BONUS It's Not TV - The Sopranos
Guest:So, Mark, something very significant about your last comedy special, and you have been bringing this up when you've been talking about it, is where your comedy special from Bleak to Dark was airing.
Guest:Where is that special?
Guest:Where can people find it right now?
Marc:Well, it's funny.
Marc:It's airing on HBO.
Marc:And an aside that I didn't anticipate to be on this recording, but I don't have any problem with, is that whatever I said at that deadline event did not make...
Marc:the cut like they did they did a piece and it was all about the special uh but i was singing hbo's praises to the uh you know and comparing it to netflix but it did not in a negative way but it did not get out there i i
Guest:So you're saying at this panel you did for Deadline, it was like an awards presentation, a four-year consideration thing.
Guest:And this was four-year special from Bleak to Dark.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And you were very complimentary about HBO.
Guest:And you actually called me right when it was done and said, I think I'm going to get in some trouble over this.
Marc:And you're telling me no trouble.
Marc:It doesn't seem like there's any trouble.
Marc:But also, alongside of that, I think like, you know, can I not get traction with anything?
Marc:I mean, I couldn't have said, we're shit.
Yeah.
Marc:about Netflix on deadline, and I couldn't even get traction there.
Marc:Like, I'm glad, I guess, that it didn't, but there's still some part of me that's like, I really am not, I don't got the juice, you know?
Guest:Well, they're hemorrhaging subscribers.
Guest:And last night, their big live TV attempt went up in flames.
Guest:They tried to air some live special of reality show they do, Love is Blind.
Guest:And it was delayed for an hour.
Guest:Just a total pig fuck.
Marc:Oh, disaster.
Marc:Yeah, total disaster.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But yes, it was HBO.
Marc:And one of the reasons why I was so thrilled...
Marc:To have the special on HBO is because HBO has great programs.
Marc:They're selective.
Marc:They curate.
Marc:They have a great catalog.
Marc:They have hit shows on now.
Marc:So when my special goes out there, people have HBO.
Marc:People who like me.
Marc:My audience, who I consider probably slightly older, intelligent, and by habit predate streaming, have HBO.
Marc:And they rely on it to some degree.
Guest:And it's been such great programming for decades, and it has one of the signature branding slogans along with it that is so perfect.
Guest:It is so perfect that it's almost defined an entire generation of television consumers.
Guest:The HBO brand of, it's not TV, it's HBO.
Guest:A brilliant, brilliant marketing tool that really speaks to the type of programming that they curate.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And the parent company,
Guest:Warner Brothers Discovery has decided that isn't worth shit.
Guest:And they announced last week that they will be getting rid of their HBO Max streaming service, and it will just be called Max.
Guest:And it's going to combine all the things across Warner and Discovery.
Guest:It's going to de-emphasize the HBO brand, the brand that you sought out to put your special on because you know how much it means to have something as part of HBO.
Guest:but that but it's going to exist oh sure hbo and people who like hbo will be fine which is kind of part of the reason i wanted us to talk about this today but the wall street momentum behind streaming television that led the warner brothers discovery executives to say that they saw a future of 400 million subscribers and they said by 2025 we'll have 130 million subscribers this is all to keep pace with netflix which if you
Marc:hear what i said earlier is losing subscribers right their big idea to get up from the 90 million plateau they're at right now is to make garbage right but but also now uh you know if hbo is is now no more hbo max and it's just to be combined with warner and discovery you're gonna have people who want to watch you know the sopranos again and then there's all these dumb discovery shows
Marc:Right alongside of it.
Marc:Well, you know, here's their logic behind it.
Marc:You lose the whole focus of it.
Marc:Why you do it?
Guest:Why you like HBO?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I guess what they're thinking is, is that people who like HBO will just continue to subscribe for HBO.
Guest:And now there'll be all this new wallpaper there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, like, I mean, because this is what it says in the New York Times write-up of the announcement.
Guest:I'll read this from the Times piece last week.
Guest:This was by John Koblen in the New York Times.
Guest:It says, Indeed, even though HBO has been on a delirious hot streak, one hit after the next, going back to August, including House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, The Last of Us, and now Succession.
Guest:I mean, obviously, you could write that saying going back to...
Guest:1998.
Guest:They've had hit after hit after hit.
Guest:The amount of time spent on the app in the United States is toiling in the lower middle ranks of the top streaming services.
Guest:According to Nielsen, 1.3% of the total minutes spent by Americans using television was HBO Max.
Guest:In February, a fraction of what was YouTube, 7.9%.
Guest:That's free, by the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Netflix, 7.3%.
Guest:Hulu, 3.3%.
Guest:Amazon Prime, 3%.
Guest:So their whole thing is they need to get that number up.
Guest:And the way to do that is to not have great shows, but to have more stuff.
Guest:Literally, their quote here is dropping HBO from the name is cementing that we're not just a home for premium programming.
Guest:We're the home for anything you want to watch.
Guest:I want to watch premium programming.
Marc:We're the home for garbage as well.
Marc:There'll be plenty of garbage for you to take a look at.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:It's all circling the drain, dude.
Guest:But anyway, this got me thinking.
Guest:Because we have, you know, we've been working together for almost 20 years now.
Guest:One of the most consistent things that whenever we have worked together, we come into the offices back in like the morning sedition days.
Guest:It's Monday morning.
Guest:We come in 4 a.m.
Guest:What are we talking about?
Guest:Whatever we watched on HBO the night before, whether it was Sopranos or The Wire.
Guest:I think both of us, you and I, we watched The Wire after the fact.
Guest:We didn't watch it when it was on.
Marc:I watched it when I was there for that second wave of... I think I watched it during Break Room, the beginning of whatever that was.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Because I remember I was sitting in that apartment...
Marc:And it was furnished with Charlie Carriker money that he wanted back.
Marc:That was where I got the TV and the couch.
Marc:And a guitar amp, right?
Marc:And a guitar amp.
Marc:When they were shutting it down, they were like, I think you owe us money.
Marc:I'm like, you gave me relocation money.
Marc:And thank God I didn't relocate.
Marc:And I bought new shit, you dummy.
Marc:So I watched the entire wire.
Marc:I remember because I was staying up too late because I couldn't stop.
Marc:And I'd watch two or three episodes a night.
Marc:To get through it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, binge watching before was really a thing.
Guest:And, you know, I guess just through the DVDs, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It must have been right.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:That was how I wound up watching it.
Guest:I remember getting like a deal on Amazon that I could buy the whole series for like 80 bucks.
Guest:And I did it one day and just then watched all of it.
Guest:I just remember it was in that apartment.
Guest:Well, you know, The Wire is great.
Guest:I mean, the list of shows that they have put out.
Guest:And I think that, you know, if what you're saying is true, that your audience's sensibility lines up with the exact type of person who would be a consumer of HBO.
Guest:And I agree with you.
Guest:I think you're correct.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There are people listening to this that know what we're talking about.
Guest:That experience, which I just had last night watching the latest episode of Succession, of having something truly exceptional to watch on TV.
Marc:And waiting a week.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's a big deal.
Marc:I mean, you know, you can wait and watch all this shit after.
Marc:But I mean, Sopranos set this weird standard where you like you'd be looking forward to Sunday.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:No question what you were doing Sunday night and you'd be juiced for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I have that right now with this current season of Succession.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:It was so funny when I texted you, I knew you were out of town, you know, kind of in the country or wherever.
Marc:I don't know if it was your parents' house or your wife's parents' house, but I was like, do not read the news.
Yeah.
Marc:This is about last week's episode of Succession.
Guest:When I watched Succession, I'm like, don't look at the news at all.
Guest:And it was helpful because I was able to avoid it for like 24 hours.
Guest:But it's exciting.
Guest:Then I texted you the other day and I said, what was your favorite episode of The Sopranos?
Guest:Because I know that not only did you watch it like I did in real time when it was on, but you watched...
Guest:I think the whole thing, right, when you were making GLOW?
Marc:I think I did the first season of GLOW.
Marc:So it's already been a while, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, because when you said that to me, one of my favorite episodes, like, I couldn't even wrap my brain around it.
Marc:And every time, there were so many stories.
Marc:And, like, I remember when I rewatched it that I was surprised, I think you and I talked about this at the time, you know, how many of the episodes were not killer episodes.
Marc:They were just kind of moving through something.
Marc:They were experimental.
Marc:They, you know, they didn't, they didn't really, they, some of them were not great, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, but I watched the whole thing again.
Marc:But when you said that to me, I'm like, oh no, I got to go through, like, I don't even know what the stories are anymore, really.
Marc:And I got to go look at, because lately I've been sort of poking around in the Sopranos again.
Marc:I don't know why, but I've been poking around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I just I went impulsively with the two that that stuck in my mind right away.
Marc:And it was an interesting choice in retrospect when I'm thinking about it today that I like the one I wanted.
Marc:The one that stuck out first was is when Joey Pants, his character gets killed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then the other one was when Frank Vincent's character gets killed.
Marc:That's like the last episode.
Marc:It is?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When Leotardo dies?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's weird because it had no place in time for me.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And what struck me about both of them, what was that Joey's character's name?
Marc:Ralph Cifarello.
Marc:Ralphie, Ralph, yeah, Ralph.
Marc:is that what stuck to me was that it was when guys you wanted to die get killed.
Marc:It's satisfying.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, because like, and then it really kind of started to send me down this sort of process of thinking about the morality of the thing and why you don't really want Tony to die, even though he's arguably the biggest monster, but maybe not in a world of monsters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:the sort of moral ambiguity or the humanizing of these characters was kind of profound.
Marc:But there was definitely guys that you're like, that guy needs to die.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you said you wanted to pick where Ralphie gets killed and then the following episode, which is Christopher's
Marc:intervention.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I couldn't believe that they were right back to back.
Guest:Cause that's probably, I wouldn't say it's my favorite episode in the show, but it is definitely my favorite individual scene in the series is Chris's intervention.
Marc:Well, you know what, these are very pivotal for these characters, these moments, cause I can't remember half the stories that got us to this place.
Marc:Like, you know, it's like jumping into a, you know, a 10 year timeline.
Marc:Because I can't remember all the stories.
Marc:But these are really pivotal because the transgressions, you know, fucking Tony kills a captain.
Marc:I mean, that's not nothing.
Marc:That's a big fucking mistake.
Marc:And he kills the captain over a goddamn horse.
Marc:He's brokenhearted over the killing of this innocent thing.
Marc:And then, and then with Chris, that's the episode where Tony realizes he can't trust him anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If it was anybody else, he says, if you were anybody else, the intervention would have been through the back of your head that, well, you know, he would have had to kill him.
Marc:But there's that moment where fucking the moment it happens is when Chris calls out,
Marc:you know, Van Zandt's character and says, you know, you're fucking all the dancers.
Marc:And I'm like, that's it.
Guest:I want to build up to that exact moment because that moment is amazing that he calls them out in the middle of the intervention.
Guest:And I wanted to build up to it because I went back and I watched
Guest:The episode you were talking about, about the one where Joey Pants character dies.
Guest:I don't believe I had seen it since the first time it aired, but I still had the same feeling as you did.
Guest:That was very, you know, kind of indelibly etched in my mind.
Guest:And I didn't remember that the episode that followed it immediately...
Guest:was the Christopher Intervention episode.
Guest:And so I went back and took a look and there's a lot to talk about.
Guest:You know, these were both episodes from season four, which started in September 2002.
Guest:This was the first season after kind of the world had changed, right?
Guest:You're a year removed from 9-11.
Guest:I remember that very vividly about this, that the season premiere happened on like September 13th or something.
Guest:So the national mood was right around the same time as like the first anniversary.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You're kind of like, how are they going to handle it?
Marc:What's going to, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And does the show, is the show still potent?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A show about criminals and bad people?
Guest:Like, do we still want that in this world where we're afraid every day that, like, bad guys are going to kill us, right?
Guest:That was the general national mood.
Guest:And I don't know if they thought about this ahead of time specifically because of what that national mood was.
Guest:But the, if you remember...
Guest:The tenor of that whole season is really about the disillusion of Tony and Carmella's marriage.
Guest:That's the through line of the whole thing from start to finish.
Guest:With the Italian guy.
Guest:Yeah, she's sweet on the Italian, but she never transgresses.
Guest:She doesn't have an affair with that guy.
Guest:Meanwhile, Tony has 20 affairs or whatever, right down to the housekeeper with the one leg.
Marc:That happened in this last episode.
Marc:Yeah, that happened when we watched.
Marc:But Furio, she wanted to fuck Furio.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:You know, and in many ways, who can blame her?
Guest:Fury is a good looking guy.
Guest:And Tony was terrible.
Guest:But that's the through line of that season, which is interesting that it's not about really the crime family.
Guest:It's about a marriage.
Guest:It could have been right at home with any kind of, you know, one hour drama on network TV.
Guest:That's about a marriage breaking up.
Guest:And about somebody in the family who's got a drug problem.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:This is where Chris is falling deeper into his heroin addiction.
Marc:His marriage, his engagement is breaking up.
Marc:And, you know, his girlfriend is, you know, a rat now.
Marc:She's an informant.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:But, yeah, it's so funny.
Marc:I talk and, like, you know, what the fuck's she doing?
Marc:You know, she's ratting a guy out.
Marc:You know, I'm not an informant.
Marc:She's a rat, Brandon.
Marc:She's a rat.
Marc:But, yeah.
Marc:But also, oddly, in both of these episodes, animals die unnecessarily.
Marc:That's very important.
Marc:It kind of is, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:That's the weird thing that I noticed about this episode is that you're never really wanting Tony to die because you do feel like he struggles.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:With something.
Guest:There's an interesting thing in that.
Guest:That episode has a scene at the psychiatrist's office with Dr. Melfi.
Guest:The previous episode where Ralph gets killed does not.
Guest:And it was watching them back to back.
Guest:It was surprising to me that you really need those Melfi scenes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every episode or other episode, like they exist for the explicit purpose of making you realize you sympathize with a monster, right?
Guest:And that in a lot of ways, the monster is you.
Guest:Like, until...
Guest:Until she points out, he says this thing about, I mean, I'm just, I'm the sad clown because I got to be, you know, I got to be upbeat, but I'm so sad that this animal died and this and that.
Guest:And she points out, you've said this a few times, but your reaction to things is never funny.
Guest:And Carmela even has said, like, you're punching walls.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:fury you are gouging yourself on food like yeah you your response to things is violence and you see it as you're just you're you're sad inside but you're putting on a smiley face on the outside and only when you hear her say that you're like oh yeah i really like watching this guy be terrible
Marc:And delusional.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But the animal nature, like, you know, the fact that, like, he has no code, you know, that even the code that they all are supposed to aspire to or follow, he breaks in that last episode.
Marc:Like, he kills a fucking captain.
Marc:And, you know, it was out of animalistic rage.
Marc:Like, that guy had it coming.
Marc:But that fight, unlike almost all of them in the series, is human as fuck.
Guest:fuck it's the greatest it reminded me of do you ever see the movie the treasure of the sierra madre yes like there is a bar fight in like the first 10 minutes of that movie that is so clumsy and so unlike any other kind of like western bar fight it always stuck with me i'm like yeah that's what would happen these guys would fall on the floor as they're trying to take a swing they'd be just scrapping at each other's legs yeah that's this thing is just two out of shape animals trying to kill each other in a kitchen
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's clumsy as fuck.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's crazy.
Marc:And I've seen it three times.
Marc:And you're not sure who's going to win.
Marc:Ralphie sprays him in the eyes with Raid.
Marc:And then he got one in with the skillet.
Marc:He got that knife up.
Marc:I mean...
Marc:That was like, that was on the edge, dude.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we should also point out that that episode, that episode, by the way, is if you're looking to watch this, is episode nine.
Guest:The title is Whoever Did This.
Guest:And it was from November 10th, 2002, which another plot point that we didn't even bring up.
Guest:And it opens with Uncle Junior is on trial.
Guest:That's what was happening in that season.
Guest:And that's the opening scene where he falls down the steps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which, which, which is the beginning moment of his dementia, which, you know, crescendos all the way to the final episode of the series.
Guest:Oh, is that, is that what it is?
Guest:That is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, they, when they go to a doctor's office and the doctor says, and he says like, oh, he was out of it or whatever.
Guest:And the doctor says, it could be that he'd been, you know, having dementia for a little while.
Guest:And this was the thing that really triggered it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you know, what's weird about that junior character is, you know,
Marc:You know, he's horrendous in a way that, you know, isn't like the rest of them because he's a cowardly monster, right?
Marc:And, like, that was the one good thing about... Well, there's a couple of good things, but just in the story of the Saints of Newark, you know, what's that?
Marc:Was that the movie?
Marc:Yeah, Many Saints of Newark.
Marc:Many Saints of Newark.
Marc:Is the origin story a junior.
Marc:Yeah, him being a piece of shit.
Marc:But in a cowardly way.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:You know, like, not getting his hands dirty, but...
Marc:But being petty to the point of killing people over bullshit.
Guest:Well, even in the subsequent episode, Tony goes to him for advice about Christopher.
Guest:He's like, Tony, when you have a dog that has rabies, you put it out of its misery.
Marc:Which he does.
Marc:Eventually.
Marc:He wrestles with it forever.
Marc:And the way he does it, that was brutal.
Marc:That must be the last season, right?
Marc:Oh, when he finally kills Chris?
Marc:Yeah, it's like one of the last few episodes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, cause I kept thinking about that last episode and the, you know, all the, you know, upheaval around how it was handled.
Marc:And in watching these two episodes, I realized that, you know, that it was the perfect ending to the series.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:In that, like, you just, they're just a family and tomorrow's another day.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you now as a viewer, like him, have no fucking idea what's coming next.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you've chosen to live this life of crime.
Guest:And you as a viewer chose to enjoy it.
Guest:So you get no closure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's weird because I realized that, you know, I used to get kind of annoyed at the psychiatrist episodes.
Marc:She started to annoy me.
Marc:And that thing, because like there's still sort of some wired part of me that's like, can we just get back to the animals?
Marc:The fun?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Can we have the fun?
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man, this is a drag.
Guest:I would be remiss if I didn't point out how you picked the episode that really is the Joey Pants tour de force.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And I love that guy.
Guest:Boy, when we had him on.
Guest:Yeah, that was one of the great moments ever.
Guest:When he didn't know how to work his thing.
Guest:What did he do?
Guest:So he was one of our very early guests doing this over Zoom.
Guest:In fact, we weren't even using Zoom yet.
Guest:We were using a different interface that required, you know, the reason why we moved to Zoom, which was not ideal at the time, but we wound up hooking it up with a
Guest:Oh, that was Audio Hijack?
Guest:Yeah, we wound up hooking it up with Audio Hijack so we could get a better audio quality from the Zoom.
Guest:But prior to that, we were using an interface that was priding itself on having great audio fidelity.
Guest:You could do it for a podcast, right?
Guest:What the problem was, it required a few hoops to jump through for the guest.
Marc:And we'd go, ah!
Marc:Ah, fuck.
Guest:Yeah, he was just literally standing there and he was putting his headphones on, looking in the screen.
Guest:We're like, hey, Joe, how's it going?
Guest:Hey, waving at him.
Guest:He clearly couldn't hear us.
Guest:And he takes his headphones off and goes, fuck.
Guest:And you laughed just like that, like right away.
Guest:You're like, oh, it's so satisfying.
Marc:The best.
Marc:It's like no one talks like that guy.
Marc:And that was right before he got hit in the head, right?
Marc:Oh, he got hit by a car.
Marc:He got hit by a car, yeah.
Marc:He was okay, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but it was like a week before.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:How good is that guy?
Marc:Man, I watched Midnight Run recently.
Marc:Oh, dude.
Marc:So great.
Marc:Oh, he just goes from zero to 100 miles an hour so quickly.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I love you!
Marc:I love you!
Marc:He's screaming on the phone.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, no, he's perfect for these roles.
Guest:And, you know, if you remember, a thing that they had established with The Sopranos was that each season there would be a new main villain.
Guest:So, like, in the first season, it was Uncle Junior was really the villain.
Guest:And the season ends with him going to jail.
Guest:In the second season, it was Richie April.
Guest:And the season ends with him dying.
Guest:Oh, boy, was that guy a fucking asshole.
Guest:You wanted that guy to die.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was another one.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then the third season was, was Ralphie who was the worst of all of them.
Guest:The most sociopathic, the one who, you know, beats a stripper to death.
Marc:When his kid gets, this also the episode where his kid gets shot by an arrow.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Like, you know, like, you know, that Tony couldn't even stop his murderous rage in light of the fact that this kid's in the hospital in a coma.
Guest:Well, but it's interesting because he does stop the,
Guest:other people's murderous rage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I don't know how much you remember about this, but there's a whole season-long arc where Ralph has said some joke about Johnny Sack's wife, right?
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:And he figures out the guy who ratted him out to Johnny Sack was Pauly, right?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So in this episode, he prank calls Pauly's mom, right?
Guest:And that's verboten, right?
Guest:Pauly loves his mom.
Guest:He's his mama's boy.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And he prank calls her and, and Pauly is furious.
Guest:He said he's, and you know, he's going to kill him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He says, you know, if we, if we, if I find out he did it, I'm going to kill him, whatever.
Guest:And Tony comes at Pauly strong to say that you will not touch that guy.
Guest:He is our best earner, like no way.
Guest:And if you do, you're dead.
Guest:And he says the title of the episode, the first of two times that he says to Pauly, look, this thing with your mom, whoever did this is an idiot and we'll get it straightened out.
Guest:Which is the same thing he says to Chris when Chris shows up at the house and dead Ralph is sitting there.
Guest:He says, look, whoever did this, this guy was a piece of shit.
Guest:He had it coming.
Marc:It should have happened a long time ago.
Marc:Because the one thing that Ralph, the reason why you like, like when he killed that dancer, I mean, that was fucking the most heinous, one of the most heinous episodes of the fucking series.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And the one where you're like, well, this guy's gotta go.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:And then and then what they do in this episode is spend the first half of it making you think, God, maybe this guy has some redeemable quality to him.
Guest:Maybe he can.
Guest:Maybe this tragedy with his kid will snap him out of being such a sociopath.
Marc:Boy, the acting in that scene where he comes to Tony to drop the envelope and he starts crying.
Marc:And Tony's just like, you know, every ounce of him is a sort of like this fucking guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, he has to kind of muster up some kind of politeness.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, then he also feels like at that moment he has to tell him that he's having an affair with the woman that Ralphie used to be with.
Guest:He says, I don't want you to hear this through the grapevine, so I'll tell you this now, coming from me.
Guest:And you have to wonder if telling him that is one of the reasons why Ralph then goes and burns down the stables, which, by the way, you don't ever know that he did.
Guest:I mean, you can have a pretty strong suspicion that he did, but you don't know that, in fact, on the DVD commentary of this episode, they say that the guys who wrote the episode were
Guest:wrote it as though, of course, he did it, right?
Guest:But Joey Pants played it as though he didn't.
Guest:Like, he said he convinced himself that, no, no, Ralph's terrible, and he was totally telling the truth that he was happy to get the insurance money from the horse, but he didn't do it.
Guest:That's what he believed.
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Marc:But yeah, but he also did do that weird thing with like, you know, you're so lucky to have found Carmela.
Marc:You know, after he tells him he's like, because that guy's ego was so brittle.
Marc:As all of them are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that guy's was like particularly brittle.
Marc:But Jesus Christ, you got to miss every time you watch these.
Marc:Because I remember what I watched.
Marc:Somehow or another, I watched...
Marc:You know, the trip to Florida.
Marc:Paulie and Tony go to Florida.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:I watched that recently.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:And it's such a great fucking episode.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's the one that I believe Lin-Manuel Miranda has a little cameo in that.
Marc:He does.
Marc:He has a bell guy.
Marc:It's like the bellman at the hotel.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's just everything about it, the nostalgia of it is just beautiful.
Marc:And just how, and that one scene where you ask, Tony's getting more annoyed with Paulie.
Marc:And this is a guy he looked up to when he was a kid.
Marc:He just looks around outside the balcony to Paulie laughing hysterically at the sitcom on television.
Marc:He hates it.
Marc:It's just like the final straw.
Guest:Yes, I believe that episode is called Remember When.
Guest:And it's because Tony at one point shoots down Pauly trying to keep bringing up stories from the past.
Guest:And he's like, hey, Tony, remember when we did... And Tony's like, you know what, Pauly?
Guest:Remember When is the lowest form of conversation.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:That's when they're sitting with those hookers and the guy in the wheelchair.
Marc:But yeah, I mean, now I have to decide...
Marc:Do I start this whole series again?
Guest:Oh, I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world that you can spend your time on.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Maybe you can boost the HBO Max numbers before they switch over.
Guest:Didn't they just switch over?
Guest:Isn't it done or it's not done?
Guest:No, it doesn't switch till May, I believe, or May or June.
Guest:I'm still on board with HBO.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Hey, look, as long as they keep making the shows, great.
Guest:I don't care what their streaming situation is.
Guest:I'm going to subscribe to it on cable, and that'll be great.
Marc:Yeah, it's weird.
Marc:Even watching these two episodes, I felt awful for the animals.
Marc:I mean, ultimately, coming away from it, what lasts, what sticks...
Marc:Is this that fucking, cause like, I didn't notice it before, but when he sits on the dog, you hear its neck break.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also that scene at the farm with all the burned stables and they drag the horse away with a chain is really well done.
Guest:Like it's a, it's an affecting scene and you don't, you know, just seeing a horse covered in a tarp or whatever, but it's a, it's really well done.
Guest:But they used a dead horse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:wonder but i i i do i did read something that they used it they had a uh a prop dog made uh for that for the dead dog and uh it said that they the director was unhappy with how the fake tongue looked so he sent it back to props department they fixed it and turns out what they did is they went to craft and they they uh they got a piece of uh prosciutto and rolled it up and put it
Guest:But a thick piece of prosciutto in this dog's mouth made it look like a realistic tongue.
Guest:Is that true?
Marc:Yeah, according to the things on the internet, you've got to believe that, right?
Marc:Of course, everything's true on the internet.
Marc:But I do remember when I saw it the first time that I didn't buy...
Marc:that the dog would die by suffocation or whatever.
Marc:It just seemed like, why wouldn't he have fought for his life like any other fucker?
Marc:Oh no, he killed it.
Marc:Snap.
Marc:Done.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Snapped his neck.
Guest:Well, maybe you were believing Chris a little too much when he said, she must've crawled under there for warmth.
Yeah.
Marc:How good is he in these fucking episodes?
Guest:Oh, dude, when he shows up to, when, you know, Tony says... To cut up Ralph?
Guest:Yeah, come with bleach and surgical gloves.
Guest:Like, come to my friend's house.
Guest:And when he shows up, and he has just shot up before he leaves to go there.
Guest:So he's, you know, riding the lightning.
Guest:And he shows up, and Tony's like, are you fucking high?
Guest:And he's looking right at him.
Guest:And he's like...
Guest:You told me you were off that.
Guest:Now you come here and you're doing it.
Guest:And he goes, I did int.
Guest:The weirdest possible way to articulate that.
Guest:But of course, that's how he would say it in that moment.
Guest:I did int.
Guest:And then Tony's like, can you even do this?
Guest:but okay so then what's amazing about that scene and Scorsese does this all the time is show that these guys so that starts when Chris shows up at that house at the 37 minute mark of that episode and then it goes for a full 18 minutes and all that is those 18 minutes is these two guys disposing of a body and doing all the details that it would take to dispose of that body over the course of several hours they have to wait till it gets
Guest:dark and this that and it is such laborious disgusting difficult work and like these guys do the hardest labor but they have convinced themselves that they live this life on easy street when like up
Guest:A construction worker has an easier life than them and probably gets about the same rewards from it.
Guest:Scorsese does that all the time.
Guest:Think about the Irishman where they're going to go kill Jimmy Hoffa and they're at a roadside motel eating the little box cereals that...
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Cornflakes or whatever.
Guest:This is not some amazing life that these guys never have to like worry ever again.
Guest:And they've made their deal with the devil.
Guest:No, it fucking sucks.
Marc:It sucks all the time.
Marc:They butcher them and then they got it.
Marc:And also another great moment in these two episodes is Tony with the tractor.
Guest:yeah you know driving the bulldozer work like he since he was 13 years old he learned how to operate a bulldozer because he was on construction sites this guy could have done anything with his life and been totally happy and he had to do this criminal nonsense because he looks truly focused and happy in that tractor he loves it he's knocking the dirt on it at one point he says to chris kick leaves and shit all over it
Marc:It's pretty great.
Guest:I will point out, I did not make this connection myself.
Guest:I'm not going to take credit for it, but it is definitely there.
Guest:The song, Sympathy for the Devil, never plays in the episode, but four separate times.
Guest:The characters quote lines from that song.
Guest:So when Ralph comes up to the surgeon in the hospital, when he sees his ex-wife coming out with the doctor, he says, please allow me to introduce myself.
Guest:That specific phrase, right?
Guest:Then when he goes in to see Father Phil, right?
Guest:He goes to visit the priest.
Guest:He says, please to meet you to the priest.
Guest:And then the priest says to him,
Guest:Were you there when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then there's- I noticed that because I love that song.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:I thought maybe they quoted it from the Bible.
Guest:No, they're deliberately quoting the song because Ralphie is the devil and you are sympathizing with him.
Guest:It's as blatant as that can be.
Guest:It's like, oh yeah, I do feel bad for this guy.
Guest:His kid has an arrow in his chest.
Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's like you feel bad with it.
Marc:You know where it stops?
Marc:It's like it stops because he has complete control over your sympathy of him because it stops right after Tony tells him he's fucking his mistress.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's a slimy dick about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where his face changes.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And you're like, this guy's, you know, it's a put on.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Most of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He may not know it.
Marc:It may seem genuine.
Marc:But the bigger part of him is that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But this is where you were talking about earlier, that this idea that they're all supposed to live by this code, right?
Guest:And one of the consistent things throughout the course of the six seasons of the show is that they always violate it.
Guest:Like this whole thing is like about living by a code and they violate it consistently without prejudice.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, well, because they're animals, you know, and it's like, you know, by any means necessary after a certain point.
Marc:This code thing has been hanging over the stories and the movies about the mafia for decades.
Guest:Oh, and everything before the mafia.
Guest:Westerns and the military movies.
Guest:Like, they always are about some code of honor that you have to live by.
Guest:Samurai films.
Guest:Well, yeah, and like, I mean, I think that...
Guest:You know, Goodfellas is all about it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and filtered through Scorsese's particularly Catholic lens of this is a primrose path.
Guest:When all you do is live for your appetites, you will be judged and punished for it.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:When fucking when Pesci walks into that room.
Marc:Oh, no.
Guest:oh it's just didn't he say oh no yeah yeah i don't even think the no gets out of his mouth he's in the midst of saying oh just like oh well i do think it's perfect that in a show about that's largely about american family and in a modern setting and using uh self-help to either excuse your own uh transgressions or try to actually change yourself
Guest:They have decided that the way to try to fix this drug-addicted mobster is through an intervention, which leads to, as I said before, it's my favorite scene in the whole series.
Guest:I could probably quote the whole thing by heart, but it's set up with the perfect details that this was a guy who used to be a criminal, played by Elias Kodias, I think is how he pronounces that last name.
Guest:Great actor who you see a million times in everything.
Guest:He's in some of those Adam Agorian movies.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exotica.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a New York theater actor too.
Guest:I see him on stage all the time here.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he introduces himself to them before they bring Chris in to kind of give them the rules.
Guest:And there's a great part where he says, you know, hey, my name is Dominic and I'm an alcoholic and an addict.
Guest:And Paul, he goes, don't forget scumbag.
Yeah.
Guest:So he tells them, you know, you have to do this without judgment.
Guest:You have to prepare impact statements.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they all go to Adrian and Christopher's apartment to sit there and have this intervention.
Guest:Chris comes out of the bedroom.
Guest:He must have been taking a nap or something.
Guest:They're all sitting there.
Guest:And this guy, Dominic, introduces himself.
Guest:He says, you know, hi, we don't know each other.
Guest:I'm Dominic.
Guest:Chris immediately clocks him.
Guest:He says, I know you.
Guest:You're the guy who broke into Stu Leonard's that time.
Guest:You stole all those pork loins.
Marc:his reputation uh precedes him but it's such a perfect thing that that's the thing a criminal would remember there's other criminal because it's a goofball story exactly like pork lines it's like they've all got to be laughing about it that's these old pork lines
Guest:uh so he's sitting there and there's everyone is there has an impact statement and they all are extremely characteristic of who they are so you know also his mother is there she's a he's he comes out he also sees their two bodyguards there who he stares daggers at like almost like how dare you be here for this moment you
Guest:you murderers like no it's like everyone in this room is a hypocrite and he's bottling this rage for you know the moment they tell him to sit down because they are also threatening him like paulie's like hey you've been told once you won't be told again sit down you know and tony tells him to sit down
Guest:uh so adriana makes her impact statement which involves talking about how he can no longer function as a man and they show they show a shot of paulie and he's like eyebrows
Guest:Then she mentions that he killed the dog, and this is it for Tony.
Guest:Tony, in the midst of this intervention, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Guest:You killed the dog?
Guest:To which Pauly says, what, was it barking?
What?
Guest:We're on the road to what would be a justifiable reason for killing this dog.
Guest:And now Tony is... He's not going to say any statement because he's just enraged, right?
Guest:You know, he's killed an animal.
Guest:Then it comes time for Silvio.
Guest:Silvio's statement is...
Guest:When I came in to open up one morning, there you were with your head half in the toilet.
Guest:Your hair was touching toilet water.
Guest:Disgusting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Then Pauly has an impact statement, and his is, he goes, I didn't write nothing down.
Guest:You're weak, you're out of control, and you become an embarrassment to yourself and everyone you know.
Guest:Well, that's all Chris needed, right?
Guest:Because now Chris can just, this guy's making a judgment on him.
Guest:He's not telling him specifically what he did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So Chris goes, you've got some balls, all of you.
Guest:And he's absolutely right.
Guest:Like, they have no place that they should be lecturing this guy.
Guest:And that leads to him insulting Tony.
Guest:He's insulting his weight.
Guest:Then Pauly gets up to threaten him, say, hey, you don't talk to the boss that way.
Guest:His mom says something.
Guest:You know, I want you to slap some sense into him.
Guest:And he calls his mom a whore, which causes Pauly to beat the hell out of him, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You've got Tony, who's enraged by animals being treated poorly.
Guest:You've got Silvio, who it's an unforgivable transgression that he let his hair touch toilet water.
Guest:Silvio with his giant pompadour.
Guest:And then Pauly, who's the mother guy.
Guest:It's like, whoa, you called your mother that?
Guest:I'm going to kill you.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you read it back and we get the good laughs, you forget that through all these shows that this kind of started that weird thread of comedy through truly horrible, you know, scenes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because like Breaking Bad is all about that.
Marc:Like, I would not say that The Sopranos is a comedy, but when you break it down and you really think about Paulie Walnuts, that guy's a clown.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And, well, you asked me a couple days ago about, like, what I thought some reliable comedies were.
Guest:And I think in, like, the five movies I listed for you, Goodfellas was one of them, and I meant that.
Guest:You could watch that, and in two and a half hours, you will laugh 80 times.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I found the wing.
Guest:I got a wing.
Guest:Hey, hey, it's a leg.
Guest:Hey, it's a wing.
Guest:And Gandolfini, we spent this whole time talking about the show.
Guest:We have not once mentioned James Gandolfini was... It's a very sad thing that the guy died at the age of 51.
Guest:Just a tremendous talent.
Guest:But also...
Guest:Tony Soprano himself did not seem like he could live past 51.
Guest:I was watching this with my headphones on.
Guest:His breathing, and they deliberately do it.
Guest:They crank it up.
Guest:It's just through the whole show.
Guest:It's almost like the subconscious heartbeat of the thing.
Guest:When things are getting tense and aggravated, you hear Tony breathing heavier.
Marc:When he had the panic attack.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's really amazing.
Guest:And his just ability to like that scene we were talking about with Melfi in this episode where he's at his therapy appointment and he's crying and he's letting himself as an actor really let it all go.
Guest:His nose starts running.
Guest:You see it run.
Guest:It's not like, you know, something they added to his nose.
Guest:You watch his nose actually start dripping and he blows his nose and it is so loud and disgusting.
Yeah.
Guest:And you're like, it's just these these things you forget, probably watching it week to week and only remember I'm noticing it, you know, with this 20 year removed from it.
Guest:It's like, oh, yeah, they go through every episode.
Guest:There are multiple times to show you this guy is feral.
Marc:He is he is a total animal.
Marc:yeah and and when he's when he and then like he was always great at just that weird look he has when he's not he's not mad he's not talking but it's almost like this strange almost you know detached thing it's it's what everything that's going on up here in his brain right and you yeah he has to show you as a viewer that he is thinking very hard about this right now and he's probably come to some conclusions that could lead to someone's death or something
Marc:And the breathing thing is at the end when he's reading the note from Carmella.
Marc:Like, it's a close-up of that note.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you think, like, is she finally fucking... What's his name?
Marc:Favio?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or whatever his name is.
Marc:Furio, yeah.
Marc:Furio.
Marc:But, like, you hear... All you hear is Tony's breathing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When he's looking at that note.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like I said, it becomes, like, this signal to you as a viewer that, like...
Guest:this is when things are getting bad when you can when this guy's breath is increasing and in the ferocity of it what a great show uh yeah that guy was amazing and you know what's amazing about him is that then now you see him you know he obviously didn't get to have a as long a career as he should have and but when he shows up in movies now i
Guest:It's such a joy.
Guest:Like when I'm watching something that I forgot he was in, like he's in the movie Crimson Tide.
Guest:It's like, oh, thank God.
Guest:There's another James Gandolfini performance I can enjoy.
Guest:How about True Romance?
Guest:Yeah, True Romance.
Guest:That's a perfect example.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:He was like scarier in that movie than he was as Soprano.
Marc:And that sweet movie with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Marc:Oh, yeah, the Nicole Hall of Center movie.
Marc:And the Hall of Center movie, yeah.
Marc:It was sweet.
Marc:And it's hard to do what he was doing in that movie, which is somehow get it out of your head that he's Tony Soprano.
Marc:I mean, that's the biggest challenge of these guys who do these life-defining roles on several seasons of television.
Marc:How do you not be that guy to everybody else?
Guest:I had one interaction with this guy, I wouldn't even call it an interaction, because I didn't directly interact with him, but I was walking down the street in the West Village, and I could feel a large person walking next to me.
Guest:When somebody is big, you kind of feel their presence.
Guest:And I, you know, just looked to see who it was.
Guest:And it was him.
Guest:I didn't say anything.
Guest:I just noticed I'm walking next to James Gandolfini.
Guest:And it was a fairly quiet street.
Guest:But as I turned my head back to face forward, it looked like the Red Sea parting.
Guest:Like every person...
Guest:on the street facing us was stopping and looking at him to the point where like a cop was like, Hey, Tony, like, yeah, like, you know, and he, uh, he was waving at everyone waving.
Guest:And then he saw a cab and he ran to get the cab, held the cab and got in.
Guest:And I thought, man, that must happen everywhere to him because he's undeniable.
Guest:You can't deny that you're seeing him and he's in your presence.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:You know, I, and I'm, I'm terrible.
Marc:I, I'm not good at that anymore.
Marc:I do stupid things.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:With us.
Marc:I'm just, you know, I was at the premiere for Betty Gilpin's thing.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You know, the other night, the Mrs. Davis thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And Shailene Woodley, is that her name?
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:The actress.
Marc:She was, like, I had to walk by her.
Marc:She's in our row.
Marc:And I sat down and I just looked at her and go, I'm a big fan of yours.
Yeah.
Marc:I bet that feels good.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:She looked a little like, what?
Marc:Why are you yelling at me?
Guest:I think that's fair game.
Guest:Hey, Frances McDormand said it to you.
Guest:You can say it to other people.
Guest:Oh, she's the best.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, I guess if you feel like you got to get back on this horse, so to speak, and watch the rest of The Sopranos, we can check in with these again whenever you find one that you wanted to talk about.
Guest:But I did also think, you know, getting on this HBO track, there are a bunch of things that are worthy of the same treatment.
Guest:One of them...
Guest:It's a lot of episodes, so I wouldn't say go back and do a whole rewatch, but there are certain ones that still hold up of the Larry Sanders show.
Guest:Oh, God, yeah.
Guest:That is amazingly funny, and we should talk about that at some point.
Guest:I also think maybe when Succession is done, and we don't have to worry about all these spoilers, we should have a little talk about that, because it really is, it's as high level as The Sopranos, maybe even better.
Guest:They are just doing amazing work on there.
Guest:The Keystone fucks.
Yeah.
Guest:It's goddamn... Everything with Tom and Greg is just the best.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right, man.
Guest:Well, we will continue to keep HBO in business with at least our subscriptions.
Guest:Well, geez, we've got pretty excited talk about a series that's like old...
Guest:Yeah, more than 20 years, even just these episodes we were talking about.
Guest:You watch it, you get all juiced up.
Guest:Yep, I sure did.
Guest:Well, hopefully now that your special resides among that HBO library, you will be getting people equally juiced in perpetuity.
Guest:And we say farewell for now, but we will be back because it's not TV.
Guest:It is indeed HBO.
Yeah.