The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Sopranos' Hall of Fame: The Bobby-Tony Fight

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Van Lathan and Wosny Lambre to discuss 'The Sopranos' Season 6, Episode 13: "Soprano Home Movies." Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Van Lathan and Wosny Lambre Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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slash price match for details. Welcome to the prestige TV podcast. Van Lathen is here. Wazin Lambrey is here. We are going to be doing a Hall of Fame episode of the Sopranos because the new movie is coming out at the end of September and we wanted to dive back into that Sopranos world. Now, I ask Van, because Van loves the show more than anyone.

Van, let's do it. Let's do a Sopranos episode. The default for a lot of people is Pine Barrens. That's the one they always go to. Yeah, there was like, yeah, yeah, pine barons. That's the one. And I think the people who have rewatched this series a bunch of times, they respect and love that episode,

but I don't know if that's the default. Van, what did you tell me? I said it's going to be the Tony and Bobby Baccarat fight episode from the last season of the Supranos. I think that's going to be the one. That's the one that I wanted to do. Pine Barrens is the gold standard for a lot of people. but there's some things missing from that episode for me.

The best episodes of the Sopranos for me are the ones that dig into the heart of darkness that Tony Soprano has and how he's teetering on the edge of being good family guy and complete narcissists, murderous, villainous, asshole. And taking him and putting him in that setting out in the woods with his, family, his family and his family. He's literally with his family. And then Bobby is also his family. At watching kind of what happens is those two worlds collide. I think it tells the most of any episode about Tony Soprano in the whole series. In Waz, my take on this is Pine Barron's the greatest quirky Sopranos episode. Tony's, that episode's not necessarily centered around Tony.

It's not really good. Yeah, to have a Pantheon Sopranos episode, we have to dive in and Tony, like Van said. So I told you we were doing this. What was your reaction? I loved it because I hadn't watched this episode in a really long time, but immediately when you said it, I remember just the terror of watching it the first time, right? Like, there's the scary part about, you know, which we'll get into about Bobby beating up his boss essentially, which is like, whoa, what's about to happen to him? But just the tension at the table as Tony is slowly escalating and escalating and escalating. This episode stood out to me.

That's why I was really excited to talk about it with you guys. The Last Sopranos season is a little like the last wire season where it's been discounted when people talk about the legacy of the show and the different runs it had and the iconic characters. Then the last season, some people's disappointment of the season finale and stuff like that. I think the last season is actually really good and accomplishes a lot. takes you in a bunch of different directions. This was the first episode.

It's set up. Yeah, I can't remember how long the layoff was between season six, how they split that up and then this, but I think it was like a year and a half. Like a year and a half, yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of anticipation. We knew it was the last season.

And they set it up perfectly in classic soprano style. It's like, oh, we're going to go to the lake. It seems like Tony's going to get pinched. We have the Johnny Sack callback, throws the gun in the snow. FBI shows up at his house. Oh, okay. So now we're going to continue that storyline.

And then that gets wrapped up in seven minutes, but not before we get to see the guy take a dump right behind Tony in jail. And she's like, one of the great cameos that he was had on the show. The guy just drops trow and he's just going to go to town. But all of a sudden that gets wrapped up. And now it's like, oh, we're good. Tony and Carmelo are going to have a little vacation. They're going to go with his sister who Tony hates, but still Bobby.

And it's the lake. and there's birds. It's really relaxing. But the true fans of the show know, that's usually when the real terror comes fan. Absolutely. When it seems relaxing, when it seems like everybody has let their guards down,

it's when the life rears its ugly head and takes a chunk out of Tony. And at this point in his life, he's dealing with so much. He doesn't feel like himself. He feels like he's less of a man than he was, before, he still thinks, despite being up unassuming drivers in the back of Satrials, for no reason, he still thinks that they look at him like less of a man.

And he feels himself, there's this big huge thing with New York that's coming. Tony's in a place where, like, he feels a little bit backed into a corner. There's a lot that's, like, been on him. And so he was looking to take it out on somebody. which is what he always does. Someone always becomes the dumpster for Tony Sopranos trash feelings. Always.

And he was looking for someone to dump it on. And Bobby, who is, as far as mobsters go, is maybe the most lovable mobster ever. Ever. The history of any mob show ever. Yep. Ever.

If they were going to put somebody there to kick Tony's ass where the whole audience was going to be like, Like Carmilla said, serves you right, it was going to be Bobby. And you know, so why it's perfect that it's Bobby is that Tony's such a self-loathing guy, a lot of the time, like most of the series, he's projecting his self-loathing on to Bobby when he's like calling him a fat fuck and all of that. Like when he's always sort of using Bobby as a whipping boy, it's a standing for himself because Tony's so obviously. hates himself. And so Bobby is usually the guy getting the brunt of that.

Like the other day, because I recently started rewatching the Sopranos, maybe like the third or fourth time, the first scene that Tony and Bobby are in together, the truce is sort of called between Jr. and Tony

and Bacalao goes to the victor, goes all the spoils. And Tony's like, get your fat ass out of here. Get out of here. Fucking idiot. It's like,

perfectly sets up what their relationship is going to be for the rest of the series. Like Bobby, just being a nice dude. Like, all right, bygones is bygones. You guys won, you know, to the victor goes, the spoils, and Tony just being a monster, as always. Well, we never saw anyone challenge Tony who was underneath him in the hierarchy. Right? We saw family challenge him.

Family was always his weak spot. Uncle June, his sister, his mom. So, and Bobby would have never challenged him under normal sort of. But now he's married into the family. Right. There's a lot of liquor. That is one of the best, the setup of it, we get to see Carmela do her terrible karaoke. They're throwing it down.

They're playing monopoly. They're arguing about, you know, what the rules are. We're saying, all very family-oriented. Monopoly, a game that lends itself to family drama. I always say, only do cocaine and drink and play monopoly with people. that you trust. I'm telling you, and I've never done one, and I do, and the one I've done a lot of,

I'll let the audience figure that out. But if you're sitting down and you're playing monopoly with people and they're not like your people, it's going to get ugly. It's a long-ass fucking game, and people got different rules, and especially if you had a couple of drinks, they're going to be arguments in monopoly.

Yeah, there's, in college and after college, like multiple, like major arguments about monopoly. What the fuck? Why you put $100 in free parking so, so identifiable. By the last, it always happens. I don't give a fuck how they play where you from.

We don't do that. So pick that money. I don't give a fuck how they play where you from. That's not how we play. So put the money bill. You know what I mean? It's perfect right. One of my high school friends,

Scott Carino, who used to trash talk and for some reason would always get like the perfect roles. And then he would like hand out $20, but like, could you roll the dice for me? I'll give you $20. Like, he was one of those guys. Like, fight him at the table. But yeah, so you see all the wine, you see the Monopoly Board.

You're like, oh, this isn't going to go good. But all these years later, this was March 2007, we're almost 15 years later. It's hard to overstate how shocking it was when Bobby started side-eyeing him. And you're watching it in the moment, not knowing anything. And you're like, oh, no, Bobby, settle down. No, no, no. Settle down, Bobby. Check that.

Don't, that stink guy. Don't do that again, Bobby. And then he does it again. And then fucking throws the sucker punch. And the next two minutes are the most exciting two minutes of the show leading to was a Douglas Tyson level upset. I think Tony goes into this fight. I don't care that he's been shot a year ago. They're both drunk.

I think he's still like a minus 900 favorite. Right? Minutes 800. And all we've ever seen is Tony just brutalized people. Like there's never been any scenario where he was physically threatened. But Bobby is like the same size as if not bigger. And he takes him down. And that moment is so scary because it's like we know what Tony's done to people for way less offenses.

And when Bobby just runs out of the crib and he's like, oh shit, I'm about to die behind this. It's just such a crazy, exciting moment. And again, the way they built it up. And that's the coolest thing about the writing on the show. So much of what's happening in the dialogue, there's a lot simmering underneath it. Like the convo at the Monopoly table, that convoy that Carm and Janice have, where Janice is talking about killing, like actually murdering her ex. And Carmela thinks that she's talking shit again, as she's done so many times in the past.

like so many things are happening on two tracks at the same time in this show and that's why I think it's freaking genius man that monopoly scene from beginning to end is just perfectly crafted no surprise this is probably the best show ever made but right even though the monopoly house is stuck in his cheek

and then Carmela takes it off and then it cuts to the monopoly house with the blood on it and the parallel of like that with the actual this is Bobby's dream house, which has now been tarnished forever. Bobby, like, seeing Tony on the ground and then just kind of looking around, he just leaves, backs his car into a tree. Also, before the fight happens, you know, like, so that last time with Bobby's like, all right, man, just chill out. It's enough. That's my wife, blah, blah, blah. Like, Tony, he looks at him and you automatically know

Tony's about to take it there. You can't help himself. That's just what he does. He's just a dick. season after season after season and then he goes under the boardwalk And also you know that Tony's ego is not going to allow Bobby Is Bobby's house Is Bobby's table

Is all that Is Bobby's wife? Is Bobby's wife? Tony's ego is not going to allow Bobby to take any ownership In that situation It's just not going to work Something else about this is

This is the first time if I remember that we see extreme violence from Bobby. Bobby has made his way in the mafia and, you know, they talk about it in that episode that he's done other stuff, but he's never, you know, put a button on anybody. He's never, he's never killed anyone. And he's almost seen as like the lovable mobster, like I said before. But this is a reminder that Tony's not the only tough guy in every room that he walks into. Right. Bobby, remember Bobby had just lost a bunch of weight. There was that the whole thing where he was playing basketball that time and Tony was

admiring him because he was so athletic and he whoops his ass. And, you know, there's going to be a point in Tony's career as the mob boss where he's not going to be the big swinging dick in every room. And now he has to deal with the fact that he's not even the big swinging dick in his own fucking family. Yeah. When you die back in this world, and I think we all, you know, HBO will do the binge watch. And it's just on all the time.

We're like, oh, fuck. All right. Now, I'll watch this one. I'll watch this one. And Gandalfini is always the thing that jumps out. Just what an incredible actor he is. And he's had movies in the past, too, like me and Vance favorite 8mm. But, you know, his true romance guy, there's this gleam in his eye as he's torturing the other character in the scene.

that nobody has. And the Monopoly thing taps into that where he sees Bobby drunk and getting mad and this is like a free pass for him. Oh, I'm gonna just fuck with Bobby and he's singing the under the boardwalk. And it's like,

with Janice and a dick in her mouth. Bobby's like, fuck this. It just punches her. But it was like, Tony lives for this shit. Just fucking with people using his power, using his superiority.

This is basically the whole premise of the show and Bobby's the first person. who basically says now you're not doing this. Yeah, and it was so dope to what they're doing, what the writers do is show you the sort of internal just rot and decay and just damage of the soprano family. And once you're in proximity of these people, it's going to touch you.

It's going to get you no matter what. To the point where they, like, the point of them showing you that Bobby hasn't killed anybody, and then they bring up back up the point. Just in case you forgot, Janice has. Like, it's great. Like, even the people who aren't in the mafia, like Janice is not a mob member,

but she's even murdered somebody herself. And Bobby hasn't in it. And of course, by the end of the episode, Bobby's been touched by the soprano death touch and just, you know, the damage. And it's, you know, now his life is set on the course. Then it also ties into everybody's family's fucked up. everywhere. There's nobody who's like,

oh, my family lights out. We have 20, 20 extended family members. All them are normal. Everybody's got shit going on. The Sopranos, you know,

they go to that lake house and they go, hey, how you doing? Meanwhile, like, Tony's sister just killed her, the guy she was with

before Bobby. Tony hates his sister. Tony and Carmela have just had this roller coaster ride of whatever. Like, they're bringing all these skeletons to the lake house. and then they all come out of the ground van.

So do you remember when she kills Richie or Prill? Oh yeah. Okay, so she kills Richie, which just is a, one of the great things the show does is it runs a through line through the soprano family and it shows you all the ways that there are alike, right? So Richie hits her, she comes back down,

she kills Richie, right? She can't deal with it. She freaks out. That is one of the greatest scenes in television history. grabs her mouth. Oh my God. I cannot believe he did this. And she goes, she actually goes shit. Like I'm in this situation. She walks away, goes and gets a gun come back. This is the disdain that Tony has for his sister. He's putting her on a Greyhound bus to get her out of town. And she asked him like, what did you do with him? And Tony says, we put him on a little hill overlooking the brook. There's water. We buried him. It was very dope. It was cool. And she goes, really? He goes, what the fuck do you? You can. Like, get on the bus and get the fuck out of here.

So there is deep, like in the moment that she's dealing with murdering the man that she loves, he takes time out to fuck with her. So there's deep dysfunction that is running through this family, right? Deep dysfunction. This is familiar to me. In my house, these family reunions is how we learned about how these people hated each other. It's how we learned. My dad, two of my uncles would be there and my dad would be like,

like, yeah, you don't know back in 75 he stole his girl. You never know that. Your auntie? He was with him first. And I'm like, what? Yeah, they were dating about three, four months. Hey, don't say nothing. Let's let him go. Let me see how they figure it out. And that's like the type of shit that would happen, right? But it's just the stakes are raised here

because this guy will actually have you killed. And he is also the, not just Bobby's up against two things. Number one, he'll be killed. And number two, it's how he gets money. Right. He gets money. This guy's his boss. So in that moment,

Bobby is rising up and doing his thing, but it's also the only time someone failed to remind themselves that Tony Soprano was Tony Soprano. Well, he's his boss, but they're in the murdering crime business. It's like a whole other level of it. That's my boss. It's like, oh, my boss is mad.

I'm going to be in a parking lot tomorrow, seven feet under. They set up, The other thing this show does, which I'd forgotten. I shouldn't have forgotten. But he's on the boat before they have the fight, Tony and Bobby. And they're talking about getting whacked. And Bobby has that line where he says something like, I never did it, but I did other stuff. But Bobby says when you get whacked, I don't think you hear it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And people have always thought like Chase planted that in this. episode for what was the last scene going to be where it's like he looks up, he doesn't hear it, we don't hear anything, it just goes black. So that's the case if you think Tony died in the last episode, which I think most people do. That's the case that they sprinkled that little breadcrumb there. But that's a really interesting scene because they're hanging out as like brother-in-laws, brothers-in-law. And yet Bobby still works for Tony. Bobby still reveres Tony. The other thing was, Bobby, I mean, if there's a flaw in this show

and why I think if you're going to make the case for the wire over this show is just like a superior show, the acting and the wire across the board, I think, is better. There's some actors in the Sopranos over the years were like, oh, man, they really scrape the bottom of the barrel that person. Bobby was somebody that got better as the show went along. 100%.

And by this episode, I was struck by how good he is in this episode. He's actually a really good actor. He does good things. He walks us through some stuff. I would not have guessed he was able to do that in, like, season three, right? The way he plays his shock at the soprano family behavior, like, while, like, now that he's intimate with them, like, he's spending lakehouse vacations with them. Like, the way he does that to be like, yo, like, he's reminding us as an audience, like, these people are fucking monsters.

Like, he is so horrified by that every single. turn when he's like, Tone, come on. Or he's like, what the? And he's like, Janice. Like, he's just like, you like, I can't deal with you people. This is my wife. Like, who does this? And to get back to what Van says, and what you say about

Chase and the writers setting stuff up, when Janice is talking to Carmela about, you know, Tony's actually a lot more like his mother than he would like to admit, like I'm a bit of a head. I fucking murdered my boyfriend right after he smacked me in the mouth.

Tony, he's not going to get Bobby back by killing him. He's like, I'll get a more vindictive way of getting them back and fucking up his whole life and his psyche by making him do that hit at the end of the episode. They just do these beautiful things along the way and it's just fucking perfect. Yeah, Tony's like playing chess with how to fuck people up. The checkers is just, they come back. Two days later, Bobby's never seen again. It's like, what happened to Bobby? He went to go get some milk.

Oh, he's gone. And Janice knowing immediately, oh, Tony killed Bobby. That's not what Tony. Tony wanted to take away the one thing that Bobby had, which was, I'm in this business with all these bad people and all of these crimes and murders and my safety is always in peril. But I've never killed anybody. Like, he was proud of it. Tony's like, all right, you beat me in this fight where you got the sucker punch.

He keeps coming back to it. Right. Keeps bringing it up. He's like, no, no, you beat me. me fair and square and then he's like well but you did sucker punch me well i did get shot a year ago well i am four years older than you he's got seven excuses and then finally he's like all right this is the one way i can get this guy back i'm going to take this thing away from him and he does and he's and that that's the kind of stake setting that he does right it's like i don't have to kill you i can take

the you of you from you i can take who you are from you and then put you in that place for the bobby obviously when he was talking about that it was obvious he He liked the fact that he had never killed anyone. Bobby don't want to kill nobody. Bobby was the mob's nurse for years. His job was to take care of Junior. Now, he wanted to move up, and he even talked about wanting to move up.

But that was a part of him that he liked. But Tony knew that, and that's what being the boss about. Tony always had to be able to see the angles and know how to press people and know how to make people into what they want to be and what they don't want to be. And that's the way he got back at him.

Just an asshole dick move. Tony Soprano. at the end of it. Because the all-time dick of dicks. He's the worst. Like you couldn't, there was no one, like you couldn't introduce Tony. Every woman that Tony got introduced to. Oh, yeah?

How are you doing? Every single time he was just, he was fucking everything, killing everything, and exploiting everyone. Yeah. And the other thing that they did in the episode, because Bobby says my dad never wanted for me. And Tony's like, damn. Yeah.

And because your dad was a stone killer. Killer. And he kept them away from that, whereas Tony's dad was shooting his mom's hair to do with a freaking pistol, right? Like, he shot at his mom's head. So it's like, it shows you the contrast of the, you know, the upbringings of what makes Tony into a monster. It's like, look at his parentage. Like, look who reared this dude as a young. And as opposed to Bobby, whose dad was like, now I want to shield you from this.

Well, and then the other piece of that is he's mad at Janus for telling the story. Right. He knows that bad. He's still keeping this facade that he's a good person. It's like, Tony, we all know you're a piece of shit. Yeah, right. We all know. This story is not changing our opinion of you and the soprano family.

Like, you're a piece of shit. But yeah, he's like really mad. Like, hey, man. And that, you know, he's probably more like his mom. Janice is probably more like the dad. I think in the movie the dad's played by Ray Leota, the mom was like just a psychological chess master. You know, and all she wanted.

wanted to do is just kind of fuck people up. And that's, Tony's more of that side than the, than the Johnny side. Right. Tony, Tony blames his mother for everything. Because remember Johnny boy wanted to get out of the mob and he wanted to take the family, he wanted to move.

They was going to move to Reno. They was going to move to Reno. They was going to get away from it. And three years, the soprano family will be totally legitimate. You know what I mean? So they wanted to get out and they wanted to, they wanted to move and she didn't let them.

So Tony looks back to a, This is so often true. Tony looks back to almost everything in his life as a result of who his mother was, which is exactly who he becomes exactly like, exactly like, which is another reason why he can't get along with his sister. Because she is impulsive. She is headstrong.

She is all of the things that Johnny Boy was while he is brooding. And I don't want to bring his mental illness into it, but he's brooding, he's conniving, he's calculating, he's all the things that his mother was. Well, one of the great things about this show, and I think the best shows do this, they keep bringing in new characters. Chris and I did a rewatchable

about Miami Vice, the TV show. And we were saying, like, the biggest mistake that show made is they just kind of never introduced new people. Sopranos was always introducing new people as a way to basically throw a rock in the water and cause some splashes. And Janus became this foil for Tony

as she got more and more run. and was kind of the one person he couldn't figure out how to disarm, right? He could ultimately with Carmela like that's the wife, that's the mom of his kids, but they can get divorced.

He can get away from her. He can get away from all the people he works with. But the sister is like this labyrinth that he just can't, he can't figure it out. She just gets to him. She fucking annoys him. Even when he tries to,

you know, like, so to go back to what Van said, like at the beginning of, I guess it's, season two or season three whenever um after killing richie so i guess this is beginning of season three you know uh the mom dies and tony calls him for the funeral like your mother just died you have to come back like it's it's imperative that you do so and she's like what about that other thing he's like who richie is it with this protection right he's always fixing things for

these people, even for his family, you know, AJ, a lot of this, we see this a lot with AJ, even as they're screwing things up along the way. In a weird way, in a weird way, and it's, you see this a lot with a lot of alpha males. In a weird way, Tony is most indebted to the people who have disappointed him, right? Like he, in a weird way, the people that challenge, like, those types, you just got to get rid of the challenge. But Tony in a weird way is most indebted to the people that he thought should have done more from him and they did. He talks about this. Janice ran out of the house, left him by himself to deal with all the craziness with his

parents. And he, after all of this time, is still looking for an explanation of why she did that, of why she didn't stay home and take the slings and the arrows with him and how she could do that, still kind of looking for her love in a little while. That's why you would think that if he hated her so much, Hey, you kill Richie Appreel. Great. Go rot in jail.

Like, he was a problem for me anyway. Nah, he fixes it. Every time she, he gave her the house. Every time she needs something, just like the situation was with his mom, every time she needs something, he's right there. He's right there because, like, there's something deep down inside of him

that can't figure out why he was never good enough for her to protect. And that's really how you get to guys like Tony Soprana. You get there about having them by, like, Pran on. Remember he never had the makeings of a varsity athlete thing Which is the funniest thing in television history When junior started to go He's like you never had the makers of a varsity

athlete. Oh man. That would drive Tony because anyone who didn't look at him As the king of everything He was obsessed with it. He just wanted to know why I'm Tony Soprano. Even when he loses this fight He looks at Carmela and he goes

He's wondering if she's going to think less of him, I was there when I took Dominic Tedesco at Pizza World. You loved it. He knows what makes people tick. He knows what makes people tick. And if they can see through him and see to his insecurity, that's actually how you get him to stick around and show up for you if you're, if you prove that you're not who he thinks he is or whatever.

Uncle June was really good at that for sure because again, recently I watched the oral sex episode where, you know, it gets out that Uncle June likes to perform oral sex on his woman, which is like in the mob is like, how could you ever do that? I don't go down to Boca enough. Right. And so they're at their golf, they're at their golf outing. And Uncle June, again, brings up like that, you know, he brought his homies to watch him play baseball and he dropped a fly ball or something stupid. There was no reason to do that, but he knew he could cut Tony.

down with his, you know, his foibles as an athlete. And Tony starts going, all right, all right. Now I'm going to talk about something you don't like. And he just keeps going and going and going. So we've seen Tony do this. Even when he did, like he'll take a hit and then he's going to come back and do the super vindictive thing. He's just such a great character.

One of my favorite things about Tony is like, I bought you this or I did this for you. And I'm good here. I don't actually have to work on our relationship, spend time with you. I got you this. Even with AJ, I think at the end of the season six, right? He gets him like the construction job, right?

And gets him, this is really important to him. But by the time we get to season seven, AJ's, what, working at a pizza place? He's working at beans. He's a cizzeria. But by the end of it,

I think he's doing something with scripts or something like that. By the end, right? Yeah. AJ is, yeah, doing something. He just can't figure out how to have relationships, really with anybody.

The only relationship he loves is power, which is why, as you mentioned, you know, the mortality of him as a bad guy, which he doesn't really realize until that fight. Like he knew he got shot, he fought through, he came back. But what he never realized until that moment is like, oh, man, I'm getting close to 50. I get beat up. Yeah. It was one of the things with Tony that was so believable compared to like even God,

the godfather, Michael Corleone, who's like, you know, little 5-7 Italian guy. And he had to be menacing just by like the looks on. his face and like the things he could do. But he couldn't actually like kick somebody's ass the way like Sonny who's wearing like the sleeves white t-shirts with the muscles. And he felt like, but Sonny could actually fight.

Like he goes and he beats the shit out of Carlo. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing. And it's like, all right, that's believable. This guy is somebody who takes care of business.

Tony always had that. And then in this episode it goes away. Yeah. This episode, it gets compromised, which was great. But the family stuff, um,

this show and the wire for me are the two that I can always go back into the world and I'm just happy. I'm happy to be in this fucked up place with Tony. Like the blowjob scene in this in this episode where we just see Tony lying on his bag. He's like, oh! Oh!

Like dying. You think if somebody's something happening? Like what's going on? Okay. Like most actors like botched that, but he does it and there's like real joy. Like it's just really funny. We got to talk about some of the funnier

parts of the episode because I think that's what carries this show and the wire is the comedy is just on another level. Yeah, the throw away the lines. Like, though, with the point to the deerhead, he's, he can't do it. He's stuffed or whenever they're like, ah, ha, ha.

Like, very early on in the episode, Meadows, like, what was that show of force about? Like, the show always made fun of Meadows, choosy-ass liberalism. It's like, really, Meadow? Like, you anti-police? You know what your dad?

be doing like it's like really metal or the part where bobby's talking about how his grandfather got to the country he's like he couldn't get in through the normal means because he was a criminal basically in Italy so he had to coming through Canada and then afterwards he says I'll tell you what they need to build a wall right now I'm like oh my god that is so fucking perfect like you're a criminal right now your grandfather was a fucking criminal but you're like yeah nobody else So nobody else can come in. You're exploiting the whole country. Oh my God.

It's perfect. And that was funny like when when Meadows car got broken into when Meadow's car got broken into and Tony was being racist and Tony was and Tony was being like she was like a black guy wouldn't you know that? Like you're a criminal.

You're not a criminal. You're the criminal. It's great. It's so, so funny, man. It's great. And that to me, to be honest with you, that's what separates this show from The Wire. The Wire is a better show than Sopranos. I think the Wire's the greatest show that's ever happened.

The Sopranos is more entertaining. It's the most entertaining show that I think has ever been on. Because the show is consistently funny. Like, I watch all of these interviews with these mobsters. Don't ask me why I spend hours on YouTube watching interviews with Michael Francis. and all of these guys. And every second sentence, these guys misuse a word.

And like every second sentence, these guys misuse a word, he'll say something like, that's why, you know, when I speak, I use a lot of dichotomy in my language. And you'll be like, no.

You know, I'll be like, you'd be like, no. And like, that happens consistently on the sopranos, no matter what's a level of the, mobsters, intelligences. Tony's one of the smartest guys around.

He does it all the time. And these guys really do it in real life. I'm just, I'm just using that as in the side. Well, I really missed this show. It was fun. I do too. One of the great things about it, and it's a lot like the wire. I don't feel like Game of Thrones is like this necessarily,

or some of the other ones are breaking bad. Sopranos in the Wire, I can just jump into any season, any episode, and I'm right in the season. And I'm, and I'm, my wife always has this joke about, like, with these shows that we used to like when we rewatch them. And she's always like, oh, my friends are back. Like, she feels like the characters of the friends. Yeah.

And it's like with the Sopranos, I know these are all horrible people, but it's like these people that we spent 110 episodes with or whatever. And then it ends. And then you go back and you rewatch it and you get to relive it. And the wire was like this too. And it's like, it's just like having some of these people on my TV, you know? Yeah. I just think the themes of the two shows are very resonant.

Like, obviously family is going to be resonant. from here until forever. And in the wires case, it's like institutional decay. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes a lot since. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, can you imagine the Sopranos in 2021 with the Meadow character? The directions they could have gone with that in her torturing Tony. We talked about this before we got on here. Yesterday when we spoke, Bill, you were like, we might have missed an opportunity with White Lotus. I think White Lotus did a lot of that work of critiquing the idea of a certain type of self-identified,

Leraboro, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And sort of turning it on his head, like a commentary and a critique on that. Yeah, they would have did a lot with that metal character, you know. It's funny. Like when Carmel, when Tony's yelling at Carmela, but she's like, he's like, you did tell me to chill out of drinking. And he said, but you should. have insisted. Right.

Oh my God. That is just great. Last thing I'll say. Yeah. And I have a theory about this. Tony's a bad guy and these characters are bad. But I think we love them because they're actually not so bad. So this is what I mean.

Tony's like a terrible guy, right? But terrible is really about like when we hear about people that do really terrible things, the reason why they're super terrible to us is because we really can't relate to them. I think about one season, one thing in Tony's, one scene in the Sopranos that is a great indication of who Tony Soprano is and why we love him and why we love the character.

Remember when Melfy got beat up? Yeah. Or she got like, was like she got assaulted. Yeah, that was one of the most important episodes. Right. She's sitting down and she's talking to Tony, right? She's talking to Tony about it and there's tension about whether or not she's going to tell him. Poll everybody who's watching the season,

who's watching the show. they want her to tell him. Yeah. They desperately want her to tell him. Because the reason being is that as bad as Tony is, there are not very many people who wouldn't want a Tony Soprano in their life. Somebody who was willing to do anything good or bad, willing to go to any place, good or bad on behalf of you.

And like, as fucked up as he is, there was something inside of him that if he really, really believed that somebody that was close to him was compromised, that he would burn up heaven and hell to make them feel better and to make it right no matter who he had to hurt. And he was going to hurt some people who deserved it and probably some people who didn't deserve it. So there was still something inside of Tony that was relatable that we got. It wasn't the terrible parts of them. When people think about Tony, what you really think of is, Oh, he's not so bad.

But if you step back and you look at it, it's pretty fucking bad. Well, you know what? This goes back to a van when you and I talked about Michael K. Williams and the Omar character. Tony did have a code. He did. And it was really fucked up and disagreed with some of the premises of that code.

But we knew he had the code and he never deviated from it. And every decision he made was kind of based on that code, which I think the best TV shows, you can have that complicated character, but if they have the code, Waz is like this. Waz has a code. Ben Simmons violated the code for Waz.

Wazz out. I'm out. I know Waz well have to know. Like, there's certain things you can't do with Waz. But yeah, that's the thing. It's important, you know, I know we did mention it, but it is important, like,

to mention James Gandalfini's performance because, like, yes, he's the best. Like, the way he could play the menace, but then do the puppy dog eyes. thing and like where he goes yeah but you know it's my mother and what kind of son doesn't do this and that like his his ability to be just Satan and just a sad little puppy dog little boy who is lost like his ability to play those two poles or a guy's guy or a guy who can seduce whoever and yeah like you believe these guemars were into him like I believe that they wanted Tony

for sure like 100% of when he do something romantic for karma or so Something nice. Just like Christopher and the Russian Gumar, who were just two complete fuckups. And the amount of times that he would like take up for them and help them out and obviously eventually ended up killing Chris. Yeah. Yeah.

I was saying, like, that's great. But he tried along the way. He did. Well, I have to go see my Gumar. I will. I'm kidding. That's a joke. Those are jokes.

I just want to wake up in. Kyle, please take that out. No, the Sopranos movie is coming out at the end of September. I'm so glad we did this. Van Woz, great to see you guys. Thanks for doing this. Always. Of course.

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