Started watching the fifth series after having watched the first four in the summer. Damn Good

10. The West Wing
“What Kind of Day Has It Been?”

The first season of the West Wing was a show full of spirit and good-hearted drama. Sure, it was somber at times and dealt withsome heavy themes, but it was also full of fast-paced energy and witty dialgue. Therefore, we were all surprised to see the season end in such a vilent and dramatic manner as a group of white supremecists opened fire on the president and his staff. We were left pondering all summer; who was hit? And who survived?

9. Friends
“The One With Ross’s Wedding”

The on-again, off-again love story between Ross and Rachel in the hit comedy Friends has become a legendary staple on network television. And just when audiences thought it way have died down and that the story arc may be over as Ross prepares to marry his new girlfriend Emily, they hit us with a bombshell: Ross says Rachel’s name instead of Emily’s during the wedding vows.

8. The Office
“Casino Night”

But enough about Ross and Rachel. They’re old news. Lets get on to the new wave of will-they wont-they TV couples, Jim and Pam. In the original British The Office, Tim and Dawn went striaght to the bitter end with their sexual tension. We assumed that the Jim-Pam relationship would be much the same, until Jim took matters into his own hands. He kissed Pam outside and expressed his true feelings, shocking viewers everywhere. But the real cliffhanger would come a few minutes later when he kissed her again…

7. 24
“Day 1: 11:00 pm – 12:00am”

When 24 aired in 2001, it was stretching the barriers of TV, and so the ending of their first season was no different. In the last few mintes of the last hour, Jack Bauer finds that his wife has been murdered. At this point, fans of the show knew that the producers of the show, from taht moment on, would not be afraid to take bold chances. What would happen with Jack now? How is his wife’s death going to change the fabric of the show?

This shocking conclusion is a cliffhanger for these reasons,, yet it is also, strangely, a resolution to the season as a whole.

6. Lost
“Through the Looking Glass”

Lost has always used flashbacks as a way to tell its character’s stories, and in their third season finale, Lost used this staple storytelling device to give us the show’s best cliffhanger. DUring the two-hour seaon finale we follow the cahracters’ exploits to get off the island, while following Jack’s flashbacks intercut throughout the show. It isn’t until the very end, when Kate appears in Jack’s flashback, that we realize thatwe were never watching a flashback, but that it was in fact a flash forward. Jack and Kate had made it off the island! But how? When? What about everyone else? This revelation shocked Lost viewers and gave them a plethora of questions to ponder over the summer months.

5. The Simpsons
“Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part 1″

No one is better at homaging and spoofing great movie and televison moments better than The Simpsons. And so who better to do a spoof of the infamous “Who Shot JR” moment? This time, Mr. Burns was the gunshot victim, and everyone in town was a suspect. The producers also played up the mystery by giving clues throughout the summer and having cans write in their thoughts on who was the guilty culprit. This was the only time in the SImpsons twenty year run that theyended their season on a cliffhanger, and it was a good one. (even though it just turned out to be Maggie, but oh well)

4. Star Trek: The Next Generation
“The Best of Both Worlds: Part 1″

Usually the best cliffhangers are the ones that hit us with something completely unexpected. Something like the main characters becoming one of the enemy. That is what happened at the end of TNG’s third season, where Picard is not only captured by the Borg, but is made to be one of them. And when Picard turns toward his former crew and says “I am Locutus of the Borg”, geeks everywhere were on the edge of their seats.

3. Alias
“The Telling”

Alias was a show which seemed to end every episode with a cliffhanger. Therefore, when it came time for their season finales, they had to find ways to step up their game and bring those cliffhangers to the next level. The first season finale was okay; she was captured by who turned out to be her mother after years of believing she was dead. But the second season finale was when the producers of Alias really outdid themselves.

After all o fthe events of the final episode transpired, Sydney found herself exhausted after a fight with the agent who was doubling as her best friend, passing out onto the floor. When she awoke, however, she was in an entirely different city; Hong Kong. It was only until after she contacted the CIA and Vaughn that she, and we the audience, discover that she has been missing for two years.

2. The Sopranos
“Made in America”

Here we have a unique sort of cliffhanger; a cliff hanger in the final episode of a TV shows run (a purposeful cliffhanger, as opposed to a show which just got canceled. David Chase ended the Sopranos’ 6 season run with a scene where Tony and his family meet for dinner. Against the backdrop of an old Journey tune, a shady figure comes out of the bathroom, looking ready to make a hit. And just when we think something is about to happen, the screen cuts to black.

Fans were split on what they thought of this ending; any were angry while others thought it was a brilliant and original way to end the series. We don’t know what happens at the end, and we are never going to find out. It is a cliffhanger without a resolution, and a stroke of genius.

1. Dallas
“A House Divided”

Its hard not to put this one at number 1. Back in the days of Dallas, a season finale was simply the last episode of the airing season. There was nothing really special about them. But suddenly Dallas comes along and has their main character shot in the closing moments of the season, making TV audiences everywhere wait a whole summer to learn who the culprit was. “Who shot JR?” became a cultural phenomenon in 1980 and it built the trend of television cliffhangers which TV audiences now enjoy almost every May.

To be perfectly honest, I really don’t like this choice of title to lead off the finale of Season 1.

You're lucky I don't break your face into 50,000 pieces!

The only time they mention Jean Cusamano during the episode is towards the middle where Tony is back in Melfi’s office after having snapped, flipped her coffee table, and got all up in her face threatening to smash said face into 50,000 (count’em) pieces when she insinuated (maybe a bit more than that) that Grandma Livia may in fact have borderline personality disorder, which according to the DSM IV, means that the phobias in her mind are more real to her than any actual relationships she has, and she therefore experiences joylessness and is a master manipulator. Which all sounds about right, but Tony has enough on his plate (as discussed in the last episode) and does not need to hear this shit.

Anyway when Tony comes back to see her again, and promises to a scissor-wielding, 911-dialing Melfi that she is in no physical danger (from him at least…although someone may want to kill her for seeing Tony and she may want to go on the lam–I can’t just pick up and leave I have patients! Some of them are suicidal! Well they’re not gonna feel any better about themselves if you get whacked! says Tony) she asks if Tony’s had any dreams since the FBI had a little sit down with him and revealed that they’d wiretapped the Green Grove Nursing Home where Livia and the mothers of two other capos were staying. They play Tony clips from several conversations between Livia and June, including the one where they agree that Tony needs to be whacked for his subversion (blood or no blood…I’m the boss, Livia!)

So Tony says, no, no dreams (in the past his dreams have included his Isabella hallucination and further delusion of her breastfeeding him, symbolizing the caring Italian mother figure he so sorely wishes he had right about now while his life is going to shit, and that old one about the duck flying away with his penis, which Melfi although thinks has to do with Livia and June usurping power from him,) except this one sex dream, where he’s hitting Jean Cusamano from behind, then he finishes, and he’s just looking at her big ass……

So that’s where the name of the episode comes from. Whether they just wanted to make the reference to the 60’s TV show, I don’t really know. Jean hasn’t really played a prominent role in the series–she’s Tony’s neighbor and Melfi’s friend, but she doesn’t really do anything, so it seems random for Tony to be fantasizing about her, and it seems as if this was just stuck in there so they could make this reference, which is strange. I mean it is the finale of the season, as I have said, and you’d think they’d want something more epic or idk, something to go out with a bang. But this is what they chose. Which I guess in a way is fair, because it’s not the last episode of the series–there are a good 6 seasons left before that, and we see the end of this episode doesn’t really tie anything up, it’s more of just a resting point, as Tony, Carmella, AJ, Meadow, Chris, Adriana, Paulie, and Silvio all end up in Artie Bucco’s restaurant during a terrible rain storm, and Tony toasts to his family: “To my family. One day you’ll have families of your own, and just try to remember the little moments, like this, that were good. Cheers.” Not the most eloquent piece of poetry ever, but I suppose a touching tribute and a fitting way to show the love Tony still and always carries for his family, even when his own mother and uncle are trying to kill him. Just gotta keep it together one more day…such is the life of a gangster.

Mikey Palmice gets laid out.

Mikey Palmice gets whacked, thank goodness. He goes out for a little jog, calling his wife a “ho” and telling her to “go take a mydol,” (in the past he has told her to “slit her wrists why dontcha” and asks if she was “this fucking stupid when I married you.”) So he goes off for a little jog in his little tracksuit with his little gold chain to try out his little new running shoes, and a dog starts ominously barking at him as he jogs past. He finds himself on some woodsy path, just joggin along, when we see a tan Caddy cruising up the path behind him. Oh shit, Mikey! It’s our heroes, Paulie and Christopher, both clad in their own flashy nylon tracksuits, who chase Mikey through the woods at top speed (although Paulie has to slow down a bit..he is kind of an old man, and runs right into a poison ivy plant.) Mikey trips and slips right into a muddy little creek, and as he’s lying there Chris shoots him in the thigh so he can’t run away. “You shot my friend Brendan naked in the bathtub when he had no chance to run away!” screams Chris. Mikey pleads for his life, saying it was all Junior who shot Brendan, to which Chris replies, “Yeah right, Mr. Magoo!” Paulie catches up, covered in poison ivy and “can feel it itchin [him] already!” The two empty their clips into Mikey Palmice’s chest, I have to say one of the most satisfying moments of the whole season (retribution for the two gangsters and the end of this scumbag, finally.)

Jimmy the Rat gets his too.

Jimmy the Rat gets killed in the first 5 minutes of the episode. Chris lures him to a hotel room with the promise of a couple “Russian booboos” (you go for some basic foreplay they’ll detail your car! Chris says) Jimmy, doused in cologne, but who didn’t have any time to put on anything decent, is really excited when the broad comes out to greet him, and I don’t know if it’s sad or what that Jimmy thinks this girl is actually into him. These guys walk around all day thinking what big shit they are, and these girls know it, and know they just have to bat some eyelashes and shake some ass and make them think they think they’re big shit, too, and they just give them their money! Not bad. But anyway, they sit Jimmy down, Jimmy who had called a meeting of all the capos and bosses to discuss business they’ve already talked about (just to get it on microphone,) so Silvio steps in with a silenced pistol and splatters that nice hotel room with Jimmy’s brains (what a shame.) To add insult to injury, Chris later calls in a bomb threat to Jimmy’s wake. (Too much! Paulie says.)

Livia wanders into the Soprano home at 1 am on a Friday or Saturday night, while Meadow is busy hooking up with her Domincan boyfriend and AJ is jerking off in his bedroom (I’m serious.) Anyway, I don’t know how far the nursing home is from the house, but she apparently walked all the way up the street, then barges in, calling Meadow her “feccia bruta” (something like a dirty whore) sister Satimia, who’s dead, and thinks AJ is someone who has whooping cough and needs to be under the vaporizer (Holy Shit, says AJ.) So a patrolman comes and asks if this is Livia’s house, if she knows where she is. Livia is moved to the nursing unit of Green Grove and it’s believed she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Tony and Carmella strongly suspect that she’s faking it so she can get out of any connection with Tony’s whack job (the FBI have plenty of her on tape…) but I think it’s somewhere between faking it and really truly her mind going. I mean stress and guilt can do strong things, so while her senility might be partially her own construction, it might be a bit more complicated and a bit more beyond her control, or her willingness to control (Borderline Personality Disorder? I don’t know.) Later on she has a stroke, but Tony is sure to get to her gurney before she can be transferred to the ambulance, and tells her it’s not that easy to take him out and Uncle June is in jail now, being interrogated by the FBI (but unwilling, even against his own jail time, to admit that Tony is the real boss of North Jersey.) The paramedics tell him she can’t hear him, but he flips when he thinks he sees the hint of a smile behind her oxygen mask. Livia is f*cked.

Bucco!

Artie Bucco, who we find out is the 3rd generation of Buccos to own the Vesuvio and now this new restaurant, refurbished by the insurance money collected after somebody (Not Tony, he swears on his mother’s life, which is funny because we know he wants to kill his mother for her wanting to kill him, but obviously somebody Tony hired, another set of hands) set it on fire and burnt it down. “How can I look you in the face after what Tony did to you?” Livia asks poor Artie. “You don’t blame him for burning down your restaurant?” Bucco puts two and two together (f*cking finally) but stupidly confronts Tony in a parking lot with a hunting rifle. Tony talks him down, but Bucco is f*cked, and doesn’t know what the hell is going on anymore. He goes to Father Phil, talking about how he’s filled with murderous rage ! (stifle your laughter, please) and how he doesn’t just hate “this man” (Tony,) he hates all men, and he hates life! Father Phil tells him it seems as if he’s had these problems for a long time, and he left God a long time ago. Whenever he comes to church his mind just wonders, says Bucco, he looks at the stained glass, at people’s hats…I’ve seen people in services before too who look like they could care less about the spiritual aspect of why they are there, but just come for the food and the conversation and just gaze around idly while prayers are being said, c’est la vie. But anyway, after seeing how great his restaurant is turning out, how happy his wife is now, he kind of comes to terms with the whole thing, and delivers probably the best quote summing up Tony’s life (remember how Det. Makazian hated how Tony could some up a whole man’s life in one sentence..degenerate gambler with a badge..) :

Is he complicated? Yes. A little too comfortable outside the law? Yes. But it would only add to the quotient of sorrow in the world to doubt him.

He’s Tony Effing Soprano, for better or worse, and with his Uncle and 13 others in jail, his mother maybe on her deathbed, his daughter ready to go to college, his son bulldozing into puberty, his wife faithful and supportive after all this shit, his best friend missing and maybe dead, his wiseguys cracking wise as ever, the feds with reams of information on him, his Prozac and Lithium sitting pretty in the medicine cabinet and his shrink in danger of being whacked herself…..

…..well, I should probably just keep watching this series.

My Rating

5 Sopranos R-shaped gun logos, my friends. Not just for this episode, but for the way all of the plotlines and all the details flowed to this inevitable stop, with the family sitting together at the dinner table, which is, before that final blackout scene, also the way the series ends, I already know. But the whole season was just so beautifully written, full of allusions and wordplay and witty banter and jokes on jokes, but through the genuineness of the acting never feeling as if you weren’t a voyeur, right there in real life, watching these things unfold. Being a journalism major myself, I felt like a journalist at times watching this show, taking notes as I ‘cover’ these people’s lives, waiting for that great quote or that interesting observation. This was a great season for so many reasons, but mostly because it showed not just a shoot-em up mobster tail, but a balanced account of the realities of life in North Jersey, in America in the 1990s, a tale that can be related to on many levels by many people, a rewatchable work, and hopefully, a good indication of things to come. Now I know how to spend my winter break…and if anyone wants to buy me the Sopranos boxset I know Christmas is coming soon…

….coming next I will post my final thoughts on the season and the blogging process.

Je parle pas souvent d’actualité sur ce blogue mais j’y fais exception aujourd’hui.

Ce matin je me suis levé avec la radio. J’étais syntonisé sur Puisqu’il faut se lever où Paul Arcand recevait en entrevue le boss de la FTQ-Construction, Richard Goyette.

Ce dernier ne veut pas d’enquête publique sur les manières de faire dans son syndicat. Les détails ici

Cette entrevue a mené à un échange anthologique entre l’animateur et le syndicaliste.

Vous pouvez l’écouter ici. Sélectionnez Richard Goyette

ou sinon essayez ici.

Pour ma part, me faire parler comme ça à 7h30 du matin, je suis pas sûr que je passerai une belle journée par la suite…

Anyways, dans le monde de la construction, l’important c’est de fermer ta gueule, comme dirait Fat Dom… Keep your mouth shut!

L’autre soir, après avoir été subjugué par la finale de Lance et Compte: Le Grand Duel, j’ai eu comme envie de rendre hommage à cette excellente émission télévisuelle qui devrait, selon mon humble avis, faire partie du patrimoine culturel international.  Effectivement, cette télésérie, écrite par Réjean Tremblay et diffusée à TVA, a sa place parmis les grandes oeuvres comme The Sopranos, Citizen Kane, la Joconde et Jardinons avec Albert.  Ainsi, j’ai décidé de dresser la liste des cinq ingrédients nécessaires à la création d’un épisode de Lance et Compte.  Pourquoi?  Eh bien, lorsque M.  Tremblay sera repêché par le Saint-Père, les futurs auteurs de la saison 36 auront certainement besoin de certains cues pour recréer la magie des belles années du National:

5.  Chaque épisode doit contenir au minimum 8 trames narratives qu’on aura à peine le temps d’exploiter et mettre en scène des personnages dont on se torche royalement puisqu’ils ne reviendront pas la saison prochaine.  Exemple:  Jean-Michel Anctil qui fait son personnage de Râteau interprète un fan du Canadien complètement dément.

4.  Lulu (Denis Bouchard) doit frôler l’anévrisme sur la galerie de presse quand Lambert compte un but. Idéalement, il envoie deux ou trois collègues dans le coma en les assommant avec ses bras qui s’agitent dans tous les sens.  (C’est beau; on a compris qu’il prenait pour le National…)

3.  Un personnage principal découvre qu’il a des enfants dont il ignorait l’existence.  Par exemple:  ”Écoute Suzie, tu t’rappelles mon voyage en Suède l’année dernière…?  J’te présente Sven, mon fils.”

2.  Marc Gagnon (Marc Messier) doit faire la rotation de tous les sacres québécois au moins deux fois.  Une phrase idéale pourrait ressembler à: “Tabarnak les gars!  Sont en train d’nous manger tout rond calice.  Y’a des ostis de limites à s’faire crisser une volée.  Saint-Ciboire d’osti, RÉVEILLEZ-VOUS!”

1.  Suzie Gagnon (Marina Orsini) doit pleurer au moins une dix fois à chaudes larmes et s’écrier violemment: “CH’TAIME MARC GAGNON!  BOUHOUHOUHOUHOUHOUHOU”.  Si possible, elle a aussi une maladie grave.

MAIS…

Pour créer l’ultime épisode de Lance et Compte, il faudrait surtout ramener Danny Ross:

.

Woke up this mornin’
Got yourself a gun
Mama always said you’d be the chosen one
She said, ‘You’re one in a million
You got to burn to shine’
That you were born under a bad sign
With a blue moon in your eyes (yeah)

Woke up this mornin’
And-a all that love had gone
Your papa never told you
About right and wrong

But you’re, but you’re looking good, baby
I believe you’re a-feelin’ fine
Shame about it, born under a bad sign
With a blue moon in your eyes
So, sing it now

Original song: Woke Up This Morning by The Alabama 3

And here I find myself again trying to recreate some kind of a natural response to the final two episodes of the first season of The Sopranos. The problem here is that there is so much going on, so much that has been building, and at the height of such exuberance in screenwriting, nearly every line is a verse of poetry, a carefully placed piece in the jigsaw puzzle which helps to create the larger picture of what Tony Soprano’s life is. And verily, just like real life, any real life that any person lives, Tony’s is not merely composed of the relationships he has or the actions he takes on a conscious level, but also the unconscious feelings and concerns he has, and yes even the medication or stress or what-have-you-induced hallucinations. It is all of these underlying, deeply personal mental incantations which have so much effect on a person’s life, decisions, and actions, but are nearly always taboo or inappropriate to discuss. But here David Chase is again, putting it all out there on the line. For a TV show assumed by many to be a “shoot-em-up,” “capicola-eating,” “boozin and screwin” depiction of Italian-American mafiosos (which it is,) The Sopranos certainly is not afraid to deal with the minutiae of personal and psychological life, without which it is nearly impossible to understand why anyone does anything they do that they haven’t been instructed to do through years of civlizing programming.

OK.

Tony is depressed as f*ck. He’s hopped up on Lithium and Prozac, his best friend Pussy is missing and likely dead, his mother will not stop laying the guilt I’m-a-poor-old-uncared-for-lady-you-bastard-son-and-my-husband-is-dead-and-you-sold-my-house-and-I-have-a-questionably-intimate-relationship-with-my-dead-husband’s-brother-who-is-also-a-mob-boss-with-no-credible-power-and-now-wants-to-murder-my-son-and-I’m-kind-of-complicit-in-this trip on him, he has federal indictments hanging over his head, he’s in love with his therapist, whose visits with are jeopardizing his whole organized crime career, his daughter is a somewhat obnoxious anorexic borderline feminist/activist who hooks up with skeezy Dominican guys and knows her father’s in the mafia, and he has hallucinations of eating lunch with a gorgeous imaginary Italian dental student where he then has a further hallucination of being breast-fed by her as a baby in a chalet in the Avolina countryside, and who really knows what the hell is going on?

So in response, he lies around all day in his bathrobe, half-conscious sprawled out on his king-size bed in his king-size master bedroom in his North Jersey McMansion and limps around the house waiting for the day that someone shows up to put a bullet in his skull if he doesn’t grab a gun out of his mother’s hatbox and do it first himself.

And the boys are starting to talk. Christopher (Michael Imperioli) thinks he may be depressed since he’s sleeping all day and not taking care of himself. “What the fuck do you know about depression?” retorts Silvio, with an apparent air of personal offense. All the top guys in history had black moods, and it’s somewhat fascinating and maybe even appropriate that he would compare Tony in his position of power to the likes of Winston Churchill and Napoleon. It might be a bit of a stretch, but that’s how seriously they take this life. So yeah, Churchill swilled a quart of brandy before breakfast every morning and Napoleon was a moody f*ck too, so don’t go worrying about Tony and making accusations of depression, the guy from the E-Street Band says. It’s just ridiculous. Later, when Christopher is talking with the bathrobe-clad Tony in his kitchen, and Tony turns to go down the stairs, Chris asks “What are you going to do?” with a look of concern on his face that says “If you’re going to hang yourself down there, I hope you have enough rope for me too.”

Over in Uncle June’s camp meanwhile, we see what big douchers Mikey and Jimmy, and especially Junior are. They’re at this poor old woman’s wake, kneeling in front of her casket talking about the hit on Tony (they’re getting “black guys to do it…no way to trace it back) while Junior gazes down at the chilly, wrinkled hands lying so limp and lifeless in the casket, reminiscing of how they were the first ones to yank his canoli when he was wee boy behind the local chicken market. “God, what am I saying at this poor woman’s wake,” he immediately catches himself. Junior’s a scummy man, plotting the mob assassination of his own nephew because of his own personal insecurities. Everyone knows he’s just “Joe Jerkoff,” as Silvio puts it–he’s got no real power, Tony is calling the shots behind his back, rendezvousing with his fellow capos at the old-folks home while Grannie Sopranie eats pastries and looks for her lost slipper and hate hate hates on everybody and everything with that loose-jowled scowl still conjuring up images of the Grandmother in Psycho. So June’s puking out of his car door when he finds out the hit on Tony didn’t go down and having Mikey give the hired thug a Moe Green Special of his own in his own car on an abandoned street in broad daylight for cracking  jokes about Tony’s own mother wanting to see him popped.

Sh*t, as they say, is f*cked.

• 1000s of dollars for Honus Wagner and jack sh*t for Jesus Christ, Junior laments, thinking back to the prayer cards of his youth and how they don’t get nearly the respect or admiration that the same cards with pictures of guys who hit little leather balls with sticks of ash-wood that come with dry, powdery old stick of gum get. Such is life. Can Jesus Christ hit 73 dingers in one season? Not likely!
• At the very least, when they pop Tony, they’re gonna shoot him below the neck, so he can have an open casket. That’s nice.
• No wonder Tony can’t lose weight…he’s running off to buy donuts! Which produced the epic line, “Let Soprano have his donuts, we gonna pop him when he gets out!” by one of the hired assassins.
• Tony’s Prozac gets bumped up to 60mg by Melfi. They’re just trying to find some way to jump start his system a little bit.
• Well later on he gets that jump start he needs. Walking back to his SUV after buying a Tropicana and a racing form from the news stand, one gunshot shatters his glass bottle. He freaks, hops in his car, and wrestles the gun out of the hand of the dude unfortunate enough to stick his head in the car window. The second assassin steps up, shouting, “You dead now, muthaf*cka!” or something epic to that effect, as he shoots his partner in the head, instead of Tony’s melon, sitting a couple inches away. Tony sheds the first body, grabs the gun in the second guys hand, and starts driving off, wresting the firearm away and leaving the dude bleeding on the pavement, and a jovial look reminiscent of Tony’s days as a young boy eating cherry-vanilla ice cream while his dad and a circus clown get shoved in the back of a paddywagon washes over Tony’s face—he showed those guys!–before he careens solidly into two park cards and busts his head up against the steering wheel.
• In the hospital, after the requisite mushy visit from his family, Tony is visited by an FBI agent, who gives him the old Henry Hill deal: Total immunity and relocation in exchange for his testimony. It’s just not safe for him on the streets or in prison anymore, and the government is Tony’s last hope. But fuck that, Tony says. While he was sitting in Melfi’s office earlier, lamenting that fact that he feels nothing, is empty and dead inside, isn’t a husband to his wife, a father to his kids, or a friend to his friends, Tony has a renewed sense of zeal. While Carmella pleads with Tony to consider the FBI offer because she wants her children to have a father, he pronounces, “They got one, right here, Tony Soprano, and everything that comes with it, mutherf*cka!” Ok, I added the muthaf*cka part, but you get the effect.
• Outside in the hallway, AJ doesn’t believe it was a carjacking that landed ol pops in the hospital. “It takes more than a couple Jamaican bobsledders with capguns to stop your old man” Paulie racistly remarks, as he and Silvio embrace Tony’s kids in front of a deliciously ironically placed sign which reads: Safe Families, Everybody Needs One! Arguably, these two kids are safer than any two who’s father isn’t a mob lord in Northern New Jersey. Verily, Tony will die and take 40 men with him before he lets anyone hurt his wife and kids, and God bless’em for that.
• There’s crazy wind outside, as the man at the news stand observes. The winds of change, anyone?
• Capicola (colloquially pronounced “gabagool“) and attributed every so satirically to this show, is mentioned for the first time in the entire season, with Meadow telling her grandmother not to eat it because it’s so full of cholesterol. Grannie Sopranie proceeds to ask, “Who is that girl?” “What the f*ck?” everyone else asks. Her memory is going, apparently, though Junior is sure to call her out about that later. Convenient, that right after she was complicit in the plot to murder her own son, which failed, that she all of a sudden has memory loss and doesn’t even recognize her own granddaughter. She loves to have her hand in everything, but will never, to the very end, admit what it is she is doing or what she knows. She’s just a poor old lady! An old shoe! What can you do about her though?
• AJ goes off in the end to the school dance with the “future Miss New Jersey,” as Tony, half pumping up his son’s ego and half planning the phonecalls and handshakes and extortion he’d need to put into place to actually make this girl win the Miss New Jersey contest one day. Paulie and Silvio accompany them in the limo, smoking cigarettes and straight-facing little AJ as he mischievously asks if they can have a little whiskey. Oh kids!
• Also Chris walks in wearing a ridiculous fisherman’s cap to complement his classic Nike jumpsuit. What!? He was just out on a boat down the shore in Tom’s River when he got the call of Tony’s failed hit. Whoever it was that ordered it will wish they were never born, says Silvio, looking with bold disdain right through the four-eyed face of old Curacao drinkin’ Uncle Junior.
• Tony’s grandfather was a stonemason.
• Tony describes himself to Melfi in maybe one of the best metaphors of the series: “I’m like King Midas in reverse, everything I touch turns to shit!”

Don’t be so hard on yourself, man. Just remember your good spirits and muster up the strength you need to take on the world, one last time.

My Rating

Great writing, great plot progression, excellent laying out the pieces for the foundation of the last episode of the season. Props to the actors and crew all around.

Tony describing Isabella to Cusamano as "beautiful."

With only two episodes to go in the season after this one, this is the point where the holes really start to get poked in the fabric of Tony’s reality.

The world is going dark and the blackness–in the form of the Law, in the form of his jealous Uncle June, in the form of his own associates turning their backs on him for their own personal safety–is beginning to close in around Tony. Such is the consequence of a life of crime, I suppose: sooner or later the shit hits the fan. Tony, in a way, sees the world as just a big playground; not merely in the sense that it is made purely for hedonism, but also in the sense that he can bully and intimidate his way around wherever he likes. This life, to him, is a playing field, a chessboard, on which he wants only to move freely and take as much as he can for himself. While he has opponents, he never really doubts the ability of charisma or guns or alcohol to help get him through it, hopefully unscathed. Unfortunately, this is the way many people see the world. And unfortunately, this is not the true nature of life–to rob and steal and garner power at all costs. This is the life we have been convinced to live, whether you blame Corporate America, whether you blame Biggie and 2Pac, whether you blame Christopher Columbus, it doesn’t really matter. The true purpose of life is to build and create something bigger and better for everyone, to use your intelligence and compassion to shape a more perfect reality; but sadly there are too many longstanding divisions and animosities standing in the way, and truly this can be a job ranging from difficult to impossible and nearly always thankless.

So maybe Tony is smart to fill his coffers and hope he can fuck and drink as much as possible before he does die or get taken out. Who am I to say?

• The FBI comes in to bust up the boys’ card game, but really, they’re working on a tip from someone, and find a cachet of automatic weapons hidden underneath the lid of the pool table. Whoops! “If I wanted to bust up card games I’d have a donut in my mouth,” says the federal agent with blunt honesty and disdain.
• “I don’t like it…this is how it starts,” says Tony. Already he can see that darkness looming. As he tells Dr. Melfi, he walks around all the time, always looking up feeling like a safe is going to fall on his head. It’s that feeling of impending doom, whether a real mystical harbinger of ill fortune, or years of corruption and immorality catching up with him, or just a psychosomatic paranoia induced by Johnny Black and too many dirty bitches.
• And Big Pussy (Vincent Pastore), despite all his recent back issues which leave him being escorted gingerly down the steps in the bordello and then consigned to the couch in his bathrobe, popping Percosets like M&Ms as Christopher so visually observes, finds it in himself to make that mad dash out the door to escape the Feds, before being apprehended by an agent waiting for him on the corner with a set of cuffs. When Tony goes to meet up with Lt. Makazian (John Heard,) who he calls a “degenerate gambler with a badge” and tells that he doesn’t give 2 shits about him, his family, or whether he takes it up the ass (Tony is paying him money for his services, why should he deserve any delicate treatment?)  he finds out that Pussy has been trafficking heroin to pay for his son’s college, is up to his eyeballs in gambling debts, and met with the Feds in Las Vegas a while back to cut a deal, and is now apparently wearing a wire for them. Can this be true, or does Makazian, who has a few screws loose himself, have his signals crossed? Pussy is a man who loves his family above all else, Makazian says, and that’s exactly the kind of person the Feds look for..someone with a lot to lose personally looking for a way out of jail and financial obligations so he can hold together the semblance of the straight life he is leading.
• Grandma Livia (Nancy Marchand) is a no show at the Soprano’s annual open house. Though Tony is upset, he knows that she is just looking for attention. ‘Negative attention getting,’ he says, and tells Carmella not to call her again because that’s just what she wants. Carmella brings her some ricotta pie and confronts her about manipulating her son, who really does love her and is trying his best to please her amidst all of his other worries and obligations. ‘What are you talking about?” she asks. She will fight til the end to not have her veil lifted. The only joy she gets anymore is form Uncle Junior’s (Dominic Chianese) visits, because he’s the only person who listens to her and doesn’t treat her like an old shoe. I mean there she is, an old, lonely lady, with her “saint” of a husband (funny she never called him a saint when he was alive) passed away, her house goes into escrow and is sold and she really has nothing much left to her name, and not much left to do besides do aqua-therapy and make the best of things before she dies (ouch) while Tony and two other Capos including Johnny Sack hold secret meetings under her nose. She is manipulative at times, but it’s understandable when she really feels that she has no purpose left in life.
• Meanwhile back at the open house, Paulie (Tony Sirico) tells Tony that this back specialist, who fixed him up after he got whacked in the head with a pool stick down at the shore last summer (so Jersey…the seashore barroom brawl!) who fixes up the Jets’ frontline says there’s nothing even wrong with Pussy’s back (he gave him CAT scans, dog scans, MRIs, everything, and there’s nothing wrong with him. To be fair though, when it comes to backs, nobody really knows anything.) Melfi informs Tony, however, that psychosomatic pain can be very real, especially when someone has increased responsibility or a secret they’ve been keeping (dun dun dun…)
• Makazian goes off on Tony a little bit when he’s being shittalked in the bordello, the only place where he really feels loved and respected. He had an abusive father as a kid, and when he’d start to get drunk and angry and smack his wife around, Makazian would go and hide under his bed, because it was peaceful and safe under there, and wait til morning. Well, “under the bed” for him is now the bordello (a fancy word for a whorehouse, Meadow explains to AJ.) Debbie (Karen Silas,) the house madame has often consoled Makazian in her naked arms over the years (hey, who wouldn’t want to sleep with their shrink, she says) and even when he comes in loaded up after a weekend of football gambling winnings, he’d leave his cash out on the nightstand and every last cent would be there when he woke up. He wouldn’t f*ck the rest of the girls with Tony’s d*ck, though, they’re all no-class and always on the hustle. Isn’t that what they’re supposed to do, though, asks Tony? It’s true, to an extent I suppose. A woman who lays down for money has few other preoccupations, for one reason or another. If there’s anything this show teaches us, it’s than anyone who engages in activities that might be deemed immoral by the general public has their skeletons in the closet, their reasons why they’ve been fucked up by life or family or a bad case of genetics, but they either need to find a way to eek out an existence, or take a swan dive off the Route 1 bridge. At long last, this is the route Makazian goes, using his detective’s badge one last time to cruise through traffic, mount the guardrail and plunge to his death.
• Jimmy is the wire. He interrupts Tony’s dinner and starts talking…about the money Tony got from the Colombians (they put a bullet in one of their skulls at the beginning of the last episode) and says how the bills may or may not be marked and the Feds may or may not have new methods of lifting prints right off the bills. Tony should’ve killed him right there in his basement, he tells Silvio, and practically lifts Paulie right off the ground by his collar to make sure that he didn’t wrongfully kill Pussy yet. He says he didn’t, but nobody knows where Pussy is…
• Nobody knows anything.

My Rating:

Good episode, but it’s just building to the end now.

A atriz Lorraine Bracco, que ficou conhecida no papel da Dra. Melfi em Sopranos, estará no elenco da série policial Rizzoli, nova produção da TNT.

A série é baseada nos livros de Tess Gerritsen, que conta a vida da policial Jane Rizzoli e sua colega do departamento de autópsias, Maura Isles (Angie Harmon de Law & Order). Bracco interpretará a mãe de Rizzoli, uma mulher com personalidade forte, mãe de três filhos e esposa fiel.

Bracco não conseguiu repetir até hoje o sucesso da época em que fazia a psicóloga de Sopranos, quem sabe nesse nova série ela tenha mais sorte, apesar que seu papel será pequeno.

Se o piloto de Rizzoli for aprovado a série deve estrear na TV americana na metade de 2010.

President Obama has appointed more Czars Than the Romanov Empire ever had.

Bigot Czar, Mad Scientist Czar, Animal Rights Czar, Communist Czar, along with a host of others.

One appointment that flew under the radar was the picking of an “Or Else” Czar, as in you will do what you are told, or otherwise be prepared to suffer the consequences.

The first name that probably comes to mind is Rahm Emanuel, but you may be surprised to learn that it’s not him.

In addition to his other duties, President Obama has decided that Vice-President Joe Biden should be the administration’s chief legbreaker.

With a line that could have come straight out of an episode of the Sopranos, Biden made it clear that members of Congress pledging loyalty to the President have nothing to fear, while for those opposing him there will be hell to pay.

After last weeks Senate vote on health care reform, here is what Biden had to say:

“Those who voted for reform will be rewarded and those who voted against it will be held accountable.”

To me, that sounds more like the ravings of a ticked-off Mafia godfather than a rational statement from a Vice-President of the United States.

Read the rest of this entry

The genre I have decided to analyse is American TV drama such as The Wire and The Sopranos. Most of the drama that is created is loosely based on real life experiences or situations and for me that is the element that makes me interested in watching it. Of course after the basic concept is formed around real life experiences the rest is just exaggerated or made up.

• • What elements of each of the objects seem to be the same?

With The Wire and Sopranos, they have a gangster genre through different perspectives. They are both loosely based on the idea that crime can produce a lavish lifestyle, depending on which end of the spectrum you look at. The mafia in the Sopranos reflect the Italian mob that has allegedly run high level crime in New York whilst The Wire focuses on the problem with drug dealing in the Baltimore region. Both of the programmes also focus on the police system, from corruption to the pressures they face to meet government regulations. The directors try to show all areas of affected by this kind of lifestyle. The set out of their characters are in similar ways although The Wire has a slightly complex character list because they refresh most of their main characters every other season.

• • What elements mark each object out as being different from the

 rest that you have chosen?

The wire is more aimed towards the low end gangster life with drug dealing the main source of obtaining a good lifestyle. It focuses on the exploitation of those already at a disadvantage and how they strive to have the life they see the drug lords enjoying. On the other hand, in Sopranos it is about maintaining the name and lifestyle that has already been established. The Sopranos is basically what the hustlers in The Wire are trying to achieve, money and power that is known not only locally but nationally.

• • How might ‘the audience’ understand the object?

Some people find it difficult to grab the concepts of both shows. many are definitely educated about the underground mafia and drug world they would never get to experience. Whilst some have a whole new appreciation for the law enforcements after witnessing the pressures they constantly have. For one to grasp their head round these sometimes surreal situations can leave the audience feeling guilty because they are more fortunate to be in the position they are in. However the audience understand that this is can be occurring in their own neighbourhoods and hopefully they are deterred.

• • What kinds of pleasure might ‘the audience’ get from each object?

Some people find it difficult to grab the concepts of both shows. Many that watch The Wire come away with broad knowledge of the effects of drugs, how they affect communities and families and the consequences be it death or prison. They appreciate that they have expanded their knowledge on areas they don’t get to experience themselves otherwise. It is ultimately the educational pleasure the audience gets from watching such dramas because they provoke emotion and actually allow them o attach them to certain characters they would not have liked had they not known their background. Its about going on a journey with the character and following their progress or failure.

Estaphan,20, economics tudent: (dislikes American drama)

What in particular don’t you like about it?

My biggest quam about such shows is they play to the stereotypes that have been already created by the media and instead of creating maybe a juxtapose of the stereotype they just emphasise them. Everyone knows that mainly black America is famous for their ‘thugness’ and hustler mentality and that is mainly because of the past portrayal of the black community. It has become a cycle and an acceptance and instead of trying to break it, they just strengthening it.

Is there anything that you like at all about it?

Well i suppose the fact that it is highlighting issues that are ongoing in society is a good thing because there are people that forget that America has a real problem with gangs, drugs and violence. The shows also outline the corruption still wrecking the justice system and that it is all a network. One only survives because of the other.

Ann lin kapinga,20, perfoming arts student: (likes American Drama)

What is it that you love about such programmes?

The rawness, reality and the characters. You can’t help but be drawn in by most of the characters on such shows. You grow with them, u fail with them and you hope in the end they survive through the trauma they are constantly exposed to. Sometimes it’s the sense of ‘lucky escape’ you feel after watching a show like the wire because you could have been living in a neighbourhood where there was an Omar or Avon –you feel fortunate coz you know they are people going through this everyday  but they can’t pause or fast forward.

Is there anything you would change about them?

Not at all! I feel they project what people need to see. As gruesome and as crude as it may seem, people need to remember that this is real life for some people and they don’t have the luxury and opportunity of turning it off of changing channels. I think the problem of the world today is people filter alot of what is reality. They would rather watch I’m A Celebrity than educate themselves on real TV and experiences that other people actually go through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tLcKyOy0HQ

Jennifer answers our burning questions about sopranos, choirs and why it’s great to be Singaporean. This is the 3rd segment of a 4-part interview. Watch this space!

The Toronto Star (www.thestar.com/entertainment)  published a list of the “10 Most Important TV Shows of the Past Decade” — I thought I would share it with you. You should try making your own list–

Here’s the List (in no particular order) and my thoughts:

1. American Idol – Agreed. Whether or not you find it uncomfortable to watch Paula Abdul struggle to put together a coherant sentence… this show sparked the ‘Talent Competition Reality Show’ machine that has continued with shows like SYTYCD, Americas got Talent, DWTS etc.
2. Band of Brothers- Can’t say that I was a religious viewer of this one, although the sheer production value of this show is unparalleled on television (maybe ever?). Perhaps has something to do with the Spielberg connection.
3. Corner Gas- Obviously a Canadian gem…marked the rebirth of homegrown Canadian comedy akin to King of Kensington of the 70’s. The deadpan humor and lack of laugh track set it apart during its run.
4. CSI- Forensics has never been hotter! CSI is still the most watched tv show worldwide, because it is based on basic conventions of suspense, procedural drama, good guy vs bad guy, and a great cast of mysterious and dark scientists.
5. Mad Men- So trendy, so cool and suave…this show has charm and swagger. it has emerged as one of the best new shows certainly in the past few years.
6. The Office-the “mock-doc” style of the Office has proved that people know when to laugh without prompting from a laugh track or obvious one-liners. And Steve Carell is brilliant.
7. The Sopranos-The Godfather of TV… there’s no top ten list without this one…
8. Survivor-The ORIGINAL reality series…we have survivor to thank for the last 10 years chalk full of addictive reality shows. But it remains solid season after season, it goes to show that throwing people together will always cause drama, comedy, competition, even romance…everything needed for great tv!
9. 24- A Cult classic of the last decade… deserves to make the list.
10. The Wire- Honestly…never seen it. sorry. I think I would have replaced it for something like Greys Anatomy (a reincarnation of ER drama…mixed with comedy) or even 30 Rock (its worth it weight in Emmy gold for sure!)

an interesting list…any additions/subtractions?

Life’s too short to live at normal speed.

These videos summarize The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, all of Hollywood, the last ten years of history, space travel, Western philosophy, music, dance, inspirational speeches, and more, all in a matter of minutes.

Source:
http://www.urlesque.com/2009/11/11/everything-everywhere-in-30-seconds/

Life’s too short to live at normal speed.

These videos summarize The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, all of Hollywood, the last ten years of history, space travel, Western philosophy, music, dance, inspirational speeches, and more, all in a matter of minutes.

Source:
http://www.urlesque.com/2009/11/11/everything-everywhere-in-30-seconds/

e acabou de acordar..:

PS: CASO AINDA NÃO TENHAM VISTO O ESPECTACULAR FINAL DOS SOPRANOS, NÃO VEJAM O VIDEO (spoiler alert)

I might have first been introduced to Moliere’s Le Misanthrope in a 17th Century Literature class, but I’ve always been a bit of a fan of the curmudgen. To be totally truthful, I actually really dislike real-life jerks, but in a book or a play or on TV, I’m all for them.

This occurs to me as we watch an episode of House. He’s hateful, mean, rude and truly an misanthrope, but he’s really, really fun to watch.

Here are a few other world class assholes that I’ve loved onscreen. They’re not necessarily misanthropes, but they probably aren’t people you want to hang out with.

Archie Bunker. I was always slightly scared of him as a kid. And, yes, I watched All In the Family when I was a kid.

Tony Soprano on The Sopranos. He loved Christopher and Big Pussy like brothers and whacked them both. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Al Swearengen in Deadwood. Sherriff, gambler, whore…didn’t matter to Al. He was an equal opportunity a-hole.

Sylar in Heroes. Now, to be fair, I kind of got lost during Season 3, but I’m thinking back to old school, Season 1, try to cut Claire’s head open evil Sylar. A bad, horrible, tortured man who is still crazy attractive. Go figure.

Dwight Schrute in The Office.  He’s not evil, but he’s kind of a villain in his tattle-tale tendencies. But his affinity for beets, his hair/glasses combo, and his knowledge of everything nerd make me laugh.

Oscar the Grouch. Enough said.

And did I mention that I love How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson? So good.

Who’s your favourite crabby character? I know I’m missing some good ones.

kp

I just saw the last episode of the Sopranos. I must say I reaaally want to know what happens after Meadow walks in. Such a cliff hanger! I can’t believe there’s no more episodes. Anyone who cares to speculate about what happens next??

[embed] http://nocturnoradio.podomatic.com/enclosure/2009-11-06T10_21_26-08_00.mp3 [/embed]

That “Little Green Ghouls, Buddy!” is the most viewed post on this entire website, simply because people keep searching Google for this Always Sunny non-sequitur.

Little Green Hits, Buddy!

So I’m glad this blog has successfully fulfilled this it’s stated purpose: as a commentary on The Sorpanos, Season 1. Quite a triumph.

-BSHIF

That “Little Green Ghouls, Buddy!” is the most viewed post on this entire website, simply because people keep searching Google for this Always Sunny non-sequitur.

Little Green Hits, Buddy!

So I’m glad this blog has successfully fulfilled this it’s stated purpose: as a commentary on The Sorpanos, Season 1. Quite a triumph.

-BSHIF

Äntligen!

Vardagen känns återigen hanterlig och det finns nu tid till annat än schemalagda aktiviteter. Bara att kunna lägga sig ner i soffan och titta på ett par Sopranos-avsnitt utan att känna ångest över att jag egentligen borde göra något annat är en vardagslyx utöver det vanliga. Eller att i lugn och ro kunna läsa några kapitel ur Nick Caves misogyn-bibel Bunny Munros död och faktiskt uppskatta läsningen som sådan.

Ja, nu ska jag fanimej ta igen alla missade tillfällen att lyssna på lite ny och spännande musik. Den senaste tiden har bakgrundsskvalet bestått av de gamla beprövade, säkra korten som aldrig gör en besviken.

När vi ändå är inne på beprövade kort: Hörde jag någon säga The Essential Leonard Cohen? Eller som en kommentar så fyndigt löd: “Is There Such a Thing as Non-Essential Leonard Cohen?”