If Tony wasn't racist then the character would have lost all credibility. In real life, a black man picking up a mobster's only daughter would go down really REALLY bad.
Agreed. If it was made today, they would just avoid the issue entirely or give some backstory of a black person doing some noble thing for Tony or his family so Tony could never be racist now.
I also noticed something else with Carmela when I was skimming thru the series again very recently, like as a helpful way to show you these are ALL ultimately terrible people. Because I think there's one episode where you're probably especially empathizing with Carmela due to Tony's blatant and repeated unfaithfulness and all that and she's really feeling put upon, but then she goes to some little dinner party at Meadow's new place, and shows how disgustingly homophobic she is. It's like David Chase is like, "nope remember while you're feeling sorry for her, she's still got a lot of really shitty traits!" lol
A huge reason why Gandolfini started blowing off work was because around season 3 & 4 he was going thru a divorce in real life while also battling cocaine and alcohol addiction. When he finally came back, Chase ended up using much of what went on in Gandolfini’s real life in the show. He often did that with characters. Same with Chris and Paulie. They even floated the idea of writing a storyline about Carmella having cancer because in real life Edie Falco was battling breast cancer during season 5, which is why her hair looks so different but came to the realization a story like that was too close to home. It’s a big reason why there was so much time between seasons 4 & 5. James and Edie needed time to sort thru their personal lives.
I think David Chase FINALLY rewatched the entire Sopranos series before making this new documentary - something I wish he had done before making 'Many Saints of Newark'
even despite me doing a fresh sorta skimming of a rewatch of SOPRANOS very recently (probably in the same type of manner that Van was describing here, I skip over some stuff), I've never seen MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK, tho honestly I'm not sure I want to because I've never heard a good review of it lol
@@kevinw712 it’s worth 1 watch, just to see Gandolfini’s son but they made so many mistakes and timeline errors to try to match it up with the age of Gandolfini’s son and the Newark riots… ignored a lot of major characters who weren’t in jail at the time.
Idk if I learned anything new watching it. A lot of what was said was already stated in the “Talking Sopranos” podcast. But I still enjoyed the documentary because I absolutely love the Sopranos. I am curious to know what David Chase made and continues to make on residuals from the show considering he’s only done a couple projects since then.
I've always said that part of what I liked about the series ending is that whatever happens to Tony in the most literal sense, it's almost irrelevant. The whole mission statement of the show (& discussed very early) is that there's no happy endings when you choose this life, it ends with a bullet or a jail cell, it's just a matter of when. Tony says in the diner scene that Carlo has agreed to testify. The "answer" is that Tony's life as he has known it is over. Whether he dies 5 minutes from then by being shot, or 5 years from then after rotting in prison, it doesn't matter. (and I use the framing of "only" 5 years because we know that from the state of his health, he ain't lasting like 20 years in the joint, if anything this was proven all the more in real life from him dying just years later)
Not in the documentary, his love of the duck family in his pool at the start and the ducks, along with all other wildlife, poisoned by the asbestos he mishandled being dumped in the wetlands at the end. James Gandolfini had a heart of gold, so we stayed with bad guy Tony because of Jimmy.
At like @28:00 ish mins, Van is so close to getting David Chase's point, it's just that he doesn't like it. I'm paraphrasing, but Van basically says that the creators of the show "owe" the audience some kind of resolution (I disagree), and that they had up to that point never played with the audience's expectations ( again, disagree) and then he even brings up Funny Games where the audience is held to account for those very same prurient desires! The fade to black is David Chase putting it all on US. He's said in various other interviews, something like "would you rather I splatter his brains all over his wife & kids?? That makes YOU messed up." One thing that was really cool about the documentary was the A.D. saying the whole thing was designed to immortalize the show, not the main character and if so? Bravo. So in that vein, if you re-watch even just the last season, you know Tony got whacked. "Members Only" and Bobby saying "I bet you never even hear it when it happens", plus that weird slow-mo scene where Silvio is at dinner and never hears it happen? It's all there !! That's my take anyways 😉
As far as the ending, I thought the whole point was to put you in his shoes for a couple of minutes....constantly looking around to see where the next hit is coming from, seeing if he can survive it, or if its his last. I felt that's what it did for anyone in that moment.
This was my Dads take the second it ended and it’s still his take til this day. That essentially, the life never ends. I’m kinda 50-50 on it because I feel like Chase has hinted in other interviews that Tony was killed. But that’s why shows conclusion will be something that people debate decades after it went off air.
I’ve always said this show killed James Gandolfini. The stress of playing that role 100% lead to his heart attack. Sad man. But what an absolute masterpiece he left behind. RIP
Not sure about that. He was very difficult and often didn't show up to work. Not because he was suffering but because he was partying. He was generous but when it comes down to it like everyone else he was out for himself. The character didn't kill him, he did that on his own. He wasn't destined to have a long life.
"we don't do complicated anymore." I actually think we do and that's the legacy of the show. I mean it goes in cycle supports but before the sopranos a complicated internally conflicted protagonist really ceased to exist. Now the problem is not that the protagonists aren't complicated which is that they are productive of Tony and Walter White and so on...
I agree with you completely. We don’t have Breaking Bad without Sopranos. We don’t have Mad Men without Sopranos. So many shows. Before Sopranos there weren’t any shows like that.
We absolutely still do "complicated". But television has ALWAYS been a highly cyclical art form, and we leaned VERY heavily into the anti-hero lead for a long time, so it makes sense there may be a refractory period of still covering adult and meaningful themes but not necessarily just having another outright villain copy lead another show.
Not understanding why Tony killed Christopher is beyond stupid. The essential feature of the mob is that you cant quit or be fired. You have to get rid of them. Since the people closest to them have the most to lose they are the ones to take them out.
plus, I realize it's not exactly like it's willing assisted suicide, but my memory of the scene is, Christopher himself even voices that they've got a major problem, because he knows he's not clean in that moment and so he has no idea how they would proceed to deal with things if he were to survive and get treated from this accident. He knows even the best case scenario is he's still fucked
I'm still pretty confident that Tony died in that scene. I'm sure it will never be officially confirmed but if you think about the show. And think about all the storylines and all the specifics of that scene and the point of view perspective .... Him being killed by the guy in the members only jacket is an amazing ending. The idea that he's just paranoid (and if you look closely he's not the least bit paranoid in that scene, we are but he has no idea it's the last minute of a television show)... It's a kind of a s*** ending if the guy from the members only jacket just happens to have a bowel movement. All that stuff about not being able to hear it when it happened.... Tony died. They'll never confirm it because if you do it undermines the entire purpose of shooting it that way. But he's basically come out and saod so it in a million other ways. Even the original premise of him going under the tunnel to go to a meeting in New York
There is absolutely no way that Edie Falco didn’t get the 30k. If she hadn’t gotten it, there’s no way she didn’t know. It’s a well known story. My guess is that she promised Gandolfini didn’t went them talking about it and she stuck to it.
Tony’s racism is a product of that generation, but it’s more nuisanced. He doesn’t hate black people, but that generation wanted their kids to marry the a person with the same roots. Tony would have had a problem if the kid was Jewish (ironically Noah was half black and half Jewish). No matter if you were Italian, Irish, Jewish, Black, Asian, that generation wanted it to stay in the family. If you notice every person on that show who is married, is to an Italian. That was the broad view of Tony’s racism, he wanted Meadow to find a good Italian boy. And who does she end up with? Patsy Parisi’a son, an Italian.
David Simon > David Chase David Chase is nothing but a pompous artist clown. He’s overrated and instead of just writing a great show he got too arrogant and thought he had to be way obscure in order to be “smart”. He also cared too much about what the masses of fans thought (in other words, morons that would come up to him in person or tv critic “writers”) and he let them affect his decision making. Amateuristic.
@@USC9210 AND THE SOPRANOS ISN'T A CARTOON???? THE SHIELD, THE ONE THAT SCIENTIFICALLY HAD A FULL RUN THAT WAS JUSTIFIED (ANOTHER MASTERPIECE, BY SCIENCE, UNLIKE THE DAGO SHOW, SCIENTIFICALLY BAD/UNNECESSARY AFTER TWO SEASONS, YET NO ONE WHO DISCUSSES THIS STUFF SAYS SO OUT OF RETARDATION), IS A CARTOON??? WHAT???? WHAT????😂😂😂
@nickbarcheck1019 OK buddy. I guess no piece of art in any medium can be that good. It's a figure of speech. Just do yourself a favour and watch it. It's quite a masterpiece.
The auditions was a morphine drip for a Sopranos lover.
Ironically enough Edie Falco never auctioned on tape which is why she wasn’t featured in the documentary. Would have loved to see that
@@BostonsF1nestEdie was on the doc
@@JohnBakerKKK yea she was on the doc but there’s no actual footage of her audition
If Tony wasn't racist then the character would have lost all credibility. In real life, a black man picking up a mobster's only daughter would go down really REALLY bad.
There's nothing he could do... Jamal Ginsberg was a made jewlignan and Tony wasn't
Agreed. If it was made today, they would just avoid the issue entirely or give some backstory of a black person doing some noble thing for Tony or his family so Tony could never be racist now.
I also noticed something else with Carmela when I was skimming thru the series again very recently, like as a helpful way to show you these are ALL ultimately terrible people. Because I think there's one episode where you're probably especially empathizing with Carmela due to Tony's blatant and repeated unfaithfulness and all that and she's really feeling put upon, but then she goes to some little dinner party at Meadow's new place, and shows how disgustingly homophobic she is. It's like David Chase is like, "nope remember while you're feeling sorry for her, she's still got a lot of really shitty traits!" lol
This was a great conversation about one of the greatest shows ever
This was perfect timing for me I jus finished watching the Sopranos for the first time a few days ago
rip jimmy gandolfini
It's just a show and we don't know what really happened at the end.
Bill Simmons talking about The Sopranos? I’m in.
A huge reason why Gandolfini started blowing off work was because around season 3 & 4 he was going thru a divorce in real life while also battling cocaine and alcohol addiction. When he finally came back, Chase ended up using much of what went on in Gandolfini’s real life in the show. He often did that with characters. Same with Chris and Paulie. They even floated the idea of writing a storyline about Carmella having cancer because in real life Edie Falco was battling breast cancer during season 5, which is why her hair looks so different but came to the realization a story like that was too close to home. It’s a big reason why there was so much time between seasons 4 & 5. James and Edie needed time to sort thru their personal lives.
Was Gandolfini gambling like a moron?
I think David Chase FINALLY rewatched the entire Sopranos series before making this new documentary - something I wish he had done before making 'Many Saints of Newark'
even despite me doing a fresh sorta skimming of a rewatch of SOPRANOS very recently (probably in the same type of manner that Van was describing here, I skip over some stuff), I've never seen MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK, tho honestly I'm not sure I want to because I've never heard a good review of it lol
@@kevinw712 it’s worth 1 watch, just to see Gandolfini’s son but they made so many mistakes and timeline errors to try to match it up with the age of Gandolfini’s son and the Newark riots… ignored a lot of major characters who weren’t in jail at the time.
@@billymuellerTikTok I've also heard the portrayal of the young Silvio borders on something out of an SNL skit
@@kevinw712 LOL - I can see that
Idk if I learned anything new watching it. A lot of what was said was already stated in the “Talking Sopranos” podcast. But I still enjoyed the documentary because I absolutely love the Sopranos.
I am curious to know what David Chase made and continues to make on residuals from the show considering he’s only done a couple projects since then.
RIP Kevin O’Connor
Kevin O'Weirdo
Who couldn’t predict it was going to end with him describing the final scene with a blackout… Saw that a mile away
I've always said that part of what I liked about the series ending is that whatever happens to Tony in the most literal sense, it's almost irrelevant. The whole mission statement of the show (& discussed very early) is that there's no happy endings when you choose this life, it ends with a bullet or a jail cell, it's just a matter of when. Tony says in the diner scene that Carlo has agreed to testify. The "answer" is that Tony's life as he has known it is over. Whether he dies 5 minutes from then by being shot, or 5 years from then after rotting in prison, it doesn't matter. (and I use the framing of "only" 5 years because we know that from the state of his health, he ain't lasting like 20 years in the joint, if anything this was proven all the more in real life from him dying just years later)
Not in the documentary, his love of the duck family in his pool at the start and the ducks, along with all other wildlife, poisoned by the asbestos he mishandled being dumped in the wetlands at the end. James Gandolfini had a heart of gold, so we stayed with bad guy Tony because of Jimmy.
That’s so true about Tony and the little moments 😂😂😂
At like @28:00 ish mins, Van is so close to getting David Chase's point, it's just that he doesn't like it.
I'm paraphrasing, but Van basically says that the creators of the show "owe" the audience some kind of resolution (I disagree), and that they had up to that point never played with the audience's expectations ( again, disagree) and then he even brings up Funny Games where the audience is held to account for those very same prurient desires! The fade to black is David Chase putting it all on US. He's said in various other interviews, something like "would you rather I splatter his brains all over his wife & kids?? That makes YOU messed up."
One thing that was really cool about the documentary was the A.D. saying the whole thing was designed to immortalize the show, not the main character and if so? Bravo. So in that vein, if you re-watch even just the last season, you know Tony got whacked. "Members Only" and Bobby saying "I bet you never even hear it when it happens", plus that weird slow-mo scene where Silvio is at dinner and never hears it happen? It's all there !! That's my take anyways 😉
I love you Uncle Bill ❤ I'm watching the Sopranos right now 😂😂
As far as the ending, I thought the whole point was to put you in his shoes for a couple of minutes....constantly looking around to see where the next hit is coming from, seeing if he can survive it, or if its his last. I felt that's what it did for anyone in that moment.
This was my Dads take the second it ended and it’s still his take til this day. That essentially, the life never ends. I’m kinda 50-50 on it because I feel like Chase has hinted in other interviews that Tony was killed. But that’s why shows conclusion will be something that people debate decades after it went off air.
need sean and CR for this one.
I don't think I've heard CR talk about the Sopranos oddly enough lol
I’ve always said this show killed James Gandolfini. The stress of playing that role 100% lead to his heart attack. Sad man. But what an absolute masterpiece he left behind. RIP
Health Ledger as well. See these actors take on nefarious spirits and it drives them to pitch black places.
Yeah it wasn't his weight or coke addiction, which was talked about by David chase .
@@leod8489proved to be nonsense about Ledger and the joker role. A crass media myth. He wasn’t struggling with it at all
@nickm8874 False. I heard all the stories. Go research some more lil dude. He was under possession
Trashy Divorces episode
Now I understand why Jim Gandolfini wanted to quit but didn’t because of all the people that depended on him. It probably killed him
That and the coke and carbs
Not sure about that. He was very difficult and often didn't show up to work. Not because he was suffering but because he was partying. He was generous but when it comes down to it like everyone else he was out for himself. The character didn't kill him, he did that on his own. He wasn't destined to have a long life.
For me it’s The Wire, Breaking Bad, The White Shadow. The Sopranos is probably top 5, though. Great show.
Manolo Blahnik Bill made an appearance at the end 🤣
"we don't do complicated anymore." I actually think we do and that's the legacy of the show. I mean it goes in cycle supports but before the sopranos a complicated internally conflicted protagonist really ceased to exist. Now the problem is not that the protagonists aren't complicated which is that they are productive of Tony and Walter White and so on...
We don't do it anymore. TV and film now isn't what it was. When was the last great TV show?
I agree with you completely. We don’t have Breaking Bad without Sopranos. We don’t have Mad Men without Sopranos. So many shows. Before Sopranos there weren’t any shows like that.
Anymore.
Can't wait for that upcoming season of mad men or breaking bad 😂
@@BobG-pi8bbneither of those shows even started in the last decade, and were almost half way through this one.
We absolutely still do "complicated". But television has ALWAYS been a highly cyclical art form, and we leaned VERY heavily into the anti-hero lead for a long time, so it makes sense there may be a refractory period of still covering adult and meaningful themes but not necessarily just having another outright villain copy lead another show.
They straight up call Tony a monster in the doc what is van on about 😂
He has a terrible attention to detail by far the weakest in the rewatchables crew
I wish there was a Sopranos documentary called Let It Go
This would have been a hell of a lot better if they had Bin Hamin from Hamin Media Group as a guest. He's watched Sopranos 87 times over
Or sepinwall. Or any of the number of people that have written books about the show...
@@michaelcorcoran8768Nobody was in the doc that wasn’t involved in the show
The guy on the right actually wasn't too bad in this one
Tony was evil for not letting AJ drown 👏🏽
Cowboy hat dude is back
African Americans were some of the first to wear cowboy hats in the 19th century
@@alexchernandez88And? He looks ridiculous.
@@MrOctober44 why does he look ridiculous ?
Not understanding why Tony killed Christopher is beyond stupid. The essential feature of the mob is that you cant quit or be fired. You have to get rid of them. Since the people closest to them have the most to lose they are the ones to take them out.
plus, I realize it's not exactly like it's willing assisted suicide, but my memory of the scene is, Christopher himself even voices that they've got a major problem, because he knows he's not clean in that moment and so he has no idea how they would proceed to deal with things if he were to survive and get treated from this accident. He knows even the best case scenario is he's still fucked
Goat show
I'm still pretty confident that Tony died in that scene. I'm sure it will never be officially confirmed but if you think about the show. And think about all the storylines and all the specifics of that scene and the point of view perspective .... Him being killed by the guy in the members only jacket is an amazing ending. The idea that he's just paranoid (and if you look closely he's not the least bit paranoid in that scene, we are but he has no idea it's the last minute of a television show)... It's a kind of a s*** ending if the guy from the members only jacket just happens to have a bowel movement.
All that stuff about not being able to hear it when it happened.... Tony died. They'll never confirm it because if you do it undermines the entire purpose of shooting it that way. But he's basically come out and saod so it in a million other ways. Even the original premise of him going under the tunnel to go to a meeting in New York
Manolo Blahnik Bill 😂😂😂
There is absolutely no way that Edie Falco didn’t get the 30k. If she hadn’t gotten it, there’s no way she didn’t know. It’s a well known story. My guess is that she promised Gandolfini didn’t went them talking about it and she stuck to it.
White Shadow
Dating yourself
I remember 💪👍
10 percent of your listeners watched that show
did HBO and David Chase kill Gandolfini?..
We definitely do complicated characters on tv maybe not in movies but definitely on tv.shogun the bear baby reindeer better call Saul all do it.
Tony’s racism is a product of that generation, but it’s more nuisanced. He doesn’t hate black people, but that generation wanted their kids to marry the a person with the same roots. Tony would have had a problem if the kid was Jewish (ironically Noah was half black and half Jewish).
No matter if you were Italian, Irish, Jewish, Black, Asian, that generation wanted it to stay in the family. If you notice every person on that show who is married, is to an Italian. That was the broad view of Tony’s racism, he wanted Meadow to find a good Italian boy. And who does she end up with? Patsy Parisi’a son, an Italian.
as soon as I saw the token cowboy hat I was dissapointed and had to click away
David Simon > David Chase
David Chase is nothing but a pompous artist clown. He’s overrated and instead of just writing a great show he got too arrogant and thought he had to be way obscure in order to be “smart”. He also cared too much about what the masses of fans thought (in other words, morons that would come up to him in person or tv critic “writers”) and he let them affect his decision making. Amateuristic.
Was the doc good?
The Shield was a great TV show
The Shield was a cartoon, and they never even tried to make it clear that Mackie was a bad, bad cop and person.
@@USC9210 AND THE SOPRANOS ISN'T A CARTOON???? THE SHIELD, THE ONE THAT SCIENTIFICALLY HAD A FULL RUN THAT WAS JUSTIFIED (ANOTHER MASTERPIECE, BY SCIENCE, UNLIKE THE DAGO SHOW, SCIENTIFICALLY BAD/UNNECESSARY AFTER TWO SEASONS, YET NO ONE WHO DISCUSSES THIS STUFF SAYS SO OUT OF RETARDATION), IS A CARTOON??? WHAT???? WHAT????😂😂😂
@@USC9210 So you wanted a 1 dimensional character?
Van jones takes are so dumb
no more van. thanks
Van’s initial reaction to having to watch 1.5 hours on David Chase was the same I had to watching 30 mins of Van and Sean.
Gabagool
Ova here
Gravy
Lathan is a clown. Trolling in the cowboy hat just beggin for someone to say something.
Bill skips me for Milky Way cowboy and zombie Ken Marino
Can’t believe you baited me into watching this. A complete waste of time. Very little insight and a dumb gimmick fade to black ending.
Never saw the Sopranos. Love watching and Bill and Sean tho.
You havent lived bud.
@@harrymail7 It's a TV show, dude. It can't possibly be that good.
@nickbarcheck1019 OK buddy. I guess no piece of art in any medium can be that good. It's a figure of speech.
Just do yourself a favour and watch it. It's quite a masterpiece.
@@harrymail7 No thanks. I don't watch TV shows. I watch sports.
@@nickbarcheck1019but you watch podcasts? Sports are worse than a legendary TV show
08:55; that was after the show started