The Big Picture - Top Five ‘Sopranos’ Episodes and ‘The Many Saints of Newark’ With David Chase

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

This weekend sees the release in theaters and streaming on HBO Max of ‘The Many Saints of Newark,’ a film prequel to David Chase’s medium-altering TV series. Justin Sayles, The Ringer’s resident Sopranosologist, joins the show to discuss the movie and his deep dive on every single episode in show history, including his top five picks (35:30). Then, ‘Sopranos’ creator and ‘Many Saints’ cowriter and producer Chase joins Sean to talk about the movie, his relationship to the show now, and a lot more (1:17:39). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Justin Sayles and David Chase Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer's Charles Holmes and co-host Grace Spellman present the most notorious new podcast in the industry, The Ringer Music Show. Every Tuesday, they'll bring you the latest news, the hottest takes, and the deepest reporting about the wild world of music and the chaotic industry that creates it. Check out The Ringer Music Show exclusively on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about The Sopranos, which I know what you're thinking. That's a TV show.

Until now. This weekend sees the release in theaters and streaming on HBO Max of The Many Saints of Newark, a film prequel to David Chase's medium-altering TV series. And to talk about the movie, David Chase himself, Chase co-wrote and produced the film. We talked about the movie, his relationship to the show now, and a lot more. He is, of course, one of the great film and TV minds of the past 50 years, so I hope you'll

stick around for our conversation. But first, let's talk Many Saints with The Ringer's resident sopranologist, senior editor Justin Sales. Justin has just ranked and deep dived on every single episode and show history. Before we get into everything, Justin, how the hell did you do that and how are you feeling now? Well, I did it in a way that my girlfriend is about ready to end the relationship. A lot of nights and weekends, a lot of, okay, I'm off work. What are we watching tonight? And she's like, oh, I was thinking maybe we could watch this St. Vincent movie. And I'm like, actually, we need to watch the last two episodes of season 6A. How romantic. Yeah, it's great. So she was very, very generous with her time. And I'm very appreciative.

However, it was a lot to tear through so quickly. I started back in July and I watched all 86 episodes. And as anybody who has watched the series knows, it can be a very heavy series at times. So 86 episodes in about 80 days was a lot. That is intense, as is writing about every single episode of the show. We're going to talk about our favorite episodes of the show. It will be no mystery

to anybody who's read your Magnum Opus what your favorites are because you can just look at five through one and figure out where you're going. But I want to give you a chance to talk about those episodes

a little bit. And I want to talk about them too because for me, The Sopranos is not just the, you know, medium altering TV series that I mentioned. It's also the best TV series of all time. I think it is literally the high watermark of this whole form.

I think it's fascinating that Chase has such a conflicted relationship with his masterpiece and the fact that it is a TV show and not a film. But he got a chance to make a film, at least in part. Originally, Chase was going to be the director of this movie, and then some personal issues came up, and he was no longer able to direct it. So the frequent Sopranos director, Alan Taylor, came in, and he directed the movie. Chase co-wrote it with Lawrence Conner, someone he's collaborated with in the past as well. And so we get this movie that is kind of odd, in a way.

And I'll say up top, I really liked it. And there were a lot of things about it that i thought worked really well it is not at all what i was expecting when i when you hear a soprano story or however the film is being marketed in brief here's what the story is about it's seems like it's going to be a young anthony soprano story kind of moving his way through his teenage years we see the Newark through his eyes. We see a changing suburban New Jersey landscape and an organized crime landscape.

And the film very quickly pivots away from that. And it ultimately becomes a story about Dickie Moltisanti, his uncle that he idolizes, who is kind of struggling to manage essentially his organized crime life, his family life, obviously a callback there to the essence of The Sopranos TV show. And the relationship ultimately that Tony and Dickie have and the way that that sets us apace on The Sopranos story writ large. This is very much a period piece.

It's also a love story. It's also a story about race in America and race in cities in the 1960s. It's a big, broad palette. And The Sopranos was always unshy about taking on big themes and heavy literary concepts. And I think this film in many ways speaks to that. It also speaks to the fandom of the show quite a bit, which I think you and I were both surprised by. So let's just start in general, The Many Saints of Newark. What'd you think of the film? I enjoyed it. I think my expectation going in of Newark. What'd you think of the film? I enjoyed it. I think my expectation going in is that it would feel like an installment of the show,

you know, perhaps a two hour version. But ultimately it feels different. And I think that's what viewers have to wrap their head around going in. They have to prepare themselves for something that's not going to necessarily feel like the show. Like over the course of 86 hours, you plumb the depths of Tony's psyche in the show. You know, we spent so many hours in therapy. And so much of what worked about The Sopranos was the pace. It was a lot of time spent with secondary and tertiary characters. It was a lot of one of the things I noticed on this rewatch, which which by the way, I didn't say up top was my seventh. Um, the, the face acting on the Sopranos

was, is among the best I've ever seen. Like so much of the acting on that show is people just reacting with their faces to other things. Right. But it's those small subtle moments that i think really make up the series in a movie you can't necessarily do that it's two hours there's a lot going on here it covers about five years from the 1960s to the 1970s as you said it discusses um it attack it tries to tackle race at that time um it dickie moltisanti A-plot, but the secondary story is kind of the miseducation of Tony Soprano. There's a lot going on here, and it's difficult to put that all in a two-hour block while also having it feel like The Sopranos. Yeah, I think if it had been a more contained story over the course of three days,

you might have been able to capture some of what you're pointing out that is so great about the show, is that the show is a simmering pot. It's always at its best when it's kind of just starting to boil over and it takes hours and you've got the meat very slowly cooking on the pot. And a film like this is about propulsion and pushing the story forward and getting resolution and also serving fans and their expectations to remind us of the figures that we love from the show and also taking on, like you said, these big concepts around Newark and what was going on in America sort of during

the civil rights era and during this kind of like awakening, I think, for a lot of young Americans and using Tony and Dickie and the Moltisanti family and the Soprano family as a prism through which to see a lot of those experiences. It also does something interesting in terms of telling the story. As fans of the Sopranos know, the figures from this era, I would say, specifically Johnny Boy Soprano or Junior Soprano, we saw on the show. They actually did do flashbacks to those periods in time. Livia Soprano, we saw on the show. They actually did do flashbacks to those periods in time. Livia Soprano, we saw in the Sopranos series. And in some cases in this story, they're recreating moments that we already saw on the show, which I thought was kind of a

fascinating choice. I actually felt as I revisited the Sopranos TV show, the film actually did some of that work in a more clear way, but it had me questioning what was really happening. What was the real way that some of these things went down? I assume that you flagged that as well as you were watching the movie. Yeah. There was one story, and I don't know how much we want to say, but there's one story that gets told from Janice and Tony in season six that then takes place in the movie. But some of the characters who were there are much different. And I was wondering how much of that is, is it, was that a,

was that a slip up or was that as chase loves to say that these characters are all liars, right? Like not, nobody's a narrowable and reliable narrator in this universe. So I don't know. Like I personally didn't feel like that broke from Sopranos lore, but it was interesting to see that.

And I think one incident you're referencing, there's a flashback that happens in season one on the show that is actually filmed for many saints right there's we see it take place in many saints just from a different viewpoint slightly yes and and it's interesting to see it that way and i guess it tells us a little bit about the differences between many saints and what the point of many saints is i i i'm still trying to wrap my head around what the point is specifically you know and on the one hand obviously we live in the age of IP and anything that has had a little bit of success at the outset within the last 50 years is eligible to be remade, reborn, reimagined, relaunched. And on the other hand, The Sopranos is such a sacred text. It's such a special, special piece of popular culture that I think it would make some people queasy to imagine

revisiting these stories. I'm kind of thinking about this movie as a different project entirely. I was thinking of it, and I spoke with Chase about this just a little, but Not Fade Away was a film that Chase made in 2013, I want to say, perhaps 2012. And it was a realization of a kind of a thing he wanted to do for a long time. As I mentioned, he had wanted to be a filmmaker for many years and has this kind of fraught relationship with TV. Not Fade Away did not get a massive release and was, you know, there was some critical admiration, but it was not a big hit at the box office. But it happens at a kind of a similar time as this story in The Sopranos. It's a story set in the 60s. It's a coming of age story. It's about people kind of realizing what time as this story in the Sopranos. It's a story set in the 60s. It's a

coming of age story. It's about people kind of realizing what their destinies are, whether that be in a life of crime or as a musician, whether that be in staying in New Jersey for the rest of your life, or perhaps adventuring to the West coast of California. Are you a Not Fade Away fan? Do you see a relationship between these two projects? It's been a while since I've seen it. I saw it when it came out. I did not manage to sneak that in in the midst of my rewatch. I did enjoy the movie, but I did. I did feel like this was kind of a piece of that because part of the reason Chase wanted to tell the story, I believe, and I'm just cleaning this from interviews, was that this was the era that he grew up in. And he just he felt a need to go back and tell a story set in

this era. And Not Fade Away is also set around the same time. So I did see a connection there, and I do think that this is probably a little more of chase in the storytelling. Let's talk a little bit about the characters that we spend a lot of time with in Many Saints. So Alessandro Nivola, who's quite a good actor and who hasn't maybe not had as high profile a role as this in a long, long time, plays Dickie Moltisanti. Dickie Moltisanti, I think for many Sopranos fans, is one of the more mythic figures. He's someone that we hear about and we hear about how he may or may not have died. We hear stories about him. Obviously, he looms large in the Christopher Moltisanti story. What did you think about positioning him at the center of the movie? What do you think about Nivola?

How did you feel about how they handled Dickie altogether? I thought Nivola was great. I think he was one of the two best performances, three best performances. But I think he worked as a center. I think that the choice to go with him was smart because it was kind of going with a blank canvas in some ways um we only knew small things about dickie moltisanti and those came from christopher and tony's mouths and i would argue that if we were to take the movie as like canonical text for Dickie Moltisanti, some of the things that were said about him in the series are not actually true.

But I thought it was a smart decision. I thought he did a great job. I did think at times the character didn't necessarily feel much more than the generic gangster right like i did feel that there was maybe not as much meat on the bones there for the character as there potentially could have been and i don't know if that's because he's supposed to be kind of the avatar for this world and that we're supposed to see him as that but i found myself wanting a little bit more out of the character and that's to say nothing of nivola's performance which i thought was excellent yeah that's an interesting way to think about it i feel like it's not necessarily a flaw but it's a it's a

an aspect of many saints that it's a period piece and so it is by nature derived from memory or reimagining what history was like as opposed to the Sopranos, which is, you know, a modern story. And so if you're rendering Polly Walnuts or you're rendering Silvio or Tony, these are people living in real time. So their quirks, their senses of humor,

their foibles, their frailties, their vulnerabilities, their, their, their evil, you know, all of that stuff feels more real because it feels like it's happening in a world

that we understand. So invariably, when you tell an old school gangster movie, you kind of just feel like you're watching a little bit of an old school gangster movie. Some of that is like costuming and the production design and some of the musical choices that Chase and Taylor make. But I think that that's one thing that I think could potentially be held against it. On the other hand, I would say there's an interesting, there's two interesting figures who are cast in this movie. The first is one that has been much bandied about, which is Michael Gandolfini,

who is of course the late James Gandolfini's son who, and he is playing young Tony. This is a huge burden, obviously on Michael Gandolfini. He at times is eerily resembling of his father right and same facial expressions yes yes the way he'll just sort of like you know close one eye a little bit more than the other or the way he'll his body language will kind of like slink back and become like almost like a like a full body grimace you know the tilt of the head yes he has so many things that work in his favor on the other hand i would say he doesn't have the kind of like

brutish, heavy breathing, almost like this sort of like air of violence that I think Tony carried with him. And, you know, they try to put some of that on him as the film develops and show us where he's going. It works in some respects as he's more childlike, but it's a big burden for him. On the other hand, you've also got Ray Liotta, who is a,

you know, a historic gangster movie figure. He's of course, Henry Hill from Goodfellas. And he's someone who was thought to be a potentially a part of the Sopranos and never was ultimately cast on the Sopranos. We talked about that a little bit. He was,

he could have been Ralph, which I would, I would say that I'm glad that he was not Ralph. I, yeah. Joey pants is unbelievable as Ralph, but I would say that I'm glad that he was not Ralph. I swear to God, yeah. Joey Pants is unbelievable as Ralph. But nevertheless, Ray Liotta, I don't want to spoil anything about the parts that he plays. But I would say that his work in the film was the big subversion for me.

That was the thing that I thought kind of like separated and differentiated without ruining it for people who are going to experience the movie. What did you make of Liotta in this film? it was not what i expected going in i'll say that much um i thought he was great and to be able to do the work that he did um which is very varied i'll just put it that way over the course of the two hours um watching watching us dance around this is this i know this is spoiler free territory we're doing our best here folks I found that to be one of the biggest revelations of the movie the that was the moment that was kind of like oh okay and I don't know that might not be good podcasting to just put that out we're intriguing people we're intriguing people so if you're listening and

you haven't seen the film you know maybe we'll get a chance to talk about it again in the future there are also there's like a whole slew of other people here that we see in the film vera farmiga i think gives kind of an alarmingly accurate uh livia soprano um impersonation slash performance as as young livia she i mean she clearly studied nancy marshand and and she kind of nails it pretty much i mean mean, down to the nose, the prosthetic nose is working really well in the movie. And Corey Stahl comes in as Corrado Jr. Soprano. I think he has actually weirdly

the biggest burden beyond Michael Gandolfini because Dominic Cine is so good as Junior. And we'll talk more about Junior as we go along. But then there's a whole bunch of other people. Jon Bernthal plays Johnny Boy Soprano, looking significantly more dapper than the man who played him in the Soprano series, I would say. Billy Magnuson, shockingly, doing a Pauly Walnuts performance. John Magaro, who of course was the star of Not Fade Away, is Silvio Dante. Samson Mocchiola is Salvatore Big Pussy Pompadcer Sarah. So, you know,

the gang is there sort of, I want to use that as an opportunity to talk a little bit about some of like the fan service aspects of the story. The, the movie actually in a, in a strange way, kind of lost me when it was trying to be about the Sopranos TV show. And that goes all the way up to the opening moments of the film.

When we hear a voice from the Sopranos story. Yes. How did you feel about the way that the film kind of spoke to the show? When we hear the voice from the Sopranos, the TV show at the beginning, it was actually kind of, it was just, on one sense, it was kind of shocking because that was something, the show would never use voiceover narration. Like it did it in the pilot, it used the Melfi therapy sessions as voiceover narration, but then never did it again. And here the movie is opening with that. It was a rather unexpected character.

Um, it was a bit shocking, but also kind of comforting because it signaled to me that this was going to be a different thing, right? That I didn't, that i could choose to view this as a standalone product however it doesn't really fully work unless you are versed in the sopranos right like there are just so many callbacks to the series and some i think are very rewarding right like there's i'm gonna i'm gonna give a small one if that's okay can i get a small one absolutely if that's okay. Can I get a small one? Absolutely. The black crow with the Maltesanti family, I think is a great small Easter egg callback to the series. Callback to the episode where the bird is sort of sitting on the window sill. Yes.

Sorry. Yes. The episode where Christopher is made and he looks out the window and sees a black crow sitting there staring at him. Fantastic moment. which is exactly the that's exactly how i felt when i got the call for this podcast i looked out my window and saw saw a black crow um i believe that that christopher asks adriana if that's a sign of his impending doom so i hope that's not how you really felt no we'll see um some of the more direct ones some of the more overt ones like quotes from the series

making in there they felt a little forced to me um i think it's going to make a portion of the audience very happy to hear some of those right like the people who maybe watched it when it was on the air or they watched it you know know, a few years later and they've may see some memes about it recently. And their only interaction with it was whenever they did it, the people who haven't rewatched it seven times or written 30,000 words, the people who, you know, who don't host one of the many Sopranos podcasts that exist right now, like that will listen to them. Um, those people will be happy to hear some of these quotes surface in the movie.

As someone who has spent a lot of time in that world, they felt a little forced at times. Yeah, I wonder about that push-pull, because it's a factor in all of the Sopranos kind of history and coverage and fandom and its explosive launch in 99 and the way that it has grown over time i think that there's a perception like there are two kinds of sopranos fans right there is

the the anxiety of the person who is only watching the show for the big kill the big mafia moment rooting hard for tony despite him having such monstrous qualities and then there is the you know the perception of the more literate, sophisticated, prestige TV watcher who's looking for the literary references and who's looking to, like you said, plumb the depths of Tony's psyche and understand how our American culture has become more violent and more crude. And it's all about a lost and perhaps impossible nostalgia, blah, blah, blah. I think the truth is that most fans are both of those things. Yes, absolutely.

I was going to say that. You can be both of those things, right? You can enjoy it for the pure visceral reaction you have to those big hits or Tony saying something really fucked up. You can enjoy all those things and you can also read the second coming, the poem as meta text for the episode, right? You can do both of those things. You can choose to figure out what the movies Tony's watching, how they factor into where he's at in his life at that moment, or you can completely skip those things.

It doesn't matter. You can enjoy it both both ways and i think a lot of people do i think that's ultimately the magic of most of the pop culture that truly resonates with me i think the things that can speak to the high and the low so deftly and that can kind of entice and even tantalize you with that that you know sort of like caveman brain you know that like oh my god that that that kill oh my god this twist and turn of events while also exploring something that is significantly more radical or or deeper in some way i think it's part of what makes the show so great and that's been said many times we're obviously not breaking new ground by doing so the film it feels perhaps a little bit more self-conscious when it comes to those things. And it comes because I think that we never really had fan service on The Sopranos TV show.

You never felt, you actually felt like there was kind of like a willful dismissal of its own fandom while the show was in production. And so now we're 15 years on from its conclusion. And so they have to, it almost feels like they're wrestling with their own legacy in real time. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Like if you go back to season four, that was obviously, that was the season where Tony and Carmela separated at the end. But one of the major plots of that season was Carmela's budding attraction to, to Furio.

I was about to say Silvio. That would have been a ridiculous slip of the tongue. Um, to Furio. That's your Sopranos fanfic. I know you've got that published somewhere. Yeah. We're not doing slash fic on this. But that famously came to a head with not them consummating that mutual attraction, but rather with Furio pulling away and running back to Italy. And I recall many fans at the time, including my mother,

being disappointed that this was the way that this resolved itself, right? And I think a lot of series would have just given into that. Another example, I don't know if another series would have been able to resist the urge to ever make a real reference to the Russian from the Pine Barrens episode again, but Chase has avoided that over the years again and again.

And like, anytime he answers it, it's the most tongue in cheek, like, okay, like, like he doesn't even seem to want to even engage with the type of person who really cares about that. He takes a very, it's all there on the screen approach to these things. So to see some of this fan service, it was a little confusing. Yeah, I'm not totally sure what's informing that. I don't want to be too skeptical. I think it's possible that it was just fun to do. They had been away from it for so long. And that as with anything that you've worked hard on,

you don't want people to forget that you did something cool. You know, when you and I are doing a pod about your Sopranos list 10 years from now, you know, we have to remind people you achieved something major, you know? It was a lot of fun to see a lot of these characters on the screen again. Who was your favorite to see, to be reminded of?

Definitely Corey Stahl as Junior. a lot of fun to see a lot of these characters on the screen again who was your favorite to see to be reminded of definitely cory stall as junior um i could have really stood to have about another hour with him um i thought he was absolutely fantastic a couple didn't work quite as well for me um i don't necessarily want to name names but at least one felt like they stumbled in from an SNL sketch. Name a name. Name a name. It was Silvio. Okay. Which is a very difficult character, right? Like even Stevie Van Zandt sometimes felt like he wandered in from a sketch comedy, right?

Like just the facial expression. Right. So it's a very tough character. And I think that like some of these smaller characters may actually be harder to play than the ben you know livia or tony um but it's just the mannerisms like the whole like oh i don't know dicky right like this is seeing that as like a young kid it just i don't know it there was a actual sketch on snl a few years ago of the Sopranos in high school. And it's a matter of degrees of difference between the Silvio from that sketch and the Silvio in the movie. I'll tell you one thing that this did do though. So when you're watching the film and you're seeing Paulie Walnuts, you're seeing Silvio, you're seeing Big Pussy, and these guys, they're in

their 20s and they're living a kind of like hot shot young gangster lifestyle in newark at this time and their crew is formed and you see that they're kind of on the rise but they're still wet behind the ears and then we see tony and tony is this punk kid in high school and he's still playing football and he's in his guidance counselor's office and he's a child and this is something that the show i think occasionally did occasionally did very well. Not always. It didn't always give us the context of Tony as kind of the child king. You know, the much younger figure with all of these older lieutenants reporting up to him. And the burden and the fact that sometimes he failed them.

And sometimes he lacked the wisdom to lead. And that led to a lot of the, you know, as I'm going through my rewatch and I candidly did not finish my rewatch of the show before we got a chance to record. This is probably my fourth time watching the show. I don't think I really, I think I thought of Tony as all powerful the first couple of times I watched the show.

And then the movie, I think, really does a nice job of underscoring. This guy's like, he's 10 years behind some of these people, you know? And because of that, that really influences who Tony would go on to become and how he fits into this broader story of new york gangsters and new jersey gangsters so i actually liked that aspect of it but i agree with you that occasionally the cosplay part of it i think feels a little jokey in a way that like it doesn't feel in on the joke i think think the Sopranos always felt in on the joke.

Would you agree? I do agree. I do agree. There were very few moments of humor on the Sopranos that I didn't think were very intentional. And I don't know. I mean, I think these were meant to be funny, but I just don't think they quite landed

in the way that I would have liked. I don't want to speak for everyone. I don't want to speak for the people who made this film, but definitely in the way that I would have liked. I don't want to speak for everyone. I don't want to speak for the people who made this film, but definitely in the way that I would have liked. I did think one thing that Michael Gandolfini did really well, though, is capture Tony's playfulness. You brought up the whole boy king thing. Throughout the series, Tony is obviously a very dark, troubled individual, but we see these moments of great playfulness. And we see that from Michael Gandolfini. And those are some of the most joyous moments of

the film, I think. You do see him as the kid that was always talked about on the show, the one with the leadership potential, the one that was always smarter than the people around him, the one that was charismatic. In many ways, he comes across like a smarter, more charismatic AJ. There's a lot of similarities between young Tony and where AJ was at. Of course, AJ has his own issues. By the way, on this rewatch, I've come to realize that AJ Soprano is actually one of my favorite characters in TV history. And I don't know how that happened. I completely agree. I'm so glad you said that. I was listening to a podcast yesterday about the Sopranos and all of the hosts agreed that AJ sucks. And my thought was like, you have no

understanding of the show. The show is almost entirely organized around how the Sopranos failing AJ is a testimony to the failure of the American family. That's the whole point of the whole show. Exactly. Also, do you know the rough age of those hosts of that show? I think they ran the gamut. I think that it was 40s to 20s. Because I think the older you get, the more you understand AJ, which is, you know,

kind of paradoxical in a way, because you think that you might be able to relate to a younger character when you're younger. But like when I watched the series, when it was on, when I was, you know, roughly give or take the same eight,

same age as AJ, I didn't like the character. And as I've gotten older, I've come to realize some of these things are things i didn't like in me right and like oh i now understand how trauma can be passed down to children in such a way and i didn't have that type of language when i was aj's age i think that that's something that at times chase was i don't i don't think he was criticized for this specifically, but I think people were surprised by how willing he was to render his own mother on screen in the form of Livia, or at least use some of his experiences with her to speak on the way that he came up and his complicated

relationship with his parents. And now I think we've come to realize that he was really ahead of the curve in the way that people talked about their relationship to their parents and the way that that kind of trauma, you're right, can be passed down and becomes, you know, it ultimately becomes like this super gene that just travels over generations that is very powerful.

Let's not get too far into The Sopranos yet because I do want to spend a lot of time on the show and on the episodes, but there's one other aspect of the film which is, you know, this Leslie Odom Jr. character. he plays a man named harold mcbray who is a kind of avatar i think of some of the struggles between some of the not just the black population in newark and and some of the riots that the film portrays but also the the legacy of the black crime family versus the historic mafia in New Jersey and in New York.

And the film wants to, it feels like reckon with not just this moment because David Chase has been very open about the fact that this film was written and produced and executed, you know, before everything, everything terrible that happened with George Floyd and everything last summer. But it is trying to reckon with something a little bit bigger that maybe the show didn't always live up to. I was kind of curious from your perspective, especially having seen the show as many times as you have,

did you think that that was successful? That part of the story? So I think the Sopranos, if there's a flaw to the series, it's how it told stories of race. And I want to separate, there's a difference between Tony being racist

against Meadow's boyfriend, Noah, which is the character doing that, not the show doing that. And things like in season four, where there is a shootout at the crack house, and it just feels like the show thinking they're doing something in regards to race but it's just like feeling slightly uncomfortable because i don't i don't know the makeup of the of the writing staff but it felt

like it was a story being told specifically by white people. This storyline in this movie marks a lot of progress in that regard in this universe. Leslie Odom Jr., his character Harold, is given motives in an interior life that often the Black characters on Sopranos don't have. I'm curious as to your thoughts, because I'm just not sure quite what this plot really accomplished in the context of this movie. I think it'd be difficult to say from a plot perspective what the purpose of it was without

giving anything away. He is an engine figure he's like he's an act he's he's somebody who puts important moments into action so that he serves a function in the telling of the story now whether he serves like an adequate function in terms of rendering this period in history and these relationships that some of these characters have i don't know i mean i i always thought that the sopranos had kind of a um a complex sometimes successful relationship to some of these things i think specifically of um jackie april jr's murder and the way that when he goes into exile he goes to the projects and he's taken in by michael k williams i think that's the first time i ever saw michael k williams this is like i think this

predates the wire and you know the idea that the mafia would execute someone who is, you know, the chosen son of one of the great leaders in the family and then effectively blame it on drug dealers living in the projects. I always thought was like a was sophisticated and probably real to the experiences of gangsters in that lifestyle. Absolutely. On the other hand, you do have stories like the crack house shooting, which felt unexamined and not as sophisticated, not as advanced as so much of the storytelling was across the history of the show.

Harold, it's interesting. Leslie Odom Jr. is an elite actor. You know what I mean? For lack of a better phrase, he's a really great performer. And so I think even some of those motives and interior life that you're gleaning, I don't even know that it's really there.

I think he's just a really great performer. And so you're reading into it, you know, you feel invested in him and he's not, this is not, um, this is not the guy from Hamilton. This is like,

it's a totally different character that he is able to transform into. I would have liked to have just spent more time with him in that world. You know, there's a sequence where we see Dickie kind of roll up to, I think it's a garage where Harold and some of his friends are hanging out. And I was like, I kind of want to be in that world a little bit longer. I kind of want to know what it is that they're doing and what they're after. And the flip side of it too, and this is not really anyone's fault, but we never really got to see what someone like Harold and his crew were doing in The Sopranos.

And so because of that, it feels like a loose strand as opposed to a more deeply explored world. Yeah. I mean, I would absolutely agree with that. I do think, though, that by even showing scenes between Harold and his girlfriend or wife or whoever she may be. That was also, that's a step up from what the Sopranos would do though. Cause so often it would be that here's two black guys and they're being paid

to kill. Um, whether it's Carmine or Tony or Tony or that episode. Yeah. Yeah. And then they're like, they're shot and then they're gone. Ultimately. I think that it was a step up from what the series did but i'm kind of left scratching my head as to what

function it served yeah i think it's um i think chase is sincere in his desire to kind of portray what was happening in newark in that time and that is an essential part of that story whether that connects to the broader soprano story in the way that so much of the other parts of the film do is certainly debatable. and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of Junior Chicken, McDouble, or Chicken Snack Wrap,

plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. Let's talk about the show a little bit. Okay. I think that this has been true for a handful of quote unquote prestige TV over the last 18, 20 months. But since the pandemic

hit, a lot of people revisiting The Sopranos. Talk to Chase about this a little bit. I think that most people like you and I tend to do a revisit every three to five years because we loved it so much the first time around. But I feel like a lot of people, a lot of young people, a lot of sub 25 year old folks who were not even really watching television when the show premiered have also been getting into it. I know I've talked to our producer Bobby Wagner about this. He just did a rewatch of his own. Why is the show still resonating? What do you think it is about it that makes it everlasting? Well, it's funny. A few years ago, I went to Sopranos Con in New Jersey, and I wrote a big piece about it and

one of the people i spoke to for it was alan seppenwall you know of course who covered the show um while it was on the air a great television critic works for rolling stone now one of the greatest minds on soprano quite literally wrote a book on them uh called the soprano sessions with matthew zola sites great book highly. Um, if, if that didn't exist, I would have pitched my ranking as a book, Sean, but, um, at the time, and this was 2019, he felt that young people were not getting into the Sopranos. He felt that Netflix was TV. And because this was on HBO, that people just weren't consuming this, right? He said he would go give lectures at schools and he would ask how many people saw The Sopranos and invariably only

one or two hands went up. And he really thought this show was kind of being lost to the sands of time. I think one of the biggest things that happened and maybe why everyone decided to start watching this over quarantine was leading up to COVID, Sopranos had become kind of this big meme language on Twitter. And it's a very memeable show, which is very funny for something that can be like so dense and artistic, but it's a very memeable show. And I think young people started watching and the reason it resonated with them it's a very 90s show in a lot of ways it was created in 1999 it took place over the course of the opening part of the 2000s but it still feels very 90s in a lot of ways but the whole idea of the decline of america and all this existential dread and the gross consumerism of the show, I think just really resonated with a lot of people, especially, you know, I don't think

it's any secret that younger generations are a little disillusioned when it comes to topics like that. I think that that's true. I think you're also right that it's memeable because it's so funny. I mean, I don't know if we've been necessarily talking about the laughs that you have on the show, but I mean, it is also, this is something Matthew Weiner, of course, was a staff writer on The Sopranos and then went on to create Mad Men. And Mad Men is the exact same thing to me in this specific respect. It was the best drama and the best comedy when it was on television for that period of time. And there are very few shows that can claim that power. And so, sure, there are incredible moments of intense family drama. And there is this soap operatic quality where you're locked into the story and there are all these great mafia references and kills. But it's just it's a hang show. It's you're with your buddies and they're hilarious, you know, and they're saying things that you can't say and shouldn't say, but they're saying it. And they're, they're unafraid to be crude and, and way out of touch, but you can laugh at them and enjoy yourself.

And like, that doesn't discount the fact that there are also some of them most severe, some of the gravest portrayals of mortality that I've ever seen on a show too. This is a show in which, um, you know, children are trying to kill their parents and vice versa. Like it's, it's, it's, it's Shakespearean. It's heavy. This is a show in which children are trying to kill their parents and vice versa. It's Shakespearean. It's heavy. It's ultimately the most balanced and the most entertaining and the deepest.

So I'm really glad that we have The Many Saints of Newark. I'm really glad that Sopranos is resonating once more. What's your favorite season before we get into our lists? I have two, and I know that's kind of cheating. Season three and season five. And I think season three is probably have the highest concentration of just great episodes. It's just unbelievable. Season five to me really, though, feels like the moment where the show really put it all together in terms of their humor firing on all cylinders while also being able to tell these great stories

like i think season four is very funny but for large parts of season four nothing really happens so i can't call that my favorite yeah there's there's i think there's a an understanding that season four has the most kind of stasis in terms of the plot and the mechanics of the plot are so intense in one two three and five that it kind of pales in comparison and six is a little bit complicated not just because it's split into two parts but because if you were watching the show in real time it felt like season six was happening over the course of like five years yeah and people were kind of like desperately waiting for the show to conclude and maybe not appreciating it as much as they should have been while it was actually happening uh i would say that season one i think is the greatest act of tv invention and so like i have this incredible

amount of respect for the world that they built like instantaneously and obviously it features like some of the best episodes ever um i think we will. Will we talk about one of those episodes in this conversation? Did I include one of them? I did. So we'll talk about one of them. But, you know, there are other episodes like college, which, of course, is like legendary. It's like taught in film school now for kind of like how to do a sort of a bottle episode. What about characters?

I'm going to go with Junior again. My favorite character in the movie. Favorite character on the show. Also, AJ, of course, I go going to go with Junior again. My favorite character in the movie, favorite character on the show. Also, AJ, of course. I go with the youngest and the oldest. But Junior is just so funny. But at the same time, so we were speaking yesterday, and you mentioned just the melancholy. And I don't know if there's any character who can capture both of those things so well at the same time, sometimes in the same sentence.

There were many great performances on the show. Obviously, it starts at the top with Gandolfini and Edie Falco. Michael Imperioli and Drea DeMatteo. They both won Emmys as a Joey Pants. Just absolutely fantastic. But Dominic's portrayal of Junior, I think, is somehow underrated at this point. I agree. He's still alive, Dominic Cheney. I know. MetaMet, SopranosCon. Talk about it. Talk about it. He's this incredibly gentle man, right? He's, he was so, he was so sweet and so generous with his time.

And, you know, just wanted, he wanted to talk about the series and, you know, he's very proud to be a part of it. But then at the end of Sopranos Con, at the end of the first night, he stepped onto stage and all of a sudden this like very like quiet man then transformed into the Dominic... Is it Chines? Is that how you pronounce it? I think so. I think Chines or Chines, yeah. If you have followed the series or if you remember from season three, he's a great singer. And he put on this 45-minute performance just doing this.

And he just had total command of the room. And it was just unbelievable to watch. Yeah. The final episode of season three is also one of my favorite scenes to close out really any season of television. I think it's just such an amazing blending of character and intent and reflection and hearing him sing. He's a marvelous singer.

It's crazy that he's still singing. Oh my God, he's so good. Let's talk about our episodes. We'll try to move through this fairly quickly. I'll start since you've been able to ruminate on yours quite a bit already. You've got 30,000 plus words down. I'm going to go with I Dream of Jeannie Cusimano as a shout out to season one. Actually, you mentioned this when we were talking about it earlier this week. So I know that you're a fan of this one too. I guess this episode is probably best understood as the episode where Tony goes to the nursing

home to smother his mother with a pillow. And then she may or may not have a stroke. And so we have this sort of like thrilling, terrifying, awful conclusion where she's being kind of wheeled out on a gurney and she's being pulled away. And Tony at the top of his lungs screams, look at her face, she's smiling.

And, you know, it's also an episode that features like this showdown between Artie and Tony. It's also an episode where the FBI really becomes a significant part of observing the Sopranos and what it is that Tony is up to on a regular basis, which then leads to a lot

of the key tensions of seasons, you know, three, four, and five. I think it's the ultimate collision of the family and the mafia storytelling and the way that they are very much connected. So I love this one. Do you think she was smiling?

I think she was faking. I don't know if she was smiling. That's the big question. I mean, Livia, no one looms larger over this story and this show than Livia. And Nancy Marchand, who tragically died, I think really frankly before her story was finished being told, is just a genius.

I mean, it's like perfectly cast in this show. Yeah, it's a great episode. Season one really shows just how thrilling this show could be when it leaned into the action, while also not sacrificing things like that, not sacrificing this emotional terror that Livia had inflicted on Tony. I really think the one-two punch of Isabella

and I Dream of Jeannie Cusimano, that set the high watermark for how this series was going to close out its seasons. It was so good at episodes 11, 12, and 13. It's like, you know, there are many shows that have followed this closely. It became very clear to hardcore TV watchers by the time of Game of Thrones

that you have to tune into the penultimate episode of the series because that's where the real shit happens. I feel like a lot of that really starts with The Sopranos. Let's talk about your number five. Also, I'll just say I love all the episodes you picked. I think you and I only have crossover on one of these episodes, which is a good thing for this conversation, but I think any of your five could have been in my five, candidly. Yeah, I think a lot of yours. You actually made a, we'll get to it, but you made a very brave choice that I would have loved to have put higher on my list, and we'll talk about that. My number five is Whoever Did This, which is the episode where Ralphie meets his end. I love this episode, and I think when I watched it in real time,

this was my favorite episode of the series. It was such a shock. And of course, the Sopranos had done this earlier with A Knight in White Satin Armor, where they knocked off Richie in a way that was very unexpected. But even still years later, it came episode number nine in season four. Things had seemed to be relatively okay between Tony and Ralphie. You didn't really see this coming. And then, by the way, the biggest reaction I've gotten to my ranking is that I put the episode named Paiomai very low. I was hoping you were going to address this. I love Paiomai the horse i don't dislike piomai the episode

i i wouldn't have written 30 000 words about the series if i disliked even a single episode of the series truly i've met piomai the horse piomai is a great horse um also that that was also at sopranos con by the way. That storyline, I think people feel a lot of emotional attachment to. The episode, Paiomai itself, is mostly about estate planning. Yes. Okay, I just had to say that.

I think people think that the Paiomai episode is whoever did this. I think that's actually the confusion because this is the one where Paiomai is burned, right? It has to be euthanized. So right, right. So this is the conclusion to the Pio Mai story and also Ralphie's. Pio Mai dies after she had to be put down after a fire at the stables where she's burnt badly. And Tony goes to Ralphie's house and he begins questioning about it. And then there's this moment that flips where Tony decides Ralphie did this

and what I loved about that the series was so good at ambiguity right this went from this went from did Livia smile behind the oxygen mask all the way up to the finale but there was no moment of ambiguity better

than Joey plants playing that scene and not tipping his hand at all as to whether Ralphie actually did this or not. And of course, Ralphie meets his end right there on the kitchen floor. A couple interesting things about this episode. First, this was the episode that asked us to have a lot of sympathy for Ralphie at the beginning. This was the episode where his son is very gruesomely injured by an arrow. He's playing a game with his friend where he's shooting arrows into the sky and catching it with a box. And the arrow lands in Ralphie's son's Justin's chest. Okay. So this great villain from the series, Ralphie, we're now asked to have sympathy for him.

And in that same episode is also where we're asked to consider, could he have done one of his most heinous acts? And I don't know. Do you think he did it? I prefer to not have an opinion. That's how I feel about a lot of these things. I think it's not even useful. I don't even think that's the point. I think the point is that Tony is a wrecking ball through the world. And it doesn't matter if he's right or wrong. He's going to do what he wants. And it's his selfishness and vaingloriousness and all of these things then which is of course filtered through his the way he was raised and his experience and oh poor you is the defining characteristic of the show so was ralphie unjustly murdered no ralphie was an absolutely horrible person who devoted his life to the worst things in the world i mean everything that we see in um

i can't recall the name of the episode, of course, where Tracy is killed. What is the name? University. Neither you nor I have university on our list. I think that that is one of the most profound episodes and most powerful episodes of the show. It's so hard to watch.

And it's so hard to rewatch knowing what's coming. And there are a few episodes that are like that for me personally, where I don't know if I could spend a lot of time with... There are two episodes that are actually on your list that I couldn't put on my list because I was like, I don't know if I can spend time watching this happen again. And University is one of them. And that one is not on your list.

But the general point is that the ambiguity is part of what makes this show so great. I agree 100%. I will also say that when I watched in 2002 we did not have hctv so i didn't realize something if you do you know about this if you look at the end if you watch the final scene of whoever did this where tony wakes up in the bing and he looks at the mirror where the where the dancers get ready there's a a picture of Tracy front and center. So the connection here is that... Justice.

Justice for Tracy. Also a beautiful, innocent creature that Ralphie did. In 2002, because we didn't have HGTV, I had no idea that Tracy's picture was on that screen. It was on that mirror. This is a, it's, it's a world of Easter eggs and there's more to learn. That's part of the reason why a rewatch is worth it. I would recommend a rewatch on second opinion. This is not an episode that I would have guessed I would have put on a top five list when I first saw it or even the second time or even the third time. Um, it is now a, a extremely powerful episode to me for

a variety of reasons. Half of this episode is kind of funny and kind of tragic, which I guess is the signature of The Sopranos. A lot of it is about... It's a two-part story. It's basically about two patients. The first patient is Junior Soprano. The second patient is Carmela Soprano. They are my two favorite characters.

You've mentioned Junior's your favorite. Carmela and Junior were my two favorites. I'll be honest. There's just a lot of my mom in Carmela Soprano. I think if you grew up on the East Coast, if you grew up in the tri-state area, my mom's from Queens. She sounded a little bit like Carmela Soprano when she spoke.

And so I have this abiding empathy with Carmela. And this is like a really tragic episode through her eyes. And it's also an episode in which Junior is confronting his own mortality because he's very sick with cancer. And he is engaging with this Dr. John Kennedy, who he admires because he has the name of a former president, which is ridiculous. And he gets kind of entrenched in the world of insurance and doctors and the confusion around what happens when you have something that seems incurable and should i get chemo should i get surgery you know i i don't

know how if you have been through that i have been through that in my life with with relatives and it is fucking infuriating and mystifying and so it's a portal into junior's frustrations and his sadness. And then it's really an almost paralyzing dive into Carmela's psyche and how she feels about the way that she's lived her life and the way that she has supported Tony that culminates in this almost confrontation with Dr. Krakauer, who is the therapist that is recommended to her by Dr. Melfi,

who frankly challenges her to leave Tony and begin anew and try to cleanse herself of this life of crime that she has been a party to. And it's like the most jarring scene in the series for me, watching Krakauer talk to Carmela. I've always kind of compared that to the show's kind of equivalent to the Glenn Ross speech where it's just this one scene where this character comes in and it forever alters everything there. Like, Karmes can no longer, as Dr. Krakauer says, can no longer say that nobody's ever told her. And from there, it feels like the character is changed, at least in my eyes. I love this episode.

This was the one that I referenced that I wish I was brave enough to put higher. I just couldn't think of... I'm glad you had the freedom to. I had to put the word definitive, the ringers definitive rankings in front of mine. I couldn't figure out how to get this above some of the heavy hitters, like all due respect or the blue comment,

but I love second opinion. Um, I love how the Kennedy's kind of loom over the series, you know, from Tony buying the hat to the white caps estate, which he compares to, um, the Kennedy compound.

Um, even God, I, I realized this on my last when i finished the the finale a few weeks ago but um when janice walks in to tell junior who at the finale of the series is in the state psychiatric ward and she says junior uncle june i have to tell you some bad news. Bobby died. And Junior just looks at her and goes, Ambassador Hotel. I love how the Kennedys kind of are just such a thing

for these people in the series. But it's a great episode. It's also a really funny episode. This is the episode where you get i like the one the one that says some pulp um this is the one where furio knocks the b off of dr kennedy's hat and says stupid a fucking game it's just it's just a fantastic episode um and that final scene between Tony and Carm where she's processes information from Dr. Krakauer and her solution is not to do what he says, which is pack the children who would pack her things and take the children and get away. It's to ask Tony to give $50,000 to Meadows University. It's just it's perfect.

It's just a perfect look into their relationship. It's a perfect moment for who these people are. Yeah. The whole show in many ways is about bargaining, bargaining with the choices that you've made in your life. And it's a perfect example of that. Okay. So your number four, I would say is one that I was not brave enough to put on my list, even though I think it's widely acknowledged as one of the great episodes in the show's history. What is it? Fun House. This is the episode, season two, episode 13, where Pussy gets killed.

Sean, I have to ask you, how do you feel about dream sequences on The Sopranos? Complicated. I think in many ways it is the show's trump card and it is also its fatal flaw. I think it is what distinguished it trump card and it is also its fatal flaw. I think it is what distinguished it as attempting something deeper and bigger

than any other kind of typical network drama. But it is also the thing that I think Chase could never totally wrap his arms around. And there are obviously episodes that explored the dream sequence a little bit deeper. You know, the Kevin Finnerty style dream sequence

is something totally different than what is happening in Funhaus. But, and you and I have talked about this in the past, I think he's not quite able to get to that Lynchian place that you want to get to. Because in the Lynchian world, what's happening on screen you think is real. We never cut back to the normal world.

And in The Sopranos, we know that there is a normal world and then we know there is a world in which Tony is dreaming. And we're conscious of that at all times. And so it's hard to feel the same dread that you feel when you're watching a David Lynch film. This is probably as close as it gets, though, because we know we're going towards a brutal fate at the end of this season. Yeah. I think Funhouse is the episode where the dream sequences work the best. And I mentioned this to you the other day, but I think it's the one where the dream sequences actually somewhat feel like dreams. I think the test dream, which is an episode I know a lot of people love and I think is certainly a very interesting episode. I wish I was brave enough

to be able to rank it higher on my definitive Sopranos episode ranking. But I don't think the test dream feels particularly dreamlike. I think it's trying to feel dreamlike. I think there are moments of Funhaus that do. And even the moment where the fish with pussy's voice says, you know, I'm talking to the FBI tone. Something about that also feels authentic to me because it's just like such a weird fucked up dream thing where the stuff that's buried in tony's subconscious is now starting to come to the surface um i love funhouse i think that the ending is probably one of the more iconic deaths on the series um this is also kind of a shout out to the pussy storyline which really kind of anchored season two um as it got away

from the olivia tony stuff the olivia tony junior stuff um pussy the actor um what's it salvatore i can't remember his name. Just really fantastic performances, which you would not necessarily expect out of that actor. D-Girl is an episode that I'm thinking of in particular where it's just these gutting emotional moments where he's feeling this conflict between being loyal to his friend and doing what he has to for his survival and snitching to the FBI. And that runs throughout season two when it comes to head on Funhouse in one of the most iconic moments of the series. It's a great pick. It's a great episode. My number three is an episode that you already referenced. I said a film because they're all films to me, Justin. It's the Night in White Satin Armor, which is, of course, the death of Richie Aprile

and at the hands of Janice Soprano, which no one saw coming. Of course, everyone expected Tony to be the executor, executioner of Richie. And it does the same thing that you were talking about earlier, which is that the death is so shocking. And so it has so many reverberations that even to this day,

even on my most recent rewatch, I was like, holy shit, Janice actually killed Richie. I can't believe that happened. I can't believe he hit her. And I can't believe she shot him. And, you know, there's obviously so many like resonant and kind of darkly comic

moments in this too, you know, like the moments when Janice is essentially being sent away and she's talking about, you know, what they did with Richie's body and I, everything is just so delicious and scary and, and strange.

And, you know, Richie is like a specter throughout the whole second season. You know, the moment he arrives, he is danger for every character on the whole second season you know the moment he arrives he is danger for every character on the show and it's just a beautiful like

closing I think both that episode and the final episode of season two is like a perfect way to close that story I want to actually you had an episode in your honorable mention list that you sent over which is actually Richie's introduction to the series is toodle fucking ooh which is the episode where he arrives and he runs over Beansy, right?

Yes. I didn't have that episode necessarily so high, but I do think it's one of the most iconic introductions to a character on the show. What is it about that Richie character and about that episode that really does it for you? Well, I think for big time movie fans, David Proval is an important guy. And he's one of the big three in Mean Streets. He is the third guy behind De Niro and Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets. So seeing him on that show for the first time gave you kind of a charge. And not only that, but he was not this kind of vindictive, crazy live wire character. I mean,

no one was better at live wire characters than the sopranos you know ralphie tony blundetto these figures who would just do things inexplicably against everyone else's better judgment and from the very first moment when you when you when we learned that tony was so upset about the first encounter with beanzy and that he follows it up by going directly against Tony's orders. I think it unlocks the show in a new way. It says that this is a dangerous show about mobsters, not just mobsters who are operating on opposite sides. This isn't New York versus New Jersey. This is New Jersey versus New Jersey. This is people within their own family who are quarreling. That was powerful. So I like that also, um, it's directed by Lee Tomahori, who is, uh, basically like an action filmmaker, you know?

I mean, he, he made like a triple X movie, you know, he made the edge, the movie with, um, Alec Baldwin and, and, uh, Anthony Hopkins. And it has kind of that charge, you know, I think, I think David Preval is, it's like a shot of steroids when he comes into the show, I think. Okay. Yeah, I agree. That's great. What's number three. Number three is not on my list. Number three is very important. It's on your list.

What's number three? Pine Barrens, which I think anybody listening to the series, anyone listening to this episode knows what Pine Barrens is. It's the episode where Pauly and Christopher get lost in the woods after their ill-fated attempt to kill the Russian. A lot has already been said about Pine Barrens. I don't really know how much more I can add to a discussion about Pine Barrens beyond what's been said. It's one of the most iconic hours of television ever for a reason, though.

I agree. I love Pine Barrens. Me not including it is basically just so we can have a more interesting conversation. It's obviously a reason though. I agree. I love Pine Barrens. Me not including it is basically just so we can have a more interesting conversation. It's obviously a major achievement. But what I will say is that I think the episode that follows it

is just as important and just as impressive. And maybe it doesn't always make these lists. Sometimes this episode makes these lists. But the thing I think that is sometimes lost

about Pine Barrens is Pine Barrens is not 60 consecutive minutes of Polly and Chrissy trapped in the woods. Right. There's an aspect of Pine Barrens that is about Tony and Gloria and this crazy love

that they have between them. Amour Fou. And Amour Fou is my number two pick. Now, maybe a little bit of recency bias because I just kind of burned through this season.

This is, uh, of course, season three, episode 11, which, you know, as you stated,

it's, you think it's one of the greatest, it's certainly, um, the way it closes is as powerful as any season has ever closed. And I'm more food is simultaneously, um, effectively the end of the Gloria story with that chilling sequence when Patsy visits her

on a test drive of a new Mercedes and threatens her if she ever tries to see Tony again. It won't be cinematic is what he says. Yes. I mean, Patsy is kind of thrilling in that scene. You know, he's kind of an odd figure in the film who's kind of, or in the show, who's kind of consistently like undermining Tony,

but also he can be effective when he needs to be. You don't expect it out of Patsy to have that in him, but it's a great moment. Yeah. It is a great moment.

And this is also, of course, the episode where Jackie Jr. and his friends rob the poker game, which, you know, triggers this chain reaction. And I think that actually

that sequence, it's pretty relevant to, and that storyline is pretty relevant to the many saints of Newark. You know, how young guys come up is basically the story of the Sopranos over the course of a hundred years. And Jackie Jr. trying to replicate

what Ralphie tells him that Tony and his father did to become recognized as guys on the move is fascinating. And, you know, Jackie Jr., a tragic figure, also kind of a dunce. And when those two things come together, you get a bad ending. But really just like a kind of thrilling episode of television in as many ways as possible. And it proved that the show didn't need its core characters to make great episodes.

You know, Jackie was, I mean, the guy who plays Jackie Jr. is a fine actor. He's not James Gandolfini. Gandolfini, if you put him on screen, he can do anything. He was a magician, not just with Tony, but in any movie or TV show. Being able to drive the show forward with someone like Jackie Jr. I think was also one of its brilliant aspects. So I'm a huge fan of Amorfu. It's a great episode. I had it at number nine. I would say it's brilliant aspects. So I'm a huge fan of Amorfu. It's a great episode. I had it at number nine. I would say it's definitively the ninth best episode of The Sopranos, but I will defer to you here on your podcast

that it's number two. Speaking of number twos, let's talk about your number two, which is my number one. This is our only crossover here. So what is your number two? It's Whitecaps, which is the episode where Tony and Carmelo

decide to separate after a few massive fights. It's the best acting that's ever appeared on television. I feel confident in saying that. And I don't really know what else more you need to say about that. It's a wonderful episode, top to bottom, even the B-plot with Tony trying to get out of purchasing the summer house, the house on the water. The Sappensley home, yes. The Sappensley home. Alan Sappensley is such a great character. The show is so good at bringing in these little characters for a moment. And you've met an Alan Sappensley before, right? This kind of highfalutin lawyer who thinks that they can pull one over on everyone. And for most of their life, they probably have until they've run into somebody like Tony Soprano. But that's the B plot. The A plot is Carmela and Tony, where after Tony's mistress, former mistress, Irina, calls Carmela

and informs her that Tony had slept with Irina's cousins, that Lana, who is of course the Russian with one leg, very complicated when you say this, we'll say this stuff all out loud, right? Just, just trying to explain this to someone. Anyway, after that phone call, Carmella throws all the Tony stuff into the driveway and we're in the middle of the most apocalyptic fight that a couple can possibly have. And it's just an absolute masterclass of acting from Falco and Gandolfini the entire time. I like how you put it. I don't know if I could have put it any better myself.

It is the scenes between Carmela and Tony are probably the scariest things I've ever seen on a TV show. I am, of course, a child of divorce. And I will say as a child of divorce, there's something harrowing in Whitecaps. And there's a moment when you see this family breaking apart in real time. And you see Tony realizing that he needs to move out and hugging his children. There must have been some people on staff whose families went through divorce. Because it nails a very specific experience that people had. I just think Edie Falco is a powerhouse.

I mean, she's just, there's never been anybody like her on TV. She's so, her ability to change speeds in a performance is so crazy. And there are a handful of moments here, especially in their kind of like their second showdown when they go into, I guess it's sort of like the pool house, the home theater, kind of secondary house, where she's sort of like stepping outside of her body

and marveling at how horrible her husband is. And she almost can't believe what is happening between them. And, you know, I've never been in a fight like that with my partner. Thankfully, yes. I I've never been in a fight like that with, with, with my partner,

but I guess I have been in fights occasionally where someone is like, I can't believe what a fucking asshole you are. And that is like the ultimate version of, I can't believe what a fucking asshole you are. And it's just incredibly moving. And it also comes from, it comes alongside, you know, the Stu gots getting parked in front of Sappensley's house and the Dean

Martin live record playing over it. And I love that that is like the final moment of that episode. The final moment is this this blackly comic episode like moment on the show. It's not this tearful moment between Tony and Carmela.

It's something a bit more absurd. And that is part of what makes the show so wonderful and why I love this episode so much is that it can do both so gracefully. I really debated putting this at number one. Friends of mine,

like The Ringer's Alan Siegel, who is as big of a Sopranos fan as us, he argued with me to put Whitecaps at number one. I had to go with my heart for number one, which is what I believe to be the best episode series. Can I get into it? Lay it on us. Long-term parking, which is the episode where Adriana gets killed. And it is the culmination of so many different storylines here. And it is the moment where you can no longer deny that you've been rooting for reprehensible people this entire time. I don't love watching this play out, but the way the show treats that the most obvious possible conclusion as the biggest shock should be noted. There is never a moment where you think that Adriana is actually going to get killed until it's actually happening. And a lot of fans didn't believe for years afterwards that it did actually happen. They believe that because the murder was never shown on screen that she escaped.

It's one of the most dramatic cutaways in TV history. The idea that we hear Silvio's gunfire, but we don't see her get shot is again, another ambiguous lore that they're always dropping into the show. I mean, the other part of it too is I feel like Drea DiMatteo has not gone on to have a big career post-Sopranos. You know, and obviously

when she first came on the show she appeared to be this sort of like arm candy. And then as the show goes on she's asked to go through this incredibly difficult arc. You know, where her character is forced to somewhat comply with the FBI after being duped by an FBI agent.

And the physicality of her performance in this episode where she's been, you know, she has a colitis, a colitis diagnosis is given to her. And she's also been being terribly physically harmed by Chris in this episode. And it's a, it's,

it must've been really difficult to make this. There are a few times when I'm watching a TV show and thinking this must've been hard to do, but she's being really put through the ringer, not just her character, but the actress. And she's really, really great in this episode.

And you're totally right. I mean, the phone call when Tony calls her and tells her that Sylvia is going to pick her up and that Chris has tried to take his own life is one of the most chilling sequences in the show's history where tony says i'll see you up there and you yeah um did you know did you know when you were watching it she's done for you knew but you but the same time you refused yourself to actually process that information um she won an emmy for this as did imperi. And I think you also have to shout him out here.

The scene where she reveals to him that she's been cooperating with the FBI is, I think, one of the best this double life that she's been leading for the past few years and how it's now all coming to a head because of some dipshit ecstasy deal or she let hang around the club. And the camera just goes closer and closer to Imperioli's face. And he just looks more and more despondent until he gets up and snaps. I thought he was going to kill her right then. He, of course, didn't. And he starts wailing. And in some ways, it feels like the Goodfellas scene where Henry comes home and realizes that Karen flushed the Coke. And yes, they're on the floor balling together. What are we going to do? Why did you do that? Yeah, exactly.

Thank you. That was all he had. But Christopher and Adriana, I think it rivals that. Him just scream acting, what are we going to do? What what are we gonna do um i don't know it still gives me chills every time i watch it in fact i really think that re-watching this time somehow and like my doesn't watch of this episode it affected me more than it ever had in the past it's it's it's an amazing amazing episode i re rewatched it last night out of order to prepare for our conversation. And it's hard to revisit. It's really hard to revisit. Because you're right

that Michael Imperioli is also incredible in this and just so brutal. It's just hard to watch him hit Adriana in that moment that's just a very painful scene in the in the show and and very impressive um you that's our list i think our lists are good if you want to read more about this show you should absolutely read justin's definitive uh guide to the rankings you wanted to ask me about one episode now i didn't i haven't re-watched this episode yet uh since on this rewatch, but tell me why you wanted to ask me about it. What is it? Because it's typically considered the most hated episode of the series.

It's Christopher. It's the Christopher Columbus episode. It's the one where Silvio and the guys decide they're going to go break up an anti-Columbus Day rally, right? They're going to go break up a demonstration at a Columbus Day parade. Do you remember this episode? I do. I remember it specifically because I feel like

it was a big part of the Johnny Sack, Ginny kind of controversy and the joke coming to light and that triggering a whole series of events as well. But I can't say I recall the Columbus Day parade aspect like fondly or not fondly.

I don't really have much feeling about it, honestly. I think one of the reactions I did see other than that I had Pio Mai the horse ranked so lowly that people couldn't believe that I had Christopher not ranked as one of the absolute worst. I think I had it in the 60s, which is not very high out of 86. i've grown to actually really like this episode because the sopranos was has never been accused of being prophetic like maybe the simpsons has right like the sopranos predicted this has not become a thing like the simpsons predicted this but when i watch christopher now i see a lot of the world we live through in the past few years. And I don't know, I don't want to say that the, the, these, I know these protests were happening at the time,

right. But like, it's just watching this play out on screen feels like something that we've just lived through. And I also think this episode does a great job of discussing the issue of identity, which is a big part of the Sopranos. And in this episode, Carmela and some of her friends go to a luncheon for Italian American heritage or pride. And they get offended because the speaker has the audacity to mention the negative depictions of Italian Americans in film and TV. And I don't know. I think it's actually low-key a fantastic episode. And if I was actually brave, I would have put it way higher. I guess I'll have to circle back with you when I look at it again. The truth is that I don't dislike any episode of The Sopranos. I've never watched an episode and thought that was bad. Just like you said at the top, everything has power and the show is so multifarious that there's always something

to cling to. This is the episode in which Pai O'Maya is introduced. This is the episode in which Bobby Bacala's wife is killed. You know, so much happens on this show all the time. Even if you find one aspect of the storyline not satisfying, there's something else to fill you up. I think the same will also be true for most people who see the many scenes of Newark. Justin, you're the goat soprano's opinion haver. Thank you. Thank you so much for doing the show today. Thank you for having me, Sean. Now let's go to my conversation with the great David Chase. David, how are you? I'm good. How are you?

I'm hanging in there. David, I want to start by talking about not The Many Saints of Newark, but your other film, because that is what I thought of when I watched The Many Saints of Newark. I'm talking about Not Fade Away. I'm fascinated by the idea of you returning to late 60s New Jersey in particular. Do you see a correlation, a

connection between these two movies? Well, I'm glad to talk about that movie. But before that, you said, how am I? And I just answered in a rote kind of way. But, you know, Charlie Watts died i just answered in a rote kind of way but you know charlie watts died today that's a very that's sad and disturbing so then you mentioned the movie so the movie was about was about charlie watts and his associates yeah very much so the rolling stones obviously

echo throughout not fade away um did you think about that film at all as a as a kind of cousin in any way to the many saints no i did not what i thought was if i get to do another movie i have to get out of the 60s and get out of new jersey uh how do you look back on Not Fade Away now, if at all? Well, there's some things I wish I had done differently. First among those is listening to the studio, about what they wanted to be in it and what they didn't. Their editing suggestions. They got me spooked with their testing. Anyway,

just as far as the art of it goes, there's some things I wish I had done differently. I'd love to have a chance to recut that film, not in a major way, just to put some things in that I took out. Did that inform at all the writing or the production of Many Saints, just what

you learned going through that studio filmmaking process? I don't think so. No, I don't think. I'm trying to look. Now I'm thinking back over Many Saints. I don't think I did, no. It was a little different situation.

I had a different relationship with Warner Brothers via HBO than I did with Paramount. Did you have the expectation of having more freedom or more control over this? Yeah, I think I did, yes. But it would not fade away. They didn't control the writing of it at all. Nothing like that. It was just the editing, really. And they did a terrible job on the marketing nobody saw the movie

it was um it was the centerpiece of the new york film festival and then they waited two months to release it i love the way that that movie blends music with the coming of age theme which i also think is is a part of many saints in many ways um even though there's not figures playing music there's music all over many saints um but i i heard you say recently that you don't you want to challenge yourself in the future to not use needle drops and it made me what it made me wonder when you're writing something like many saints are you are you putting songs in the script or are you visualizing songs i did that a couple of, maybe four or five times on the Sopranos, but no,

it just, it's after the thing is cut together. When you look at it, you may make some editorial adjustments, but no, it's not. I very seldom do that. So how do you go about choosing the records you want to score the sequences?

I don't know. I don't know. It's a good question, really. Well, in this case, I had a lot of help from Sue, our music supervisor. And I had a lot of help from Steven on Not Fade Away. Well, that wasn't like help. He and i happened to like the same songs and so he would suggest one i would suggest one that was the way that worked um well you usually sort of go to what you think is a really a good song that's what i do anyway

things are things that you said to yourself maybe a long time ago i gotta use that someday i know so i know some filmmakers keep like playlists of songs they want to be able to pick and choose at some point do you have that you have like a document that features all the songs okay and you know especially with this movie we tried out different things um see if that works see if that works in different places no i don't have a list and now if i was to make a list it would be very short i mean i'm out of i'm out of stock now yeah you've used some good ones over the years uh let me ask you a rote question by way of getting into a bigger conversation

why is this a movie and not a series a mini series or an ongoing series, the many saints of Newark. Why is it not a series? Well, I didn't want to do any more series when I was done with the Sopranos. I had a wonderful time on that and that was it. Um, and I, you know, I,

I think I've probably been quoted as saying I didn't want to do another Sopranos movie or I forget how I said it. I didn't want, I certainly didn't want to do a sequel. In fact, I can't, I couldn't want to do another Sopranos movie, or I forget how I said it. I certainly didn't want to do a sequel. In fact, I can't. I couldn't. But Warner Brothers, Toby Emmerich approached me about doing a Sopranos movie, and I had conversations with various people through the years about maybe doing a prequel. And frankly, at the time when this got going,

I hadn't done anything in a while, and I wasn't in the best of health. So it just seemed perfect for the space that I had, the movie. Did it feel more conquerable in a way? Conquerable? No. Mm-mm. No, no. Conquerable, how do you mean? Well, just that it's

finite, you know, that there's and the end is clear. You can wrap the production and post-production of a movie in a relatively short period of time. No, I just don't think about it that way. The fact that it's finite is important, but a movie is really, I know it doesn't seem like it,

but it's an entirely different animal than TV, than a series. And I'm, I'm actually, unfortunately just learning that now. I want to talk to you about that. It's one of the biggest reasons I wanted to talk to you. Cause you've always been pretty candid about your feelings about television and film and the relationship between the two and kind of what

your preferences are. And we're at this interesting moment, I would say, in the history of culture on screens where movies and TV feel blurrier than ever. Some might say you are responsible for some of that blurring over time. What are the big distinctions for you now between television and movies? Well, if I ever said I didn't like television, that's not what I meant, number one, or it was misconstrued. I didn't like network television.

I didn't like television then. Dramas, at least. I don't know what it was like to work in comedy but i didn't like uh network drama i hated it i was very lucky in that i worked with some really talented people and for some really talented people and still and that was fine and there was there was a lot of creative satisfaction working with those people and getting things done. But it just, it was always full of compromises. And actually, and lies.

There was a lot of basic lies about human behavior. Humans don't behave the way a network programmer would like you to depict. And I couldn't, I just couldn't, I hated that. Do you sense that, that TV making and TV shows are more closely resembling human behavior? Um,

well, I was going to say, so I did, I really hated network TV, but when I was working in TV on the Sopranos, I, I was going to say, so I really hated network TV, but when I was working in TV on The Sopranos, I was extremely satisfied and happy. Well, what is the difference at this point then? Meaningfully, between a movie and a TV show, is it just the exhibition? Because even that is obviously changing um well the fact that see i'm just

learning this now with you um the fact that it's only two hours or so really has a lot to do with the kind of story you can tell and a movie a movie is is a movie is magic really I don't think television is magic I don't think magic can go on for like you know 13 weeks a year I just don't it's not the same and it also has something to do

with the technology of yeah of the making of it and the exhibition the picture the sound being in a theater with a lot of other people, in a dark room with a lot of, maybe a hundred other people watching this thing. It's a whole different experience. The Sopranos is famously littered with lots of references to film history and the ins and outs of Hollywood.

And I was recently reminded of Furio referencing two women when he comes to America. Were there any films that you thought of as touchstones for The Many Saints or anything that you looked at as you were starting to put the story together? Well, my memory isn't as good as it used to be. And it was, what, four years ago.

That's like your whole high school career. Um, I don't know. I don't think so. Is that something you ever do? Do you ever look at, uh, a piece of work for inspiration or is it usually you're just starting totally

fresh? Well, usually I try to start, or I do start totally fresh, but then as I'm going along, I might look at something. Yeah. But not, I don't think I do it like before I start writing.

The movie is incredibly enjoyable for anybody who is. I also want to say one thing while I have the chance. It is a movie. Many Saints of Newark is a movie. It is not a television show. So my advice, and I mean it, seriously, it's a whole different experience and it's much better in a movie theater than it is at home. Don't watch it on that thing. Go to the movies. I did see it in a movie theater.

I can attest to it being effective in a movie theater. Yeah. And you know, good. I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. But it just isn't, it, it doesn't... What's the word? It doesn't rock like it does in the theater. Well, the thing that I'm doing right now is after I saw the film, it made me want to go back to the series. And I restarted the series again, and I'm watching it again, and I'm loving it, and I'm loving drawing the connections between some of the things that you draw out or hint at or these kind of Easter eggs that you drop into the film. But of the things that you draw out or hint at or these kind of easter eggs that you drop into the film but i was wondering if you would recommend this film

to anyone who has never seen the sopranos yeah do you think it would be effective yes i would i believe that's why i was so pleased at the end of the process which i seldom am. I have a lot of doubts and regrets sometimes. But when I saw this movie at the end of the process, I thought, this is a solid gangster movie. And I still feel that way. I mean, it has its own story, which no other gangster movie has that I can remember. But it's a good gangster film. Was that one of your goals when you started writing it? Yeah, absolutely.

Well, number one, I still don't think a movie would be a success in Warner Brothers terms just appealing to Sopranos fans now, because I didn't know there were that many of them, honestly. I knew it was a popular show, but I didn't know how right at this moment, how popular and widespread it is. So that's really good. But I set out, me and my co-writer Larry Connor,

Lawrence Connor, we set out to make a movie, not a television show. To write a movie and make a movie. And as I said, it's a different thing. And it's, like I said before, it's very disappointing that now it's going to be half a movie and half a television show.

That's not what I signed up for. Yeah, it's tricky. I hadn't really thought about this until you just said Warner Brothers, but this is the studio of Cagney and Bogart and all the way up to Goodfellas. There's a big legacy there. Did you think about that when you were putting this together too?

No, I didn't think about it the way you were just saying. I was pleased to finally be working at Warner Brothers, where those great movies had been made. Kind of a sentimental feeling. It wasn't really a working feeling or a business feeling. It was just a sentimental feeling. Because the people who made those movies are no longer there. Water Tower is still there.

WB is still there. And that was just really pleasing. And to walk past those sets where they made Casablanca was great. It's always very fun to visit that lot. I know you were not able to direct the film for personal reasons and Alan Taylor directed. But you're depicting characters in this film that a lot of viewers are going to have a big relationship to. Vera Farmiga

as Livia and Corey Stoll as Junior and a handful of others. I'm wondering, did they speak to you at length about those characters? Did they re-watch the series? How did they approach approaching these big figures in our memory? The only one i remember having

a lot of conversation with was vera vera did want to know a lot a lot more about libya a lot more about nancy even more about my mother and we had some really good conversations and and now that i see it she probably didn't need it but whatever it took it's great she's just great i'm really interested in the idea of uh whether the movie is a memory or whether it is a an actual recounting of the events in the arc of the soprano family history because in the series you have flashbacks that I think were meant to believe are unreliable.

And so I'm just wondering, is this film fully reliable? Is it a document of what went down? Well, you saw it. I can't really comment on that. I think people have to see it first. Okay, okay. To talk about that i

did i thought of a few a few key episodes um while watching it and even more so when i revisited you know especially in episode seven in season one there is a an event that happens that is sort of recreated in the film and it's a little it seems a little bit different um and i also thought a lot about christopher reflecting on seeing his father in hell after getting shot in season two. And it had me wondering why Dickie Moltisanti as

the kind of the focus of this film. I was just always interested in Dickie Moltisanti. Well, Dickie Moltisanti. I mean, when Larry and I sat down to start writing, we decided, we said, well, so we had no, thankfully, me and I, and God

blessed them, we had, they didn't tell us anything. They didn't say anything, do this or do that. And they're to be really commended for that. So we had to think, think well what should we do and and i think we thought about a young tony story and larry particularly said i don't want to do a teenager teenage movie um so we decided we needed to make a separate movie it's going to be a whole like not a separate universe, but that because we never saw Dickie Malsanti, or really never knew much about his story, that was a whole thing that could be told.

And that he would be as central and as strong and as badass and as smart and as stupid as Tony Soprano. We wanted a gangster, a mobster. badass and as smart and as stupid as Tony Soprano. We wanted a gangster. A mobster. We wanted to tell a story about a mobster and that's what we did. One of the things that's interesting is looking at the marketing of the movie now, in some respects it does feel like

it's being presented as a young Tony Soprano story. That's not correct. That's not correct. It isn't a young Tony Soprano story. That's in, it is in parts. That's not correct. That it isn't a young Tony Soprano story that's in there, but that's not what it is. That's a, that's a, that's a sales device.

Do you, I don't, which I don't approve of. Interesting. Okay. Do you, did you think at all when you and, and Lawrence were writing about audience expectations,

if they would be wanting to see Tony and wanting to draw those connections to what happens in the future in the Sopranos story? I don't follow that. Well, you know, just the idea of sort of giving the audience something that they want to see rather than, like you could have told Dickie's story perhaps without including Tony at all if you wanted to. Right.

But did you think like maybe this will connect people even more deeply to the story by integrating Tony? Well, I think the way we thought about it was this will tie it down to that. There'll be some rope between the two and I think that's as far as we thought. I mean Tony Soprano is a really interesting character and Tony Soprano at 15 or whatever age he is, is also a really interesting character. But Tony was so central to the show that we wanted to do that again in a movie form, that whoever was at the center of it was really the center of it

and was, you know, a for real monster. In terms of Michael Gandolfini appearing in the film, do you know what kind of a relationship he had to the show? Had he watched the show? Was he a big fan of the show before he took it on? We didn't know this until we hired him, that he had never seen the show? Was he, had he watched the show? Was he a big fan of the show before he took it on? He did. He, I didn't,

we didn't know this until we hired him that he had never seen the show. Really? Yeah. So did he go back and watch? Yes, he, oh yes, he did.

I think, I don't want to speak for him, but I believe he said it was, it was too painful for him to watch his dad like that for 86 episodes. But he did do it once he was hired. And really, you can really see the resentment. I don't mean just physically. You can see the resemblance.

The family. DNA. You can see the DNA. Yeah, he makes some faces in the film that are uncanny. Yeah. Was there anything... I know you didn't revisit the show, you didn't re-watch before you started writing, right?

No. Did you feel like you could or should or even consider changing anything or changing our perception of anything from the story? No. No, not really. I mean, the show felt very real to me.

And I don't mean that it felt real in that Jersey, Italian-Americans, men, women. So I didn't think about changing anything. You did portray Newark in 67 in the series, but only briefly. Why was it important in the story to show the riots in the city and what began that? Why was it important? That's a good question because we started this before the recent problems and troubles. I mean, obviously, a lot of people will tell you, what do you mean recent? It's been going on uninterruptedly of course that's true but i'm talking about what was the last year um we didn't know anything about

that when we started writing it and now it turns out to be quote-unquote prescient or connected um what can you say about that it just happened what was the thinking so we don't deserve any credit for anything we didn't we didn? We don't deserve any credit for anything. We didn't, we didn't, we weren't smart enough to anticipate anything. It is something that feels a little different from the series. And insofar as,

you know, you have key sort of main black characters in this film, um, who are core to the story. Was that something in particular that you felt like you wanted to do that you maybe had not done in the series? Um, no, no, I didn't feel like that's something I, Was that something in particular that you felt like you wanted to do that you maybe had not done in the series? No, no,

I didn't feel like that's something I wish we had done, but we didn't do in the series. We had maybe two or three black characters who were kind of core during the course of the series. No, we didn't think about that. It was just, I mean,

I lived about, I don't know, half an hour from newark you know eight to ten ten miles um and my mother was born in newark and grew up there my father met my mother there my entire family was from newark on my mother's side. My girlfriend, now my wife, worked at Prudential Insurance during the riots. And when I first got out of film school, I thought about doing a movie about four white guys from the suburbs who joined the National Guard in order not to go to Vietnam and then get sent down to Newark in a tank during the riots. But I never wrote that. It's a good idea.

Yeah, I never wrote that. And that was kind of playing in my mind when I decided to do this. But I, yeah, anyway. Where did the character of Harold, played by Leslie Odom Jr., come from? Was he inspired by anybody? Well, no. We did research. We read a book called The Godfather's Garden about the Richie Boreardo crew in Newark.

These were the gangsters that were happening when I was growing up. They controlled Essex County. There was a couple of other guys too. But Richie Boriardo, it started out as a milkman, then became a bootlegger, and then became a major gang figure. And I've heard that Coppola or somebody based the Corleone House mansion on Richie Boriardo's house, because he did have a great big house in Livingston, New Jersey, kind of monstrosity of a castle. And I was always interested in that.

And I just wanted to know more about it. And so he controlled all the bookmaking in Newark. And there were some black guys who started to pick off his runners. And it turns out one of them was named Harold something. But I think we had both forgotten that by the time we were writing it. Um, so these independent black operators were, as I say,

picking off his runners and taking the money. And that's what became, you know, as an aggregate, that's what became the movie. Interesting. Um, one of the most fun aspects of it is just seeing young Silvio,

young Pauly, et cetera. Was there anyone who was particularly hard to cast or to capture? Uh, yeah. Pauly is tough. Yeah. Yeah.

What specifically was it about? I don't know. I said this the other day and I don't want to be misconstrued. There's nobody like Tony Sirico. I mean, you can't say, oh, I knew a guy like that. From when I was in high school, my friend, you just can't say that. He is such an individual. And to an extent, at least on the show, he became kind of,

and I don't mean this disparagingly, kind of cartoonish. But that was what was great about him, was that he was a real human being who was capable of saying the most outlandish things and having the most outlandish expression on his face. And for an actor to do that without doing an imitation, very, very difficult. That was hard. And Billy did a really good job. I never would have picked Billy Magnuson for that part too.

It just seems so unlikely given how he looks. But he does have that also kind of comedic streak that Tony has so well. He does. that also kind of comedic streak that that tony has so well um the difference being that billy knows he's being funny that's not the case with tony really tony takes it very very seriously um but he's so wonderful uh i i think he was responsible for a lot of the success of the show. Just this week, I was watching season two, and I saw the episode where he visits the psychic, which is a perfect example of what you're talking about. It's just so funny and still so grounded in this absurd situation.

He's so wonderful. Terry Winter wrote that based on an experience that he had i believe but that's where he's swinging the chair around and you know what was really good about that was i think was the conversation with the priest after okay when he cuts him off the priest was great i forget that man's name. Oh my God. Oh. Are you ready to have a lot of questions again about these characters in this series? Because obviously, you know, at the conclusion especially of The Sopranos,

lots of controversy, lots of questions about the ending and everything. And I feel like the film will now kind of dredge up a lot of questions about the history of these figures. And do you like kind of engaging in the ongoing cult and culture of the Sopranos? Well, yes and no. I mean, it's like a no-win situation. I like talking about the show with people and sort of, or reminiscing about the show,

even though remember when is the lowest form of conversation. I still, I do like talking with people about the show and reminiscing. And I love to see that people appreciate it, but it's a no win situation because if I talk about it too much, it's like being conceited or bragging. I was taught never to do that. So it's difficult. I do feel like, and this has been true of some series in the last 10 or 15 years,

maybe Mad Men, a couple of things that you have have some connections to but the sopranos kind of comes back every five years or so people say i need to watch that again i need to revisit that it stays in the culture do you have a sense of why it is staying in the culture people ask me that all the time this is what i'm talking now is going to be an example of what i just said you're not being conceited. I want to know. No, I like to think because it's really good, but see,

so that sounds conceited and arrogant. And, um, I have never watched the show since then. I've watched bits of it, pieces of it. And when I go back, I forgotten a lot of it.

Let me tell you, um, when I go back and I see like a lot of it, let me tell you. When I go back and I see a scene, I'll say to myself, oh yeah, I see what they really like. I see what they love. Yeah. I have to ask you before we start to wrap up, will we ever see Ribbon of Dreams?

Probably not, start to wrap up will we ever see ribbon of dreams um probably not because hbo was willing to make it but they would only come up with a certain amount of money which really wasn't enough to do it properly and um they had this idea that I should shoot it in someplace in Canada, like Edmonton or I forget Banff. I don't know. I thought, what? Build, build the whole city town Hollywood again.

I don't get it. What's, what's that place got to do with it? Plus they couldn't or didn't want to come up with the money. And so I didn't want to do it with the money and so i didn't want to do it for that we couldn't and they they were also talking about cutting two hours out so it just wasn't it lost its appeal for me but i mean the other day i started thinking about it again and um i started thinking how much how pleasurable pleasurable it could be to work on that

I must tell you that it is I've never looked more forward to a series in my life than that show just because of my interests in film and film history and loving your writing and the worlds that you create I was really excited

so I was disappointed to see that it didn't go. You didn't read the script, did you? No, but I would love to. I mean, how far along did you actually get? We got all, well, I wrote, okay, so it was going to be six hours. So I wrote the first two, and then I wrote the second two, and then it was, so that was four.

So then it was time to rewrite the second two and then it was so that was four so then it was time to rewrite the second two hours I brought Larry in um and we did a pass on it together and then the last two was Larry and uh forget the the woman that he a student of his that he brought along. She was very good. And, you know, then I got involved with the writing of that too. But the thing about it is six hours, it's a long time. That's a lot of work. I mean, that's a lot of work out of your life, you know. That's what, five years or something?

So it's tough. Do you have another iron on the fire? Another thing that you're going to do? I've got a script that I would like to do. Which, well, I'm not going to say it. But I think it'll be a tough one to get going. It's a film. It's a film, yeah.

And will you focus otherwise solely on films? Well, no. My company, I have a woman named Nicole Lambert who worked on a movie with us, and she wrote a teleplay for a pilot which we're going to go pitch to HBO right after Labor Day. Okay.

The script exists already. David, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. You're a cinephile. Have you watched any good films lately? I've watched a lot of good films lately. But they're

all on Criterion Channel. That's okay. Anything can be recommended. But it's hard. There's so many. I guess the last one that really knocked me out was Asphalt Jungle. Yeah, John Huston.

I had never seen it in all these years. Maybe I'd seen pieces of it. And, oh, you know, Chinatown. There you go. That's John Huston both times. I have this impression that the French New Wave guys didn't like John Huston. They didn't talk about him much. And he's like,

the king. How many great movies has this guy made? Jesus. I mean, and I saw also, so they had, they did a whole thing from him on Criterion. Another one called In This Our Life.

Whoa, really good. I haven't seen that one. What is that? It's with Betty Davis and Olivia de Havilland about a family, two sisters. And Betty Davis plays this really irresponsible, brat, rich girl. I can't say, it's just really good.

It was a play. So it kind of, I shouldn't say suffers from that. It doesn't suffer from anything. It's really good. Okay. Those are great recommendations. We love John Houston on the show. David, we love you and your work.

So thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Take care. on the show. David, we love you and your work. So thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Take care. Thank you so much to David Chase. Thank you, of course, to Justin Sales. Thank you to our producer

Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Next week on The Big Picture, we welcome Charles Holmes and Van Lathan, a.k.a. the Midnight Boys of the Ringerverse. We'll be talking about something a little bit different than The Sopranos and The Many Saints of Newark.

I'm talking about Venom, Let There Be Carnage. We'll see you then.