those famers/labours being beautiful
Ben G
2025-02-24 09:00:10 +0000 UTCWhen I was comin' up she had the long legs, up to here, like that. Famous beauty, smart as a whip.
Abacus
2025-02-24 08:52:50 +0000 UTCLoggia's problems remembering lines leading to him leaving early might be untrue/exaggerated, but irregardless, there's definitely some shenanigans going on with the plotting in s5. I'd say Angelo's line during the golf lunch is clearly ADR (though not done sloppily as in s1) and them doing a bit of retconning to make things fit. It's impossible that Angelo and TB were close inside but also that he didn't realise that TB was TS's cousin and had to ask. I can't remember where I heard it so can't say for sure, but I thought the plan with Feech was that things start off rocky between him and Tony, but he becomes a close ally. Likely he was meant to take Angelo's role later in the season in terms of his place in the larger plot. The Blundetto twins suddenly materialising in this episode is a big one, along with the two quick and hilarious lines from Carm and Tony explaining how they came to be, but they have their place in plot developments so had to be conjured.
Abacus
2025-02-24 08:49:44 +0000 UTCIt’s the greatest show of all time. It’s finale is the best thing to come from tv or movies. I am so jealous you are watching it for the first time.
Cole
2025-02-24 08:45:55 +0000 UTCI don't think you can tell it's ADR'd in based on audio quality alone. But it does cut to Tony's face so we can't lip read so maybe he may have had a different line. If you re-watch the scene, he claims he's his best friend once he heard his full name, which given his age, doesn't seem to be the most unbelievable. And yeah Tony B and Feech are close but they are both from the DiMeo family in the same prison, doesn't seem like the most outlandish thing (if anything the sperm smuggling seems a bit weirder). I'm assuming they were going to have Feech be apart of Tony B's arc regardless of who his best friend in prison was.
Veya
2025-02-24 08:19:25 +0000 UTCwhy?
Zach D
2025-02-24 07:54:59 +0000 UTC@Veya If you watch that scene again, you can kinda tell that it’s ADR'd in. In that scene, Angelo doesn’t seem to know who Tony’s cousin is before suddenly claiming he’s his best friend in the can. There are also more scenes that indicate closeness and friendship between Tony B and Feech, like Feech giving Tony B money and them driving around together. Feech is even comfortable enough with Tony B to talk trash about Tony behind his back.
IanJ
2025-02-24 07:22:06 +0000 UTCOh actually I think that might be correct. I think Chase was referring specifically to sending him to prison rather than killing him off like all of the other antagonists because they've done it before, not necessarily that he wasn't written off early due to his trouble. My bad, I misremembered. Also, I don't think Tony B's best friend was a retcon? At the very least in the first episode of the season, during the golf course scene, Angelo already mentioned that Tony B was his best friend on the inside.
Veya
2025-02-24 06:54:40 +0000 UTC@Veya I heard about Chase saying that and it's possible that he's just not trying to say anything rude about Loggia. Him being Tony B's best friend in prison and them changing it to Angelo always look like a retcon to me and a sign that he was intended to be in the season longer than he is. Who knows though.
IanJ
2025-02-24 06:42:51 +0000 UTCEdie Falco's acting is pretty much responsible for a good chunk of the sympathy I have for Carmela. She made that character richer by playing the pain and struggle so well. But acting aside, taking a more bird's eye view of the character, Carmela has no where near the reason and background for being in this life compared to Tony, or even someone like Adrianna. We've already met her parents who are far better. They have actively tried to push her towards a different path compared to Tony's, and unlike Adrianna, she is more intelligent and reflective and we do know materialism plays a part of her psyche. In the hands of a weaker actress I think the character would come across as a lot less likeable.
Veya
2025-02-24 06:40:43 +0000 UTCFun fact: This episode is written by Toni Kalem, AKA Angie Bonpensiero Another fun fact: Feech WAS intended to be a Richie Aprile-like old school mob antagonist for Tony this season, but he had trouble completing his scenes and remembering his lines. Consequently, he was written off. His scene in Junior's kitchen took over a year to film iirc. Just as Livia is based on his own mother, AJ and Tony are both also based on David Chase himself. AJ is basically Tony but small, and this season will explore that even further.
IanJ
2025-02-24 05:45:54 +0000 UTCIt's one of the few scenes I've carried with me from the original airing
Isaac
2025-02-24 05:15:28 +0000 UTCAshford from the Expanse before he burned his face and went to space. My favorite part of this episode is Carmella's face when Tony asks AJ about "poppers and weird sex" with his teacher. I find the show hysterical. and AJ is awful
jackpotz
2025-02-24 04:04:21 +0000 UTCAJ is a great character and has some really engaging story lines in these latter seasons.
kevin coleman
2025-02-24 03:21:02 +0000 UTCExcellent work on recognizing the literary reference in the episode title. That is indeed where it comes from.
Marcus Cato
2025-02-24 03:11:03 +0000 UTCNo, I watched the show in its original airing. I am enjoying the re-watch with L&M to recapture that feeling of getting it all for the first again.
JBK405
2025-02-24 02:32:20 +0000 UTCI've never met one person that appreciated AJ.
BNJ
2025-02-24 02:32:11 +0000 UTCWhat??
Varus
2025-02-24 02:28:54 +0000 UTCLook at this guy...
BNJ
2025-02-24 02:28:25 +0000 UTCAre you a first time watcher by any chance?
Veya
2025-02-24 02:21:42 +0000 UTC>Carmela and Tony are a bit late to the party in trying to impose on the kid some hard morals Is it? Tony has an authoritative line to AJ and he seemed to grow a bit in this episode by accepting that he won't be genuinely liked at work and he ended up being more willing to order AJ to do things even if it makes AJ not like him as much. It's also important that AJ realizes he won't get a free ride at his dad's place when that was the crux of his preference for living with him in the first place.
Veya
2025-02-24 02:14:20 +0000 UTCIt was mostly younger audiences at the time that tend to hate the kid characters. I don't think it's particularly common now that the show has been out for 25+ years. It was also a byproduct of the time when Sopranos was one of the few more violent shows out there and people craved more mafia stuff and got impatient with the family drama. Now that there are so many violent shows that novelty doesn't really hold as much and I think people can appreciate the balance more.
Veya
2025-02-24 02:11:50 +0000 UTCAdults being treated as adults makes sense from a legal/societal standpoint: at a certain point it's necessary for society to function or else no one would step outside of their houses if there aren't adequate consequences for certain behaviors. But it doesn't seem to make as much sense from a moral/psychological standpoint for sympathy to evaporate just because they're an adult now. It's not like when people turn a certain biological age they suddenly get arcane wisdom beamed into their heads. They still have to be fortunate enough to go through the right life situations and grow the right way from them. Also AJ is a sentient being. There's always talk about how he absorbs some of the mean things that were said, but he's also well aware of how much Tony and Carmela insulates him from the mob business. Focusing on purely the negatives of his upbringing feels like a falling into simplistic one to one comparisons again.
Veya
2025-02-24 02:07:31 +0000 UTCI still think the hate for his character is underserved tbh.
Jack SV
2025-02-24 02:01:30 +0000 UTCwell, i'm turning 30 in less than two months, AJ is still a baby in my eyes 🤣 and yes, for sure, i finished s1 literally 5 minutes ago and i'm really liking it. it's this really dark comedy and it focuses a lot in grief, which is not that usual. and with dexter being one of my all time favourite shows i'm having a blast seeing michael c. hall playing a character that's 180° different from dexter, plus, as a yellowjacket enjoying i'm also loving seeing lauren ambrose as a distribed teen.
sand_fl
2025-02-24 01:45:38 +0000 UTCI've made the same comment in several previous episodes, but I'll say it again here: AJ never had a chance. With the parents he had, and the culture he was raised in, and the time he was raised in...he never had a chance. I love the way Tony compared Feech to Richie Aprile. Both were older Made men who got out of prison and resented being subordinate to Tony, who they remember as a young kid. Both planned to stage a coup against Tony to take over. And both -- despite their delusions of grandeur -- turned out to be only minor obstacles who were taken out without even a large power struggle. Richie was killed by his fiance in a domestic dispute (after Tony had already given the order to have him killed), and Feech gets set up for a parole violation and gets shipped back to prison. Neither of them even get the dignity of being the Big Bad for the season finale. Tony used the term "a friend of mine" to describe the doctor whose wedding Feech robbed, and later he points out that he SPECIFICALLY used that term. The term "a friend of mine" means that somebody is not a Made man, but they nonetheless are Connected and should be given a base level of respect and courtesy. For Tony, as The Boss, to say that somebody is "a friend of mine" is a way of saying "he may not be in the Mafia, but this guy is off limits". The term "a friend of OURS" specifically means that the person is a Made guy. By the way, David Strathairn, who played AJ's guidance counselor, also played Klaes Ashford in "The Expanse".
JBK405
2025-02-24 01:43:01 +0000 UTCNow you know why everyone hated AJ
BNJ
2025-02-24 01:41:00 +0000 UTCP.S.: My Eastern European mom could NEVER allow me this type of behaviour
bondbond53
2025-02-24 01:36:17 +0000 UTCah gotcha, the way you said “that kid” made me think you didn’t recognise AJ, which meant you could have been seasons behind lol I plan to watch six feet under at some point, you recommend?
Darrach
2025-02-24 01:31:09 +0000 UTCI absolutely understand AJ's lost and rebellious teenage self and I completely am on the same page as you when you say that Carmela and Tony are a bit late to the party in trying to impose on the kid some hard morals, but I would be lying if I said I know a good solution for this issue. Maybe that's why I currently don't want any kids because truth be told idk how to raise and deal with a human life who's development is so heavily influenced by me. Idk how not to dislike my child if he acts like AJ does with Carmela. Patience can only work for so long before you snap and if you do obviously you're still the one to blame because you are the parent. I think that's why so many viewers dislike AJ. Obviously there's the immediate jerk reaction to his words and actions but also maybe finding similarities to your own embarrassing teenage self. It's such a conundrum because you want him to surpass his circumstances and fate but his character's point is also that he's literally just an average kid. He's not academically gifted like Meadow or has any special talents. He's an average boy which is completely fine overall but unfortunately he is a mob boss' son. Oh AJ
bondbond53
2025-02-24 01:26:31 +0000 UTCWe learn here that Tony B has three kids in total. His eldest from before he went to prison is Kelly, the goth girl we saw a picture of in Tony B’s mother’s house. We can guess she is probably in her early twenties. She is estranged from her dad but still talks to her mum and the twins. As we learned in this episode, Tony A organised for his cousins sperm to be smuggled out of jail to get Nancy pregnant, and that’s where the two boys come from. An interesting theory some viewers have is that we see Kelly in the first episode of the season, where Tony is waiting for Melfi’s group therapy session to end, we see a goth girl speak to Melfi, talking about going on a trip. Tony gives a glance at the girl as she leaves but nothing more.
Darrach
2025-02-24 01:25:21 +0000 UTCAs deeply flawed as she is, it's impossibe for me to not feel bad for her in this episode. It's almost like the episode is purposely constructed to force you to feel bad for her. Everyone talks about Falco's performance in "Whitecaps," but god, the way she screams "Anthony" at the end sends chills to ny spine every time I watch it.
Αντρέας Λίτσας
2025-02-24 01:17:43 +0000 UTC@Darrach i am! currently watching along all they shows they're reacting to, but sometimes i get a bit behind due to work/life. i an now, counting this one, two episodes behind with sopranos because i've been a bit busy and mostly reading when i have a bit of free time
sand_fl
2025-02-24 01:11:21 +0000 UTCThought you were watching along with this show sand?
Darrach
2025-02-24 01:07:48 +0000 UTC😦
Gaboxxy
2025-02-24 00:58:02 +0000 UTCdo you two still feel the same about AJ as you did in previous seasons?
Zach D
2025-02-24 00:56:46 +0000 UTCwhat’s different about you? HE HAS NO EYEBROWS TONY
Zach D
2025-02-24 00:54:04 +0000 UTCHorrified lol
Darrach
2025-02-24 00:47:52 +0000 UTCThis episode puts into perspective how AJ is really handling the divorce of his parents. Now in his defense he is going through that rebellious face.. we all got one. I bet some yall had done something even worse. Hell when I was a teenager I remember always wearing black all the god damn time lol
Jack SV
2025-02-24 00:39:59 +0000 UTCCarmela's face when Tony goes POPPERS AND WEIRD SEX always kills me
castration_rite
2025-02-24 00:39:49 +0000 UTCYes it's actually better punishment to go back to prison, more painful. I'm glad you have morality and feel bad for the guy with broken arm, God bless you.
Varus
2025-02-24 00:37:36 +0000 UTCcan't say i did, according to my parents i did a lot of shit and talked about inappropriate things at the most inconvenient places but apparently messing with my eyebrows was out of the deal 😂
sand_fl
2025-02-24 00:28:08 +0000 UTCI was wondering if the girls would recognise Ashford from The Expanse.
Damien Fenton
2025-02-24 00:24:31 +0000 UTCyou never shaved your eyebrows off as a kid nikki? come on
LM Reactions
2025-02-24 00:23:36 +0000 UTCi was just watching an episode of six feet under and there's these recurrent scenes of one of the characters appointments with a psychologist and it always makes me want to watch the sopranos... the thumbnail on the other hand. wow, wtf did that kid do? lol
sand_fl
2025-02-24 00:17:38 +0000 UTC
