Been rewatching this classic this summer. Man what a great show.

I did not think it was possible but I hate Christopher more this time around than the first time.

Paulie and Silvio still crack me up.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

^^
This Ralph's more creative than fuckin' Spielberg!

when Ginny hauls ass, she's gotta make two trips.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I don't think he's likable, either, but he's one of the more tragic characters on the show. He's the opposite of Tony. Tony was smart enough that he could have had a normal, stable, middle-class life in the suburbs, but instead he chose to rise to middle management in organized crime. Christopher wanted that normal life, he wanted to settle down or go into show business or do anything that would get him out, but he was too uneducated and too good with a gun to do anything but be in the mob, and even within that, he was doomed by his aggression, impulsivity, and again, general stupidity. Just no good path at any point.

"I was trying to say something positive 'cuz she's your friend" is one of the funniest lines of the whole series.

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Another Chris gem: “Now that would be some fuckin’ coincidence if it wasn’t.”

https://youtu.be/FGqhhU6xYzk?si=0dCaEdCvT1FZN9An

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A gerbil, ma'am.

Paulie’s best joke was the blow job one.

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Elections have consequences.

Christopher was always one of my favorites. He and Pauly are the most consistent sources of comic relief on that show. His "shit or go blind" line is one of the funniest lines in the whole series.

I rewatched it recently and the last 2 seasons were a big dropoff from every other season.

Other people's definitions of you, sometimes they’re more about making themselves feel better. You gotta define yourself.

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Chaos! Nobody knows who's runnin' things anymore. Guys, they don't even know who to make payments up the ladder to in some cases. I'm talkin' about the Year 2000. The Millennium. Where do we go from here?

Yeah I think that has been the consensus since it was over.

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Not a mult.

Chrissie is the most endearing of the bunch. He was just smart enough to know he was in deep shit, but too dumb to figure a way out.

Ginny can get heavy...

I assume you guys mean the last season (6) which was split into two parts? Season 5 was great, especially Long Term Parking.

Though even Season 6 had a lot of goodness IMHO.

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That's really eye opening insight. I guess now that I think about it, Christopher never "enjoyed" the work of the mafia, at least the way Tony did. I mean there's a whole sub-plot about Tony breaking out in hives if he's not around his gangster buddies enough, but with Christopher he only seems to engage in the horrendous shit he does because it makes his life, in a way, easier, when he'd much rather be writing movies. Though he DID seem to enjoy telling the crew that Vito was gay.

"As far as male modeling goes, I'd probably be a success" captures both his quixotic desire to find any offramp from mob life and how funny it is that he's profoundly dumb.

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The last time I tried to rewatch this series, I found many of the scenes with Tony's mother and Junior annoying if not entirely unwatchable. I'll have to give it another go to see if I still feell the same way.

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first few seasons saw some good characters who didn't last long enough. the last season, too many fly and bye characters and murders to keep track of. who cared about paulie's mom/aunt and murmur?

"i thought his apartment looked like shit."

I always felt like Uncle Junior was kind of a weak character. Of the principals who were there beginning to end, maybe the weakest depending on how you read A.J.

As far as the show's primary antagonists go, he's much less interesting than Richie, Ralph, or Phil, who were so evil that they made Tony look good in comparison but deep down you couldn't help liking them (maybe less so with Richie here). At the same time, he wasn't really comic relief like Paulie and Sil, not really as pathetic as Artie or A.J., not as smart as Tony or Janice or Livia. He's necessary to move the plot along but not really a fascinating character on a show full of them.

Not with you at all on Livia, though, who was fantastic. Like Larry David and George Costanza, you wouldn't believe she was based on a real person until the creator assured you she was.

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The show really did a good job of developing Tony's antagonists, to the point that you really didn't care that they would be one and done characters. However, most of the actors who played the characters in Tony's crew were so bad that it would detract from your enjoyment of the show.

That's wild to me. I think he's one of the best TV characters ever.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I wouldn’t put him in the best ever list but I really enjoyed him as a character and I believe he won some awards for his role.

IMO he is a way better character than Chrissy.

But all of this is super relative.

I am almost finished with the rewatch. I forgot how bad parts of season 6 is. A great show really limped to the finish line.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

yeah maybe I find him funnier than most people, I get why some people would like him less but I have to draw the line at "weaker character than AJ".

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yeah agree on AJ. He is easily the worst of the regular crew.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

A.J. is television's greatest depiction of a completely worthless, left-behind teenage boy. It's deeply, uncomfortably realistic how stupid and directionless he could be while still getting by.


I think Joey Pants himself said Ralphie wasn't a character you loved to hate but rather you hated to love. Key distinction.

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.....

Not sure which characters which you're specifically referring to, but I agree often the nameless low-level guys (the one who borrows money from Vito right before he's killed comes to mind) I agree, they were pretty bad and took me out of scenes. But at the same time while the guys playing characters like the Barese brothers, Carlo, the guy playing both Parisi twins, Ray Curto and such were all serviceable actors. Hell even Van Zandt and Schirripa came into their own after awhile. I guess that since these guys were playing outright sociopaths, their less than perfect emotional acting was more realistic, and allowed Gandolfini to steal the show and drive home that these were bad, bad people. Jimmy Altieri was rather stiff, and the actor who played Vito wanted a little too much for himself, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP7YA3goiAo
This scene alone still makes my laugh hysterically

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