I shot some episodes with Jim. True professional. Shocking news, this.
He created a layered monster in that role.
No he didn’t - he started to fight back despite the guys warning him, “Don’t do it kid!” I saw it as Tony being the more experienced fighter overcoming the younger guy.
I just remembered another great Silvio moment. When Chris and Carmine Jr. held an investors’ meeting for their movie idea. Chris explains the concept and says that the killer would be known as “The Butcher”. Silvio shakes his finger and says, “No he isn’t. Need I remind you of a certain Butcher from AC?”
I loved that they already knew someone named The Butcher!
It’s a bit of both, I think. The kid has got to realize at some point that fighting and beating Tony would be suicide. But Tony does pick out the guy for being a bit of a hothead, as well as being seriously ripped. Someone who he could provoke and also someone that he’d look good beating up. There’s this scene where they’re driving, well, the kid’s driving Tony, and they get cut off, and the kid goes into some road rage (“Oh! You don’t signal”) after which he tells Tony he has some anger issues or something.
That episode was on tonight. Scenes like that are what made it hard to hate Tony, or to hate him all the time.
My favorite moment on the series isn’t a Tony moment. It’s when Svetlana comes over after Bobby’s wife dies. Janice is after Bobby so she’s acting like a decent human being for once. Janice smiles and greets Svetlana and Svetlana pushes past her: “Fuck off, you’re a boring woman.”
Svetlana was awesome. “Most expensive piece of ass i’ve ever had” according to Tony.
This was the episode that got me hooked. I liked the scene at the end when Tony just didn’t understand why Meadow was upset when he gave her the SUV - which had been owned by the son of the sporting goods guy and been ‘reposessed’ to pay off part of the gambling debt.
I’ve been in the process of re-watching this series for the first time since it ended (about halfway through Season 5 right now). I always loved the scene when Carmela tells Tony about the nice lady from the Mercedes-Benz dealership (Gloria Trillo) that gave her a ride home, and you could feel the combination of deer-in-the-headlights panic and utter rage from Tony while he struggled to stay calm and not let on that anything was going on.
Gandolfini was just awesome in that role. I can’t imagine anybody else who could have carried that off as well.
Oh, and one of my favorite lines (possibly with a slight misquote):
“It was cunnilingus and psychotherapy that brought us to this”.
Actually, he continued driving for Tony after that and appeared in several later episodes.
That link goes to the SDMB, not the IMDB 
Thanks. Fixed.
I always like Chris’s drug intervention scene. I loved the fact Tony was all cool about it until he found out Chris killed a dog. It’s a measure of how well the character was built up that his reaction just seems perfect for the character. You just know in advance how he would react to that reveal.
That scene is actually one of my favourite Soprano scenes anyway and I see it’s on youtube.
It’s impossible to pick out a favorite scene, but his scenes with Janice were incredible. You almost believe that they were actually related because they loved each other, but knew how to annoy the shit out of each other.
But, when the chips fell, and Janice needed someone, Tony was there for her.
See, I took that as showing Tony’s softer side. He went to great lengths to warn David off. He even expressly forbade him from attending the high-stakes poker games. This was him showing David mercy. David completely disregarded the advice and the warning, and his own recklessness led to his ruin.
Of course, Tony still was a real bastard in the sense that he was in the Mafia and would beat the crap out of, or kill, anyone who got in his way. But I think it’s misleading to say that he “let” a childhood friend get heavily indebted to him.
Too many to name. My favorite series of all time, and my favorite character. I just bought the DVD set a few months ago and rewatched it all from the beginning, and loved it all over again. Some of my favorites:
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After Dr. Melfie sees her rapist at as a fast-food worker, she can’t help wondering if she should ask Tony to “take care of it”. After some beating-about-the-bush during a session, Tony point-blank asks her, (paraphrasing) “Do you wanna’ ask me somethin’?”. After a super-long, thoughtful pause… “No.” [cut to credits] I so totally wanted her to say “yes”.
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Adriana puking on the FBI guys while being interrogated.
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A guy from another family notices Meadow in a diner and says some very inappropriate things to her. When she tells Tony about it at the breakfast table, the way he tries not to let her see that he’s raging inside over it is incredible! When he confronted and beat the living crap out of the guy, I was very nearly cheering (“My daughter!?”… “My DAUGHTER?!!”). Finding one of the guys teeth in the cuff of his pants in a family therapy session afterwards was absolutely hilarious in a sick and twisted kind of way.
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Tony and Ralphie’s fight to the death over the horse. I definitely was cheering during that one.
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Janice’s cold, emotionless response to being hit by Richie, followed by her same cold and emotionless shooting of him.
Sure I’ll think of more…
There are so many …
The most poignant was the car accident with Christopher when he puts his hand on his mouth and Chris chokes on his own blood (later paraphrased in Breaking Bad with Walt letting Jessie’s girlfriend choke on her own vomit while sleeping on her back). In that scene, all of Tony’s anxieties about Chris and his weaknesses came to a crushing finale that was so inevitable.
I think the dramatic potential of the show exemplified in many little stories is this unusual Tony’s characteristic – that he is fully aware of – how he gives too many 2nd chances. For a mobster, that is. It’s even demonstrated in his “get-togethers” with other bosses in which, at first, he makes a fair offer and then hears this irrational feedback to it and then – as in many cases – he comes back more enraged because of it. All that amplified rage comes from his realization that such a characteristic is, in fact, a weakness for a guy in his business.
On a lighter side, I always enjoy his around the house scenes in an undershirt and off-hand child raising methods.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen this episode, but I seem to recall that while Tony did try to talk him out of it, his attempts were only half-hearted.
And later on when David asks Tony why he let him do it, Tony said something like he knew that David had a nice business and that “it’s my nature.”
Also, there was the episode where Tony lent Artie Bucco money, knowing there was a good chance that Artie wouldn’t be able to pay him back (and this was after even Ralphie refused to lend him money). Of course in that case, Tony let Artie off easy.
Any scene where Tony shows compassion towards animals.
The man has no qualms about murdering human beings but if someone hurts an innocent animal? Game over.
My favorite scene was when Tony goes to Angie Bonpensiero’s house to tell her to quit complaining about money to Carmella.
Angie is standing there with her sick poodle and Tony’s holding the baseball bat. The dog is jumping up on an angry Tony and the tension is unbearable. All I thought during that scene was that Tony was going to smash that poor dog. He doesn’t and he wouldn’t because he has a huge soft spot for animals, but you can never fully trust Tony.