The Wire, Deadwood, Sopranos and West Wing

[B]

Breaking Bad can ask my butthurt and is not to be discussed in this thread thanks.

Hi guys, new to the thread. What does "ask my butthurt" mean?

[Jorge]

Watched the Melfi gets raped episode last night. Found it way over the top and unnecessary, like they were trying to be edgy or something.

I get wanting to set up the moral dilemma she has to make at the end of the episode, but that could have been done in any number of ways.

Like how?

[The Argonaut]

Instead of being raped, perhaps she could have been murdered.

[Norah]

Watched the Melfi gets raped episode last night. Found it way over the top and unnecessary, like they were trying to be edgy or something.

I get wanting to set up the moral dilemma she has to make at the end of the episode, but that could have been done in any number of ways.

Like how?

just a slower build where she realizes that she has the option to ask tony for help fixing something, maybe her son gets in trouble or something, i dont know

it didn't need to be this

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Norah]

Watched the Melfi gets raped episode last night. Found it way over the top and unnecessary, like they were trying to be edgy or something.

I get wanting to set up the moral dilemma she has to make at the end of the episode, but that could have been done in any number of ways.

Like how?

just a slower build where she realizes that she has the option to ask tony for help fixing something, maybe her son gets in trouble or something, i dont know

it didn't need to be this

I think it had to be high stakes to really make her consider it. I don't think her son getting busted for truancy would really make her question her ethics.

that's why i said it could be done over time, with the pressure ramping up over the course of a season instead of just one big thing in one episode

i get the stakes needed to be high, but this was so over the top and out of left field that it felt gratuitous

[Jorge]

I still don't understand what was over the top about it. That there was a rape? Like rapes don't happen in life, let alone in The Sopranos of all shows?

It needed to be a visceral ordeal that cut to the core of Melfi's humanity, as well as her relationship with Tony. I think the episode pulls it off really well. But maybe it's time for another rewatch

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[The Argonaut]

It might have worked better as a season arc than as a single episode. TV then was much more focused on the single episode. The Sopranos more than any other show broke TV of that tendency, but even The Sopranos in the first couple seasons couldn't escape it entirely.

[Mecca]

I still don't understand what was over the top about it. That there was a rape? Like rapes don't happen in life, let alone in The Sopranos of all shows?

It needed to be a visceral ordeal that cut to the core of Melfi's humanity, as well as her relationship with Tony. I think the episode pulls it off really well. But maybe it's time for another rewatch

I think it also carries a lot of emotional weight because Melfi was one of the few people who could hold power over Tony and she found herself powerless.

Watching a depiction of rape should make a person uneasy, though and maybe that’s the core of thinking it could’ve been anything else.

[Norah]

Season 3 is getting very good in the second half, and this show is legit laugh out loud funny at points.

The back and forth between AJ and his parents when he didn't know what gutters were was hilarious.

[Jorge]

Yeah, it's an extremely funny show.

[Jorge]

Little Carmine is my favorite character for laughs

[Norah]

The news report of Janice getting arrested at the soccer game is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Maybe she should, Carl.

[Norah]

Finished season 5 last night. It's my favorite so far, they really seem to elevate so many little things about the show this season when it comes to the art of television. The tone, the colors, the symbols, all really round these episodes out more than they had in the past. Some of my favorite parts of the series in terms of the story itself are probably in the back half of seasons 3 and 4, but season 5 is just a beautiful complete work of art and I loved it.

Two complaints about season 5. Tony B getting shot in the face by Tony S would have been much more impactful if Tony B hadn't been this season's new guy that Tony had to deal with, and had been with us from the beginning instead. I also didn't like how the New York war was just resolved all of a sudden off screen, that needed more I think. But I'm really nitpicking with these.

[Norah]

The final shot of the season, with Tony emerging from the woods to be let into the house by Carmella. It's the perfect ending to this season, symbolically. It leaves you with the sense that none of this can end well, everyone is too far gone, and probably has been for some time. Carmella let the bear into the house, there's no other way.

[Jorge]

[CopperTom]

I watched The Sopranos for the first time earlier this year. 6/10. Very disappointed. Season 1 was awful. The last 2 seasons were good. Tony Soprano, a fat, ugly, bald, unintelligent, obnoxious man, is not a sex symbol.

[Jorge]

Oh man, the guy has a huge female following. I don't know any woman who has watched The Sopranos and not come away having a crush on him