Leaving aside this board’s inherent prejudice against psychics…during Paulie’s “psychic” scene, I wonder what the rest of the group must have been thinking, while the psychic was saying things like, “Sonny…he says he was your first,” and “Poison ivy? Does it still itch?” I mean, c’mon, think about it.
As far as I remember, the only unexplainable and overtly spooky/paranormal moment of the Sopranos comes in the episode with Livia’s wake. As Tony opens a door with a mirror on it we very briefly see the late Pussy’s reflection in the mirror. The difference between this scene and the others mentioned is that it’s a neutral point of view shot and only the audience ever sees Pussy. It’s not a dream or hallucination of one of the characters, nor can it be explained away (from the perspective of inside the show, I mean).
The whole Paulie Vs The Psychic scene is played mainly for laughs. If you take much more out of it than that, I say you’re missing the Pine Barrens for the trees.
Tony definitely never sees Pussy? Hmm. Okay, that is weird. It’s something to think about.
It’s interesting how many different ways you can see Sopranos. I never really thought paranormal stuff was an issue at all, but I guess there’s an issue for everyone.
He was actually playing poker, which is less implausible since his people reading skills could be credited. His skills in the episode were still pretty unrealistic.
TV shows that use magical or fantasy elements well don’t really bother me. But the “make a skeptic see the error of his ways” storylines are pretty annoying. It’s only fiction, but on some level I think the sort of idiots that believe in the supernatural will buy it as some sort of validation of their beliefs even though it’s on a TV show or movie. Hollywood is always at least vaguely credulous that there’s Something Out There hinted at whenever the opportunity arises. Rarely is skepticism presented realistically or does it turn out to be correct.
I actually liked The Mentalist for the first few episodes because they actually portrayed the other characters as regarding the protagonist as having magical powers when it was clear to the audience that he didn’t. He’d use some mentalism trick, people would say “WOWEE YOU MUST BE MAGICAL” and he’d basically say “there’s no such thing, dipshit!”. I liked that.
That seems to be toned down a lot after the first few episodes. I’m guessing some focus groups said “hey, stop denying the woo :(”
I loved Pine Barrens, but I can’t believe people are still arguing about the Russian. I can’t believe anybody ever thought he was going to return in another episode. Nothing magical happened there: they shot him, but didn’t kill him, and he ran away deeper into the Pine Barrens. Maybe he died later, maybe he didn’t. It doesn’t matter one bit.
He was not, he was playing Blackjack, (and was asked to not play again due to card counting). Poker would still be a little :rolleyes: but acceptable in context.
But I don’t want to hijack the thread any further.
Maybe we’re thinking in different instances. I remember a scene where he coerced a suspect into offering a piece of jewelry that was evidence as collateral in a poker game.
The poker game was to unmask the villain at the end, the Blackjack game was when they first set foot in the casino. Jane borrows $20(?) from Lisbon and turns it into $20,000(?) just by card counting.
Sure it does, and it renders it either magical woofun or poor writing.
Even if we assume they just shot his ear off, or whatever, the episode itself never explained how he’d be able to 1) backtrack without being seen 2) get off the trail he was leaving without leaving a separate trail 3) do a combination of 1 and/or 2 well enough to get back, steal (hotwire?) their car and then escape and, having done that 4) not alert his employer that members of the mafia had freaking tried to murder him, twice. Number 4, alone, would merit it being brought up against at some point in the series. Even if he dropped dead at some point, he’d have died, of blood loss, in his pajamas, in some mobster’s car. Surely someone would have noticed.
I gotta break the spoiler to comment, so anyone who doesn’t want this episode spoiled should have probably stopped reading this thread about the episode a lot earlier. If you’re still reading now, then you don’t care about spoilers.
He can backtrack without being seen because he’s a former Spetznaz who killed 18 Czechoslovakians and Chris and Paulie are city boys who don’t know the first thing about cover or concealment.
He left a separate trail, and if Chris and Paulie had joined the boy scouts as kids instead of being wiseguys they might have seen it. But since they’ve got no skillz, they didn’t.
Again, because Chris and Paulie are outta their element. The Russian is in his element. And the episode definitely plays up the angle that while Chris and Paulie think they’re tough guys, they ain’t so tough compared to the Russian. He gets away and leaves them holding their dicks because while they may be killers they’re stupid and lazy and soft.
Yeah, that’s more of a problem, it would’ve caused some friction between Tony’s outfit and the Russians. But maybe he dropped dead after leaving the car. He drives home, staggers into his apartment (he can’t go to the hospital), drinks himself a bottle or two of vodka and wakes up dead. His buddies find him dead of gunshot wounds but never know who did it. Or they know who did it, but they always hated that guy anyway, so they don’t care. Or whatever. Sometimes in real life you never find out what really happens and you’re left scratching your head, and you’ll never find out because there’s no writer to supply a denouement.
The Russian isn’t magic, he just knows the forest and the snow and gets lucky, while Paulie and Chris are lazy spoiled bums who think being able to pull a trigger makes them tough.
Well, even “super spec ops assassin training” seems a bit like a deus ex to me. Not to mention that Chris and Pauli were, what, 30 seconds behind him, tops? Even a ninja wouldn’t have had time to create a decoy trail and escape without leaving tracks in virgin snow. So I suppose that ‘magic’ may be a misnomer, but I still vote for sloppy writing.
Despite being totally awesome, I have to confess that I am only one individual person, and not in fact people.
Also, you’ll notice that I’m not complaining about Pauli and Chriss getting lost which is fine, but the Russian managing to escape without leaving tracks while two people were right behind him, steal their car and then vanish rather than telling his nasty crime buddies that the mob had just tried to kill him twice.