Why do we like Tony Soprano, when we shouldn't?

[Haole Girl]

I mean, he is a cheat and murderer. He nearly suffocated his own mother in one episode! Ever wonder about it?

[Haole Girl]

1. Ok, I guess this was a boring topic, or maybe

it's been discussed before? I'm kind of tired anyway. Good night.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear KC2!

Good night, sweetie! Sweetest of dreams......

[slybacon9]

3. you just touched upon what makes the show so brilliant.

masterful writers who know how to paint with all the shades between black and white.

[Skittles]

4. I saw a couple of episodes and I thought he was nauseating

so no, I do not wonder at all

[kwassa]

5. He has a child-like quality of innocence, even though he is not

I don't think any other actor could play that role.

He clearly has remorse about his profession, and this season more than any other he is really trying to change his life and ramp back the typical thug responses required of him. This is particularly apparent in the subplot about Vito coming out as gay, which targets him for assasination under the code of the Mafia.

[Butterflies]

6. He got me by taking care of the ducks in the beginning

and he loved that horse a couple seasons later too. Love of animals overshadows lots of things in my opinion.

[NewWaveChick1981]

7. Do you remember the flashback when Tony was

a teenager and his mother was having a miscarriage? He was a confused, innocent 15- or 16-year-old kid just trying to do everything right. He kept the house together while his mother was at the hospital (and of course, Johnny Boy was with his mistress) and was just trying to do the right thing. That kid is still in there, and you see shades of his humanness when he takes care of ducks, loves a horse, etc. That's what all the sessions with Dr. Melfi are about. :)

The Sopranos is not pure black and white. There is a LOT of in between---you can see it in Paulie's worries about cancer and being a little nicer to his erstwhile mother, Vito's new sort-of relationship, etc.

[Bunny]

10. Ducks, horses, Adrianna's dead dog.

Do you remember the scene a few seasons ago when they did the drug intervention on Christopha? And Adrianna revealed that he had killed her little dog by squashing it while stoned? The look of horror and disgust on the faces of those gangsters, who would kill someone without even blinking, but were sickened to find out that Christopha had killed a little dog, was just hilarious. And part of the brilliance that is The Sopranos.

[NewWaveChick1981]

11. Yeah, I remember that!

These are the same gangsters that kill, maim, steal, etc., but are reduced to jello when it comes to animals and children, especially little girls. The episode where Tony is throwing his niece up in the air is another good example---his heart turns to mush when she starts giggling. :)

[Haole Girl]

8. Thanks for the replies.

I know the episodes where he becomes deeply attached to the ducks in his swimming pool got to me, but I wasn't sure about the rest.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. The most brilliant aspect of The Sopranos is

its portrayal of "the banality of evil."

The mobsters are indeed evil, capable of killing another person for any or no reason. Yet, they see themselves as standup middle-class patriotic devoutly Catholic Americans, and that's what they look like to the casual outside observer.

They know that what they're doing is illegal, but yet their lives are so compartmentalized that they see themselves as moral. Just in last night's episode, where Pauly reveals that his cancer treatments are going well, and Tony says without any apparent irony, "You must have done some good in your life." Yet we've never seen Pauly do ANY good in his life.

The family members are especially interesting. On the surface, they're normal suburbanites, with Carmela and her friends doing all the normal affluent suburban housewife things and worrying about their children's behavior, while all the while telling their children that their fathers are "in business." Still, the children find out somehow, and they buy into the lifestyle and the code of silence as the price of their affluence.

Even Janice, who initially rejected the mob life and ran away for many years, comes back.

But you have to wonder what's going to happen. Carmela is getting suspicious about Adriana's disappearance. How will she react if she finds out the truth? (By the way, I was surprised to see in the cast list that Adriana's mother was played by Patty McCormack, who was the little girl in The Bad Seed back in the 1950s). Johnny Sack has pled guilty to being in the mob, a violation of the code. AJ is a complete screw-up.

You cannot predict what will happen next on The Sopranos, yet the outcomes are always plausible outcomes of the previous plot and existing characters, and that's the attraction, as with the best of the other HBO series, such as Six Feet Under, Deadwood, and Carnivale.

[Haole Girl]

12. Thank you

You summed it up very well.

[SteppingRazor]

13. Don't ask me. I usually root for the bad guys in movies

Hell, I usually even root for the fugitives on those police chase shows. I can't help it. I guess it's the devil in me :evilgrin:

[Haole Girl]

14. Really?

Sometimes a movie or tv show manipulates me into that, but I usually don't.