u/4g-identity

The show brings up the idea of romance between Livia and Junior, but it's generally dismissed by both characters and us as fans.

Bullshit. Either they were physically intimate, or they were having some kind of non-physical romance. Or, there's an outside chance that he had unrequited feelings for her.

I'm just gonna lay out a few of the simple indicators:

* Junior actually visits Livia. He doesn't do anything that isn't selfish. If he didn't want to do it, he could simply not

* Visits right after he gets his stripes to show off

* Wears Canoe for their meeting. Johnny wore Canoe.

* Dresses awfully nice when he visits her

* Green Grove admin says that Livia looks forward to his visits (what the fuck? when has Livia ever looked forward to anything?)

* The way the admin says this suggests there are far more visits than we see on-screen

* Junior driving Livia even when he's nearly a mob boss. Seeing films with her, which he doesn't do with anyone else

* She demands Junior leave with her after becoming upset at Sunday dinner. She is usually a total loner, and this is a partner-to-partner thing: "come on, honey!"

More important, though:

* The Freddy Capuano hit: the most specific reason Junior gives for this is that the guy claimed Junior and Livia were intimate. We know exactly how much he hates when people talk about his sex life. The mob really doesn't want to draw attention by whacking prominent civilians for nothing, and this really seems like nothing, to anyone but Junior.

* Immediately having a guy whacked just for saying that Livia wants Tony dead. He's protecting her even more than he's protecting himself, and wearing another homicide in part for her sake.

* Carmela mentions Junior's visits to Livia and she jumps to the idea that Carm was insinuating a romance, which she may or may not have been. Guilty conscience.

* Livia doth protest too much: not fit to carry Johnny's socks, blacken my Johnny's memory, smells like a French poutain, so full of himself since becoming capo regime ... she acts differently with Junior than anyone else in current era, but kind of similarly to how young Livia treats Johnny in flashbacks.

We've mostly forgotten about their relationship when Fran Felstein shows up, but she provides more evidence by revealing Junior's obsessive courtship style.

Look at all the visits and outings with Livia in S1, or him essentially taking Livia's orders re: Brendan, Christopher, Tony — labors of love, the kind of thing he literally never does for anyone else. It is reminiscent of him skulking around Fran's place all night. It's a totally Junior move to gift Livia the power to whack people as a romantic gesture, and a totally Livia move to happily accept it while refusing to overtly acknowledge it.

Add on top of this the obvious Freudian dimension of this whole thing. Junior in his pathetic, conniving way is struggling to gain real power at work, so he tries to become his more successful brother via his wife.

For Livia, it's more complicated, because the jury's still out regarding whether or not she actually had affection for Johnny. Tony and Carmela both argue that she treated him horribly in life, and importantly, never had a kind word to say about him, which is how she treats Junior now.

Finally, it's extremely difficult for anyone to believe that a mother wants her son dead, except for Melfi, who is an expert in mental illnesses like narcissism and borderline. Yet Junior, who is not particularly sharp (suits? pleurisy?) gets the hint via allusions to a lobotomized Cousin Cakey, of all things. He 100% confirms this when he tells her not to talk about it, because "it's done". It means they are exceptionally close. And if his love for her is unrequited, perhaps in part he believes this is the labor of love that will unthaw her frosty heart.

We all remember when Tony explains to Melfi how the "white" Americans needed Italian worker bees to build their cities, and some wanted a piece of the action.

First, per title, how true do we think this narrative is in general? To what extent is this why the Italian-American mafia exists? Because it kinda seems like it could be more easily explained as it just starting when a couple of moustaches from The Boot came over and one saw a vacancy and crowned himself Boss.

It's this word, "Boss", that got me thinking about this. The position is nearly sacred — think Paulie getting violent with Chrissy and saying "you're talking to the boss here!". Sometimes Paulie is methodically sucking up, but here he seems like he's pretty much doing it on instinct: Chrissie is semi-publicly violating this code of "respect the motherfuckin' fuckin' one who calls the shots", so Paulie feels an urgent need to give him a Brogane Adjustment and set things right.

But this is what confuses me. If they are resentful of authority, and of the Meddigans that put them to work building sewers, it seems odd that in response they'd make an organization with an untouchable Boss at the top who in many respects is more like a king — the one guy who isn't kicking up.

I would understand if after the Boss took all these fat envelopes, the expectation was that he'd use much of it to improve the Social Club, grease unions, or (ideally) address problems in the neighborhood in general.

But no, the dirty money flows "up" to the Boss and just stops there. Then the Boss can spend his time lecturing the guys about the importance of family, loyalty, earnin', and staying quiet in the can. Kind of convenient for him, since his guys believing in these values is the very thing that keeps him in Butter Brickle and out of Bosnia.

It seems almost everyone here has watched the show multiple times. Many of us were around for the initial airing, and have watched the show at least five times through.

Can you remember what you thought during and after your first watch?

For me, what comes to mind first is a massive lack of actual understanding of how characters were connected. There's so many dots to join.

Tony was bad, but not the "irredeemable evil" we tend to discuss today. He truly loved animals back then, but nowadays I think Jochelson was probably right and it was mostly an act.

Ralph was the ultimate piece of shit, but has since been largely vindicated for me. He actually lives by the rules, when the others bend more rules than the Catholic Church.pp

It was definitely more drama, less comedy. And more naughty — the Bing Girls made it feel like you were really part of the Social Club back in the day, hanging out in this seedy joint. Maybe it's just the Prozac talking, but nowadays seeing them doesn't exactly bring the bonefish into season.

It's been awesome to dig into the small stuff, though — was Fran staking Tony out at the cemetery, were Tony and Ade gonna book up, that kind of stuff. Plus noticing how Tony avoids giving info to Puss from the moment Makazian tips him off ... rewatches make that stuff way clearer.

What about you guys?

So at some point on S1 or before, Hesh must have been lecturing the guys about the Israel/Palestine issue, and apparently pushing a pro-Zionist perspective.

What are his opinions, specifically? Would any of the other guys have an opinion? Who in the Social Club might have pro-Palestine leanings? Furio might ... but he wasn't there for this conversation.

S3E1, Carm invites Ade to join her weekly tennis lesson.

First lesson, her male instructor comes up and says he is quitting because his wife has a new job. Carm says she didn't know he was married, almost like she had a bit of a crush or something. He offers her discount antiques and she rebukes him, saying her house is traditional. Then the guy's never seen or heard from again. Kinda strange, all up.

But shit gets weirder. The new female instructor seems to be some kind of insatiable, Carmela-hating lesbian. Ade is actually the worst tennis player to have ever lived, and she gets nothing but praise, while Carm plays OK and gets nothing but shit. Then Carm has to collect tennis balls while the instructor humps Ade for like five straight minutes while they both giggle. It isn't exactly the most subtle of scenes.

In their final encounter, instructor is admiring Ade's shoes and they literally bend over together and rub their asses against each other a little while Carm watches on miserably. The Feds are enjoying it though, aye aye aye.

Seriously, what is with this subplot? It has zero significance for the rest of the series — Carm never holds anything against Ade for it, and tennis is never seen or mentioned again. I get that Carm needed a reason to be out on Tuesday afternoons ... but of all possible things, what the fuck was this about?

And bonus question: this is the episode where Patsy puts the grief behind him, not long after pissing in Tony's duck sanctuary. After forcing Patsy to be happy and loyal, Tony suggests Patsy bring his son over — he and AJ can swim in the pool. This remark is pretty bizarre. It's not like this is a real offer, since Tony reserves that kind of stuff for Chris, Animal, and maybe Puss, back in the day. Is the idea that Tony might have seen Patsy out there, possibly pointing a pistol? What the fuck? Guy draws down on a boss and gets invited over to cook up a few dogs like the Piocosta family?

I mean, he "disrespected" a senior made guy. But he was a busy surgeon, and Junior was fixating on him even after seeking a second opinion. Once Junior wasn't getting the amended surgery, Kennedy really has nothing to do with his case anymore. So was he really doing something bad as Tony seems to think, by not taking Junior's calls and showing him the respect he supposedly deserves?

I think the biggest problem with Kennedy is that he wanted to operate again, but got offended by the "second opinion" thing, and immediately threw in the towel. In fact, it almost seems weird he made it so clear that those were his motivations in the tumour board. Seems borderline negligent to completely reverse your opinion for ego reasons — and kind of strange too, since Junior really did worship the guy. A second opinion just makes sense if you've got some money and it's life and death.

So, Dr Kennedy, good guy or bad? Did he deserve to lose his hat and dictaphone, even if compensated with the titanium club?

The calling cards scam was simple. Buy these cards on credit, sell them at good prices to migrants using guys who don't even know it's even connected to OC. Once they're sold, you never pay the telecom, they get deactivated and the migrants have to eat it. Rinse and repeat.

Migrant types are unlikely to try to go to the cops over a card they bought off a guy with a sandwich board sign round his neck. And nobody can give the cops anything anyway. We saw that scam running in what, 2002 or so? Potentially a decade or more before enough people in the developing world have WhatsApp and such.

It's simple, low risk, and pure profit. Maybe it wasn't the most lucrative, but the more lucrative stuff was just classic mob stuff that had gone on for like a century. Esplanade was a cash-cow, but it's just bidrigging, union corruption, pinching shit from the site. No vision.

Same for Webistix — nothing but a straight pump and dump. No vision.

HUD had vision, but it was 100% Brian who cooked it up. I'm also not sure exactly how much of a future is in it. Repeat the same thing a few times in the same neighborhood and HUD itself might get pretty hinky, unless you have a stream of unconnected property buyers who can keep their mouths shut. I'd still give it second place overall, though.

Aside from that, Tony's just trading properties, running protection rackets, busting out his friends from school, running card games, nabbing shit from the down the docks, and keeping up Satriale's or the midget auto racing or whatever else was inherited from back in Johnny's day.

It honestly looks to me like the guy with the real brains was Little Carmine, running a presumably legal porn studio. So no risk of getting pinched on anything serious, and in the era before the internet took over. You literally need a cameraman, a camera, and two people to fuck in front of it, single day shoot. Put that on video/DVD. Sell them for a couple a bucks. Recession proof. Barely even need a P.O. box. Little Carmine once again showing us he's the smartest guy around.

If there was an S7, we'd probably see AJ helping get the studio online. If it moved early enough, it could be worth billions. Some contacts offshore and possibly Carmine could break into online gambling, for a few more billions. Raking it in while everybody else is on little hills with pinecones all around.

I mean, not counting stuff he does with Carm and/or the kids, and to a lesser extent Livia/Junior.

She's the only woman he goes for that doesn't fit his usual type, and he still seems to get a legit crush on her. She's basically Irina's converse, so she may really represent some amount of growth from Our Fearless Leader.

Weirder still, he doesn't get all passive aggressive when she doesn't want a repeat. He actually respects her wishes, rather than doing some shady thing like employing her to build him a website, then hovering round her incessantly.

My main question is, his explanation to Carm, that Svetlana has something to say, has been kicked around, and has had to fight and struggle ... is this *actually* what he saw in her? Or is that just him rationalising things?

I kinda think he legitimately just desired her, but because of the one pin gone, he had to frame that as a selling point, a kind of defense mechanism of Tony's against the "couldn't get a whole woman, huh?" stuff he could expect from the boys.

Most important: in the Test Dream, Tony rides a horse into the living room, and Carm actually says "there are some non-negotiable ground rules. For one, you can't have your whores in here".

We hear "horse", but she clearly says "whores".

Anyway, this sub rarely discusses the dreams. What's the deal with Jackie smelling thunderstorms? Why is Carmine in Tony's bed? It kinda seems like we've made less effort than Melfi to decode the dreams.

OK, Mustang Sally is not a good guy. Seems like one of the worst in Jersey, in fact. You don't throw a hot dog vendor from the stands because he gives you too much onions. Too little, maybe. But what, Sally's a millionaire? He no like a te eat?

Anyway, Sally clubs a Spatafore, and Old Man Bacala shows up in town. Turns out he's Sally's godfather.

I don't think there's a big chance that Tony came up with the plan for Bacala to do the hit. Most likely, Bacala offered. Coz here's the thing: he says he wants to do it. Wants to feel useful. And says Mustang Sally's his godson in name only.

My question: put simply, who the hell volunteers to murder their godson, for apparently no compensation, when very sick and just randomly visiting town, over stuff that isn't even personal for you?

It's kind of just brushed off, what kind of person you'd have to be to volunteer to kill someone like this. Tony's justification is that it's a plan that will work. It's literally just, gain entry to his home, ask for a glass of water and shoot him.

Vito could have just given the guy his come-from-behind ninja hit, as he did for Jackie Jr. Would have been far more fitting, and the Terminator would still be with us today.

And the thing is, he, like all Bacalas, appears to be a sweet, sweet guy. Everyone loves him. And yet he's just up for random murders. Exactly how much poverty was the Mezzogiorno in, to twist these guys to the point where they want to do this shit recreationally? Would it not kind of disappoint Bobby, to see his dad volunteer for something like this?

Is Terminator Bacala unwieldy homicidal, or is this just what these guys are?

Right now, there's a post up on the world news sub, with title:

> Katz: Israel has ‘no territorial ambitions’ in Lebanon, will stay until Hezbollah disarmed

I won't link it as I think that isn't allowed here.

As we speak, mods haven't started deleting comments.

Almost all top comments are just 100% pro-Israel, peddling all kinds of ahistorical rubbish about why Hezbollah came to exist or how Israel very selflessly chose to leave Southern Lebanon in 2006.

Most of these commenters have hidden profiles, and of those that don't, most are posting in Hebrew subs. Some of the commenters are people I've seen on the askisrael sub, openly saying ethnic cleansing is good, that Palestinians have been kicked out of countries, which proves they are a bad ethnicity, etc.

Any comments that represent what would be the mainstream Redditor views in most other popular subs have like 50 downvotes. Right now that's most top-level comments. "US should stay out of this stuff" is heavily downvoted. "What do you expect with people like Ben-Gvir in government?" is also heavily downvoted, with pivoted replies about how he's a fringe figure and how doesn't direct the various wars, only the prisons of Israel and the West Bank.

The weirdest part is, everyone is claiming to just be American, and yet they have this ridiculously comprehensive knowledge of historical and current Israeli politics and the history of the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, down to specific towns and rivers. Meanwhile, your average "Irish-American" could not tell you where Dublin is if you handed them an outline of Ireland.

Anyway. Is it not incredibly obvious to all that the main sub for international news is absolutely 100% captured? It makes no sense that there's this one popular sub in which Israel can do no wrong, whereas in news or pics or anywhere else, opinions are basically the exact opposite.

If it was a little bit of mod bias, fine. But it actually just looks absurd. I imagine the Reddit offices have had some very tricky conversations about this one.

Cleaver was produced by Little Carmine's porn studio. Chris originally saw himself as some kind of auteur who could write, direct, play himself and get high off the smell of Blockbuster Video rather than smack.

Personally I think after killing Email Polack and getting nightmares, he does a bit of soul searching, and thinks about a career in The Business (I don't know why they call it The Business).

He's out of his depth, though: he doesn't end up using any of his own script writing, even after Ade gifts him the writing classes, and retrieves Made Man for him from both buffer memory and the actual trash.

He ends up simply extorting J. T. Dolan into doing it via gambling debts Chris enabled him to rack up. Then he takes his WAG credit, even, lotta money in that health insurance in the USA.

Now, the idea was solid. "Saw meets Godfather 2"? Take the film famous for making a ton of money against a small budget, and combine it with what is widely considered the greatest film ever made. Maybe not the most creative approach, but hey, sounds like a money machine if I've ever heard one.

Anyway, they strike out with Sir Ben, but Danny Baldwin isn't a total nobody, and the premiere and party seem fairly swanky in a B-list way. Only one arrest during the party and it was just a parole violation from I think Larry Boy — it's an encouraging sign that he broke parole to attend. Perhaps it really was a Big Todo.

But there's no evidence the thing saw a release in cinemas. And pretty much the last we hear of it is Paulie saying the hopes it'll actually start making some money soon. Ideally a film recoups just a couple of days after release, so best I can tell, the film bombed, probably ended up being given away for free at the carwash alongside the 50 Cent biopic.

Ultimately though, the real sacred-and-propanity is how just like everything else, Cleaver degenerates. What was supposed to be Chris really using his positive visualization, applying himself and making real art he could be proud of ended up being a low-effort, corner-cutting revenge fantasy that apparently sucked and/or bombed.

Interesting habit Tony has of basically just giving up on actually proving something or convincing someone, and instead more or less just saying "act like you believe me or I kill you".

Not sure if there are other cases, but:

Patsy Parisi puts the grief behind him and leaves the mopey shit back with Junior's crew. Nearly murders Tony because he never actually believed him about who ordered the hit on Spoons (that twin telepathy in action).

Tony attempts to end things with Gloria in a similar way. Not exactly the same, but he does insist that she believe that he'll kill her if she contacts his family. Troubled girl kind of liked that, so he had to bring in Patsy. One of the smarter decisions Tony ever made, though she was too far gone. Sad when they go young like that.

I feel vaguely like Tony also did similar with Irina, but can't remember. He says he slapped the piss out of her for slashing tires, but that's a whole other thing.

After the car crash en route to Dover for birdwatchin', Chris can't ignore all the rumors. Tony insists at gunpoint that he "take it into his heart" that actually they were talking about Chris and how she loves him the whole time. In other words, lies through his teeth, they were a couple of lines away from hooking up. Arguably this whole incident is a huge factor in Chris and Tony's falling out and Chris' final decline.

An aside — Tony S was about to install Chris' moonroof, but Tony B comes in clutch with the doctor's testimony idea. So the threat didn't actually work on Chris. That said though, Chris is right — the Tonys make it totally clear to the doctor what they want him to say, so even if he's not in the custom of lying, sir, he'd likely prefer to just say what they want and definitely survive the night.

Are there any other instances of Tony trying to use this"believe or die" strategy? It doesn't seem all that effective, really, for fairly obvious reasons. Does anyone else try to use it? I can't think of any such cases.

Was this a deliberate decision by the writers, or is it basically just a coincidence caused by Junior getting pinched, Tony getting other drivers, and Chris kinda falling out socially with the guys, either when using or when clean?

You'd just think with all their screen time, they'd bump into each other a couple more times. Maybe there's a writing reason like Junior being Tony's uncle, and Tony being Chris' quasi-uncle, it would lead to a weird dynamic or something.

It's made a little stranger still, since Junior even tried at one point to force Chris into his crew. Could Chris be holding a grudge all these years over the high colonic?

The guy is constantly getting beaten up because of ice melting or phone ringing, or he's being blinded by a chain for ... I forget, what was it again?

Or, he's out there digging up Email Polack or sweeping the Bing bathroom for bugs.

It doesn't seem like there was any prospect of him being made. So is it purely the fifty bucks and blowjob later on that keeps him going for those first few seasons?

Imagine working at a place full of violent thugs, where the rules are, they can beat you up for no reason at all, any time they like, but if you put your hands on them they're basically free to murder you. What is the attraction in that?

I don't like the guy — I fucking love him. So to think he's been doing a simulcast since before Day One, even? How much more betrayal can I take?

Been walkin' inta walls all week.

There are many errors that are clearly the result of someone being a learner of English. There's also autocorrect and simple typos. Usually best not to judge people for those.

But there are a lot of mistakes that mostly native speakers make — in English, stuff like lose vs loose, or your vs you're, or would of, or whatever.

If a person makes those kinds of errors, and especially if they make them over and over in short posts and comments, I'm sorry, but I strongly doubt they are really even capable of being well-versed in complex political/ideological topics.

If it's just idle chat about TV or sport or whatever, it also makes little sense to judge. But if you're trying to discuss something contentious about history or culture or whatever, and the person replying to you can't even spell, it makes sense to give their opinion less weight.

I wouldn't say it has a 100% clear correlation with IQ, or that IQ is super important or whatever. But in my experience, there is at least some correlation between bad takes and an inability to write well.

This would go especially for topics like you might find in a sub like askhistorians — good responses likely come from people with degrees, and it's unlikely you can even get a degree if you aren't able to spell.

Edit: thanks everyone for your comments. I got far more than I expected. I will respond to more after a bit of a pause, and will definitely hand out the deltas ... but it doesn't feel right to do this till I can evaluate all the responses together; there are still some I haven't had time to engage with properly. Really nice to hear all your thoughts. Pleasantly surprised at the quality of responses.

I don't think there's much of it, but does anyone think there are characters whose name implies something about their personality or situation or what have you? I'm mostly interested in family names, but first names and nicknames are fine as well. For example, is there any particular meaning behind "Soprano" for Tony, or the family?

Maybe also Italian speakers have some insight. I don't know what Detrulio means for example, perhaps some are relevant.

Or as Artie explains, brands starting with v remind people of vagina — Vaseline. Are there names that suit people even on this kind of level? Vic Musto does sound like a contractor you could rely on.

Pussy is apparently because he was once a cat burglar, that's pretty cut-and-dry, second only to Yoyo Mendez.

I think Carmela being DeAngelis links in a bit with Melfi's "one good decision Tony ever made" idea.

Furio -> furious seems about the least subtle; of course he's therefore the most sensitive guy in the show.

Bobby Bacala is perfect, of course he should be named after food.

"Junior" is great, given his complexes, role in the family and feeling of inadequacy.

Sadly ironic that Matthew Drinkwater gets a Diet Fanta, sacred and propane.

I can't get anything out of Hunter and Meadow being best friends, really.

Carmine is second only to Vito for "most obvious boss names" in my scrapbook.

Minny Matrone is a fairly obvious one, "matron" capturing her character quite clearly.

Not sure if I see anything clearly relating Silvio to the Dante who visits hell, nor what Chris has to do with "many saints".

Dominic Tedesco sounds like a tough guy to beat up in the parking lot at Pizza World, which is probably why Carmela was so blown away. And Pudgie Walsh sounds like he was born to issue stop work orders for New Jersey residential builds.

Not sure if there's much meaning there besides "very Italian", but I love hearing Livia talk about Conchetta, Settimia, and Cakey.

Sorry to my Armenian bros, but Vin Makazian is about the most corrupt-cop sounding name I could think of. Wegler is basically set up as a straight-laced douchebag by his name alone.

Anyone got anything for Sean Gismonte, Trillo, Bompensiero, Piocosta, Spatafore, DiMeo, Bucco, Intintola, Lupertazzi, Satriale, etc etc? Is there any meaning behind Beansie, or Spoons?

Is anyone poorly named? A name that doesn't suit them? Aside from Walden, of course.

So, Tony basically immediately decides he wants to fuck Ralph's girl, and goes after it with zero reservation for a while.

He then has second thoughts, but these thoughts mostly just give him to explore how Ralph is a creepy fetishist with mother issues. Does this shit matter to his possible relationship, or does he just like having a reason to dig around Ralphie's life?

Once Tony decides to just go for it, he is instantly lying to Valentina about how he needed to get his head into a place where he could lavish all the care upon her that she deserves.

We then rarely even see them together. I'm not sure I even remember another scene with her before Tony kicking Ralph when he's down about Justy, choosing that moment to break the news that he's stolen Ralph's girl.

Then it's pretty much the next time we see her, right after Tony has killed Ralph, that she's complaining she never sees him, and setting herself on fire. He shows less than zero affection for her in the burn ward, and dumps her before she even gets out.

So, long story short, the second he killed Ralph, I think he lost all need to be with Valentina, since there was nothing more he could do to hurt the guy.

I actually find the show unlistenable, because the guy is constantly talking himself up, acting like he's both a superstar actor and totally connected IRL.

I cannot sit through hours of it, but I imagine there must be a few interesting anecdotes, guests, stuff that stands out.

I think I made it through the first three or four. Does it improve, or get worse?