In this engaging episode of Stefan Molyneux's podcast, Stefan delves into the complexities of the iconic television series *The Sopranos*, revealing his reflections and critiques after recently watching the show. He expresses his admiration for the storytelling while also voicing his frustrations, particularly regarding the portrayal of female characters and the underlying themes of anti-Christian sentiment present throughout the series. As he analyzes the character dynamics, Stefan opens up a broader conversation around the implications of mob storytelling in Hollywood.
Stefan begins by discussing his initial impressions of *The Sopranos*, identifying the show's unique ability to intertwine brutal criminality with mundane suburban family life. He emphasizes the striking contrast between the violent actions of Tony Soprano and the seemingly trivial challenges faced by his wife, Carmela. This leads him to question the psychological implications of a woman remaining married to a mobster and reflects on the disparities between male and female portrayals of violence. He notes with dismay how female characters, such as Carmela, seem to embody a simplistic, almost naive worldview, seemingly unaffected by the violence that surrounds them.
Throughout the episode, Stefan argues that the series functions as an elaborate critique of Christianity, particularly in how it depicts the connections between mob life and religious ritual. He references pivotal scenes that showcase this tension, such as characters engaging in church rituals while simultaneously committing acts of murder. By drawing these parallels, Stefan suggests that the show propagates a narrative that implies a fundamental hypocrisy within Christianity and raises questions about moral judgment—a theme that resonates heavily with his philosophical inquiries.
Stefan’s analysis becomes more pointed as he critiques the overall narrative structure, which he finds oscillates between moments of profound insight and episodes of randomness that detract from the story's overall cohesion. He expresses his disappointment in how the female characters are written, particularly the lack of exploration into their darker or more complex attributes. He argues that while characters like Tony Soprano are painted as embodiments of evil, the women around him are left comparatively untouched, thus missing an opportunity to discuss the potential for female complicity in the world of violence.
Throughout the episode, Stefan invites listeners to join the conversation, encouraging them to share their thoughts and insights on *The Sopranos*. Various callers contribute to the discussion, expanding on the themes of gender dynamics and the impact of societal narratives on individual morality. This collaborative discourse underscores the podcast's format, where Stefan values the input from his audience, creating a collective examination of the show's themes.
As the dialogue progresses, Stefan weaves in commentary about other television series, particularly *Breaking Bad*, comparing their narrative structures and the moral consequences faced by characters. This comparison serves to crystallize his argument about the allure and downfall of the anti-hero trope that dominates modern television storytelling.
Wrapping up the discussion, Stefan expresses his intent to explore further stories with similar themes, while also acknowledging the artistic challenges of addressing complex moral questions in storytelling. He maintains a critical yet respectful distance from the creators of *The Sopranos*, revealing his nuanced understanding of the interplay between art and its cultural implications.
This episode of Stefan Molyneux's podcast engages listeners with profound philosophical inquiries, offering a critical lens on the modern portrayal of morality within narratives steeped in violence and familial loyalty. Through thoughtful reflection and audience interaction, Stefan manages to extract deeper themes from a well-trodden series, challenging listeners to reconsider the stories that shape our cultural consciousness.
0:03 - Introduction to The Sopranos
1:52 - Exploring Anti-Christian Themes
6:15 - Female Characters in The Sopranos
10:15 - The Complexity of Carmela Soprano
22:07 - The Flattery of Women in Media
26:01 - Consequences of Male Violence
35:59 - The Role of Women in Crime
43:40 - The Finale: Tony's Fate
52:48 - The Legal Implications for Women
1:03:48 - Consequences of Evil
1:03:57 - The Complexity of Dr. Melfi
1:14:25 - Critique of Randomness in Storytelling
1:32:41 - Art and the Purpose of Narrative
1:42:52 - Reflections on Personal Choices
[0:00] All right. Well, hi, donors. Hello, lovely subscribers.
[0:03] Thank you so much for taking the time tonight. As always, a great pleasure to have you on board. And I finally got around to watching a wee little show from the late 90s to the mid-naughties called The Sopranos. And I got to be honest, I mean, I did skip a lot of the violence, and I found it a very interesting show and incredibly frustrating at the same time. I don't know. Now, of course, the filmmaker, was it David Chase, the writer? He read like 30 of the episodes, but was like the showrunner, which means he's sort of in charge of the general arc of the storylines.
[0:47] And I found it quite interesting. I had a lot of thoughts about it, but we could make this a conversation if you guys have seen it or had any sort of thoughts about it, I'm certainly happy to share mine, but I also wanted to know what you thought. And sort of my basic thought was that it's incredibly anti-Christian. And this kind of opened me up to a bunch of the stuff that goes on in Hollywood, just this absolutely rampant anti-Christianity. I'm sort of thinking of the famous scene, I think it's of The Godfather, where Michael Corleone is, you know, whacking all of his enemies and so on. At the same time.
[1:36] As he is christening his son, and there's this classical music, and there's this beautiful church scene at the same time, as people are getting just absolutely slaughtered.
[1:52] And this just creates a negative use of Christianity, and I kind of noticed in the Sopranos as well. So Carmela Soprano, early on, there's this kind of creepy priest. Uh he has played very well and written quite subtly but i just never felt comfortable when he was in the scene so the priest of course is going around to carmella's house she's making him food they're kind of on the couch watching movies and it all just seems eerily inappropriate, and she does call him out after this after a while she says you know you got strange some strange semi-seductive thing going on with you and food and women and movies and uh she does kind of point out and then he kind of despawns from the scene as a whole other than to pop up from now and then when uh carmelo carmelo yeah carmelo ends up saying oh my god my husband's a murderer my husband's in the mob my husband's the killer okay spoilers probably don't know that right? It was 20 years ago, almost the show ended.
[3:02] And the priest, of course, well, you've got to stay in the marriage, and you've got to make him a better man, and all of this sort of stuff. As opposed to the other, one of his psychiatrists, one of her psychiatrists, she goes to a couple of different psychiatrists, and the Jewish guy says, you know, I'm not getting paid, I'm not taking blood money, and you need to get what's left of your children and get out. What's left of your children it's kind of a creepy a creepy thing and so my major frustration with the Sopranos is the female characters.
[3:37] It's the female characters. I feel like there's kind of two shows going on. It's driving me nuts. So in the one show, you know, there's this brutal mafia guy, Tony Soprano, you know, I mean, he's worse than a serial killer. He murders, I don't know, he started murdering when he was in his early 20s, I think. And he murders, you know, he's probably murdered, you know, 10, 15, 20 people. we see over a couple of years him murdering, I don't know, three or four. So like he's a complete psycho, mass murdering, serial killer, sociopath. And that's really dark. And of course, the acting is fantastic on the part of the James Gandolfini, who is so committed to being an overweight guy that he died of a heart attack some years ago at an Italian restaurant, no less. So, you know, that's method acting. Anyway, so what drove me nuts was that the females, with the exception of the mother, Livia, who apparently is based on the writer's own mother, but the females are insane because there's this one really dark sociopath serial killer, you know, torturing people and, you know, they're killing a gay guy by shoving a poo cue up his ass. They're just absolute psycho sadist torture stuff and and then there's like.
[5:07] Carmela, who's just like, dum-dee-dum, oh, I'm having trouble building my house, and I'm having trouble with my daughter, and I'm having trouble with my priest, and oh, I'm having trouble with my son, and dum-dee-dum, it's just like insane. It's insane because it feels like there are two completely different shows going on one is a fairly banal family has challenges kind of show which is on the Carmela side and on the other side is this deep dark mafia slaughterhouse you know where they they take people they've known for years and just, you know, take them out and kill them, which is kind of like a theme in Mafia movies. Doesn't matter how long you've known them. If you think they've crossed you, you just take them out and shoot them.
[6:00] And I find that I was quite interested in the Livia character, who's, Tony's mother, played by, I think she's an old sitcom actress from the 60s, did a great job, and then unfortunately died, I think, in the second season or something, and maybe they had a whole bunch of more stuff there.
[6:15] And she was, you know, kind of evil, but it was all kind of slimy and abstract and manipulative and so on. At one point, she says to Tony in a flashback scene, I'm seeing a stick of fork in your eye. So there's sort of that kind of violence, but we see the men doing great evil.
[6:40] Murdering torturing beating the hell out of people you know breaking bones smashing, arms that kind of stuff i see men doing a great deal of evil and i'm sure this is not the only thing but the only thing that i really remember in terms of a female doing violence is tony soprano's sister this is manson was it manson beams has got the red don't don't give me those Manson Beams, right? It's got this sort of short kind of low-rent Al Pacino guy that he's going to be her fiancé. This is the guy who can only have sex when he's pointing a gun at the woman's head. And...
[7:24] It's wild because he hits her and then she shoots him. Now, you could say, it wasn't immediate self-defense and so on, but you could say that he started it, right? But that's the only time I remember seeing female violence. None of the mothers are violent. None of the mothers are verbally abusive, strongly. None of the women are evil and the men are all just stone evil and it was driving me nuts because it's like where do these sorts of men come from they would come from obviously brutal fathers but brutal mothers and i think that the actress edie falco i think it is did a great job with a very limited script. But she's just like, Tony, you didn't do this. It's like it's this odd sitcom. She's not bothered by the fact that he's a serial killer, but she is bothered by the fact that one of his goobars, like one of his girlfriends, calls the house. Then she leaves him. Then she leaves him. And it takes, you know, It was quite a while for them to get back together.
[8:51] Now, of course, you know, people say, oh, well, you know, but Carmela was...
[8:58] She was... Into the money. She liked the fact that he had money, but she was pretty when she was younger. I mean, she was still fairly good looking in her forties or whatever she was, but she was pretty and she was charming and so on. So she could have gotten a guy who was not a serial killer. She could have got a guy. I mean, her father was a little, her father's a builder. So like her father wasn't in the mob. Her father was a little sleazy and that he built stuff using substandard materials and kind of knew a guy who had him passed inspection and so on. But not Tony, not Livia, not Tony's father who, you know, hacked a guy's finger off because he wouldn't pay his protection money or something like that. Real psychos, right? Her father is just sort of an amiable, Hugh, his name is, amiable, pleasant, kind of mild, underhanded builder kind of thing, right? And, like, nobody notices.
[10:00] And so she was in it for the money or the status or something like that. But the psychology of a woman who would give two children to a serial killer, she was just way too normal.
[10:16] And again, it felt kind of schizo. And I sort of have a brief theory about this, and then you guys can tell me what you think. But she was eerily normal eerily calm you know she and and the show is just kind of random her father falls off the the roof nothing really happens uh the the therapist gets raped nothing really happened and Carmela goes to Paris and nothing really happens like it was just kind of random just like invented stuff just like rolled the dice hey let's have something happen let's have something happen let's have something happen a lot of which didn't, entwine itself into any kind of plot.
[10:57] But the psychology of a woman who is turned on by a serial killer, who wants to have sex with a serial killer, that kind of woman is so corrupt and so completely screwed up. I mean, I was sort of thinking like if I had a, I don't think I ever would, but if I had a call-in from a woman, not that I ever would, but if I did have a call-in from a woman and she said, I'm married and I find myself very turned on by my blood-spattered serial killer husband. Can you imagine what kind of history that woman would have? Could you imagine.
[11:44] What kind of personality disorders and corruption and all kinds of weird stuff she would have. It would be almost incomprehensible. I mean, my mother was a completely messed up woman, and some of it not through any particular fault of her own, like just the stuff that happened during and after the war. But my mother was a completely screwed up person. She didn't have a taste for serial killers. I mean, I don't think she did. I don't have any evidence for that, right? The guys she were into, you know, were a little flaky and so on. But my mother, for all of her violence and corruption and so on, she would never date a criminal. So what kind of, and this sort of drove me nuts as a whole, that the women were just like, dum-dee-dum-da-dee-da. I need to make some manicots. I need to make some ziti. I need to tidy. I've got to do some dishes. I got to go to Paris. I got to make sure my kid gets into school. I got to, oh, I'm having conflict. And it's like, but the personality of a woman...
[12:54] Who would have sex with a blood spattered in the newspaper mob boss serial killer was never explored. Now, I'll give you sort of my basic theory about this, and then if you guys obviously want to talk about it, that's great. But my basic theory goes something like this. This is a mechanism by which to instill in people, as is most mob movies, all the mob movies I've ever seen, which is not a huge amount. It is to instill contempt for religion, and in particular, Christianity, of course, because of the Italian angle, in particular, Catholicism. It is a hatred of religion. Because in all of these movies, these people go to church, they give money to the parish and to the priest, and they cross themselves, and they say grace, and then they go out and murder people.
[13:49] Now, since Christianity says thou shalt not kill, it is showing that Christians murder, that devout people, oh, such a paradox. It's not a paradox. It's a direct attack upon Christianity. I mean, could you imagine in doing this with a mosque or doing this with a synagogue or doing this with a Hindu temple, you know, that they're going through their religious rituals at the same time as they're out there killing people. And like, it would be almost incomprehensible, but it happens all the time in this sort of anti-Christian propaganda that characterizes the mob movies. In other words, the mob movies are there. Obviously, there's drama and excitement and violence and all of that, but the mob movies are there to have people associate Christianity with serial killing, Christianity with murder, Christianity with massive hypocrisy, that Christianity is just a lip-service religion that does absolutely nothing.
[14:54] To condemn evil, that the priest, though he knows Tony Soprano, is a mob guy, is a murderer, I mean, whether he knows directly or not, I mean, this guy, Uncle Junior, is being arrested and indicted, and he's in the newspaper all the time, suspected mob boss, blah, blah, blah, and the priest doesn't say, we got to get this guy out of the church, oh, because they give money to the church so they're just bought they're just bought and paid for the the clergy just bought and paid for and the men give money to the clergy and then the clergy in turn in turn demand that the women or insist the women or order the women to stay with the men and so if you look at the sort of two main female characters meadow and carmella meadow versus aj right so meadow is the first one to suspect that her father is a mobster. I mean, genuinely suspect, and kind of no. But she's fine. She's fine. I mean, you know, she has some relationships that don't really go anywhere, but she's not violent.
[16:10] She's not screwed up. She doesn't do drugs. She just, oh, I'm, you know, I'm going to take a year off. I'm trying to decide, should I go into med school or law school? I don't really know. She's got this big smile. She's got these wise eyes. I mean, a bit smug, whatever. But, you know, she's got this great figure and she's just reasoned. Oh, you know, AJ, my brother, you know, I had this one woman who was suicidal in university. He's showing the same signs. You've got to take care of it. And she's just... I mean, if you looked at her as an isolated character, you'd have no idea that her father was a serial killer. And her mother had a sexual fetish for murderers. For not just one-time murderer, but continual murderers.
[17:07] And she says, dum-dee-dum, whereas AJ, of course, and this is that the sister always has to be smarter and wiser than the brother, and the mother, the wife, always has to be smarter and wiser than the husband. But what happens with Meadow is even worse than what happens to Carmela, in that Meadow is perfectly fine, and AJ, the son, is depressed. Depressed, angst, anxious, suicidal, tries to commit suicide, joins a collection with a bunch of young thugs where they take acid and melt off the toes of some poor screaming guy.
[17:55] And he also wants to become a murderer because he takes a knife in to kill Uncle June in the old age home or wherever he's staying, but just drops it, and therefore it's the only reason. So, suicidal, murderer, witnesses torture, and then sits happily with the guys afterwards when they mock the guy on the crutches, who's had to have his toes amputated because they poured acid on her, a complete psycho. But Meadow is empty-dum, oh, med school, law school, I'm not really sure. Now, you can say at the end where Meadow ends up getting engaged to the son of one of the mob guys, but he's a lawyer and so so the brother is completely screwed up the the mother so the father's a serial killer the brother's a suicidal wannabe murderer but the mother is fine and the daughter is more than fine she seems to be pretty much the picture of radiant mental health so why.
[18:52] Why portray the man as vile and evil and again with the exception of Livia, who again is not violent. Like we see her manipulating, we don't see her using violence. And of course, we know that there are female serial killers, and there are very violent females, but the violence with females tends to be towards children. But you can't show that. So then the question is, well, why wouldn't they show this? Why would they have the females be relative to the males? Radiant pictures of mental health, despite the fact that the females have this murder fetish all all of the women have this murder fetish and yet they are you know nice and and kind and and carmella and roe go to paris and have a nice time and and and look and take pictures it's insane absolutely insane and carmella, has a sexual burning loins yearning for another psycho mass murderer named Furio. Furio. Furio? Furious. Furio, who's a hitman that they bring in from Italy to do some of their dirty work.
[20:15] And she knows he's in the mob. She knows he's violent. She knows probably every reason to believe that he's a hitman. And she just dreams and fantasizes about him having sex with her. She has a fetish for blood-spattered serial killers. So why isn't this examined? Well, my argument is this. And I'm just not saying it's conscious, and I'd love to hear what you guys think. But my argument goes something like this that the show is designed to corrupt women and turn them away from christianity because women are the traditional method by which christianity gets transmitted to the next generation so you want to show evil men because that's exciting and men will watch it because that's kind of cool and and violent and so on but if you showed female evil then women would turn against the show and the show is there to corrupt women's attachment to Christianity so that women won't transmit Christianity to their children. And the way you disrupt that transference is you flatter the women.
[21:23] And you have the violence there, which is titillating, but you don't have female violence. You don't have female evil. You don't have female corruption, except for one old woman who dies in season two, who again, never does anything direct and violent but it's only manipulative drops hints and and so on right, so my general theory is that you couldn't show female evil because if showed female evil, nobody would watch the show the men might watch it but the women wouldn't and you have to flatter women in order to lower their defenses so that you can propagandize them.
[22:07] Women are long-suffering. Women just have to deal with these crazy, violent men. Women are always trying to do what's best for their family. Women are always trying to hold things together. The mothers and the daughters of blood-spattered serial killers are totally fine because they're just radiant and wonderful and healthy. So what you do is you praise women, you give them dopamine, and then through that dopamine, as the dopamine level is high, you can slip in all the propaganda. And I'm not saying this is a conscious choice, or they're sort of calculating this, but it is the process, because it's not so much that the show gets written. Again, if you were to set this in a mosque, or a synagogue, or a Hindu temple, it wouldn't get funded. Whereas the question is, I mean, lots of interesting and good stuff gets written. I mean, I think I've written some interesting and good stuff in another universe without all these communists. My books would have been made into movies long ago, but... What gets funded? What gets the money? What gets the interest? And there's not one positive thing in religion in six seasons. There's not one positive. There's the creepy priest. There's the other greedy priest who wants them to go from $5,000 to $50,000 for a parade.
[23:33] There is no good priest, and there is no effect on Tony Soprano or any of the other men. There is no effect that religion has upon them. They never sit there and say, you know, gosh, Jesus appeared to me, and he said I was doing evil, and I talked to my priest, and he said I'm doing evil. Nope. There's some superstitions, for sure. And Paulie feels that he's being followed by ghosts, but again, that's never really followed up. So, it's all psychological. And Tony Soprano doesn't go to a priest. He goes to a therapist, the new priest, the new priest. And the therapist takes tens of thousands of dollars from him, and it doesn't help him at all. He doesn't budge. But she also is fascinated and titillated by the therapy. And again, even in the therapeutic profession. It is her own therapist...
[24:33] Who outs her and reveals the name of her client at a dinner party. And now he does kind of save her by getting her away from Tony Soprano. But religion is so useless that there's no point Tony Soprano going to the weak-willed, creepy priest. He has to go to the strong-willed female therapist, the writer or creator of the show. David Chase, I think it was. He said that he had a similar relationship with Tony to his own mother, and that he also had anxiety attacks and depression, and was going to therapy when he was younger, and I think also when he was working on the show. So, he had some of that stuff to deal with. And, of course, the purpose of religion is to judge you morally. I mean, that's what God does, that's what Jesus does, and that's what the priest should do. Of course, the purpose of therapy, or the purpose of therapist as portrayed, it's not all schools of therapy, but the general school of therapy is to be neutral, to not judge, to not judge. And so, Tony can't get any moral judgments on him. He can't get them from the priest, because the priest is weak, and the religion is greedy, and it has no effect on his behavior anyway. And he can't get any moral judgment from his therapist, because his therapist is morally neutral, as befits a, quote, good therapist.
[26:01] So it is and you see this all over the place in the media massive praise towards women so that women's defenses are down they're not confronted with their own capacities for evil and then they because they're happy and seeing oh look Carmela she's just like me, I have trouble with my daughter too I have trouble with my son too my son can be a little listless and alienated as well right.
[26:24] And, yeah, I mean, there's a sort of powerful moment when AJ says that they sent him to go and see his grandmother and his grandmother said, life is meaningless and everyone you love will betray you and so on. And then years later, he quotes this as a reason why he got this existential angst and became suicidal and so on.
[26:42] But it's never really uh followed up and carmella soprano is just this mildly exasperated trying to do the right thing kind of betrayed but trying to hold things together trying to do good for her community she's like from a completely different series with no connection to her, give a mass murderer a blowjob on his birthday nonsense it's just wild to me but i think that's what, all of this stuff. I'm sort of thinking over the last, over the other mob movies I've seen, and it really is just this relentless attack upon religion, because religion is powerless to stop this, and in fact, often profits from it as well. It's just another kind of organized crime, and it is, it is gross and wretched. So anyway, those are sort of my, my thoughts of course I have more thoughts but who needs a monologue when we're all here together so if anybody wants to unmute and let me know what you think I'd be curious I had I was always curious to watch it um I think I started watching it many years ago and I stopped after a couple of episodes I just thought it was kind of violent and I found the therapy kind of annoying but I thought I'd give it another try and those were my thoughts if you guys want to chime in um please feel free.
[28:00] Yeah. Hey, it's been a while since I've watched it. I didn't really remember a lot of the beats because you've seen it recently. Like the thing with the priest, I completely forgotten about that. I do remember the therapist getting raped and I felt like, why is it even in here? You know, like.
[28:16] I always think maybe the actress had a ski accident and was bruised up and they had to sort of find some story for it. I have no idea. She was involved, that woman also, Melfi, sorry, Melfi was the name of the character. She was also involved in some horrible multi-year child custody battle with Harvey Keitel, the actor, which ended up with her being bankrupt. It was just absolutely brutal. So she's also insane as well as a person, I would assume. But sorry, go ahead.
[28:44] Yeah. As you were talking, I kind of was thinking about a bunch of other things. Like um but none of them have quite the marriage of the unholy marriage of like this you know this religion subversion like this destruction of christianity religion thing and like the violence because i was thinking of like freaking bad but there's no particular religious thing in that and that came after sopranos i looked up all the things i was thinking of that pop in my head were after the sopranos the other thing i was thinking about was how these women are just so good and you know nothing wrong with them and they're attracted to all these you know violent, you know the animals essentially you know barely actually not animals because we're human beings so they're less than animals that way right um like twilight 50 shades of gray and then all of these weird smut things we've been seeing all these things of late i don't know how long that's been going on but it's like out if that makes sense so those are i know that's not exactly the it's not on the topic of the Sopranos itself, but I just was thinking about that as you were talking about like these, the, The women, you know, just sort of this, nothing wrong with the women. There's really nothing wrong with the women.
[29:59] And this sort of fetish for violence, you know, I mean, when they vote to sort of be pro-open borders and so on, and they know that the kind of people who are going to come into the country with open borders are the kind of people who don't respect rules. And i just i mean this this fetish for violence that women have is something that is entirely under discussed and i i thought that the sopranos i had some hope you know because i remember livia the grandmother being a sort of interesting evil character and i had some hope that they would talk about this but it never came up.
[30:35] Yeah no the women are always right in some way or another or there's nothing wrong with him or whatever it's.
[30:41] Long suffering and yeah oh my son got killed and it's so sad and you know the women are always crying and the men are always torturing and ah it's it's wild insofar as it's still so primitive it's still so primitive and unconscious, that and and the other thing too and of course i don't know anything about the behind the scenes stuff of the show as a whole, but if I were the female character, if I were Edie Falco, the woman who played the wife, I'd be like, come on, guys, like, get your shit together. Like, this woman has a fetish for murderers. Now, it could also be, I don't know, again, any of the backstory, but it could be that they wanted to make Carmella more dysfunctional, but the actress said, No, I don't want to be unlikable.
[31:41] There was a movie that we watched not too long ago in a sort of little movie club that we have called The Verdict with Paul Newman. And originally, he plays a sort of alcoholic and difficult and unpleasant lawyer. And they had, Robert Redford originally was in for the role, but Robert Redford kept saying, you have to rewrite this to make the character more likable. Robert Redford could not stand to be unlikable. And when Paul Newman first came in, Paul Newman and there's a lot of charisma, and started acting to replace Robert Redford. And the director was like, no, you're too nice. You got to go to some dark place. You got to be willing to be unlikable.
[32:19] And I don't know, like, did they write stuff, and they just have this instinct to veer away from it? Did the actress say, come on, give me some meat to work with here. This is a woman who has sex and takes money from a serial killer. She's going to be messed up. Give me some scenery-chewing dialogue. Or maybe they tried, and the actress was like, no, I'm not saying that. Because, you know, when you're an actress in a long-running series, you have a lot of leverage, right? You have a lot of say, because they can't replace you. So I have no idea. I have no idea. But then I was also thinking, okay, well, if I'm so keen on female evil, it's like, where are my evil characters? Where are my female evil characters? But of course, I haven't written any mob story or anything like that, but I've certainly written some messed up, manipulative, and destructive women as Wendy from almost really springs to mind. And of course, Helen from my current book, The Solution. But yeah, it just seems so impossible. It really was like going from a blood-soaked murder show to a fairly average...
[33:33] Family drama and of course what they say and i understand sort of well you know but but they're trying to say that in the midst of all this evil or mundane life problems i'm thinking okay that's not particularly interesting or insightful but how could you just have all of these.
[33:52] Functional nice pleasant women how often did the women lose their temper because they didn't get what they want. How often did the women use violence to threaten the men? I've known men, I won't get into any details, but we've, of course, there's some of them in the call-in shows. I've known men who've had women pull a gun on them, who've had women pull a knife on them, 50-50 in rape, female to male, forced to penetrate. There's 50-50 when it comes to domestic violence so women perfectly capable of violence and if any woman is going to be perfectly capable of violence it's going to be the wife of a serial killer and there is one time where she's trying to get her daughter into school carmela and she makes it doesn't even make explicit threats but just kind of let's let's it be known that her husband is quite a tough guy and and she would really, really appreciate it. There was a little bit, just one of that, but that was it. And again, compared to, you know, Tony, who's like gouging people's eyes out and breaking their arms and driving cars into them and having their legs, bones come out through their skin and shooting his own cousin and like just a rampage of narcissistic, rage-based violence.
[35:17] Carmela, nothing in fact Carmela says I won't even let Tony hit the kids I'm I'm a peaceful I'm a peaceful parent literally says I told Tony he couldn't hit the kids, And it's mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling. The absolute lack of knowledge. Like, there are women with real fetishes for this stuff. I mean, every serial killer. Oh, Lubici, I can't remember his last name, but the guy with the abs who shot the healthcare CEO.
[35:49] Mangione.
[35:50] I'm sorry? Mangione?
[35:52] Mangione, right?
[35:53] Mangione, yeah.
[35:54] Is that him?
[35:54] Hey, Mangione, hey! So, yeah, but I mean, women love that guy.
[36:00] And every serial killer in the known universe. Has a lineup of women sending him nudes and wanting to have sex with him and wanting to be his wife and have his children. All this kind of stuff. This, like, female fetish for violence is wild. And I don't know that it's ever... I guess Charlize Theron was in a movie many years ago. I've never seen it called Monster, which was about a female serial killer. But I've never seen that. But, yeah, it's... It's really something, but I've really been sort of thinking about this anti-Christianity stuff and how much it manifests, how weak and useless the priests are, and how the women only get angry when legitimately provoked.
[36:56] And she knows she knows he's a murderer i mean he keeps getting arrested he's all the news and so on right and and the only time she shows any anxiety is when she thinks that tony is going to get killed and she's only worried about how she's going to have enough money to survive and that's it, and so yeah we have some of the coldness and so on but she just is and the daughter is even more so the daughter is just this absolute smug cupid doll mental health pretty girl with no inner depth or anything like that and every time there's a scene between Carmella and Meadow, it's all just the most bland kind of snippy snipey, stuff with with no you you would have no idea if you just saw those scenes, that their father was a mass murdering serial killer i mean holy crap it's it's it i felt like my brain was being torn in two just watching this stuff or anybody else i don't want to yammer on if everybody else has anything to say yeah.
[38:06] I just want to add like it seems like for the woman in the show there's just no i mean there are some consequences for some of them but like and for like the main characters there's just no consequences right for just having no, like moral standards right like you they have a nice house go to good schools uh nice vacations like tony gets arrested but like carmella even at the end of the show it seems like she gets off, scot-free doesn't really get hurt i'm like the only woman in the show that have some sort of moral conscience uh things kind of go bad for them like uh malta santi's fiance gets killed and the therapist i think gets hurt the ones who sort of have a conscious they just it ends up bad for them but uh women who who are just like in love with evil like they just they're just fine at the end of all this.
[38:57] Oh uh aiden what was her name the the oh adriana adriana yeah the the hot girl it's funny uh even though i said first show the show like 20 years ago or whatever i still remember her bending over in white pants sad but true what the what the what the brain remembers um but does she have a conscience i don't think she does i think she just gets really anxious because the fbi is leaning on her because they found her with cocaine so yeah i don't know that she has a conscience i think she just has a fear and and you know people who are sociopaths they still feel fear. They just don't feel empathy. Like they feel fear, like a rabbit would feel fear if it's being chased, but it doesn't have, rabbits don't have empathy. It's just fight or flight. So I don't think that... Um i don't i wouldn't say that she had a conscience unless i missed something.
[39:50] No yeah i wouldn't say she's like any type of morally good character i mean like she i guess she's kind of like working with the police right but it could be just to save her it's obviously to save her own skin like she's.
[40:03] Forced to work with the police so.
[40:04] They're gonna throw her.
[40:04] In jail right.
[40:05] But it's like i guess in some sense you could kind of like obviously like within the normie world you could kind of categorize that as kind of doing the right thing quote unquote and And for doing that, she ends up killed, where Carmella, she's obviously just keeping the whole thing with Tony as normal. And at the end of the show, I don't know if she's ever gotten hurt. But she probably just ends up living her life to old age, right?
[40:37] Well, that's an interesting question, which, of course, is around that sort of controversial ending. I don't know if you guys need a brief description. Do you remember the ending of the series?
[40:53] Yeah, go for it.
[40:57] Well, there's a war that seems to have come to an end. And Tony is meeting his family in a diner. And there's sort of these odd jump cuts. And then Meadow is meeting them, but she's having trouble parking the car. And we think this is a sort of a literary device to make sure that she's not caught up in the shooting that might happen. Because a guy comes in to the diner, kind of a skeevy looking guy, and he's in a jacket that says Made in America. And the title of the finale is Made in America. Now, there was a shooter earlier who had Made in America earlier in the show, Made in America jacket. And of course, Made in America, I think, refers to being a made man, right? Taking the oath and gaining the protection of the mob, being a captain, being a made man, so made in America. And there's a bell and a ding. Every time someone comes in, Tony looks up, kind of nervous and startled.
[42:11] And so people keep coming in, his wife joins him, AJ joins him, they order onion rings, and before that, Tony is flipping through music, and he ends up choosing journeys, you know, don't stop believing, choosing don't stop believing, and that's playing. And then the skeevy-looking guy with the Made in America shirt, who keeps glancing over at Tony, gets up and he goes to the washroom, which is a nod, of course, to the scene in The Godfather, where Michael Corleone goes to the washroom to retrieve the gun that's taped behind the dutrine. And then there's a close-up of Tony's face, and the screen goes black for, about 10 seconds. And actually, when this was first premiered, everyone thought that cable had gone out, because there's like 10 seconds, and then the credits roll. So, well, what happens? I mean, to me, the most likely answer that what happens, and this is actually mentioned by the fat guy who's into toy trains, he says, you know, if you're shot, you don't even hear it. I bet you don't even hear it. I think everything just goes black. Earlier on, he says that. And so.
[43:34] They shot the guy with the hypnotic pelt of hair. I can't remember his name. The old guy with the gray hair.
[43:41] They shot him in the head. And, you know, I would imagine that if you're shot in the head, everything just goes black, right? I mean, everything stops all at once. And so my guess is, at least I would put even odds that Tony, because we're seeing things from his perspective, right? We're seeing every time.
[44:02] He looks up, we see his, oh, there's a bill. So we're seeing things from Tony's perspective. And so the guy comes out of the bathroom, walks behind Tony, raises his gun, and shoots Tony in the head. And that's why the screen goes black, because we're seeing things from Tony's perspective. So that's his death, that's his end.
[44:26] Now, whether Carmella and AJ and Meadow get away with it or or get away with anything, depends on whether you see the ending of the show as Tony Soprano getting gunned down, which to me is by far the most likely explanation. I mean, the writer of the show hasn't confirmed it. They said, did Tony die? He says, well, either then or sometime later, like we all do. And there's this debate about, well, it's saying that he's always going to be anxious, he's always nervous. In the same way that we know it's the finale of the scene, we know of the series, and people have invested dozens of hours into watching this stuff, and, you know, it's the last couple of minutes, so it's all hyper-meaningful, and, of course, we're kind of expecting the wrap-up and Tony to die. And I think that the wrap-up is that Tony dies, everything goes black, he gets a much more merciful death than the kind of death that he doled out to others on a regular basis. But that's always the question for me. If the guy comes out of the bathroom and shoots Tony in the back of the head, which is why the whole screen goes black for 10 seconds, because you wouldn't even hear it, right? So...
[45:50] If the whole screen goes black and Tony gets shot in the back of the head, then the question is, what happens to his family? Now, he says to his wife earlier, you know, they don't touch family. They know that. They don't touch family. And that's sort of a bit of a habit. But given that AJ is now involved in criminality and given that Meadow is now marrying the son of a mob guy, they may also shoot the whole family. And maybe they all get wiped out it doesn't matter to the shooter in particular and of course the shooter given that aj and meadow are both mob adjacent or mob involved and given that people like carmella it would make from a sort of machiavellian or real politics standpoint it wouldn't make any sense to leave them alive. You're wiping out the whole family means no one's getting any blowback. There's not going to be, AJ is not going to be, trying to enact revenge and Meadow is not going to use her husband to try and enact revenge and Carmela isn't going to use the sympathies that other people have to try and enact revenge. So I think it's a fairly strong case to be made that Tony, Carmelo, Meadow and AJ get shot at the table.
[47:18] So do they get away? I doubt it. And let's say they don't get shot at the table. Let's say they just see Tony Soprano get shot from the back of the head, which means they're all getting sprayed with blood and bone and brains, right? Like you literally would be wearing a bloody carpet of your father's brains all over you. And let's say that's what happens. Well, then, of course, they're launching on some big legal thing where they're going to be taken as witnesses and they're looking for video camera footage and try and catch the murderer. But the trauma of seeing your father or your husband, or both, right, seeing Tony Soprano executed in front of you, wearing his brains on your skin, having his blood spray in your eye, and so on.
[48:22] And realizing that you chose this life and for Carmela to say, well, because I chose Tony, chose to stay with Tony, this is what's inflicted upon my children. AJ was already unstable enough. If AJ sees his father executed right in front of him and then wears his blood and brains and bone on his face, eyes, shirt, and it would even go into his mouth, right? Because they're eating, right? So mouth would probably be open, shot, and you're literally tasting your father's brains as his head is blown open right in front of you. I mean, the family is then at that point traumatized beyond repair. So I'm not sure that they get away. Now, of course, you can say, well, but why would it go to black if he wasn't killed? That wouldn't make any sense at all. Wouldn't make any sense at all. Why have, you know, there's a guy who's made, made in America, right? There's a guy who's made, who's coming in, he goes to the bathroom. And of course, When In The Godfather When Michael goes to the bathroom He's told, I think by Sonny He's told, look When you come out Don't sit down, just shoot Drop the gun and go.
[49:31] And so when the guy goes into the bathroom, that's a clear nod to he comes out, shoots, and goes. So, yeah, I don't think that Tony gets away with anything other than he has a cleaner death than everyone else. Either his family is executed as well, or they're traumatized beyond repair.
[49:52] And are going to have their assets seized, and are going to end up in court for years, trying to find the murderer, approve the murderer, and... And neither AJ nor Maddo would likely get married because their father got murdered and they could be next. So I don't know that they get away with anything unless, you know, you take the alternate explanation that, well, you know, Tony, you feel uneasy in this scene because that's the uneasiness that Tony has to live with for the rest of his life. But it's, to me, it's not even disputable that Tony gets killed because of all the stuff I mentioned before, and the fact that the screen goes black for 10 seconds. If you, the traditional way to say this is just going to go on and on is a slow fade out and repetition, right? There's a scene where everyone's telling all of these old stories, and people say, Tony, what's the matter? and he says, remember when is the lowest form of conversation. And there's this repetition, and then things fade out. So when things end abruptly, that means death. And of course, there's death all over the place in a variety of ways in the final scene. So yeah, he gets gunned down from behind. So I don't know that the family gets away with much, if that makes sense.
[51:11] I agree. I think the most likely scenario is he was killed in that scene. So, in a sense, yeah, there was a consequence to, I guess, all their non-standards at the end, right? At least Carmela's non-standards at the end, right? Like, her husband is killed in front of her face, right?
[51:33] Right. And then possibly her. And Tony said earlier, you know, guys like me, we don't live to old age, you know, 80% it's jail 20 it's just getting shot now he didn't go to jail now of course the other thing too is that even if he's not killed the feds are closing in after their five plus year investigation the feds, are closing in so even if he's not killed in the restaurant he's uh he's going to jail almost for certain.
[52:00] I guess it kind of makes you think i guess it's like this is show teachings like i like, like they're living lavishly for this amount of time and it just ends in a fiery crash and hey that's kind of okay at the end because maybe at the end of it she could portray herself oh that she's the victim in the court case and is her violent husband i don't know like you kind of say that in the modern so you mean come out and would.
[52:29] Play the victim.
[52:30] Yeah like like let's say let's say she survived right like that bullet didn't ricochet and hit her or whatever they didn't you know, decide to kill her at that moment, like in the court cases, she could like kind of play the victim of like, oh, this is, uh, you know, that was my husband and, you know, I'm innocent and all this.
[52:48] Right. And so maybe like that, that angle could kind of happen now.
[52:52] Well, yeah, that's something I didn't quite understand and I've never really understood in the mob movies. And maybe it does happen that I can't remember, but in the mob movies, yeah. Why is it that the wives don't go to jail as well? Why is it only the husbands? Because the wives are profiting? Is it because wives and husbands can't testify against each other? Or is there some other reason? Because if you are, if you know that there's a crime going on and you don't say anything, then you are charged, right?
[53:23] As an accessory, obstruction of justice. I don't know. What do I know, right? But you're charged, right? if you know that there's a crime, or you have good reason to believe that there's criminal activity, and the fact that she stole the $40,000 from the, what was it, duck food or whatever it was, right? That to me would indicate that, yeah, she knew. Now, of course, maybe the feds don't know about that and all that, although I never quite figured out how she knew that he'd hit the money in the bird feed, but I'm sure I missed something. But yeah, I mean, how would Carmela, not also go to jail because i don't think we've ever seen a a woman i don't think i've i can't remember a woman in a mob movie go to jail and certainly not in in this show with the sopranos i don't remember any uh any women going to jail at all it's all just the men and i'm not sure how that works because they are profiting from it they know all about it and and so on now of course the women would say, we didn't know, but they're not even charged. And I think that's, again, to say that the women are innocent, that the women are victims, that the women don't know, and there's these nasty men who are doing things, and they're just trying to hold their families together and get their laundry done and so on.
[54:47] So I don't know the answer to that, but it does seem odd to me that the women never get get charged though they're clearly living on the proceeds of crime right.
[55:04] Yeah, I mean, like, I just feel, I just, I think, yeah, maybe they do get in trouble, or, but I just think it's like they, the women just never face the ultimate consequence of them getting killed, right? Like, oh, they might get battered and bruised, and they might go through some hard times. But at the end of it all, it's the men who face the ultimate consequence of evil, and the women kind of could just, you know, they'll just get by, you know, worse comes to worse, they'll just get by.
[55:32] Very few women get, I mean, Adriana gets beaten up a couple of times. And what else? Oh, there was when they, Phil, Phil was the name of the guy with the hypnotic hair. And they shoot a guy they think is Phil, and then they end up shooting his daughter. And I think that's one of the few times where a woman gets beaten up. Any kind of negative consequence. And of course, she's innocent and all of that. But yeah, it is wild just how blind everyone is to all of this stuff. I did look at a couple of reviews and I found them to be mostly garbage. Oh, the decay of the American dream, just all these unbelievable cliches that, oh, people are struggling and it's hard and intergenerational conflict.
[56:26] That's all nonsense. The decay of the American dream has just become, it's like the most cliched analysis of everything and anything, you know? Oh, but they talk about, AJ talks about the American dream and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I don't know, just decay of the American dream. If you don't know what to say, you just say that because that's just as common as dirt, sadly. But the analyses as a whole no one has pointed out whatsoever about the lack of female evil and everyone says oh Carmela you know she's such a complex and complicated and ambiguous and ambivalent character it's like no she's a cunning ditz or she and and they don't ever explore ever her murder fetish what does it mean what does it mean psychologically to someone that they're turned on by a serial killer i mean that's that's such a foundational question and i feel like they studied the psychology of evil for tony and you know obviously james gendolfini made the entire show uh he was beyond magnificent in the role i mean it wasn't even acting. I don't know what the hell that was, like channeling. But...
[57:47] They obviously did a huge amount of research on the mob and political corruption. And I like how they point out, you know, that the politicians and the mob are just, you know, the wire makes the same case, right? The politicians and the mob are just two sides of the same coin.
[58:03] But, oh, and yeah, Meadow has this horse-faced boyfriend, Finn, I think his name is. And Finn is threatened by the gay guy he sees giving a blowjob to a security guard early morning because he's working at a construction site and Phil is sort of terrified of the mob and should be, right? Because this guy is very dangerous. This guy, you know, shoots someone for trying to report a car accident after he hits him at a lonely leafy road. And Finn is like, they're having these horrible fights and her, you know, her family is involved in the mob and he sees a guy, I think, half lose an eye because he gets hit with a beer bottle over some useless fight. And then there's this guy who threatens him because he saw him giving a blowjob. And Finn, the characters are just incomprehensible to me. So Finn is terrified, and rightly so. He saw a guy get half beaten to death over nothing. He gets threatened by one of the mobsters in very creepy, dangerous, nasty ways. He's fighting like hell with Meadow. And then what does he say? Let's get married!
[59:14] It's absolutely incomprehensible and say oh well but you know people act randomly it's like but that's not the point of art the point of art is to have people with some consistency of character you kind of people bouncing out all over the place right and so i get i just got exhausted with sometimes not having a clue why on earth the characters were doing anything at all because everybody's behavior was just well sorry some of the characters where they set finn up as a good guy, as a sensible guy, as a rational guy. And, you know, he sees bloody violence. He knows that his girlfriend's involved in this. They're fighting like hell. She's immature and whiny. And then he's like, let's get married. It's like, I don't, I don't understand. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. And Carmela, and as I mentioned, Carmela and Tony's family history are just too different. And her parents never mentioned anything about the mob thing and i again it's kind of hard to fathom figure out or understand.
[1:00:23] And yeah that the random actions and so on we're going to paris somebody fell off a roof you know finn wants to propose if finn now wants to propose some of that stuff was just so random, that i was all sort of wondering because i guess this is hbo because i was all sort of wondering if they have scenes that make sense uh that tie everything together but they just have to cut them for reasons of length and so things just look kind of incomprehensible like the the the bald waiter guy i'm sorry the bald restaurant owner invests with some french guy and tries to get the money back and doesn't and then there's just a knock and furio at the french guy but we never know what happens like i guess we can kind of guess but it just seemed like really scattered kind of storytelling.
[1:01:13] And I spent half the show saying, what happened to this storyline? Why did that happen? What's the point of this? And the funny thing is, too, and I'm not sure how you guys felt about this, but, you know, Tony was obviously hell on earth, right? Just an absolutely abhorrent human being. And they were unsentimental about it, right? Like, they really did. Like, you'd like him a little bit here and there. And then he'd just do something absolutely wretched and appalling. And so it's kind of funny when you invest that much time into a character and then he dies, i mean obviously that's an evil stain that's taken from the world right i mean this guy was a monster and a half right evil stain taken from the world but at the same time it's like oh he died you know almost like it's sad or almost like it's a shame just because you spent so much time with him because he's in just about every scene and he's larger than life and so on and, And so, yeah, there is sort of funny ambivalence at the end of it all. Like, morally, I'm happy that he's dead. But also, it feels like you're losing someone you know quite well, if that makes sense.
[1:02:21] I just think like the woman watching this show, like the woman in the modern day, who are like, you know, morally questionable, like no Christianity, like will they look at this show and say, yeah, it's item for that life. Like the woman, she had a great life, you know, she had all these nice things. Her daughter ends up marrying like a pretty decent guy, given the circumstances. It's like how many women look at this show? It's like, yeah, if I marry some violent serial killer who makes a lot of money, like, you know, I'd take that.
[1:02:53] Yeah, yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough call. And because AJ was so dysfunctional and Meadow was so healthy, it makes AJ look weak. And it was sort of hard to know the difference why Tony, other than the fact that he was just this giant man mountain, but why Tony was so sort of strong and brutal and AJ was so sort of delicate and weak. And one of the answers could be that Carmela said no hitting. And, you know, hitting might have toughened him up or made him just outwardly violent. I don't mean toughened him up in a good way, but made him sort of outwardly violent. But because he was raised by a brutal father, but his mother forbade any kind of hitting, he ended up experiencing torrents verbal abuse instead that weakened him in a way that he might have become more outwardly tough if he'd been hit.
[1:03:49] I'm not recommending it. I'm just saying that would be, I think, one of the consequences.
[1:03:58] And then the last character, I mean, again, happy to hear what you guys think of the last character, is Dr. Melfi. There's not really much that's explained why she would take on a mob guy. Why would she take on a mob guy? her own mentor, her own therapist says, later on, says, look, you are taking on significant professional, moral, and legal risk.
[1:04:36] And he tries to talk her out of treating Tony. And I don't know if the research came out later during the show, or if they knew it from the very beginning. But at the end, they actually mentioned Dr. Robert Hare, who's an expert on psychopathy. And they point out that sociopaths end up benefiting from therapy because they become better at manipulating people. They learn psychology, they learn what makes people tick and that the re-offending rate or the rate of re-offense for sociopaths who take talk therapy is higher than those who don't.
[1:05:19] That you sort of like the, they do this in criminal gangs, is they say, well, we're going to join the army, we're going to join the police force, so we get weapons, combat, and tactics training, and sort of move in. I remember that was many, many years ago, I think there was a 60 Minutes about the mob, and some guy was in the mob, and then he worked in the police force for quite some time, and then he went back to the mob, and I remember, this is sort of my, this is many decades ago. And I just remember getting this sort of faint brain tickle, like, wait a minute, hang on, how, how would the cops not know that there's anything wrong with this guy who's a mobster? Wouldn't they have any kind of sense? I mean, they're supposed to be able to, fight and fight evil, right? So how could they not know? Say, well, maybe not the average cop, but you know, the people in charge and all that, like, how could they not know?
[1:06:17] How could they not know and i just remember this sort of vague like okay something's not right here like that a guy who is an evil criminal can just toodle up join the force the police force for a couple of years and then uh you know uh go back to being a mobster and so on or like the the gang members i miss 13 gang members or whatever who join the military. Like, shouldn't the military have some sense that they're not good people or not great people? And if they don't, that makes them kind of amoral. And they don't actually have a sense of good and evil, which means they're just going to do what they're told and shoot whoever the leaders point at, you know? It's just a funny kind of thing that I remember about that as a whole. And the helplessness of the police. The police almost never show up. I mean, there's FBI's guys floating around, but they also become quite sympathetic and bonded with Tony. I think I actually warns him near the end. And...
[1:07:19] It's interesting, of course, they talk about the mob guarding some naval yards during the war. They also talk about whether the show is how the mob helps them try and find terrorists. But of course, it never shows up anywhere. And there are also nice little details too. Nice little details. The little snippets of conversation you hear are very well done. I don't know if the actors are ad-libbing it as a whole or if it's all written down. When Adriana says, I'm pretty much afraid of everybody, at one point when she and Tony are doing some drugs before they go into the car crash.
[1:08:02] And those little details of characterization are good. Those little details are really well done. And then the last thing, I guess, so Christopher Moltisanti, the giant beak guy, I don't want to make fun of the guy's nose, it's not his fault, and good for him for not getting it fixed, like, good for him. But there's a mention of him being a male model at one point. Oh, Adriana's like, yeah, you know, you can go be a male model, and I don't know if that's supposed to be a joke or whatever. He's not a terrible looking guy, but certainly not, I think, to the model standard. But there was too much just random stuff happening so there's an old play by ayn rand the night of january the 22nd i actually saw it at the shore festival it's a very clever play because it is uh the the it's a it's a trial and the jury is taken from the audience and they vote and the ending of the play is different depending on whether they vote innocent or they vote guilty it's a clever play and it's well done, and she has one of the morally weak characters is in a wheelchair and.
[1:09:11] And she was criticized for this. And it was an interesting debate. Because nothing in art should be accidental, because the artist has full control over all the variables. You know, when I was shooting my documentary in Hong Kong, I was not expecting to get tear gassed. I thought I'd get close to it, but then they kind of moved where they're shooting the tear gas to. And so that's random. But if I was writing a scene, if I'm writing a scene, nothing happens that's accidental. Everything is a choice. And so when random things happen, it bothers me because it feels lazy. It feels like, oh, well, you know, Christopher needs to die or Christopher's going to die. Okay, well, we'll just have him survive to avoid a car and he crashes.
[1:10:05] Now okay he's on drugs but that's not particular to that moment because he's on drugs intermittently the entire six seasons or five and a half or whatever right and so when he's driving along and he drifts over the median and then he swerves the car it's just random it's not the consequence of any great evil he did. It's not blowback. It's not specifically because of the drugs, because he's been high all the time. And he's not particularly high, because Tony knows when he's high before, and Tony doesn't say anything about this, so we assume he's not particularly high. So it just bothers me when you've invested sort of six seasons into a character, and then he dies in some stupid accident. And it's not a punishment. It's not something that he caused through his own evil. So, yeah, it just, um, I mean, we can say that the mother.
[1:11:10] Same with the mother as well, right? She just died of a sickness, right? Is that right?
[1:11:15] Oh, Olivia?
[1:11:16] Yeah.
[1:11:17] Like, well, the actress died though. So I can give them some, you know, I can give them some forgiveness on that. Cause I bet you there were a whole bunch of scenes written with the actress, but then she died. Yeah so yeah it just um like i mean the person who lives the longest is uh uncle jr, but he ends up with sort of alzheimer's and so on and and again it's like so but that's just an accident it wasn't like he didn't get shot and then the lead then they couldn't take out the bullet and then the lead got into his system and as a result he got alzheimer's like at least that would be something vaguely causal everything that happens has to happen for a reason and there was just too much and i know that they're trying to recreate life and well you know things just happen in life you know things just happen it's like but that's not what art is for that's what we already have that it's called life where things just happen and in art though you're supposed to give the causality, right? So, I mean, obviously to take my own book at the moment, people's little decisions at the beginning of things end up with massive effects over the course of their life.
[1:12:30] And, you know, I mean, Shane's decision to date Regina and Robert's decision to throw off Chloe and go after the sexual siren called Helen, I mean, these all have very big implications down the road. It sort of sets them on this path that becomes increasingly difficult to turn back from and eventually just becomes freefall where there's no choice anymore. So it just bothered me that people just random stuff happens.
[1:12:58] You know, I mean, so, I mean, the big thing in season six is that Uncle Junior, of course, shoots Tony. And then Tony has this very odd dream sequences where he's a salesman who can't quite get home. And anyway, I thought that was just not great. I thought that was not particularly powerful, because it's a very mild way to die when he would, in fact, be panicking to some degree, if he would ever contact his conscience again, it would be more like hell. But instead, it's kind of a vaguely gentle, slightly confused story, which didn't really make much sense, give it the character. But, you know, whatever. But, you know, Uncle Junior shoots him. Because Uncle Junior is hallucinating.
[1:13:41] So Uncle Junior just has a brain degenerative illness that's not caused by anything he did. And he ends up shooting Tony randomly. There's no moral purpose there's no moral judgment he just thinks that tony is an intruder and doesn't even recognize it and that just bothers me it's just lazy you need to have the threads pull together so that we can get some moral lesson the purpose of art i mean i think the purpose of art is to teach you um powerful lessons so you don't have to go through them yourself of. And if there are no lessons, if there are no powerful lessons or anything like that, what have you got?
[1:14:25] Well, you got, hey, random things happen in life. Good job. I'm glad to have watched this show because I already know. Everybody already knows that random things happens in life and you can't do anything to stop the random things from happening. You can minimize your risk, but random things are still going to happen. and.
[1:14:46] If random things happen, art can't help you, other than to remind you, which everybody already knows, that random things happen. So, yeah, there was just quite a lot of random stuff. And, you know, sometimes it would pay off later, but there was just, for me, like, there was just way too much, random stuff that was going on, and I just found it kind of wretched and annoying, if that makes since it was not art from that standpoint. But the actress was so good that they sold it anyway. All right. Anything else? Any other thoughts? I'm glad to have a chance to decompress from this show. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:15:28] It's all right. So I actually looked at a bunch of things, but the time's a bit past now. But actually, what you're just saying about sort of the random things happening.
[1:15:39] There's this movie reviewer, he was ages ago now, I don't think he's doing reviews anymore, confused Matthew. And I can't remember like the series or the sequels he would like review movie or something like that and he would say the like first movie maybe or first season of show establish the characters nail motivations and then you get to like season three or four and there's just these characters doing things there's nothing connecting them together and i think he's talking about stuff no no no unfortunately i don't think he was talking about the sopranos i can't that i can't remember what shows he was talking about but what you were just saying is reminding me of like i think he was talking about shows that happened earlier than sopranos all the sopranos is 99 right that's when it started so maybe it was like contemporary, but this this sense of like you got this character and things just happen and there's no actual you know um uh narrative connection right the connecting narrative right there's just sort of things that random stuff um that sort of reminded me of that guy he also doesn't like the lion king at all but that's a different story um but yeah um there's other things i want to mention uh although i always wonder like when you hear stuff like do we hear that from the movie like a legal thing um just briefly uh you know spouses not being able to testify um it depends obviously but generally speaking if it's a criminal case like if the fbi and cops are going after tony for like murder mcattarian everything else if carmella is not actually doing it.
[1:17:07] She's just benefiting from the proceeds they she can't they can't compel her to testify it's like a privilege actual legal privilege but like if you were if they think about like the the um, I think it's Goodfellas with Ray Liotta, and he and his wife are both trying to hide the drugs and everything. So in that case, I think that if the investigators found that she was actually complicit in trying to hide the crime, then she would actually have to be charged and they could be compelled to testify against each other. I think that comes up in the movie as well.
[1:17:37] Yeah, my understanding is that they can pretty much find their way around it if they want to.
[1:17:42] Yeah, I would imagine so. Like find something that she knew about or hit up or covered up or something like that. they could reasonably assume.
[1:17:48] That she knew about or whatever right.
[1:17:49] Yeah yeah yeah um and on the thing about uh you know uh they don't touch family uh i looked it up because i remembered something from from the godfather 2 and it's only like a couple of things like there's the fredo scene that doesn't really count because that's like it within the mob yeah even though it's his brother um there was a thing the very very beginning where veto as a child is portrayed in italy, and but it's only the boy it's not not a girl um where the the don there kills veto's father, and he wants to kill the son because you know he said he's going to come he's going to grow up and seek vengeance but i think from what i can tell that was the only instance of that so it's sort of artificial and i think it's like they don't go after family in the states because that's just too risky i don't think it's like a code if that makes sense right i mean that that would be my expectation i was assuming that.
[1:18:43] He was just saying that to carmella to calm her down not because it was actually true.
[1:18:47] Yeah yeah yeah it's not like a code or anything it's like look i mean, they're not going to do it because it's just it's just too too much blood you know too obvious whatever right you know it's just like it'll raise all kinds of like it'll just like you know shoot a flare into the air it's like come come find all the murderers you know right right, uh and was there one other thing that was interesting enough for me to mention, oh yeah yeah so behind the scenes if you asked me that's like this question like there's any behind the scenes uh stuff like with the podcast i think.
[1:19:16] At the moment but yeah sorry go ahead.
[1:19:18] Yeah well this is just from grok so i mean maybe there's more that will come out through the podcast, but it looks like you know james gandolfini you know most of it's like showing violence against women there was that was that was the actual objection not like ed falco or um the woman's name is uh uh melphie lorraine bracco yeah um like it's all like they don't like the violence against women not like you know what what am i doing being attracted to the serial killer that that's at least it's not showing up in the thing i saw here so but so when you say.
[1:19:51] They didn't like violence against women i'm not sure what you mean.
[1:19:53] Oh sorry uh so so um out of this one point uh, james gandolfini playing tony soprano uh there was a scene where he picks up his mistress gloria a trillo throwing across the throat across the room yeah that scene uh and he didn't want to do it because he felt it was too brutal huh.
[1:20:12] Yeah that's funny right.
[1:20:13] Yeah yeah um i think and let's see a similar kind of thing uh and most of this other stuff is like the women the way women are predicted depicted in that there's any sort of like violence around them that's sort of i'm gathering from this uh this grok stuff sorry there's violence i'm.
[1:20:34] Sorry i didn't quite catch that.
[1:20:35] I'm sorry i'm not being i'm trying to summarize not being very good at it just go.
[1:20:39] Into details we don't mind.
[1:20:40] Okay yeah sure sure uh so like when melphie got raped um, you know feminist complaints from viewers about specific violent incidents like the murder of the stripper tracy in the season three episode university yeah um and you know season three also employee of the month uh melphie's rape or sylvia's humiliation tracy so wherever wherever women are sort of victimized yeah um there were complaints like externally yeah but um then there's another point here, I'm trying to look at this. Chase, so he's the writer of the show, right?
[1:21:18] Yeah.
[1:21:18] In general, Chase aimed to make audiences confront the unlikeability of the mobsters by escalating the sadism of violence, partly in response to his fans romanticizing them. He expressed frustration as viewers still rooted for Tony and others despite their, quote, deal with the devil, which extends to women who are enabled or are drawn to that lifestyle. There doesn't seem to have been pushback from the network, HBO, or other cast members like Edie Falco and Lorraine Bracco on the attraction means and there's a note here it says bracco even chose the role of melfi over carmella because it resonated with her personal therapy experiences which i assume is related to the thing you mentioned before um with uh i can't remember the guy's name cartel harry cartel yeah yeah so yeah it doesn't seem like uh if there was anything it hasn't been talked about you know women actress.
[1:22:04] Not wanting to do it.
[1:22:05] In terms of the female actor saying what what are we doing being attracted to these to the serial killer like what's what's this about and i seem perfect you know it's like this is not this is not realistic in the slightest yeah right.
[1:22:17] Right wow that's wild that's wild.
[1:22:21] Yeah it is uh.
[1:22:23] It is uh it is it is kind of incomprehensible but you know women do i guess a lot of women do like that stuff.
[1:22:29] Yeah there's also something else that i thought of in terms of anti-christian well anti-christian is also anti-western yeah essentially right yep and i'm sure there's more in the show but one thing i remember because i saw the beam just like just like the other day or something like that uh with in relation to columbus day and you know now columbus day is like you know columbus was genocide the natives and everything else and you know ignorant and brutal and murdering everything else is stupid and that's been going on for a while but of course tony is the one who sticks up for columbus in the show right, And so he's, he's basically, you know, the, the Christian bigot, murderer, whatever, whatever, who stands up for a guy that in the mainstream, at least I think by that point even had been sort of was, was, was vilified. Right.
[1:23:16] Yep. Yeah. And, and, uh, the, the native guy of course is all kinds of nice and, and thoughtful and helpful and all that kind of stuff.
[1:23:24] And I'm not sure what the native guy is. Is that just a, another character?
[1:23:30] Yeah. Yeah. there's a native guy that they're trying to negotiate with about the Columbus Day stuff.
[1:23:39] Ah, okay, okay, it's the same, it's been such a long time for me, so.
[1:23:42] Yeah, but yeah, he's all kinds of wonderful and nice and thoughtful and good and all that kind of stuff.
[1:23:48] Yeah, of course, of course. Even the Jewish characters are not morally great in the show, right? So Christian characters, Jewish characters, are put in a battle.
[1:24:00] The funny thing about the Jewish guy is, you know, he's got no problem with the murder, but if you have any issue with the Holocaust, man, you are, you are beyond the pale.
[1:24:10] That's true, yeah.
[1:24:11] You know, which is wild. I mean, in terms of like moral hierarchy, but yeah. So, sorry, is there anything else, James, that you sort of mentioned? I'm sort of happy to hear what other people have said about it.
[1:24:24] Uh i don't think so it's just the only other thing that came to mind uh that i want to mention was um the priest uh being basically you know happy with well so actually i don't remember what you said about it now sorry um oh giving all this money and so no one confronts him you know no one confronts the evil that's going on like why would why would they just say hey kick this guy out of the congregation uh just thinking about you know this is a personal note And obviously not on the same scale remotely, but my father not being a particularly good man, but, you know, influential in the church.
[1:25:00] Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I do wonder about that kind of stuff, which is, is it tough for the church? Because, you know, this guy is so violent and so dangerous that, you know, if they try to do anything to control him that, you know, bad things are going to happen. I don't know. Like are they are they also worried about being in danger with this kind of stuff as well.
[1:25:24] Yeah don't know don't know yeah and i want to be really clear my father's not a mobster right but you know like like he would take his money and go or maybe he needs to say something nasty about the church and that's they wouldn't even stand up to that.
[1:25:36] You know right and.
[1:25:37] This i mean obviously a mobster is like real threat and you know everything else so yeah just struck me when you were talking about that earlier i don't have anything else thank you.
[1:25:46] All right anybody else i mean i'm glad to have watched it and i thought it was very interesting but, holy crap um i definitely saw a whole bunch of stuff that uh uh seemed uh that i don't think i would have seen before so i'm kind of glad that i waited now now the other question is of course the other thing which you hear all of this stuff about is uh breaking bad which i've i think i've watch one or two of those episodes. And again, I just found it sort of a bit too grim to sort of enjoy. But what do you guys think of that?
[1:26:19] Breaking Bad?
[1:26:20] Yeah.
[1:26:21] I mean, yeah, it's a very similar kind of concept. Yeah.
[1:26:26] I think you asked that, right?
[1:26:27] Yeah, very similar. And I think you brought up something earlier about the woman, the female characters being unlikable. And I think in Breaking Bad, the main, the main, the wife of Walter White, she's like very famous for being unlikable, but because she kind of, goes against him uh you know but not really like in a very moral way like bringing him to the police but like in a very like uh like bitchy pouty way she kind of goes against him right and then she's like so it's like she's kind of like a very famous unlikable uh wife character no that's good to know that's good.
[1:27:12] To know might be interesting from that standpoint.
[1:27:15] Yeah, but I kind of... Go ahead, sorry. And yeah, I'll just be quick with this. But I think at the end, she kind of like warms up to it and then she gets a little more likable.
[1:27:24] Sort of warms up to what?
[1:27:25] Like warms up to like the evil of her husband. Like she starts helping him.
[1:27:29] But doesn't he start because he can't afford healthcare or something like that?
[1:27:35] Yeah, and then he gets like an insane amount of money, right? Where that's like not even a thing anymore in the show. And then, yeah. Go ahead, James, sir. Well, I mean, it's not revealed early on. It's revealed later in the show. Well, I don't want to give too many spoilers, but Stef, if you really wanted to give it a watch. But essentially, he has access to money at some point. It's like he turns it down out of some kind of pride, which is kind of wild. Yeah. So he goes into doing the meth business because reasons. But no, the thing I want to mention about Skylar, the wife of Walter White in the show, So she's not, yeah, she's portrayed as kind of like a basic dissatisfied wife who doesn't really respect her husband. It's not out of any kind of like moral thing that she doesn't like him. And that's, I think, is why people find her kind of like, she plays it really well. Like a really unlikable woman who's just parentally dissatisfied. But of course, she's baffled by all the things that he starts doing that are criminal and increasingly criminal. But it's not because she knows and after some point she finds out and then she's.
[1:28:46] As uh as the other fella mentioned um yeah i've watched that show through it's it's quite a violent show and i don't think there's any really you get invested in the walter white character like you probably let people get invested in tony because there's really not much to actually like about him yeah like he's not a desperate.
[1:29:08] Guy who's you know doing the best he can with a horribly difficult situation or anything like that.
[1:29:12] Oh he turns to death and it's poisonous you know it's destructive he knows exactly how bad it is when he does it right you know, and he works with like really horrible murdering people he knows how horrible murdering and dangerous these people are and he becomes there's.
[1:29:31] Not any particular religion in it right.
[1:29:33] Yeah that's the big difference i think i don't like i could be i could be not remembering but i don't believe there's any maybe there's like church adjacent but yeah the family's not religious they don't go to church people correct me if I'm wrong in this but they don't go to church there's no priests that I can recall as major characters, maybe maybe a little bit of like religious symbolism here and there because they're dealing a lot with Mexicans but not really outside of that much, I mean it's in Arizona so of course they're going to be very close to the border the.
[1:30:05] Whole Sopranos thing is kind.
[1:30:06] Of pessimistic because.
[1:30:07] It's like the church can't help you and neither can therapy.
[1:30:12] And neither.
[1:30:13] Can neither can the government because they're just taking they're on the take right.
[1:30:18] And from Breaking Bad neither can your friends you know I mean granted it's Walter White that turns down the money but yeah he rejects his help from his friends as well, i think i don't know i mean i guess they're friends but then walter white i mean more spoilers like they they had like a like a chemical startup or something with his friends and he felt like they like took him out of that startup and so walter white feels like he lost out, a lot of money i don't know because he wants to raise a family i forgot the reason why he felt shut out of the whole like startup that their friends got super rich and he didn't I first forgot that whole angle. Yeah, I don't remember the way that proceeded, but that's roughly the rough shape of it. But yeah.
[1:31:05] Okay. All right. Well, I'll think about that. I'm glad I watched it. It is a little bit frustrating to me to see, you know, with that level of talent and they still can't deal with the sort of main central issues. But of course, you know, I mean, everything that gets made gets made for a reason. I think that's sort of the point that I'm trying to make, that everything that gets made, gets made for a reason. And why did this get made? And if they had taken my advice, would it have gotten made? And the answer is, no, it would not have gotten made. So, you know, they're certainly wiser than me, in a way, in terms of knowing what can get made or what should get made and what compromises that you have to make in order to get something made, if that makes sense.
[1:31:54] And so stefan i was like as a summary just sum it up like why do you think like it got made like the show or.
[1:31:59] Oh it got made because it's nihilistic and because it's uh it gives people despair and basically it's the guy spreading depression and spreading cynicism about i mean if it was sort of a um a goodwill hunting thing the goodwill hunting doesn't have religion in it but at least the therapy works, So in this show, there is no answer. And you cannot solve these kinds of things. And I think that is very much a depressed viewpoint, right? So I think it got made because it is anti-Christian. I think it got made because it gives people despair.
[1:32:41] And I think it got made because also it was, you know, fantastic meat and potatoes for the actors. I mean, again, it's sort of commonplace to say that it really is just incredible what was going on as far as the acting went in that show.
[1:32:58] They did. They did. And I'm always sort of impressed with actors who play it kind of calm or play it kind of suppressed. And then, you know, they go full hog. You know, I always find that quite impressive. So AJ, you know, played this guy who barely had any thoughts or feelings to string together. And I sort of noticed this when there's, again, there's the bear. A bear shows up. Why? Why does the bear show up? And then the bear is gone. And what does it matter? What happened? for what reason what was the purpose of any of that nobody knows it's impossible to know um but aj of course uh plays this kind of you know dead and unemotional guy and uh i remember noticing it when the bear showed up uh that uh uh he he was quite passionate or quite he was quite powerful and passionate about the bear thing he actually had some really good acting going on there and um Um.
[1:33:54] But, uh, the bear shows up and then the bear, the bear goes. And what does any of it mean? Nobody knows. Uh, there's, there's, I thought, oh, the bear is Tony here. You know what I mean? Like, oh, uh, Dr. Melfi, I thought that was going to be a whole thing. Like Dr. Melfi, oh, well, she got, um, uh, she got raped. And the reason why That matters is because Tony is going to be the only person She can turn to to deal with the rapist.
[1:34:27] Right. When, when there's the, the guy who's preying on the girls, the, uh, what is he? A, uh, he's, um, a soccer coach and he's dating one of the girls. Right. And the Artie, Artie is the name of the restaurateur. So Artie's like, you know, I was going to get out and I was going to talk to the guy and I was going to beat him up. And it's like, and then Tony says, but you didn't, but you didn't and so you know that there is that sort of argument that only the thugs only evil knows how to deal with evil and you know i mean it's it's not the most, original or brilliant sort of thing but at least there's something there and i thought that the melfi thing was going to be like he was going to find out that she got raped and tony was going to be the guy who dealt with the rapist because the police she tried talking to the police and the police didn't work and the police didn't make it work and so tony was gonna and then she was gonna be like wow you know tony is is kind of a good guy in a way he's doing some things that are helpful you know like again not the most scintillating or exciting um artistic choice but you know at least it's something at least it's something and uh that didn't happen yeah you know it just it just vanished just nothing happened from it that i remember maybe there was something that i don't remember but i just uh it was nothing sorry james you're gonna say.
[1:35:48] I was just going to say, yeah, I remember waiting for that and seeing, and I think there were even scenes depicting her sort of struggling, you know, do I tell this, tell Tony because he's going to take care of it, you know, he's going to make sure this guy doesn't rape anyone again, right? At least that much, right?
[1:36:04] Yeah.
[1:36:04] And it just fizzled.
[1:36:06] Yeah.
[1:36:07] Nothing.
[1:36:08] And so I don't know what the point, but again, you know, Dr. Melfi plays this, you know, very cool, calm and collected woman. The rape scene, I can't watch it. Like, it's just, it's too brutal. But, you know, I heard some of the sort of shrieking and all of that. And, you know, it was, I mean, she really did go full hog. And that is, to me, that's quite impressive. Because some actors are that way, because they can't do anything sort of more powerful. But she uh you know she just really went full hog into that scene and you know you could sort of feel the the horror and the agony and all of that and um i found that uh quite impressive that she had that kind of range to play this very sort of cloistered and controlled character and then to uh to really let rip in that kind of way i was to me quite quite impressive because it's like you know it's like the actors who can do both tragedy and comedy you know like this not that common and it's really cool when they can do that.
[1:37:06] Yeah yeah so uh one thing i'll say about breaking bad in contrast to uh the sort of this randomness of um uh of the sopranos the breaking bad doesn't feel random.
[1:37:20] Oh yeah oh that's good yeah.
[1:37:22] I don't think so i mean someone someone else would think about it do you think anything was really random i think everything was strung together, It's all nihilistic and evil, I think, but it's still like the story hangs together as far as I can recall.
[1:37:38] Well, that's good. That's good.
[1:37:40] Yeah, I guess that's good.
[1:37:42] That's good. Yeah, I mean, I don't mind a brutal morality tale. I mean, I was in the play King Lear, which is a very brutal morality tale. So I don't mind a brutal morality tale, but I just have to have it hang together. And uh this was kind of this weird combination of mafia movie and average 30 something kind of drama and uh i don't think it worked too well and uh it um but again you know what can i say they get their stuff made and i don't so you know it's all well and good for me to say well but but but and it's like well but they're getting their stuff made and my stuff is available on kindle right so it's it's sort of hard to say i i guess what i'm trying to say is i would like to live in a world where you could actually have shows about a female evil and that would be uh that would be cool but i don't imagine the women are wonderful phenomenon is just too strong.
[1:38:41] And after i say that i think about things i'm like maybe i'm wrong about so there's some random stuff in there anyways go on please i was gonna say i don't know just like it won't be a positive comment like maybe grok i think what you almost is talking about grok making movies right so you never know stuff oh.
[1:38:58] Yeah no i i think at some point uh the ai will be able to like you'll just put us put a novel into a um you'll put a novel into the ai and it'll make the movie for you like honestly and you can even choose who do you want like who do you want to style the main actors after you know i'm absolutely sure that's going to happen so uh it's just a matter of being of being patient.
[1:39:16] I already know who should pay i know who should play peter uh.
[1:39:22] Oh you mean in um in dissolution.
[1:39:25] Yeah yeah well at least at least the image i had in my head uh i can't remember the guy's name um i posted a picture of him in in our server oh yes that's.
[1:39:33] Right that's right I can't.
[1:39:34] Remember them either.
[1:39:35] But I now know too many actors for any of this to hang together in my mind.
[1:39:42] It took me ages to find out. He's a guy from the Bourne Identity.
[1:39:46] Right, right.
[1:39:46] You know, the conspiratorial, like, you know, shadowy guy.
[1:39:51] Yeah, yeah. All right. Any other questions, comments, issues? Is this interesting, worthwhile doing? I mean, I'm happy to watch more shows and we can do a Breaking Bad one if you think it's worthwhile. Well, for me, you know, there's only a certain amount of philosophy I can do every day. And then I need to let my brain cool. And art is not the worst way to have that happen.
[1:40:12] Are you interested in more mob stuff, or are you done with mob stuff?
[1:40:15] I think I might be done with mob stuff for a little while. I might be mobbed out.
[1:40:20] Because I think, I mean, I don't know, this is just a random comment, but you're talking about the inside job type thing of somebody learns the tactics and then they use it against anything. That kind of just reminded me of the mob movie, The Departed. Have you seen that?
[1:40:37] Oh, no, I haven't seen that. It's one of these movies, I mean, I'm a big Jack Nicholson fan, of course, And it's one of these movies that I've always felt it's important to watch or I should watch. The cast is pretty spectacular, but I just never have for some reason. And would you recommend it as something worth watching?
[1:40:57] I mean, I barely remember it. I was like, I probably watched it at way too young of an age, right?
[1:41:05] The trauma.
[1:41:07] Yeah. I don't remember too much about it, but yeah. I heard good things about the movie like a really high you know critics ratings and all that stuff and create like a really crazy cast right so.
[1:41:18] Oh yeah maybe something you might.
[1:41:20] Want to check out but you might be tapped out on the mob stuff I think it's the Irish mob that would not be Italian mob it's.
[1:41:26] Irish mob yeah yeah Irish mob right right okay I will I will check that out I'm always a big fan of Jack Nicholson as a really really obviously great actor I always remember him talking about A Few Good Men, because he played that you know you can't handle the truth guy and i just remember the director uh saying you know oh we gotta we gotta do a couple of takes for lighting so you know don't don't don't uh don't give too much right keep something and he like every single time uh he did like the most amazing takes right and the guy's like you don't need to do the great take like save it for uh for the final take and he's like you don't understand i just love acting you know so he just keeps doing it and so he just loves acting and you guys you can really see that.
[1:42:13] So, yeah, I will check out The Departed. I don't know why I've never seen it. But, yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, I think like everyone, there's just a bunch of movies that for some reason you've never seen that you're not exactly sure why. So, yeah, I'll check that out. Thank you for the suggestion. Yeah, because it's been a while since I've done sort of these kind of movie reviews or these kinds of show reviews. And I wanted to be able to talk about some slightly spicier stuff here. So, I'm glad that we had a chance to talk about it without the gen public being around. All right. Any other thoughts, suggestions could be anything, any other suggestions you might have about the show or anything that I'm doing or anything I could do better or differently or anything like that.
[1:42:52] I'm always keen to get feedback if there's feedback to be had.
[1:42:58] The solution is great.
[1:43:00] Are you enjoying it? Tell me what you think.
[1:43:02] No, yeah, it's great. I mean, it's really got me thinking about my own life too, which I guess is maybe the purpose of your art, right? It's just like, hey, what decisions am I making daily? And like, what, you know, it's just really, it's really showing, I think it's really coming up, showing what your intention of like these decisions here are leading to. I mean, you could kind of see what's going to happen with Helen and, uh, and her and her husband for goodness.
[1:43:30] Oh robert yeah yeah robert.
[1:43:31] Yeah helen and robbie right uh you could kind of see where it's gonna go like and like the decision he made of moving from like a good woman to a woman just based off looking so yeah that's it's really it's really.
[1:43:42] Good lord knows i think we've all made uh i think a lot of us i shouldn't say everyone i've certainly made that mistake and so yeah i speak as as usual with great humility and and uh all of that because uh, yeah i almost got married to the wrong woman and it wasn't entirely based on looks but it's based on a variety of things but uh yeah it's uh it's definitely risky so i'm glad that you're enjoying it because that certainly was i was originally going to have it go in reverse but um it felt too complicated right it felt too too messy to try and do it that way if that makes sense.
[1:44:14] Sure no yeah i was thinking about that yeah i remember you talking about this when you were first uh you know bringing it up that was going to be like some type of in reverse uh concept But still, it's still coming out great.
[1:44:25] I mean, what I could do is just reverse all the chapters when I'm done. No, it's an artistic choice. But now it's recorded, so I can't. Well, good. I'm glad you're liking it because I did try some new stuff in the book. I'm really trying to just make it as both artistic and as naturalistic as humanly possible, if that makes any sense.
[1:44:46] Yeah, no, it's very...
[1:44:47] I want to get that documentary feel. All right. Anything else people would like to mention or bring up? All right. Well, listen, guys, thank you so much, of course. And of course, a massive thank you for your support of the show. I'm very glad that we can have these kinds of chats and I look forward to the next one. And I really do appreciate that. And hopefully I didn't get too many characters names wrong. All right, guys. I'll talk to you for a night. Thanks, Emil. Bye.
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