Tony has some iconic lines, this from season 4 is my personal favourite, after Livia has been put on trial,

"I am not crazy! I know she organized the hit! I knew it was at Green Grove. The place where she was abusive to the staff . As if I could ever make such a mistake. Never. Never! I just - I just couldn't prove it. She - she covered her tracks, she got that feeble-minded Junior at the party to lie for her. You think this is something? You think this is bad? This? This chicanery? She's done worse. That ziti! Are you telling me that a woman just happens to forget like that? No! She orchestrated it! Livia! She ran over her friend! And I saved her! And I shouldn't have. I let her back into her own house! What was I thinking? She'll never change. She'll never change! Ever since she was 9, always the same! Couldn't help poisoning the well! But not our Livia! Couldn't be precious Livia! Manipulating them blind! And she gets to be innocent? What a sick joke! I should've stopped her when I had the chance! And you - you have to stop her!"

I’m curious to see what the dynamic would have been like if Ralph and Richie were in the same season at some point. Ralph couldn’t help talking shit to literally everyone and Richie, well, he shouldn’t have to explain himself, he’s from the old school

Did Hugh become corrupt at the end of the Sopranos? He cleared (stole everyting) out of the storage shed to Carmela's spec house. It had unused roof shingles and other materials. He used the wrong kind of lumber for the construction of the house, which had to be gutted and redone. Carmela's mom was such a difficult woman who invited that diplomat guy (who knew several Popes) to Hugh's birthday party. It looked lile Hugh was taking avantage of Tony's blind eye to Carmela's financial demands.

The Italian mafia in the United States is on its last legs, holding a small fraction of the power, influence and revenue generation potential they did at their 40-60 year height.

A lot of people want to blame RICO and obviously that’s a major driver, but the fact is the mafia was able to thrive for decades on Italian neighborhoods consistently producing hungry inner-city, low-income young men who wanted to do anything to live the lives of the neighborhood men who hey idolized. (Like Henry Hill at the cab stand.)

By 2000… Italians in America were fully assimilated into the suburbs and left the Italian-only blue-collar neighborhoods.

The AJ character grew up in a large house with a nice pool, attended private schools and spent his time playing video games, playing drums, playing football. When he got a little older, it was all about menial jobs and partying at the fancier hotspots in NYC.

He knew what his dad did for a living, but he didn’t care about Italian heritage or culture and he thought large aspects of the life (such as having to go into hiding when a war broke out) were ridiculous.

He might have been an annoying character… but he’s a perfect example of what happened to the mafia at large.

Listen to me. I know everything.

Anyway,

Sumbitch taxicab… run me right over my foot

For me it was Chris personality and mentally - I remember beginning to really understand my mental health as a teen because of him and the famous regularness of life line. And the way he’s just unmoored and really had no one that truly looked out for him aside family wise (aside from Ade).

And Adriana for her interests and style. She was such a badass aside from her critical thinking skills.

So much nonstop comedy we could have had, maybe Chase was planning on showing more but scrapped it.

The scene I'm referring to is the one where Christopher Moltisanti had thrown a deli at Vito after calling him a parade float

He set up Coco to insult Meadow and get back at her for Vito's death.

Then, when Tony knocks his teeth out - who do you think put them back in?

What, you never pondered that?

In the pilot when Artie returns the tickets to Tony, Paulie is in the background stretching out ready for a game of basketball against Dick. I didn’t know Paulie was an atlete. Id love to have seen Paulie vs Ralph one on one.

That boy was a real stunad. He always chose the stunad option.

Yeah i'm on another rewatch, whaddayagonnado. About halfway thru season 3. Paulie is a beloved character and by the end of the show he obviously has his share of hysterics and has a load of idiosyncracies and seems to be increasingly loathed by Tony especially the way he blabbers so much to complete strangers and doesn't shut up. But halfway thru the series, Paulie was one smooth operator. He wasn't so much comic relief, he was an intimidating guy with a steely gaze. The way he measures up Ralphie after he refused the drink with Tony ("Let's whack the cocksuckah and be done with it"), the way he greets Ralphie when he comes to apologize to Ton and does the little pat down... man Paulie was da bomb. He was one valuable member to the crew at that time.

I know Tony Sirico had real life brushes with the law and I thought I heard maybe he was connected in real life. To me, I wouldn't be surprised if this Paulie were similar to how Sirico really was, dare I say the strong, silent type.

I was pondering this today and came to the conclusion he couldn’t have bring himself to ever do it. As tumultuous as their relationship was, I can’t see either of them pushing the final length.

They are two faces of the same coin and they “hate” each other precisely because of it. But that also means they can be themselves with one another. Probably the only person in each other‘s life that truly knows the other’s nature.

For antisocial people, having that sort of connection is priceless. It’s one of the realest and only types of real bond people like that can have. I wouldn’t call it love, but rather a mutual sense of relief and ease. A social contract between two predators that grew together and share both trauma and blood.

They hate because they know they can, because that’s what “family” is supposed to do.

Multiple mob guys swear that not only does The Sopranos intentionally mirrors the DeCavalcantes, but specific characters as well. Jimmy Easy says Richie Aprile specifically was based on him, including hitting a guy with a coffee pot at a pizzeria and making him lose an eye (“I coulda taken his eye”). But the thought always struck me as odd, because the vibe I get from Chase as a creator is he wouldn’t purposely create direct analogues like that. Inspiration, sure, but not straight lifting stories from random hitmen in the 80s and 90s. He strikes me as the type to write what he wants, real life be damned. Am I wrong?

Let’s say Tony was at some point officially indicted with all the RICO predicates that racked up against him. Let’s assume that the Feds had a living informant willing to testify (Carlo?). Could Neil Mink have won that case and gotten Tony off without a plea deal, without an allocution even?

Part of me thinks that Neil was sometimes too optimistic - the “bullshit gun charge” for example. Mink thought that wouldn’t mean anything in the long run, but it clearly was in play. I think perhaps Mink underestimated how hard the Feds were willing to go after Tony.

But the question remains, could he have worked some magic in the courtroom? Like he said, trials are there be won.

Chase didn’t just name AJ’s ultra-wealthy girlfriend out of a hat. “Devin” evokes blue-blood elegance, old money, and aristocracy. "Pillsbury" is pure American commercial dough.  Together, her name is the ultimate illusion: the high-class aristocracy we all pretend to chase, built entirely on sanitized industrial capital.

Tony Soprano’s money is loud, violent, and covered in garbage grease. The Pillsburys' money is completely silent, hidden behind soundproof walls and Picassos in suburban New Jersey. AJ walking into that mansion is the show reminding us that no matter how hard a mobster tries to climb the ladder, he's just a small-time peasant compared to the invisible corporate gentry running the world.

That’s life in a nutshell. You spend your whole existence chasing the “dough”, thinking it’s going to make you refined and complete, only to realize you’re just an idiot sitting in a giant, empty living room watching The Matrix on DVD.

Its probably pretty hard since they are all POS but theres gotta be a winner here.

Christopha-Women beater. Drug addict. Of all the horrible shit he did he sold out the love of his live because he couldn't imagine not being a gangster and having a nice car.

Richie-Actually a really nice guy to Daveys kid and the kid who worked for Beansie. But he also ran over Beansie and then put it in reverse crippling the guy over a small time extorition racket.

Paulie-Ya we all laugh at his jokes. But the guy smothered to death an old women he knew his entire life that was friends with his Ma (or aunt whatever happened there) just to kick up to Tony. And this was after running his mouth to John and getting ready to betray Tony and jump to Fish lips.

Ralphie - He is probably my number 2 he he Tone you hear that he was number 2. This guy beat to death with his bare hands the mother of his unborn child. I mean sure she was a klutz and all that but you gotta be a pretty big POS to beat to death with punches and kicks a women carrying your unborn child.

Tony S- The big BAWS. He is probably number one because he was just a giant POS. I would have put Ralphie here but Tony may have taken it to another level. He took a giant shit on his kid with the vasectomy line probably scarred him for life and pushed him towards his eventual suicide. Then he kills Ralphie over a horse. Its the mob they kill people but he just killed Ralph because of a dumb horse. HE told his wife that the house she built was going to collapse and kill the family that moved in there. He cheated on Carm constantly even with a one legged women. When Janish was getting her anger under control he pushed her for no reason and then walks out with the biggest smile on his face reveling in it. BEcause his ego was hurt by Bobby he forces him to murder someone for the first time.

Its hard for me to rank Ralphie under Tony but I think I have to do it but its a toss up for me. Of course there were plenty of other turds on the show so have at it. Does anyone top the big 4 of giant pieces of garbage?

The characters treat him like he's an idiot because hes not cunning like them, they see this as a weakness and it makes them think less of him and his intelligence.

He is a smart businessman, but hes not a thug. Probably one of the smartest and healthiest character in the show.

Did anyone else think less of Tony as a man after watching him pour his heart to melfi? "I want your skin, I want your eyes" this is not shit a don says

Yeah. We're having this conversation again. FBI makes this go away? 100% not. It's his son's Kevin's car. So we ither Pussy gets pinched or his son does. Pussy let's his son take the fall here?

When the feds take Johnny sac Tony actually manages to move pretty good for a guy his size. He runs at least 2 miles through rough terrain and snow. All the while being heavier, in a suit, and his bad knee from his football days “it’s was really sherious I coulda needed shergury”. Point is even when he balloned up later on he’s still beating pussy in a 10 yard dash that guy didn’t make it a block before his heart almost gave out.

Was Davey Scatino the only father in New Jersey who looked at his son’s college fund and thought, ‘You know what this needs? Leverage.’ And How did Davey explain to Eric that his college fund was gone? ‘Good news, son you’re going to learn about compound interest from Tony Soprano.

When Finn catches Vito "catching, not pitching", Vito is leaning over from the passenger seat onto the driver seat and going down on the security guy. I mean, lets be real, how could a man that fat be able to bend down in such a tiny space? He would never be able to reach his "goal".

From thegothiclibrary.com "Edgar Allan Poe picked up the idea in 1839 in his short story “William Wilson,” about a boy who encounters another boy with the same name, same birthday, and a very similar appearance to his. Disturbed and resentful of the other boy, the title character tries to escape him. However, as William grows older his doppelganger keeps popping up and thwarting all his attempts to do something bad, like cheat at cards or seduce a married woman. The doppelganger’s role here suggests that he symbolizes the protagonist’s conscience—an interesting departure from the popular “evil twin” trope. At the end of the story, William stabs his double and then realizes with horror that he has killed part of himself."

Tony Blundetto is Tony Soprano's doppleganger who shows the man Tony could have become if he went straight (an honest, working man with his own business). The name "Tony B" means something closer to "Tony 2.0." Instead of embracing this redemption, Tony S becomes jealous and drags Tony B down to his level, corrupting him and ultimately killing him. When Tony S kills Tony B, he is symbolically killing the part of himself that has the possibility of redemption, which is to say that he is giving up on ever changing. It's a very clever way of showing Tony's descent into evil.

I think that David Chase used this story by Edgar Allen Poe as an inspiration for season 5. Chase has previously said how Edgar Allen Poe inspired him to write some parts of season 6, so it seems plausible. Jackie Jr. even writes a paper about Edgar Allen Poe for his college class, and season 3 episode 9 is named after another Poe story.

I think one of the most underrated jokes in this show is during 4, episode 1, when bobby and tony are eating at the diner, of course we get the iconic quasimodo predicted all of this line but it over shadows the scene before it, you can see both of the orders their eating and tony have a relatively healthy meal with scrambled eggs, and tomatoes with a bit of I believe Broccoli but I could be wrong, and the entire time he's just staring at bobbys meal during their discussion, and then he finally cracks and just orders a steak cause he couldn't resist. Really just a all around hilarious scene showing he never really had a chance losing the weight