Oh dear lord.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Same family..warring factions.

_________________

So the higher ups just shrug that off ? " Well we know they were going to kill you but you got them first , dems da breaks. Carry on "

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

more importantly, do you think Donnie really knew the diamond was a fugazzi or he was just taking a huge risk?

No, he knew. Joe Pistone studied jewels and what not in preparation for being undercover in anticipation of having to know what he was talking about

_________________
'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

how did sonny black know about lefty's and donnie's club/boat trip with trafficante in Florida? I never figured that out.

I saw no video of Tony getting killed. When David Chase is old and needing a little more generational wealth, it's possible Tony may have survived. Hollywood considers all their art just soap operas. We've seen it countless times.

id have to watch it again, but if i remember he reveals to donnie that he found out about it. id assume it was just through the grapevine from someone in florida or someone in the crew let it slip

_________________
'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

if david chase tried to get as close to reality as possible -

i believe the 'commission' would have to sanction an ok to eliminate a boss. tony was a boss. the commission was respected and was powerful enough to force ny families to abide by their aged agreement that las vegas was chicago's. no moves against las vegas/chicago by any or all of new york's families.

Chase had a good idea, he just couldn't write for shit. The show could have been great if Vince Gilligan wrote it.

_________________

Historically, Carmine always said the Sopranos are nothing more than a glorified crew. Plain and simple.

Listen to me. They make anybody and everybody over there. And the way that they do it, it's all fucked up. Guys don't get their finger pricked. There's no sword and gun on the table... either it has meaning or no meaning. And the Vito thing, the man harbors a f@ggot.

Five fuckin' Families and we got this other pygmy thing over in Jersey... There's no scraps in my scrapbook... Make it happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KgB-sI2H-c

_________________
His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

It's kinda weird how the show treats the five NY families and how they operate. To my knowledge we never hear reference to a living member of another Five Families family outside of the Lupertazzis, and the concept of other NY families is only mentioned a few times, with the use of "New York" to refer to other NY families becoming so muddied that it is often indecipherable whether a "New York" is meant to reference the Lupertazzis or The Commission as a whole. Like when Tony is discussing running the family behind Junior's back in Season 1, his "he's got New York behind him" seems to reference the Lupertazzis, but when Silvio says later on in the series "New York opened the books but they also laid it down..." to Christopher, it sounds like he's referencing The Commission. Seems as though Chase intended the Lupertazzis to be a stand-in for the other members of the commission, so when Tony meets with Butchie to discuss a truce and going after Phil, Butchie's "you do what you gotta do" is meant to be taken as a sanction by all of NY of a hit on Phil.

THIS.

To NY, Jersey was like the White Sox of the mob.

ya he left it open in case they wanted to bring the show back years later. But now w/ the real actor gone in real life, it's probably not safe to say Tony died.

I think the Lupertazzis are loosely based on the Gambino Family. I always got the idea that the Jersey Mob- reported isn't exactly the right word- was under the wing of the Lupertazzis. They granted them autonomy for the most part. Which is why eyebrows were raised when Johnny Sack moved to Jersey. If push came to shove, the Sopranos couldn't really buck the Lupertazzis. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement but the Lupertazzis knew they were in charge and deep down Tony knew it too.

But then, Janice once mentioned Paulie Castellano. I wouldn't think about it too deeply. In the end, it's just a fuckin' TV show.

_________________
His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

Ya in one of the episodes Tony met Phil after beating hup Hesh and his nephew and Tony said something like you've got an army of 200/300 , how can I compete. So Tony knew the #'s - NY had thousands while Tony had his small crew of 5/6 people.

yup, we all know what carmine thought of new jersey.

again, in real life, you'd need the commission to 'ok' eliminating a boss. the commission was respected enough to enforce n.y.'s 5 families from not muscling out chicago in las vegas. it was new york that wanted a national 'commission' in the first place.

if the commission interfered with chase's sopranos story arc, then so be it. the sopranos was his world, not the real world.

i never knew about this chicago / vegas thing. I recall one of the big chicago bosses ran vegas in the 70s/80s but did not know it was a rule among the NY families .

think about it - would you rather have cuba or las vegas or both? by 1959, wouldn't you want las vegas since cuba went into the shitter as a money-maker?

new york (lucciano, early 1930s) wanted a 'commission' and the commission helped guide the black hand during it's best years. the reason? because for the most part, the commission was respected and obeyed. there was structure, rules...there was law and order.

from what i understand, everything west of the mississippi river was chicago's, unless chicago made a side deal with new york. las vegas fell into this map. at the time, vegas wasn't considered as a huge money-maker, cuba was the place..and new york had cuba.

the big tuna made sure new york would abide by the rules. las vegas was chicago's.

all in all, the longer the series went on, the more unrealistic the story lines became. christopher's movie. terrible. too many murders - bad for business. vito being gay was ridiculous. vito had enough money to fly to vancouver and have sex...not frequent a gay bar that gets visits from new york associates or blow security guards in parking lots. vito knew what it would mean if he got caught. in real life, he gets on a plane once a month for 3 days.

I also think Chase sort of went up his own ass with his thematic writing in later seasons, taking a show that started out as pretty much a straight-up drama with dark comedic elements about a 21st century mob boss and turning it into a vehicle to pontificate about the nature of life, death and the human condition.

Call me uncultured swine, but I'll take more scenes of Furio intimidating people and Tony busting out degenerate gambler business owners and running garbage contract meetings over 30-minute forays into dream states that reveal little more than inner turmoil over a business decision or 20-minute therapy scenes that hint at true antisocial personality disorder (but maybe not!) any day of the week.

on par with Murph's "Ron Artest couldn't play defense" take

_________________

I just watched the episode where Carm and Ro are at a luncheon for the empowerment of Italian women. The speaker is telling the ladies how to disspell negative Italian stereotypes and she says, "When they say John Gotti, you say Rudolph Giuliani."

_________________
His mind is not for rent to any God or government.