Tony probably would have Vito hit in a much less brutal way. Much quieter too. Vito may have gone in to the same “program” as Pussy.
Or his cousin Tony.
Tony hated his mother for turning his father into what he was. She manipulated him into what SHE wanted him to be. Melfi and Tony often discussed this in Season one. He respects his dad for making him what he is today, but resents his mom for “wearing him [his dad] down to a little nub” As much as Tony may have not enjoyed being beaten and at the time wanted him to stop, he knows that’s why he respected his father, and in turn that made him someone who has alot of respect for and from others. When it comes to discipline, he was brought up old school and belives it works, but in this day and age, beating you’re children doesn’t go real far, and he doesn’t need any bad press.
Do you think that happened off-screen? Prolly not, otherwise Vito wouldn’t have been at the motel. It seems like a slip-up on Tony’s part, but if it’s not, why is Tony letting Phil get the “credit” for the hit? It looks like Tony’s trying to keep his name off of this one. Is that because he was ambivalent about it?
That’s the kind of stuff that makes me re-watch the episodes during the week. But I thought Tony was planning to whack Vito and was beaten to the punch by Phil’s brutality. Frankly, I’m surprised Phil didn’t do worse.
I now see that the guy Sil and Carlo killed was one of Vito’s murderers. I didn’t realize that - it makes the revenge killing more sensible.
Did they just figure it out becuase of the comment that he made about the pool cue? Was that not ‘public info’ yet.
Also, are we sure Tony was gonna whack him. In has past few sessions with Melfi, it seemed that he was showing signs of thinking about maybe starting to a have a little empathy for Vito. I thought maybe he would help Vito dissapear. Maybe send him off to another state, and make some sort of a deal with him, Maybe that as long as he sent Tony 50k a month, Tony would just tell everyone he got rid of him, but Vito would always know that if he didn’t send Tony his money, his death was only a few hours away. (Did that make sense, the Vodka tonic is kicking in)
Could be. Or maybe they just put two and two together with his taunting. What did Sil hit him with, by the way?
I don’t think Tony runs disinformation on Silvio like that. It seemed to me that he’d decided, like I always thought he would, that keeping Vito alive wasn’t worth the trouble it was obviously going to cost.
If Bobby knew about the pool cue, it’s likely that the word went out to everybody else in the “business.”
The guy Sil and Carlo murdered got killed IMO because he was just annoying the two of them so much and they were upset that one of their one made men was killed by outsiders. That anger boiled over and it was the day of the long knives.
I acatually liked the Paris bits. I especially liked the mention of a Roman bathhouse. Ah, the Romans! Full of strength thumps chest and honor! Manly men, with codes of honor and loyalty, who fought bravely in battle side-by-side with their comrades! And built bathhouses. (“I wonder what went on in there.”)
And did anyone else catch what was on TV when Phil was talking to Vito’s wife? It was some sort of bodybuilding competition. Immensely muscular men in skimpy underwear, all oiled up, flexing for each other. Certain people aren’t as different from each other as they might want to think.
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought Vito looked as fat as ever in this episode. Has he been eating Johnny Cakes too often? (Maybe I should say, “eating too many Johnny Cakes” instead.) It’s interesting that the episode ended with a picture of “thin” Vito. If my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me with regards to his weight, then he lost weight then gained it back. Likewise, he left the Life, but couldn’t keep it off. He was also pretending to have left homosexuality behind him, but I think we can all agree that he was lying. (Probably lying to himself as well.) In any case, his nature couldn’t change. He was what he was.
This makes me wonder about where Tony’s going. He stopped himself from banging the real estate lady, but had no qualms whatsoever about the bing girl. (Of course, Carmella basically gave him permission to. “… whatever it is boys do when they’re alone” indeed.) Can he really change? He was definitely changed temporarily by his hospital stay, but that seems to be fading.
Good stuff with AJ. Should have been done years ago, of course, but better late than never. I like how AJ didn’t seem too worried by the threat until Tony smashed the windshield of his car. Then he looked almost scared. I don’t think the actor who plays AJ is as bad as some people say. He’s not great, but he’s not that bad either. He’s just surrounded by far superior talent. In any case, I think he’s gotten a better over the years.
Oh, and did Blockbuster run over David Chase’s dog or something? “They have rhesus monkeys as managers!” Now, I’m not saying it’s not true, but that’s pretty harsh. 
Back to Paris. Carmella spoke about how odd it felt being in a foreign land. She had never seriously given mind to the lives of the French before. And yet, regardless of that, they went on existing. They were there before she visited them, and they’re still there when she leaves. They’re always a distant reality, and no less real for being distant. They are just as real as she and her family are. Just as real as those who came before us and live no longer; just as real as those yet to come. It’s only an illusion that we see them all as separate entities.
And someday we’ll be distant, too, from those who are now growing. They’ll remember us and think we’re gone, not realizing how we still guide them in ways both good and bad.
Oh well. We’ll always have Paris.
Did anyone else notice all the (new) TVs in this episode.
One in Tony’s Kitchen
One in Vito’s house
One it the backroom of the deli
And they made a point of showing them all. Now, I’d say it’s a hell of product placement, but I don’t think they made a big deal about the brands (and if they fell off a truck, I don’t think Vito’s wife would have one).
Edit Of The Year:
EXT - PARIS - DAY
Carmella admiring the beautiful (and somewhat nekkid) Parisian statues. Cut to:
EXT - NEW JERSEY - DAY
Gangsters cleaning the Bada Bing sign: “Don’t forget to wash that shit off her tits!”
We gotta wait 'til January AGAIN??? Way to make me go from 
to 
in the space of five seconds…
I kind of understand this. I grew up in a house with a nagging Mom. She would threaten us with "Wait until your Dad gets home. " The minute my father walked in from a long day at work, she would start complaining about how bad the kids were and what we did wrong. He would have no chance to relax from his NYC commute. He would hand out spankings, but all four of us kids mostly blamed my Mom for it. She effectively used my Dad as a weapon of terror. I feel Tony grew up feeling the same way. Mom was the one that harried you and Dad would hand out the punishments but was also the fun one to be around.
I don’t know if that makes sense, and my Mom is in no way in a league with Livia but that was how I related to Tony’s situation growing up.
Jim
Did Tony say something about “going to the mattresses” or did I mis-hear?
Looks like a gang war a-brewin’. Phil feels justified in whacking Vito. Tony’s guys feel justified in whacking fatty. I don’t see that being resolved with another discussion at CostCo.
I think it was along the lines of “the guys don’t earn when they go to the mattresses”
Jim
So, is the finale a declaration of war, and the last 8 episodes the war? As they keep saying, no one earns when they’re at war. I don’t see how a sit down between Tony and Phil can go that averts war.
Carmella and Rosalie were doing their jobs well this week; I despised both of them. I’ve met too many women like that, at all ages, and they always annoy me to no end.
Loved the line “Wish I had borrowed money from Vito” as the guy who did just smiled.
I heard, “Guys don’t earn when they are hiding under matresses”.
I think you heard wrong.
“going to the mattresses” is a Gofather quote (book and movie). It means “go to war”. I didn’t hear the quote exactly, but what Jim wrote makes sense.
If you know, are the episodes already scripted and shot? I thought this was the last “season” (a season is only 10 episodes now?), and I’d be really pissed to find out that HBO is merely holding the episodes for a few months, even though they’re all done.
This was supposed to be 20 episodes.
I thought it was 13 now, and 7 next january.
They’re not going to run a season for 20 episodes. This is exactly what they did for Sex and the City. They’ll use next January’s episodes to promote and lead into whatever they’re going to be starting next March (Rome or Deadwood or something new, like another Milch series).
This seems to be pretty standard operating procedure for HBO.
08.23.2005 | Sopranos announces bonus episodes
HBO announced that in addition to THE SOPRANOS’ upcoming sixth season, which will include 12 episodes, HBO will produce an additional eight bonus episodes, to debut in January 2007