Richie and Janice’s marriage plans suddenly get scrapped.
Tony’s goomar Irina attempts suicide
after he tries to end their relationship.
Episode 25 – Originally Aired April 2, 2000
Written by Green & Burgess
Directed by Allen Coulter
__________________________________
The hour starts off with surprising imagery, almost surreal in how incongruent it is with our expectations for an opening scene. We rub and blink our eyes, unsure if we’re actually watching The Sopranos or if there’s been some weird mix-up.
Our disorientation is reduced when Tony and Janice enter the room, but we are still unsure who—or what—the dancers were. Ghosts? A hallucination? We soon learn that it is just Richie’s son and his dance partner. Reality trumps fantasy. Director Allen Coulter says that he instructed Gandolfini to come into the scene “ass first” in order to give his entrance a humorous impact and undermine the scene’s surreal quality. The reality of Tony’s ass intrudes upon the fanciful moment.
This episode is all about the intrusion of reality upon the mythologies and fantasies of several characters. Even the centuries-old, romantic idea of “the knight in shining armor” is mocked and demythologized: first, by the malapropism of the title; and later, through Tony’s storyline. (He plays the role of this episode’s knight-errant.)
We first heard Russian goomar Irina mix and mangle a couple of cultural references to produce the phrase “knight in white satin armor” back in Season One’s “College.” (She is obviously combining the chivalric “knight in shining armor” with The Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin.”) Irina has deluded herself into believing that Tony can be her hero and provide her with all the love and security she requires. But Tony bucks against the obligations that his needy mistress tries to saddle upon him. She tries to evoke his jealousy but, in his emotional distance, he feels none. When he ends their relationship, she downs 20 sleeping pills in a suicide attempt.
Pussy has also deluded himself. He is suffering from something like Stockholm Syndrome, trying to bond himself with the FBI, even giving himself the handle “Fat Man.” He actually believes he can be employed by the Feds once he testifies against Tony. Reality comes crashing in while he is tailing Christopher and loses control of his car, smashing into a passing bicyclist. Of course, the delusion can go both ways—FBI agents are potentially vulnerable to improperly bonding themselves with mafioso. In previous episodes, we’ve seen the Feds get chummy with Tony and the mobsters. Here, Agent Cubitoso warns Agent Lipari that “You can get too close”—while scarfing down tasty morsels from the gift basket that Tony sent for his birthday:
Big Pussy uses Agent Lipari almost as a therapist here, unburdening himself of all his frustrations regarding Tony Soprano. Pussy feels that Tony doesn’t respect him enough. He is still smarting over being treated like some errand boy, asked to find AJ’s teacher’s car last year (“46 Long”). Chase cuts from this scene, in which Pussy feels betrayed by Tony, to a scene in which another of Tony’s loved ones feels betrayed by him:
Carmela picks up the scent of her husband’s infidelity. Like Big Puss, Carmela is driven by her pain to counter-betray Tony. She seeks out Vic Musto under the pretense of wanting to thank him for his good judgment in squashing their potential affair, but we get the sense that Carm may actually be trying to ignite a romance (or at least keep the option of a future romance open). The pounding of the paint machine at the store where Carm and Vic meet sounds a bit like an old-school Tommy Gun, and so the sound adds a threatening undertone to the two scenes which it connects: the paint mixer links the scene in which Richie enacts a plan that threatens Tony’s life to the scene in which Carmela enacts a plan that threatens Tony’s marriage:
Carmela has long been aware of her husband’s infidelity but she has tried not to let it infringe upon the dream of happy, comfortable domesticity that she lives in. Reality, however, comes calling—Irina calls Tony at the house with words of love and a tone of apology. This intrusion is more than Carmela can face and she storms out of the room. She still thinks that some kind of relationship with Vic is possible but Gabrielle Dante clears up that particular delusion, saying that Vic didn’t stay away from her because of his good judgment but because he’s scared of Tony: “Face it, Carmela. Use your head. He pissed his pants.”
Carmela tries to warn Janice that as a mob wife, she will soon have to accept Richie having a mistress. Janice remains untroubled by this possibility because she is sure no goomar would be willing to allow Richie to hold a gun to her head during sex. There has been an interesting comparison made between Carmela and Janice over the course of this season. In the early episodes, Janice (though a moocher and a welfare queen) has a level of autonomy and independence that Carmela doesn’t have. As she gets closer to becoming a mob wife, she gives up much of her independent-mindedness (and jettisons her “Parvati” persona). Although she allows herself to be put in a demeaning, subservient position during sexplay (something we can’t imagine Carmela ever agreeing to), Janice still remains a willful and strong personality. She is a complex and contradictory woman. The “mirror scene” here underscores her multi-dimensional character:
Allen Coulter says that he shot this scene through the mirror because of the cramped conditions of the location. This may be true, but the convention of using a mirror to express the dual nature of a character is one that goes back to the early days of film (and was used extensively in 1940s film noir).
The “white satin” dress that Janice is wearing here plays into the episode title—Janice is no pushover or doormat, she can be as forceful as a knight when she wants to be. Richie expects her to play the part of the traditional New Jersey mob wife, but it is not fully certain that Janice is willing to play this role. Janice Soprano’s bigger role in Season 2 is to represent a mortal threat to Tony. She shares her mother’s murderous impulses. She nudges her fiancé, who is still stinging over the debacle with the leather jacket, towards committing murder. Richie goes to Corrado with the homicidal plan and manages to get some traction; Corrado, after all, needs cash for the cost of his legal defense and is bitter that Tony is not letting him deal cocaine on company time.
Richie and Corrado conspire to put a hit on Tony. But Richie is not able to sell the idea to the other capos. They don’t respect Richie enough to buy into his plan. When he approaches Albert Barese with the idea, Barese—almost mockingly—parrots everything Richie says to him. It may simply be that Barese has a nutty verbal tic, similar to the one Jimmy ‘Two-Times’ had in GoodFellas. (Jimmy would constantly repeat his last sentence twice.) But we suspect—and Richie also seems to recognize—that Barese simply doesn’t have much respect for him. In Richie’s introductory episode, “Toodle-fucking-oo,” the camera was used to emphasize his “short but tough” persona. He was shown as a man who could fill the television frame with his presence despite his small size:
But now, after failing to bring the captains on board in the assassination plot, Richie is presented very differently. Chase films him through the kitchen pass-through window, and this frame-within-a-frame shot isolates and diminishes him. In the reverse shot, naïve Bobby expresses his admiration for Richie’s fearlessness, but wily Corrado has moved past his admiration for the diminutive man. Corrado decides to turn his back on Richie and ally himself with Tony instead.
Corrado cements himself to Tony by revealing Richie’s assassination plot to him. (By pinning the plot entirely on Richie, Corrado essentially frames him, perhaps allowing a new reading of the frame-within-a-frame shot.) Upon learning of Richie’s betrayal, it doesn’t take consigliore Silvio very long to reach the conclusion that he must die:
Five seconds is all Silvio needs. There is something tragic, but still funny, in how these characters find human life so disposable. Of course, the Universe can be tragic and funny in this regard too: Fate steps in and disposes of Richie before Tony even gets the chance. In his essay, “Mangia Mafia!” Michael Grynbaum explores the tension between Janice and Richie that leads to his death. Janice still retains some of her independent spirit, and moreover, she is something of a “masculinized woman.” (This is established in her first scene of the episode, when she hauls a couch into the house and reveals she once worked as a mover.) Grynbaum analyzes how this “masculinized woman” violates the feminine norm as defined by the Mafia in the moments leading up to her shooting of Richie:
- She complains about spending all day “in this house cooking your fucking dinner…” A true mob wife would never gripe about spending time in the kitchen.
- She slips her mother a couple of sleeping pills so that she and Richie can have sex. “In initiating sex, Janice plays the aggressor, a traditionally male role. Richie becomes irate as the gender roles in his household are further subverted…”
- Janice is slow to serve Richie dinner, prompting him to go into the kitchen and serve himself.
- Janice expresses her belief that it would be perfectly acceptable for Richie’s son—his namesake—to be gay.
This final transgression earns Janice a punch in the mouth. We know that Richie believes he has the right to beat his woman—in 2.03, he told Chris it was ok for him to hit Adriana as long as he put a ring on her finger first. But this is not something Janice can abide. She had deluded herself into believing that prison had transformed Richie into a thoughtful man, but reality smashes her in the face. Janice returns to the dining room with a gun in her hand and puts a bullet in Richie’s chest. He crawls backwards into the kitchen (the same kitchen where we first saw them as a couple in episode 2.05 and Tony mocked their relationship as “Ozzie and fuckin’ Harriet over here”). Janice squeezes the trigger once more and finishes him off.
I think there is an important point that needs to be emphasized about Richie Aprile: he was an asshole. Sure, he was a sociopath and a murderer and a misogynist and a homophobe, but his most salient characteristic was his assholery. It is primarily because of this characteristic that he couldn’t get the other mobsters to join him in a plot against Tony, and why Silvio is so quick to agree that he must be whacked, and why Janice doesn’t hesitate to destroy him. In a sense, Richie’s ugly personality is part of Chase’s commitment to portraying “the fuckin’ regularness of life”—people like Richie are simply an inescapable part of everyday life. There is not one person among us that hasn’t had to deal with an asshole at work or an asshole in the family or an asshole around the neighborhood. Asshole Richie is the prototype for future SopranoWorld assholes Ralph Cifaretto, Feech La Manna and Phil Leotardo.
In the aftermath of Richie’s murder, needy Janice is conspicuously paralleled with needy Irina. In this episode, both Irina and Janice call Tony in their moments of desperation, despite having felt the utmost anger towards him earlier. Both of them have scenes in which they physically cling to Tony—their knight in white cotton undershirt—as they beg him not to leave.
Tony does truly come to Janice’s rescue here, not only in cleaning up her murderous mess, but also shielding her from Livia’s cruel words. Sitting on her chair-lift in the staircase (a place of menace and callousness in SopranoWorld), Livia hurls pointed insults at her daughter. Tony defends his sister, but comes to realize that Livia genuinely doesn’t know how hurtful she can be: “You don’t know, do you? You don’t have a fucking clue.” (In the previous episode, Corrado told her in a similar context, “What you don’t know could fill a book.”) Moments later, when Tony stumbles off the front steps, Livia cannot contain her laughter. She laughs at him just as she laughed at Tony’s father when he fell off some steps many years ago.
HELLO CORRADO And LIVIA, GOODBYE RICHIE And JANICE
I noted in previous write-ups that Richie and Janice seemed to be “substitutes” for the absent Corrado (incarcerated) and the absent Livia (recovering from a stroke) in Season 2. Now that Corrado is out of prison and Livia is back to form, Richie and Janice have outlived their narrative/dramatic function. Chase removes Richie from the narrative with a gunshot. To get rid of Janice, Chase avails himself of the “Put on a bus” trope, a convention commonly used to drop unnecessary characters. At the bus station, we realize just how delusional Janice can be: she actually believes Tony’s idyllic description of Richie’s final resting place on a hill among sweet-scented pines. (We know the reality: Richie’s funeral preparations were made at Satriale’s Pork Store, and he’ll spend eternity in a Hefty trash bag.) Janice is not gone for long, however—she returns early in the next season. Her return was probably hastened by the loss of Nancy Marchand (Livia) who died two months after Season 2 ended. Livia’s death in SopranoWorld occurs in episode 3.02, from which point Janice takes a permanent place on the series.
FOOD AND FIREARMS
In this episode, Richie provides two of the most explicit links that The Sopranos has made thus far between food, garbage and violence. The first is found in some of Richie’s dialogue. Angry at Tony for ruling against him on a business bid, Richie says, “He don’t give a shit about anybody but himself. This country is goin’ through boom times, there’s more garbage than there ever was—and he won’t let me eat.” There is arguably no Sopranos line that so “poetically” tethers our country’s wealth and consuming culture with garbage and food as this one does. Richie provides the second link in death: his bullet-laden body is sliced into little pieces with the food processing equipment at Satriale’s, then stuffed into a garbage bag.
THE DARK KNIGHT
Tony is something of a hero here (albeit a deeply flawed one). He genuinely attempts to do what he can for the women in his life. He not only throws Janice an engagement party, he protects her after she commits murder, and then shields her from their mother’s insults. He rushes to the hospital to comfort suicidal Irina, uses his connections to help her find work, and gives her $75,000 to end their relationship. The $75k leads us to believe that he has very definitively said goodbye to Irina, which Carmela would be very glad to hear. But of course, he can’t actually tell Carm this. Carmela uses Tony’s infidelity to essentially leverage a trip for herself to Rome with Rosalie. Tony silently assents—what else can he do but agree? The camera holds on Tony as The Eurythmics “I Saved the World Today” starts up and continues over the credits. Tony may have heroically saved his world—and the women he shares it with—from breaking to pieces, but everyone still feels hurt, betrayed and angry in the end.
___________________________________
JUNIORS
There is a bit of a contrast made here between mobster sons Richie Jr and Jackie Jr. Lorena Russell points out in her essay, “Defense-of-Family Acts: Queering Famiglia in The Sopranos,” that in this episode’s opening scene, Tony is…
…quick to mock Richie Jr’s gender expression and sexuality, which contrast with the more acceptable forms of male behavior modeled by Jackie and his gang of cigar-smoking, football-watching friends. From the beginning, the episode establishes that there is a “right way” and a “wrong way” of being a man…
Richie Aprile smacks Janice in the mouth because she essentially blurs the line between the “right” way and the “wrong” way of being masculine when she suggests it would be okay for Rick to be gay. Richie’s excessive response comes out of the “gay panic” that sometimes grips characters in SopranoWorld. (It was gay panic that prompted Corrado to smash a pie in Bobbi Sanfilippo’s face last season, and homophobia becomes the central concern of a few episodes in Season 6.)
_________________________________
ADDITIONAL POINTS:
- Furio seems more upset at the loss of Richie’s Cadillac, which must be junked, than he is at the loss of Richie’s life.
- Chris tells Pussy about his new criminal venture: “I got something hard-edge…Pokémon cards.”
- Tony’s phrase, “flying down to Rio,” is obviously being used as a euphemism for homosexuality, but it is also a reference to a 1933 film of the same name (the first to feature Fred and Ginger as dancing partners).
- In the very short moment that Jackie and Meadow have some screen time together, we get a sense that Meadow may have a crush on him. This becomes a major part of the story next season.
- At one point in the hour, Irina tells Tony, “You’re not the boss of me.” Richie feels the same way about Tony—he feels Corrado is the true, legitimate Boss of the family.
- Irina’s attempted suicide here is the latest in a long line of suicide attempts, suicidal ideations and references to suicide on The Sopranos. (And Nembutal—the stuff that Janice uses to knock Livia out—is the same drug that George Sanders, whose self-murder was referenced last episode, used to off himself.)
- The “Passages” that Silvio alludes to is Gail Sheehy’s book, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life.
- Janice inadvertently becomes Tony’s “knight in white satin,” as she kills her fiancé who has made a move against Tony’s life.
- Carmela and Rosalie’s planned trip to Rome never materializes, as we will learn in “Cold Stones” (6.11).
- And thank you E.I.C., for leading me as only you could to an invaluable insight about The Sopranos.
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Sopranos Autopsy 
I really enjoyed this episode. One thing that kind of puzzled me is how Janice killed Richie just when tony wanted to, it seemed convenient for him and strange for it to be Janice who actually helped him out for once as opposed to trying to have him killed/ using him. Very chase esque to confound our expectations in that way, especially with this bully dying in such an anticlimactic way ( sitting down and in a sense ” not seeing it coming” as he doesn’t believe shes serious, I think he tells her to stop playing, it’s actually interesting how many characters die in the sopranos without really facing up to it, I think this ties in to the final episode)
I thought the bit where Richie and Janice were arguing and Janice blows up when Richie can’t get her the pool very strong, it confirms every suspicion we had about Janice, that she’s primarily interested in money and mainly using richie for status etc. On the other hand she does seem genuinely upset when he dies, so maybe it’s not that simple.
That brings us back to another recurring theme in the sopranos, foreseeability and idealisation. Tony repeatedly has insights about his family’s true nature ( that uncle junior tried to kill him, that his mother is pathologically selfish and wants him dead, that Janice just wants to use him for money, that pussy is with the Feds) …..and he always resists them. I think part of it is due to obvious plot purposes ( can’t resolve every conflict) and part of it is tony being self destructive and disowning interpretations as he disowns parts of himself but part of it is about humanity and belief systems, how they keep us trapped in cages of thinking and feeling and we need to break free from our old habits and face reality or keep suffering. ( Carmela was told on her wedding day tony would get bored of her and even after all these years can’t reconcile herself to the fact that tony is unfaithful, if she could just accept he lied and cheated she would save herself so much suffering)
Also on a personal level I’m really glad Janice left as I despised her character deeply.
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Cameron – She’ll be baaack! Yes, we all despise Janice, but she’ll provide – and provoke- us with lots of craziness, vindictiveness, and even some humor until the end of this series. She’s kinda like Tony’s counterpart, which makes her a person of interest!
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Thanks for this write-up and for all you’ve written so far.
With regard to “Janice as mortal threat”, I think Tony was cautious of a potential setup by a teamed Janice and Richie when she calls him, knowing that Richie was already plotting. I think his gun was probably drawn to protect himself first.
You call attention to Janice and the mirror. I think there were quite a lot of mirror and plexiglas moments in this episode, once even explicitly referred to by Albert. Haven’t followed the logic there yet, but definitely noticed a lot of it. And Albert’s repetition tic is a verbal reflection of Richie’s words.
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That’s a clever observation – Albert’s tic functions like a mirror…
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I always had a feeling that Janice’s response i.e. shooting Richie twice, until he was dead af, was always a bit of an over-reaction to being smacked in the face (as unpleasant as that may be). Potentially, Janice subconsciously chose to side with Tony – either because she felt she would be better off ‘aligning’ herself with him and the protection he affords, maybe even supplemented by a pang of guilt about her part in his potential fratricide…
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That’s an interesting take. Richie always had trouble getting people to align with him.
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It would be nice if she had any pangs of conscience but I don’t think she did. I continue to say that she lost it when he hit her. She knows she is practically untouchable. I think she just made sure that he wasn’t going to hit her again. And I don’t think she’s capable of any real feelings. She regretted it, but I don’t think she would have dive anything differently. If you could even consider having your brother killed because you want to be first mob lady, you gave no qualms about anything. She’s a sociopath, worse than Tony.
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also, “One door opens, another door closes” –Richie to Albert. (re the God Janus, god of transitions, doors.). No analysis of this, just noticed.
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There is a parallel between how Janice disposes of a partner she no longer wants and how Tony resolves him problem with Irina.
It does not take Janice very long to make up her mind about Ritchie and when she does she immediately shoots him without trying to reason or talk over their ‘issues’.
Tony has been trying to get Irina a psychiatrist and help her help herself. But after Janice shoots Ritchie he has Silvio tell her to get on with life with $75k. It’s almost like he learned the tactic from Janice.
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I don’t think Janice wanted to get rid of Richie. She acted instinctively out of anger. She immediately regretted it. I think she cared for Richie, I say cared because I don’t think she is capable of love, She doesn’t expect anyone to punch her in the mouth because she has Tony to protect her, so when that happened she was shocked . Richie doesn’t follow the “rules”. We will see in later episodes how her temper corrodes a lot of her relationships.
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👍🏼👍🏼
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Or maybe he attempts to help Irina as a way of distancing himself from his family and their ‘abhorrent’ behaviour, he acts in a manner that neither his parents nor Janice would/did when faced with an inconvenience. Also, he assuages his guilt by not treating Irina like a wasteable commodity, in this manner, he can also convince himself that he is not a ‘toxic character’, as explored in Season 3 in the episode when Artie tries to kill himself.
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Metallica’s “the memory remains” plays in the background while Tony and Silvio are talking.
This is part of the lyrics, it mentions many of the elements in this episode.
“Fortune, fame
Mirror vain
Gone insane
But the memory remains
Heavy rings on fingers wave
Another star denies the grave
See the nowhere crowd, cry the nowhere tears of honor
Like twisted vines that grow
That hide and swallow mansions whole
And dim the light of an already faded prima donna”
The Prima donna is the leading female soprano in an opera.
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Regarding the contrast between Jackie Junior and Richey Junior at the beginning of the episode, Jackie Jr. and his friends are not drinking at some university pub or a frat house, blowing off steam between classes as they prep themselves for a better life. They’re drinking early in the day as house sitters, watching what has to be a meaningless sporting event. They’re going nowhere. While Richey Jr. is embarked in a hobby that’s literally taking him around the world, as he later plans on a trip to Europe. In fact, this is also Tony’s takeaway at first. He immediately expresses his disappointment about Jackie slacking off in school, and how Jackie Sr. wanted him to be a professional instead of a gangster. Of course, he comforts himself by pointing out he’s not as bad as Richey’s son, who’s, “flying to the Rio”. Most with so much as a room temperature IQ might choose Rio over the New Jersey suburbs.
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> “Most with so much as a room temperature IQ might choose Rio over the New Jersey suburbs.”
Live in a city with one of the worst crime/murder rate in the world due to drug trafficking/gang violence and open water that’s contaminated with raw sewage and other pollutants? I think I’m good where I live in the New Jersey suburbs, thanks.
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Narratives are powerful and somehow Rio still sounds better than Jersey. Sorry.
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Narratives are very powerful I agree. I’ll admit I’ve only been to Rio once and it was only for like a week and a half but I’ve lived in Jersey most of my life and I would very much prefer living in Jersey.
I can tell you that the state of New Jersey consistently ranks near the top of the lists of states in health care, education and crime/punishment.
Or that there’s more scientists and engineers per capita here than any other state. So the narrative (I’m assuming) you created using info you got from the Internet or driving on the Turnpike or tv shows like Jersey shore (of which 7 out of 9 of the cast members were actually trashy New Yorkers that came to pollute beautiful NJ beaches) wouldn’t quite hold up.
Then there’s the place itself.. “Shithole/Armpit of America” is the one I hear most.
We certainly have urban areas that could qualify as shitholes (https://i.redd.it/0l3ejlf71uj01.jpg) almost on the level of NYC shitholes (ALMOST). Nowhere near as bad as Rio shitholes though. (My parents are Puerto Rican and I used to buy weed and coke from the projects down there. I’m not an innocent and I know what poverty looks like)
Still, if you give me the choice between sunny New Jersey and a place with a borderline dictator and a certain level of poverty I’ll choose Jersey.. but if you prefer Rio you do you babe
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Tony, ever obsessed with 60s and 70s pop culture, is probably associating Rio with this 1976 hit song and Peter Allen’s not-particularly-concealed homosexuality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgq1g-2cQ54
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“Assholery”…perfect. Richie was indeed an asshole. Quick to take offense, homicidal, no real sense of humor to speak of, bossy, obnoxious, he checks all the boxes. The scene with Albert is sort of odd, I always saw Richie’s laughing over the facelift line was extremely disingenuous, too hard of a sell. And who the hell would want to work under Richie Aprile?
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Ritchie was my favourite character. He served time for the mob. When he came out no respect was given to him. It showed how loyalty to a the crew aren’t always rewarded. He ended up being betrayed by corrado, his gf and the mob. had his brother been alive be would’ve done well. It was sad for me to watch him go. He was one of my favourite character. He had a good heart for his family and didn’t take Tonys shit.
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Richie was great and David Proval was phenomenal in portraying him
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I always assumed “I Saved the World Today” was about Janice saving the world from further pain by offing the scumbag Richie Aprile. She saved Tony the trouble of doing it and possibly even saved Tony’s life by doing it.
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Thant’s interesting, because I took that song to mean that Tony saved the world for Janice because he covered up her crime and got rid of her to boot. But now that you say that, I can agree with that assessment also. They both saved the world. 🙂
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I don’t think that Janice gave much thought to killing Richie. She lost her temper, simple as that. Something that cause the Sopranos to make mistakes. I believe she was genuinely sorry after it happened. Also, you could see that she is in competition with Tony and his lifestyle, when she says, “He’s just mad that our house is going to be nicer than his f’ing house” Then goads Richie by telling him that Tony doesn’t want him around the kids. She is truly poisonous.
What gets me about it is that they can be killed at any time, especially Richie….so volatile and horrible. Imagine what a marriage that would have been. What a horrible woman..yet I love watching the character. This was a great episode on many levels. Even Carmela…with her sanctimonious judgement, doesn’t really blink when she figures out that Richie is dead. “That was not a marriage made in heaven”….Understatement.
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That’s an interesting point about Carmela. While there never seemed to be any close friendship between her and Richie, they did seem to get along well (he even brought her some of the tripe that she loves). But it takes her less than two seconds to accept Richie’s death. It’s possible, though, that this may be saying more about Richie’s assholery than about Carm’s callousness.
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But at the time when she’s reacting to RIchie’s death, Carmela is feeling especially angry abut the whole setup in which the mob husbands have their goomars and the wives are just supposed to grin and bear it. She’s pissed about Irina and quarrels with Tony about her a couple of times in this episode, and she tries to throw some cold water on Janice’s pre-wedding excitement by warning her that in a year, tops, Janice will have to accept a goomar. Richie is another entitled Mob male like Tony to Carmela at that point, tripe or no tripe.
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Good point as always
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Another point about this, including another “knight” joke: Carmela is in a “men are pigs” mood at that moment also because Vic Musto, the manly interior decorator, has turned out not to be her knight in white satin finish armor. When she tells Gabriella that at least there’s one man you could respect, Gab tells her that Vic never showed that day out of fear of Carm’s husband. Meanwhile, Vic had let Carmela thank him for being strong and honorable when she might have been weak in a sort of echo of Casablanca, when Ilsa tells RIck, “You’ll have to think for the both of us.” I feel sure that was deliberate on the writers’ part and maybe at least semiconsciously intentional on Carmela’s part. Movie lover that she is, she might call on a romantic scene like that to help her plan what to say when she sees Vic. Then Vic, by saying nothing, lets Carmela continue to believe in her version of things until Gabriella rather meanly crushes it and Carm sees the supposedly honorable man as another lying (by omission) asshole and a coward. So now there’s not even one man you can respect. Not that I blame Vic. He couldn’t exactly tell her the truth. But after Gab pops Carmela’s romantic balloon, Carmela must have felt like she’d made a fool of herself in the paint store. I’ve always wondered how Gab knew why Vic hadn’t come that day. Or did she just guess because she didn’t have stars in her eyes?
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Lol did you slip a Pine Barrens reference in there?
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Ha, not on purpose! I was thinking of Vic as the wallpaper and paint guy but was looking for another way to express it. It took me a second to figure out what you were talking about. More connections …
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I heard he also killed 16 Czechoslovakians. But his house looked like shit.
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It’s amazing that she sees him as an asshole and a coward. She is just looking for a fling, and a decent man wouldn’t take the chance of getting killed for a dalliance with Carmela. Yes, he was a decent man who in a different circumstance would make a good mate for her, but she is MARRIED…she lives in a fantasy world. Also, its true about movies and their influence on her. She even compares herself to Maria from WEST SIDE STORY with Mr. Wegler. She is looking for an ego boost and she should take a page from Rosalie and find a younger man to fool around with. She’s bonded to Tony until he dies or goes to jail.
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Best not to ask to many questions. I doubt she had any great affection for Richie. She’s pragmatic and has to be nice to all the people in Tony’s orbit. they get killed with impunity, it doesn’t pay to ge to attached.
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No way. Nobody likes tripe. She was being nice. Her kids wouldn’t even eat artichokes.
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Sue – Actually, a lot of people eat tripe. It’s also called menudo (yes, like the once-popular group going by the same name). When made properly, it is an extremely delicious dish! The first time I ate it, I had no idea what it was and when I found out, I had a bit of a gagging episode. However, I did order a second bowl!
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I always felt that Carmela is phony when it comes to Tony’s associates. He wasn’t an asshole to her, actually that was a thoughtful thing to bring food (a very Italian thing to do), Especially when he brought that “Tripe” dish, and she says the kids will love it or something to that effect. Tripe is the stomach of the cow, and the Soprano children would rather die than eat it.
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She threw shade by saying the kids would be surprised by it.
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Well, I think she was being phony even then. She didn’t have to mention the kids at all. I think she goes through her life in a fog until a good looking guy pays attention to her.
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Enjoyable episode but also pissed me off. I can say I was very upset to see Richie go out the way he did. He is basically dead because Rick Jr. is “flying town to Rio.” That being said, I don’t think anyone would have guessed the manner in which Richie would be killed. This completely caught me off guard. I was expecting a show down between Tony and Richie, sort of how it played out with Raphie, or Richie ends up back in jail. Adding to Phillips comment I agree that Richie was one of my favorite characters, and my favorite “asshole character.” He spelled trouble the first time we see him telling Adriana he “wants to walk.” He was out of control since his introduction. David Proval’s portrayal of Richie is one of the main reasons I enjoy season 2 the most. It could be this type of personality is the typical mafia type of guy. Not someone you’d care to deal with at all costs. The Gandolfini/ Proval scenes are just fantastic, full of emotion and depth. It’s kind of sad how some of these characters have little regard for human life- Albert, Silvio, Carmela, Corrado, Furio, Richie, Tony, we can go on and on. It’s interesting how you point out by the end of this season, we are almost back to where we left off the end of season 1 in regards to Corrado and Livia. They both weaseled their way back into their homes and are potential problems for Tony. I thought the use of camera’s during the scene in Corrado’s house with Richie and Bobby was excellent. After reading your analysis Richie is very diminished from Toodle-fucking-oo. Its possible everyone was sick of him being such an asshole, lol.
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Yeah, we all have to deal with assholes from time to time, but in mob-land, the assholes they have to deal with all have guns and a history of violence. It was inevitable that Richie would have to go, one way or the other…
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They are pretty much ALL assholes except for Bobby. I disagree that Richie doesn’t have a sense of humor. He had me chuckling when he was helping junior get his hand out of the drain. “You’re flexing!”
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In the previous episode we are told Ritchie’s people tore up the house they were supposed to make handicap accessible. We are not told they completed the work. Now that he is dead and Tony gave the victim 50K and congratulated himself. Think of how Carmella congratulates herself for Vic when her husband destroyed the lives of Vic’s sister and nephew. Why would!d he want to be with Carmella after everything that happened into his sister’s store and he has to pay for his nephew’s schooling at Rutgers
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Denial. Plus she is giving him an opening. She knows that Dave’s has a gambling problem, she can’t know for certain it was Tony’s actions. Dave’s is responsible for his actions, nobody else.
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I think it’s clear that Janice was created partly as this season’s Livia, and she functioned well in that role. But the genius of Chase is that he built the character of Janice as a Livia substitute but, like a magician using indirection to pull off a magic trick, set her up to provide a head-spinning plot twist that no viewer probably saw coming as we waited for a final confrontation between Tony and Richie.
I’ve already written some about Janice, in my comments on “Bust Out.” This time through “The Knight in White Satin Armor,” I found myself focusing more on Richie and started making a case for him as a tragic figure in the classical literary sense. He’s an asshole for sure, unlike most classic tragic heroes, but that seems fitting for The Sopranos, which subverted TV tropes by having the protagonist be an antihero.
In terms of a literary tragic figure, Richie’s tragic flaw is that, despite the yoga and some New Age speak, he’s old school and can’t adapt to change. He’s just spent ten years in prison, during which time things changed a lot in the outside world, including the political and economic conditions in which the Mafia had to operate. But when he’s released, Richie seems to expect to pick up where he left off, as if the world had stayed the same while he was in the can. He can’t accept that Beansie has moved on, he has difficulty accepting that Tony, who used to be his younger brother Jackie’s buddy and his old girlfriend Janice’s kid brother, now has authority over him, and he doesn’t seem to understand that he has to start small and work his way up. Even when he’s told these things point blank, he fails to Nobody is holding ten years’ worth of lost profit for him. The jaacket a few episodes back is a perfect symbol of how Richie is trying to live in the past: It’s very meaningful to Richie, who gives it as a form of tribute to Tony, his boss, presumably to curry favor, but it only bemuses Tony. Richie tells the story of taking the jaacket off Rocco diMeo to Tony and later, using exactly the same words, to the guys at Satriale’s. It was Richie’s moment of glory, his claim to tough-guy dominance, but it was a long time ago, and nobody is impressed now. Making this point visually, the jacket is wildly outdated in style, even somewhat ridiculous to modern (year 2000) eyes, and Tony, who would never consider wearing it in public, soon gives it away, which Richie considers a slap in the face when he happens to find out.
Richie gravitates toward Junior because Junior is old school too and something of an elder. Richie can imagine giving fealty to Junior in a way he can’t manage with Tony. Meanwhile, throughout the season, Richie struggles with the tension between his old-school duty to follow the rules and the difficulties of operating in this unfamiliar world in which he can’t sell coke on the garbage routes because of what must sound to him like blah-blah about the feds. “It’s just a little blow,” he says, as though Tony hadn’t just explained to him why dealing drugs on the garbage routes is a problem. In the old days, presumably, they could have bought someone off, but the feds are cracking down harder on drugs now and Richie can’t seem to grasp that. He also seems to be sticking with dealing, despite repeated instructions not to, because he doesn’t seem to have any new ideas for earning. Nowadays, especially with garbage down, as someone points out in Season 1, the other guys are cooking up stock scams and phone card scams and MRI scams. Richie has some measly garbage routes, a poker game or two, some loan sharking using startup money from Tony that Richie learns from Janice wasn’t all that generous, and drugs. Only during the Scatino bust-out, which is probably a familiar situation for him, does Richie seem relaxed and in sync with Tony and his guys. Maybe he should have done some truck hijacking with Christopher, but Richie probably wouldn’t stoop to going on a job set up by young guys who aren’t even made yet.
Another thing that changed while Richie was inside was women and their expectations. His niece Adriana wants her own career, and his old girlfriend Janice has spent years traveling around the world and living in unconventional ways. We find out in the next episode that she worked as a mover when she was young, which is well outside the norm for women of the culture she and Richie grew up in. She may be reinventing herself as Mob Wife in Training, and she is using Livia-style manipulation to try to get Richie to be more ambitious and even move against Tony, but Janice still has her feminist, West Coast, countercultural ideas. Richie must know that, but it probably seems like female foolishness, nothing for him to be concerned about. Once they’re engaged, he expects subservience, ordering her to put his dinner on the table and shut up. (I found that more debasing than the gun-to-the-head sex.) When they have the argument in the dining room, Richie is already feeling somewhat emasculated by Tony and worried that Junior didn’t have the balls to stand with him against Tony and being nagged about female things like home decor and wedding details. When Janice attacks his manhood (as Richie would experience it) by saying it wouldn’t matter if Richie’s only son and namesake is gay (when it obviously matters quite a lot to Richie, who won’t even look at his son and stood stone-faced when Little Ricky toasted him at the engagement party), it’s one blow too many, and from a woman. That’s when he punches her, in a masculine dominance move. But instead of being taken down a peg as he no doubt expected, Janice threatens him with what must be his own gun (hello, Chekhov!). In another mistake based on his old-school beliefs, he can’t believe that Janice, a woman, would really shoot him, as shown by the casual way he blows her off. If he had taken her more seriously in that moment, she might not have pulled the trigger. (Compare Tony talking Artie down when Artie threatened to shoot him in Season 1.) But Richie is old school, and he’s an asshole, and he dies. All through this season, Richie has based his choices on his old-school understanding of the world, unable to adjust to the year 2000, and the result is failure to be respected by his fellow mobsters (it’s telling that the only person standing with him in this episode is his callow young mobster-wannabe nephew) and death at the hands of a woman. Hence the tragedy of Richie Aprile, something I never would have imagined myself saying. I have to say, Ron, that your analyses and those of some commenters are inspiring me to really pay attention and think more deeply this time through the series.
As I suggested in comments on “Bust Out,” I think that Janice’s fantasy of being the smart modern feminist (the gun during sex thing is just fetishistic, she says airily to a more conventional Carmela, like garter belts and nurses uniforms) who can have an equal partnership with a powerful mobster is destroyed when Richie punches her and then acts like it’s no big deal. Turns out he wasn’t her knight in shining yoga pants, just an old-fashioned asshole. I was struck, this time, by the look on Janice’s face when she shoots him. She doesn’t seem enraged when she points the gun at him so much as in shock, perhaps still not quite able to believe that her soulmate actually socked her in the mouth and then mocked her. That’s not how this was supposed to go. I suspect she doesn’t know she’s going to pull the trigger until she actually does it. And again, if he had taken her seriously instead of doubling down on his dismissive attitude, things might have gone differently.
Speaking of knights, the recapper in the “Soprano Sessions” book suggests that Janice is the “knight in white satin armor.” He doesn’t develop the point in detail, but I can see an argument for it: By killing Richie, Janice (earlier seen in a white satin wedding gown, as he points out) unwittingly either saved Tony’s life because Richie was no longer around to kill him or saved Tony from having to kill Richie and potentially stir up trouble in both families. I hadn’t thought of the episode title that way before and thought it was interesting.
In any case, I’ve always admired Aida Turturro’s portrayal of Janice, especially in this season. But this time around, I’ve been especially impressed by the strength of David Proval’s portrayal of Richie. As someone said, although Tony looms over Richie in a lot of their scenes together, and James Gandolfini was an amazing, amazing actor, David Proval matches him in those scenes, as well as pretty much all his scenes. Richie is the guy you love to hate, and I really couldn’t stand him back when I saw this season for the first time, but I think as played by Proval, he’s a lot of what made this season so strong.
Having said all that, what really blew me away (so to speak) this time around was the scene with Livia when she descends from upstairs on her motorized throne and lets loose with a contemptuous, self-justifying tirade against her own children (“Babies are like animals. They’re no different than dogs,” etc.), then pivoting to “Now I suppose you’re not going to kiss me” as Tony (Gandolfini is also superb in this scene) looks at her with horrified bewilderment. She accuses him of being cruel and then, when he trips down the front steps, she laughs maliciously. Nancy Marchand is amazing in that scene. It’s her next-to-last scene with Tony while she was alive, and IMO possibly her best work as Livia.
On a minor note, I love the way Janice’s hair at the bus station is back to her old untamed mass of curls. Maybe it’s just because she let it dry naturally after her shower instead of taking the time to style it into the smooth and wavy do she’d being sporting in her “Jan Soprano” persona, but I’m sure it was a deliberate choice by the writers to have her look the way she did early in the season: leggings and sandals, big old shoulder bag, frizzy hair. The Mob wife fantasy is over. She doesn’t belong anymore. She’s going back to Seattle. But I think Tony ends up with more compassion for her than he had before, after the scene with Livia — at the same time that he’s no doubt glad to have her off his hands.
Of course, there’s so much more that happens in the episode, including several important scenes in the Pussy subplot, the Irina stuff, Carmela and Vic, Carmela and how she reached the decision to change some of the terms of her marriage, the first appearances of Jackie Jr. and Svetlana. It never ceases to amaze me how much the writers packed into each episode in the early seasons. In the later seasons, it seemed like there was a lot less happening per episode. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I get to them this time through.
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Perhaps my favorite episode of the whole series, albeit the one where my favorite character ( because of his assholery), Richie, gets clipped in a most unexpected way. My scream of Nooooo! was probably heard throughout the neighborhood as Janice pumped bullets into him.
One hangup I had about this intense scene is that the label on the bottle of Ruffino tan label wine moves from front to back and to front again as the shot ( pun could be intended) from Richie to Janice back to Richie.
The fact that such a minute editing flaw is the only criticism I can find, illustrates the complete awesomeness of this and every other episode.
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And just behind the bottle of wine, you can see a production assistant’s hand trying to keep Richie’s chair from falling too quickly. Of course, as far as production gaffes go, these are not too bad. (Certainly nowhere near as bad as a Starbucks cup sitting in front of the Khaleesi…)
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I haven’t noticed that about the PA. I will have to look again. I do notice that sometimes food is in different spots on the plates. When Tony is telling Carmela about Pussy’s wife and how it his fault she’s alone..the food is in a different spot in every shot!! I never noticed that coffee cup in GOT!! Shoddy editing.
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I always notice In Calling All Cars, during the seance, the candle flame is all over the place.
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As many times as I’ve seen this episode (8), I do NOT see a hand! I think that what you’re seeing is Richie’s elbow! Go frame by frame and you might come to the same conclusion. 🤨
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“Gabrielle Dante clears up her delusion, saying that Vic didn’t stay away from her because of his good judgment, but because he’s scared of Tony: ‘Face it, Carmela. Use your head. He pissed his pants.'”
That’s still good judgment…especially in SopranoWorld, where people often make perilous choices.
This may be a facile observation about this show, and I could have stuck it anywhere on this blog. But I’ve noticed that a major theme is simply that people need someone to talk to. Obviously, the show’s conceit is that Tony talks to a shrink. But look at so many characters…Pussy and Adriana talk to the FBI. Paulie talks to Johnny Sac. Carmela talks to her priest. Christopher vents to everyone. Even Dr. Melfi unloads on her shrink. They’re all using these people as surrogates for an actual friend or confidant.
Again, it may be a very basic observation, but it made me wonder: What if these people had real friends whom they could trust?
It reminded me of a story about Richard Nixon. (I posted in the Hal Holbrook episode about Watergate under the name Little Earthquake.) I remember reading that while in the White House, Nixon’s staff decided that he needed a friend. They talked to Nixon, researched his life and brought in some old high school chum from Yorba Linda. On the day they were to bring him in, they told Nixon about it, and he said, “that guy? Never liked him.” So the official presidential “friend” was sent back to California.
Remembering that episode years later, someone, I think it was John Ehrlichmann, said something like “a friend like that might have saved him.”
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Not facile at all, it’s a great point. I recently heard a theory that if Donald Trump had a dog, he probably wouldn’t be picking so many fights on Twitter.
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Example from 5.02, Rat Pack… After watching Citizen Kane, Adriana says: “So it was a sled, huh? He should’ve told somebody.”
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Great analysis and comments, everyone. I took Gabriella’s claim that Vic “pissed his pants,” as her just trying to placate Carmella. Vic made out with Carmella even after finding out who her husband was, and he made the lunch date, knowing who her husband was. His change of heart might have been from revulsion at what the Soprano family did to his family. I think it was, at least in part, finding out and understanding the consequence of getting involved and just didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Not necessarily fear, but good sense. Gabriella seems to be very protective of the mobsters and of Carmella. Gabriella’s the one who gave support to Carmella, by giving the priest a piece of her mind after the Italian-American lecturer criticized the unfortunate image the mob gives to Italian-Americans.
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Watching the episode again after a year or so: I had forgotten that Jackie, Jr appears so early in the series. Now that I know how his life ended, everything about him – his cockiness, his ignorance, his frequent mentions of his father, his association with Richie, his useless good looks – seems to have an aura of tragedy.
I now see that Irina will also end badly. Seventy-five thousand dollars is a huge amount of money for someone like her but, even with her down-to-earth cousin Svetlana by her side, she won’t do anything useful with it. She won’t go to college to get a qualification, she won’t start a business or invest it, she won’t buy property – she’ll just spend it. We hear later that she’s getting married, but nothing comes of that. Then she has another affair with an older, influential man, Assemblyman Ronald Zellman, but (not her fault) that ends badly. If she had stayed in Russia, she says, she would have been a dancer and then a prostitute. It won’t be as bad as that in America but, poor girl, she’s too badly damaged and it won’t go well. Like Tony, I can’t help feeling sorry for her.
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Did anyone else notice the gay undertones to Richie? In the episode when he gets out of jail Tony and the boyz organize some strippers to gave him a HJ. Which one states that she notices that he “really likes the dark”. I took this to mean he couldn’t get it up until they turned off the light.. (Maybe he got use to another method of release while serving his time in prison?). Tony mentions in a episode in a later season that men serving long sentences get a pass for homosexual activities in prison as there are no women. I noticed after this scene is when he go looking for Beansie then runs him over. I think he is trying to prove his masculinity to himself and/or to any-others if any rumors should arise. Also again proving his masculinity, straight after being released from prison repeatedly challenging Tony (The Top dog). There are more scenes with him using homosexual references like having a hard on for me etc. I cant remember specific scenes now I should of written them down but if you watch his scenes again with this in mind you will notice. There was the scene with Corrado where Richie is lubing up Corrado’s hand telling him to not to flex so he can pull his hand out of the hole. Also his final reaction to Janice about his gay son.
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lol I never saw the “You’re flexxxingg” scene to have any sexual innuendo, but hey, why not?
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Just read these comments again and wanted to make a little connection between Richie’s line, “it’s just a little blow,” when discussing the cocaine on the garbage routes. He doesn’t realize and downplays the severity of dealing Coke in today’s world. When he got out of prison, the boys set him up with a Bing girl for “just a little blow,” but it apparently doesn’t go well. We know if a guy like Richie a can’t get it up, even a quickie becomes a big deal to his ego. Then, When Richie socks Janice in the jaw, it’s “just a little blow.” He doesn’t beat her up, but it’s a huge blow to her sense of being. Finally, When she shoots him, it’s “just a little blow.” In blowing off the steam of her anger, she unwittingly pulls the trigger and that “little blow” becomes the shot heard round Soprano world. In all cases, the phrase it’s an understatement.
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Sue!! good stuff. Thanks for sharing.
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I can’t find the comment that I am referencing, so I hope it’s OK if I put my response here. Someone wrote that every despicable character on the Sopranos has some grief in their life that makes you have even a little compassion for them. Except with Janice, it’s hard to find something! That got me thinking – How about her son Harpo, who she avoids mentioning or thinking about. When someone pushes her on it, she replies with embarrassment, reluctance and shame, “Harpo is a…street person.”
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I think she uses it as a sympathy ploy, because at the end of the series when Tony suggests that he (Harpo) come and live with her, she says “Harpo changed his name.” just like her mother said with her. I think if she wanted to see him she could have. I think she is incapable of real feeling.
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Orange – I believe that Janice IS capable of ‘real feelings’, especially anger. She appeared to love Richie and shot him in anger/frustration. Despite her anger toward Tony, she really does love him and she clearly loves her (biological) daughter (see future episodes). Janice turns out to be a more complex person than we’d might expect.
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I am brand new to SopranoWorld watching it for the first time now in 2020. I noticed a small sound effect detail that I thought for sure would be mentioned here (and forgive me if it was and I missed it). The scene where Chris and Furio are sawing Ritchie’s body cuts back to the scene of the crime, Livia’s house, with her riding her electric chair (one could argue she deserves a different kind of electric chair….) down the stairs. The sound of the chair echoes and is like a continuation of the sound of the saw at Satriale’s, as if yet another body is being cut to pieces. Isn’t this what Livia has done and continues to do to her (now adult) children Tony and Janice, who are in the living room as she makes her descent? Slowly and steadily, like an unfeeling and unknowing (“You don’t know, do you?) machine, she makes mincemeat of her own children.
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Ah interesting observation. I should have done my re-watch with headphones on, I might have noticed more stuff like that..
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Captain Obvious here, but the best example of Janice as the “masculinized woman” has to be, ahem, that one bedroom scene with Ralphie. You know the one lol.
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David – Ah yes, Janice is most definitely an Alpha Female! But that was her self-defense mechanism- I’m sure that her upbringing (and possible abuse by men in her life) contributed greatly to her ‘butch-ness’. She did what she had to do to survive! 😏
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Yes she is. But she’s a chameleon, adapts to her situation and becomes who she has to be in order to get a man. Like Woody Allen in “Zelig!!”
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This is one of my favorite episodes in the whole run of the series. Of course when you watch it the first time you’re completely blown away that Janice takes out Richie when the tension was so obviously building for a showdown between Richie and Tony. But every main character featured here is dealing with layers and layers of emotional baggage. Every subsequent watching let’s you peel back all these onions. Plus the sheer hilarity between Janice and Tony in the aftermath of Richie’s murder is just priceless. I still go into convulsions every time I hear Tony say, “all in all it was a good visit.” It’s not just the line but the look on his face gets me EVERY TIME.
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Hi Ron! This is one of my favourite episodes of the entire show, i think the leitmotiv and the focus of this one is the Way out/escape route : the knight in white satin armor in topos literary have this function of save and show the way out to the princess. At same time the protagonists of this episode have to deal with exit strategy (real and symbolic): Irina, took off the white satin armor symbol, is searching the way out without Tony in is life, Tony instead search the same with Irina e with the Richie’s dangerous situation, Richie is moving against Tony for find the way to be free from Tony’s control, Janice perhaps understands that she will not be free with a violent husband like Ritchie and take and instinctive choice, Carmela (a recurrent theme of the first two seasons and serial in full) wants to find a way to have is control on family and to break free of sense of guilty and seems to find in the last scene and Pussy, i think, is aware that two roads are in front of him: prison or death and for not reckon with this reality he indulges in fantasy to be a cop.
Everyone of this characters in this episode are facing with exit way, for me underline by Corrado’s reasoning about who he should support between Tony and Richie, is an excellent evidence of way out that underlie the mafia’s rules, but instead for me is a symbol of american’s way of think (and in general of western world): we think there will be always a ploy for saving ourselves from trouble instead of dealing with, but this episode shows that not always there are any kind
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Two parralels between Sammy Gravano and Pussy in this episode:
1) Skip says that FBI would never turn its head on a murder charge – when Sammy Gravano flipped, the prosecutors dropped 19 murder charges against him;
2) Pussy wants to move to Scottsdale, Arizona – it is a place to which Sammy Gravano moved.
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Gravano I believe did some jail time. But they will always go for the bigger fish.
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Yeah, one year.
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Really?? Only one year? Gotti is still a bigger fish.
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Orange – Gravano served 5 years after confessing to 19 murders. In 2001, he was arrested for drug trafficking, and served an additional 15-17 years (exact time varies). It is speculated that he took the blame for drug trafficking in order to spare his daughter (Karen) from serving time so she could raise her daughter. Hmm … 🤐
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Dirtbags
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spoiler warnings for next season would be great
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It seemed like we had seen the last of Janice….at least for a while. However, Nancy Marchand’s death after Season 2 brought Janice back to NJ sooner, than she should have. I felt like outside of season 2, her character was underused, misused or overused in several story lines from seasons 3-5. Perhaps, the writers didn’t know how to use her in Livia’s place, or weren’t planning on having her back. It wasn’t until season 6, that she regained some solid footing in the narrative.
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About 20 minutes into this episode, Janice is standing in front of a mirror in her wedding dress and talking to Carmela. You know what’s missing from this picture? Janice’s TATTOO!! 🤡
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Pussy’s airbag did not deploy when he hit the car! Hmm … 🙄
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Outstanding episode: fantastic performances by all, fast-paced, excellent storyline(s), and over-the-top emotional turmoil! Most definitely, the second best episode of this series (in my opinion). Unfortunately, neither Director Coulter, Writers Burgess and Green, nor Picture Editor Stich won the Emmys for which they were nominated. Absolute injustice! 😖
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Tidbits no one has mentioned:
▪ Corrado’s lawyer Melvoin wants $400,000 for ‘wiretap analysis’. Corrado tells him that he knows the FBI is only supposed to listen for 20 seconds, but they listen for 40 (40 IS the allotted time). Melvoin does NOT correct him.
▪ At Janice and Richie’s engagement party, Carmela starts crying for several reasons. She knows that Tony’s still screwing around with Irina, Vic never returned for the special lunch she prepared for him, and now both Adriana and Janice are engaged ( you’d think she’d be happy, not jealous) .
▪ When Chris and Furio are sawing Richie, the saw blade isn’t moving, but much blood is spattered.
▪ When Tony takes Janice to the bus station, he tells her that his psychiatrist said that Livia had a narcissistic personality disorder. Not true; Dr. Melfi told him that Livia had a borderline personality disorder, and HE had the narcissistic personality disorder.
🤨
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Famous last words:
~
“You want to raise your hand, you give her your last name.” (Richie Aprile)
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-Tony Soprano uses the word wastrel, and correctly. Malapropisms are fun, but I love when Tony shows that hey sometimes he reads (“If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him”), or at least pays attention to the History Channel.
– I wonder if anyone expected Janice to return. I don’t even know if she factored into the original plan for S3 or not. This is, of course, her finest hour. All of the characters are at their best when serving the messages of the writers to the audience. Janice is a selfish, manipulative, and phony grifter for the most part, but one cannot live the kind of untethered existence she has without learning a few things. We never see any of the projects she mentions completed, Lady Kerouac (a self-aggrandizing title) . She probably has no actual artistic talent, except for some craftiness she inherited from Ma. But in every way that Livia was, in Johnny’s words, scared of her own shadow, Janice is an extrovert. An eldest child who was daddy’s little girl early on (front or not), yet still drawn in by the black hole of her mother, who likely saw in Janice an independent, flippant affront to her own sensibilities. For all that we speak of Janice regressing into mafia bride over season two, some things remain quintessentially liberal and even defensive thereof, though its almost always selfishly. She defends ballroom dancing, and THEN defends Richard Jr.’s sexuality (Rick is 97% plot device as a character, and never appears again.
– Speaking of: when the Vito sitch comes up, Sil says that Richie disowned his son when he found out he was gay. Is Meester Dante misremembering? He is very smart man. That doesn’t seem to be the situation here at all. Richie’s embarrassed his son is a ballroom dancer, but gives no indication of having disowned him. Maybe he made a offhand remark in front of the guys to save face?
– That silver fucking jacket Carmela wears what the fuck.
– This is such a great episode. You think, “Oh but the next one can’t possibly top it…,” and then it does.
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Pingback: The Soprano Onceover: #7. “The Knight in White Satin Armor” (S2E12) | janiojala
The paint mixer machine gun scene is recreated perfectly from The Usual Suspects (1995)
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