The feds are not talking about the terrorists for nothing. Tony will take care of them they will take care of Phil. Just a thought. My wife disagrees.
Can there be any doubt that Phil instigated this? Surely no one would affront Tony’s family in that way without direct orders.
Is it me, or is A.J. the exact kind of twat that would make a good recruit for our Arab friends? Sure, his in-depth analysis of the Middle East saw him allocating responsibility to both sides, but he sounded like he was ripe for the picking for some cult…
A.J. as the next John Walker Lindh?
Coco had that coming. What the fuck was he thinking?
Favorite lines (paraphrased):
MELFI: Maybe he knew that the rope was too long to keep him submerged.
TONY: Or maybe he’s just a fuckin’ idiot. I mean, historically, it has been the case.
I also loved Tony talking about the “500-pound elephant” in the room.
Maybe not direct orders (as of yet anyway) but there is a vile and poisonous attitude spewing from the NY mountaintop and the troops are just following his lead.
I too cannot believe Phil would back Coco after what he said to Meadow. I think Phil is most definitely looking to get rid of the Soprano family. Someone is going to get whacked before the season ends. My prediction, based on nothing but a hunch, is Bobby. They’re going to get someone close to Tony, is my guess.
I’m surprised they’re taking this tack with AJ. He might, after this crisis, actually turn out to be a person with a conscience who leads a decent life. Or he might be a depressive loser who never leaves his mom’s house and uses his illness as an excuse not to do anything. Interesting. Meadow, OTOH, will be a mafia wife, just like her mother, if she winds up with the Barese kid.
Any thoughts about Melfi’s shrink’s comment about therapy making sociopaths worse instead of better? Would Tony have self-destructed long ago if not for her enabling/help (depending on your POV)? She seemed surprised at his “our mothers are the bus” insight, and I thought that was actually pretty good. I think Meadow is definitely riding the Carmela bus right now, to no good end.
I think that would be a damn useful book for them to have around, especially if there’s a chapter about getting bodily fluids out of stuff.
Tony came very close to articulating the theme of this season - or my version of it, anyway. That really shocked me. I see the theme as “our mothers are our past, our fathers are our future.” The early seasons focused so much on Tony’s relationship with his mother, and now he’s thinking about his future: his relationship with surrogate son, which became a burden and a disaster on every level, and his relationship with his real son, which isn’t going much better.
I don’t think Phil is responsible for what Coco said, but he’s perfectly happy to insult Tony by turning him away from his doorstep. I don’t think he’s even trying to provoke a confrontation anymore. He’s about to start one and just wants to vent as he prepares to try to kill Tony.
Wouldn’t Coco have to have known that talking to a boss’s daughter like that would cause him to get his ass severely stomped at the very least and possibly killed outright? As a father, I have to say I found Tony’s actions very gratifying, but I don’t know why the dude wouldn’t have seen that coming. I thought the mob had a strict hands-off policy for civilian family members. Even if Phil put him up to it, he still had to know that he was going to physically pay a price (maybe even with his life) so I don’t see why he would go along with it.
I think the explanation is probably the same as T’s explanation for why AJ made the rope too long – “maybe he’s just a fucking idiot.”
Little Carmine was taking up Christopher’s slack with the mangled verbiage tonight. “…your alteration with Coco…now you’re standing at the precipice of an enormous crossroads.”
And how about the irony of Carmella asking Tony if he knew what it was like to live with someone who complained all the time. She was kind of cold about the depression thing too.
It sucks that we have to wait two weeks for the next episode. The penultimate episodes of each season have traditionally been the most dramatically loaded. It looks like there’s going to be a war with NY. I have a feeling Paulie and maybe Sil are going to buy it (I think we got some forshadowing a couple of weeks ago when Paulie wondered if he would stand up when his time came. I bet he goes out guns ablazing in true gangster fashion).
the last couple of episodes, I actually haven’t hated A.J.
…which is new.
I was feeling the opposite. When he was sitting there with the cinder block, I was saying “Dude, there is a hand grenade in the house. Use that!”.
What was the deal with Phil hiding up in the tower. The whole thing seemed so…cheesy. I was hoping he would say “I fart in your general direction”
Just my personal guess and not in the preview, so no spoiler box, but I think Tony’s info about the Arab guys is going to save Tony’s butt in the end…would be hard to send a “hero” to prison if Tony’s tip to Homeland Security pans out.
My other guess is that Paulie is next in line to be whacked, probably by Phil and his buddies - Paulie is driving Tony nuts with his stories and rambling on at inappropriate times…and once again, just like with Chris, getting rid of Paulie would secretly please Tony, but give him the power to retaliate big-time.
And as I have mentioned in threads before, I believe there are plans to have a Sopranos - The Movie in a few years, so I seriously doubt anything drastic will happen to Tony and his immediate family - they need someone left standing if they are going to do a feature length film in a few years.
And I still think AJ is an idiot, a royal pain in the ass and a gutless wimp; I hope he gets run over by a bus.
Well, according to Tony’s analogy, A.J.'s been riding the bus all his life and needs to get off.
I think I was waiting for 6 seasons to find out what happens when someone mistreats a member of Tony’s family. It went down pretty much as I expected it. There was no force of nature that could have stopped Tony from stomping Coco.
I also noticed how powerful some scenes were without any help from music or special camera shots. Hollywood likes to believes that every gripping scene has to be accompanied by music and over the top melodrama. But you know you have a good scene when it stands out on its own.
You think so? I thought she believed her therapist was full of crap. I don’t think she would be helping Tony if she did not think it would make a difference. It might have started out that way. In the past Tony certainly used Melfi’s advice to help him do business. Now that his son is sick, Tony may be taking therapy more seriously.
Is it me or does A.J. seem to have a bad therapist? Maybe I’m just hoping for some Goodwill Hunting type magic to happen, but Melfi seems a lot better. I guess we’ll find out how good Melfi is as a therapist in the last two episodes.
It looked like Tony made some sort of progress this episode too. Lets see, he says that there is more out there than this. Then he says that our mothers are buses, they let us off at a certain point, and everyone spends too much time chasing that bus instead of just letting go. I think it is more than just way of saying everyone should stop being a mommas boy. I don’t know what to make of it besides that.
I don’t think Coco could have been acting under orders, if only because he was drunk. He would not have been conducting business under the influence. Looks more to me as if Phil’s guys just sense how much he despises Tony, and crossed the line because Phil is acting as if the line is no longer there. And the alcohol would explain why Coco didn’t take Tony’s response into account.
(Of course, if you want to get all TWoPpy, you could say that he was acting under orders, and knew it was basically a suicide mission, so he had to get liquored up in order to do it. But I like my explanation better.)
Meanwhile, when Meadow said her date was Patrick Parisi, I was boggled. I figured him for some Ivy League twit, the way he reacted. Meadow at least knew to keep her cool and tell Dad immediately, but Patrick came off as if no one had ever said a harsh word to him ever. How can that be?
And yet again (as in the lamp-repairing scene a week or so ago), Steven Van Zant shows he can steal a scene without uttering a word. 
VCNJ~
Wasn’t it “American History X” where the guy (maybe Ed Norton) made the black guy open his mouth on the side of a curb, and then stomped on the back of his head?
I thought it was kind of a dull episode.
AJ with his shrink
Tony with his shrink.
Melfi with her Shrink.
Tony with AJ’s shrink.
Gimme a break. Shouldn’t stuff be happening with 3 episodes to go instead of listening to the characters rehash their issues?
Good suicide scene, though. Whew.
Best line of the entire show. After Tony has worked his magic on Coco; unidentified cook says to his helper in a completely deadpan voice
Get a mop.
I also agree that Dr. Melfi was looking quite differently at Tony after her discussion with her shrink. Would not surprise me to have her dismiss him as a patient in one of the next two episodes.
My guess is that almost no one will be left after the series ends. Last week I thought AJ would be left as family head, but now I think his brain is too messed up to be anything but a terrorist (as someone else here had suggested.)
(And, BTW, Spoiler boxes are for real information that could spoil the show for people who haven’t seen it yet. I can’t see much logic in hiding an individual’s speculation.
unless they make it a prequel. Wouldn’t you just love to see the interactions between Livia, Junior, and Tony’s father?