The Sopranos 2x13 Reaction
Added 2024-11-10 00:00:36 +0000 UTC
Comments
Just want to answer that we just got to the two episodes I was referring to. 3x4 and 3x6.
Random Random
2024-12-01 04:37:03 +0000 UTC“She was abusive to the staff” is one of my all time favorite line reads
Joshua
2024-11-13 05:30:55 +0000 UTCWdym Milena was with the police and a dead body asking questions??!! What??? I'm shoked
sakurabraus
2024-11-11 15:19:13 +0000 UTCHe did get food poisoning, there's no ambiguity about this. The sickness was the plot device so he would spend a lot of time in the intense fever dreams, through which his subconscious could speak to him. The ambiguity is just whether it was caused by the Italian or Indian food. (Though it's inconclusive in the show, David Chase said it's caused by the Italian food, and that this is a hint to Tony that it's like a "betrayal by a friend, an insider"). I think Milena just took the idea presented in s1 that Pussy's bad back is the result of psychological stress, and over-applied it here by thinking that the sickness was caused by the stress of worrying about Pussy being a rat. Food poisoning 100%.
Abacus
2024-11-11 13:31:36 +0000 UTCI really wish people wouldn't set expectations for how good an episode will be. But people just can't seem to help themselves.
Julien
2024-11-11 11:58:21 +0000 UTCI think both sides are compelling and appreciate the ambiguity. Tony could have had food poisoning and the Pussy dreams were a byproduct of that OR it could have been the culmination of mounting psychological pressure (Pussy, Richie, knowingly giving Livia bad tickets plus all the other bullshit with her, etc.) manifesting into physical illness OR it could be a combination of both.
snaps
2024-11-10 13:15:29 +0000 UTCWelcome to season 3 - the season after which no one abandons The Sopranos and watches it all the way to the end!
Krzysztof Ko
2024-11-10 10:39:25 +0000 UTCI always thought Tony actually did get food poisoning. If he didn't then they did a hell of a job matching the symptoms - the sweating and shivering, vomiting, falling in and out of consciousness. This episode is so good, one of my favourites. I'm both excited and trepidatious to see them react to the next season lol. So much good stuff ahead.
Mark M
2024-11-10 10:18:36 +0000 UTC@Random Random I'm curious which stretch of episode specifically you're referring to.
IanJ
2024-11-10 07:39:55 +0000 UTCThank you for pointing that out. There are definitely some subtitles that they seem to be missing. In this episode it was a short scene near the beginning related to the calling cards. Occasionally it will become more important.
Marcus Cato
2024-11-10 06:06:51 +0000 UTCIt was sad how the trio cared about Pussy but still had to what they had to do. I noticed this time around that you can even see that it looks like Silvio was crying when he went outside and his eyes still glistening when they were confronting Pussy.
mundanelotus
2024-11-10 05:56:27 +0000 UTCIt's interesting because it was pretty mixed at the time. I think with time it's thought of more fondly across the board, but I think the anti-climax style of the last two episodes were a stark contrast to the first season and some people were expecting it to be more bombastic like the previous season. David Chase also did the dream stuff because he hated the idea of going a more procedural and mechanical route of how Tony was gonna find out.
Veya
2024-11-10 05:25:28 +0000 UTCIt was phenomenal. It reminded me a bit of The Wire end of season montages, but with a different style of inter-cutting between Tony and his family/friends vs the outside world. Make sense given the macro-focus of The Wire and the more interpersonal focus of The Sopranos. The show is frequently great with it's song choices as well.
Veya
2024-11-10 05:18:44 +0000 UTCAlso, this episode while not as revolutionary as the college one was very special, especially at the time. Traditional TV dramas and gangster stories would save the Tony/Ritchie stuff for the finale and Pussy would have been dealt with prior given the screen time of the two stories or he would have been kept as a recurring element to add some tension of "when is Tony gonna find out?". The way the two were dealt with in this show really separated it from other contemporary shows. The prolonged sequence of dreams were also an influence from Twin Peaks, but it went a more realistic dream feeling route as opposed to the more surreal style that's typically in David Lynch's works. Also obviously not unique by today's standards, but killing off regulars like Pussy wasn't too common at the time. You can find some exceptions but by and large a lot of network shows don't really kill off regular main cast characters unless there was a behind the scene reason, like say the actor wanted off the show or in shows like prime time soap operas. Future shows like Game of Thrones, Walking Dead or Lost are what people usually associate with this type of style, but on TV at least (I know the GoT books were written before), The Sopranos did it much earlier.
Veya
2024-11-10 05:12:06 +0000 UTCThe dreams are the final prison of the season basically repeatedly trapping him until he's forced to confront the truth about pussy. One of the best things about this show is that it finds very different ways to express it's themes. Obviously shouldn't do this now but if you ever look into the most acclaimed episodes of this show, they are all very different from one another, stylistically and structurally.
Veya
2024-11-10 04:57:08 +0000 UTCThere is a stretch of episodes where I’m expecting quite a bit of criticism and reflection on the direction of the show. But I think it’s something many viewers experience at some point over the next few seasons but I think it may hit them specifically in season 3.
Random Random
2024-11-10 03:56:50 +0000 UTCBtw Tony was reciting Livia's greatest hits this episode: "Just let me die." "You know everything." "It's all a big nothing (ie life)" "Poor me (even though the original livia quote is "poor you")" Also I have to mention this: I've been noticing for a while now that whatever version you gals are watching, not having subtitles for the foreign language scenes is becoming a problem, because in the original broadcast there ARE subtitles for most of the foreign language scenes. There's gonna be lots of scenes like that in the future, so I don't know what's the solution for it
enchantertim
2024-11-10 03:56:42 +0000 UTCI'm pretty sure Season 3 is my favorite. A couple other seasons are very close, but if forced to decide I think I'd go with 3. The first 2 seasons really set the table for what to expect in terms of quality filmmaking and character development.
Edward Lewis
2024-11-10 03:47:30 +0000 UTCThis is one of those episodes where after you finish, you just sit there alone with your thoughts, trying to process it, and you don't even wanna speak about it right away because you can't really articulate your feelings accurately. One of my favorite episodes of any TV. Dream squences are a huge and important part of The Sopranos (sometimes under-appreciated I think), I just love the atmosphere and the feelings the entire episode leaves you with. I even love that "random" brief dream scene right after Tony finally confirms that Pussy is the rat. It's the only dream in this episode where he was happy, completely removed from what's happening in real life. And then he wakes up to the cold harsh reality where he's heading to kill one of his closest friends. And to top it off, they made that final montage with the song "Thru and thru" by Rolling Stones. Simply amazing. And that final shot... Even though he's having a happy moment with his family, the sea lingers in his mind. It's gonna forever leave a mark in him for sure, shaping his character into something else. Beautiful
enchantertim
2024-11-10 03:47:02 +0000 UTCFinal montage of the characters all being happy while we cut back and forth between them and the people who’s lives they ruined is a lot
space colon
2024-11-10 03:46:22 +0000 UTCMight be my favorite season too, I consider it the "golden age" of the show. That three episode stretch from 4-6 is amazing.
IanJ
2024-11-10 03:33:26 +0000 UTCMy interpretation for his first dream is that Tony would rather lit himself on fire than admit to himself that Pussy betrayed him. Even Pussy himself seem to be in his own world, not a part of their group. We also see this in his third dream where Pussy is not in the car. The second dream with him killing Paulie can be interpreted as his subconscious telling him that he has to kill a friend of his, or even maybe that Tony would rather kill Paulie than Pussy, since he found Paulie annoying and considers Pussy his best friend. His final dream about Pussy could be his subconscious sitting him down and getting him to accept the fact that his best friend is a rat. I love the way Vincent Pastore (Pussy) delivered the line "You know I've been working with the government right?". Almost like Tony's subconscious urging him to let his friend go. Tony's subconscious is always ahead of the curve. Season 1 is about him knowing deep inside that his mother tried to get him killed, and it manifested in Isabella. The second season is basically him knowing deep inside that Pussy is a rat, and we can see this first manifest in the BBQ in the first episode where he stares Pussy down in anger. We see it again when he pass over Pussy for promotions and his suspicions about why he's the only one getting heat for the Bevilaqua murder. In fact, I think his anger issues this season stems from that. Is he angry about the fact that his best friend betrayed him? Or is he angry at the Mafia life that he chose, that he has to kill his best friend to preserve it? I have a lot to say about the airline ticket and Livia, but I'll save that for the second episode of the third season.
IanJ
2024-11-10 03:32:33 +0000 UTCOooooh, very possibly. I just went back to check and we can't say for certain since Tony only says they were down at "the shore", so it could have been somewhere else, but Asbury Park definitely is included in "the shore". I can't believe I never put that together.
JBK405
2024-11-10 03:26:45 +0000 UTCIsn’t the boardwalk also where Tony remembers Livia laughing at his father falling? His only happy memory of her
space colon
2024-11-10 03:17:37 +0000 UTCsuper excited to see you two react to S3, it's probably my fave after the last season, so many absolutely incredible episodes all the way through
castration_rite
2024-11-10 02:43:58 +0000 UTCThere's a certain melancholic pace and nature to this episode that gets me every time I watch it. It's impossible for me to describe but Melfi says that she feels the sorrow from Tony and this episode radiates that same energy in my opinion even with the nice family moments at the graduation. I don't know how this show packs so much in to each episode while still letting the moments breathe and never feeling rushed. Can't wait for you two to see the rest of this show
Max Carter
2024-11-10 01:20:22 +0000 UTCRegarding the question of what happens to somebody's family when they go to jail, under "the rules" they are supposed to be taken care of by The Family. However, as with all things, there's a big difference between what's supposed to happen and what ACTUALLY happens. If Pussy had just accepted the jail time and not cooperated with the government, Tony definitely would have given his family some money. Another Made guy would take over Pussy's "action" (the betting businesses and loans, etc.) and he would make sure a portion of that was passed on to Pussy's wife. This was referenced in the first episode of this season when Pussy came back and Paulie said that they made his collections for him in his absence. But while he's in jail it would only be a PORTION, since whoever took over would say "I'm now doing the work, so I need to get paid, too". That Made guy would also keep 100% of any NEW money that comes in, since that will "belong" to him. So over time the money that goes to Pussy's family will get less and less as the old debts are paid off and the betting customers move to new bookies. Eventually the only money that they'll get will be "charity" from Tony, and I'll leave it to your own judgement if Tony is going to give them enough to pay for college and the mortgage and new TVs and full groceries. Enough to keep from starving? Probably. Enough to live in their current lifestyle and luxury? I doubt it. And while his family is going broke, Pussy is doing hard time as a convicted drug dealer. Think about how when Richie got out of jail, he spent the whole season complaining about how he was not getting what he felt he deserved. In Tony's dream, the boardwalk he visited was the Asbury Park boardwalk and Convention Hall. These are historical landmarks in New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen's debut album was "Greetings From Asbury Park", and it was the center of the NJ music scene in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The odds are good that Tony would have spent his summers in Asbury Park when he was a teenager. So this is him going back to his own childhood in his dreams. I mentioned this before, but Steven Van Zandt -- the actor who plays Silvio -- is originally a musician and he is a member the E Street Band that is Bruce Springsteen's backing band. Asbury Park is the origin for his music career and where he has spent much of his real life. In Tony's dream, the guy with the bullet wound in his head was Philly Parisi, a character that was killed in the first episode of this season. He is the guy that was gossiping about Tony and his mother. They wanted to bring back the actor (Dan Grimaldi), so he reappears in this episode as twin brother Patsy Parisi. That was the guy who brought in the coat that Tony gave to Carmela.
JBK405
2024-11-10 01:15:36 +0000 UTCThis episode made viewers realize that this wasn't like any other show they'd seen before. Set the bar so high it's still never been topped
Johnny_Raincloud
2024-11-10 00:59:13 +0000 UTC2x12 remains my favorite, but the finale was amazing too.
Wallas
2024-11-10 00:23:29 +0000 UTCwell, currently watching the first episode of arcane and now you drop the season finale. i have to accept that tonight i'm not sleeping more that 4 hours and just face it.
sand_fl
2024-11-10 00:10:31 +0000 UTCPussy talking about his plans in witness protection last episode was the same as a cop buying a fishing boat one week before retirement. Pretty much guaranteed he was about to die.
Damien Fenton
2024-11-10 00:10:21 +0000 UTCThis is the first episode of the show in my top 10, and is a lot of peoples favourite. The episode was written by two people, one of them David chase, with one doing the first half (dream sequence) and the other doing the second half( pussys death) and each are so perfect and work so well together it made for one of the best episodes the show. The first time in Tony’s life his mafia world and personal life truly meet each other when he has to kill his best friend.
the chosen one
2024-11-10 00:06:57 +0000 UTCthe subconscious correlation of tony having to purge his physical illness through involuntary discharge and his psychological illness through interpretive dreams is neat and clever storytelling. once tony confirms pussy is a rat the only other dream of his we see this episode is of a happy, normal family dinner. his subconscious is clean, and life can proceed. for some at least :(
snaps
2024-11-10 00:05:17 +0000 UTC
