The ‘Sopranos’ Episode That Got Us Hooked

15:29Rob Mahoney:Then they became penetrable. Then we heard them all wiretaps saying stuff that they shouldn't have said. We saw them go to jail. We saw them die of things that happened while they were inside of the, they became human. And so the mafioso for that time was a modern, flawed mafioso that sometimes can't stop his heart from beating. But at the same time, over the course of the show, almost reverts and turns into the classic boss from 65 or 70 or 55 that is untouchable, pure evil, and has everyone doing things at his whim just for power. but the version of this show the version of Tony Soprano that you get when the show starts almost dashing right?

16:20Rob Mahoney:like almost dashing young still kind of wild eyed even at 40 about what the mob is and what his place in it is is what makes the first season of the show so special

16:33Joanna Robinson:I love what you're bringing up in terms of this like inciting incident because something we've talked about over the course of this series looking at the pilots of these big shows is like you a pilot can do two things it can either drop you into someone's world in the middle of their world and you sort of figure out what's going on or bring you into the world along with another character there's like an inciting incident right are we joining someone in the middle of their life or are we joining someone as their life is about to change are we joining peggy as she goes to work at the ad firm are we joining Walter White as he begins to cook meth?

17:07Joanna Robinson:Are we adjoining everyone on Flight of Oceanic A-15 as their plane crashes on an island? Is there an inciting incident? And the fact that Peggy going to work at a new organization or Don Draper having his life secrets sort of starting to bubble up is one thing. The small ball, but big ball, inciting incident of this show being a guy goes to therapy and that being the inciting incident of us coming into this chapter of the show is absolutely intoxicating to me. You know what I mean? Because it's like, it's not a plane crash. It's not we're cooking meth, right? But it's seismic for this world, for this kind of guy.

17:53Joanna Robinson:It's as big as a plane crash. Do you know what I mean?

17:55Van Lathan:Especially with the way I would say that him going to therapy is woven into the plot of the show. And I would say it's like an amplifier for the stakes of the show, right? He is feeling, you know, this is an actual guy who is collapsing at moments where he should not collapse. Something is clearly wrong with him that he wants to address or needs to address. There's also the very real thing he's talking about in therapy, which is if anyone knew I was here, I am in mortal peril. And so, again, we're just like building the stakes by him doing the thing that he is acknowledging by the end of the pilot that he needs to do.

18:26Van Lathan:That in itself is intoxicating too, Joe. Like we are just building on all of these different elements that are feeding the sense of danger. And ultimately, the stakes are becoming more and more mortal for Tony Soprano, even within the first episode.

18:40Rob Mahoney:His relationship with his father is something that the show dives directly into. But him comparing himself, he does something at this age, at his age, that I just reflexively did at my age too. Just compare yourself to how tough your fucking dad was. my dad walks in, there's a bee in the fucking living room and we're all being kids, like dodging the bee. Ha, ha, ha, it's a big wasp, a big wasp. And so I don't want y 'all to think that I'm, you know, I'm tough. And we're all running from the wasp, having fun. My dad walks in, he goes, what y 'all doing? And then he just grabs it and crushes it with his hand.

19:19Yeah.

19:20Rob Mahoney:And we were like, God damn. He's like, yeah. He's like, y 'all done? Fun over? I played a video game. He walks to the back. And you think that you get to an age and you see your weakness in that. And then you get to a different age and what you see is the strength of your father. And that's cool until you go, wait a minute. Am I not that? Right. Did it fail me? Am I not that? And then that's what Tony's going through. Tony's conversations with Dr. Melfi are interrogating the idea of manhood he talks about Gary Cooper the strong silent type he talks about all of these things that he does not think that he is that he wishes that not only he were but that other people were at the same time indicting his father and his mother from turning him into somebody that needs to take therapy and so it's it's the mafia part of it just on the becomes on the backside, just another thing that's stressing Tony out.

20:27Joanna Robinson:I think it's so interesting. And I think this is another, again, we're so fresh to the Sopranos. So it feels a little presumptuous to me to be like, this is what the show is about. But I think something the show does so well is, you know, something that David Chase has talked about is like in all of the therapy scenes, they didn't use music cues because they didn't want to guide the viewer into like, this is a big moment of revelation or anything like that. So there's like no music cues in the therapy scenes. And in dream sequences, the camera doesn't zoom in on anything because once again, as a storyteller, he's not trying to direct you.

21:03Joanna Robinson:He's trying to invite you. This is a collaborative story, right? That in setting it in the world of therapy, whenever Dr. Melfi says, and what do you think that means? David Chase has said, I'm inviting the audience to then ask, what do I think that means? And so we're all sort of making this story and the show together. And I love that Van, one of my favorite people on the planet, that you're zeroing in on dad stuff when like this is such a mom stuff show. But for you, this is also very much a dad stuff show. You know what I mean? Because it's a collaborative sort of, you're bringing what is important to you to the table.

21:40Rob Mahoney:You are exactly right. But what I will say, the reason why I honed in on the dad stuff is because Tony becomes Johnny boy. Like he, his, his, what he really wanted, my version of my, my interpretation of the show is what he really wanted was somebody to stop him from doing that. And that colors his relationship with AJ and Meadow and the, the way he's looking at them and what he wants for them. He really wanted someone to protect him from that world, which his mother was incapable of. He gives his dad actually a pass, but he realizes he's kind of not the same kind of guy, but he gives his dad a pass and he blames his mother in a way for not, from not protecting him from becoming his father and junior and everybody else.

22:40Rob Mahoney:And then not only does she not do that, I don't want to ruin anything for you guys, But she then directly becomes involved in things regarding that life. And he can never get his arms around that. He has mommy issues for sure. But what he wanted to be was not his father. And I think that he blamed his mother for not loving him out of that or protecting him for that life. and literally judging him on the same terms that everybody else that was adjacent to that life judged him on. She was the same way. She was like anybody else.

23:22Joanna Robinson:I think that's a perfect segue into saying we will talk a little bit more about the pilot at the end of the episode, but the hooked episode that we have forced Van to agree with us is the episode. I mean, it's right. You guys are right. is college which is season one episode five college um when we first floated the idea of this show to build to random passers-by to whoever everyone's first response was oh like the college episode of the sopranos like that this is like the platonic ideal of the hooked concept so and i think it really dovetails nicely with what you were just talking about man this idea of like when you go from child to parent and what Tony talks about in this episode with Meadow about the way in which his parents didn't encourage him, but the way in which he's trying to encourage her while also failing to do that perfectly because he's got this other pull on him, which is the other side of his life.

24:25Joanna Robinson:So season two, episode five, College, written by James Manos Jr. and David Chase, directed by Alan Coulter. Cinematography by Alex Sakharov, who is an incredible cinematographer, Went on to direct, was a cinematographer on Game of Thrones episode, Baylor, an all-timer. Directed some Game of Thrones episodes. Really talented dude. This is the one where Tony takes Meadow on a tour of Maine colleges. Spots a guy who ride on the mob in the process. Home life and work life slam together. While back at the Soprano family home, Carmella tries a bit to slam together with Father Phil while they watch Remains of the Day, which is a great movie.

25:07Van Lathan:Yeah, just two normal pals sitting hip to hip watching Remains of the Day. Guzzling red wine. Totally normal stuff.

25:14Joanna Robinson:This is fine. Van, I know this is not the episode you wanted to pick, and I will give you an opportunity to talk about the episode you wanted to pick. But why is this what everyone else considers the clear answer?

25:26Rob Mahoney:All right, so I've changed, and this is the episode. Okay. It was an intellectual choice. I have to learn to stop putting my favorites and stuff and to be objective. That's my new name. Van, no. objective van.

25:37Joanna Robinson:What you told me is that you did not want to be regular degular in your pick. Because it's too easy, right?

25:43Van Lathan:But look, all the passersby were right for a reason. Like, this is a great pick.

25:48Rob Mahoney:Yeah. So, so many things happen. One, Meadow learns for certain that her father is in the mafia. Gigantic. So, because he's not hiding it from her anymore, that means we are drawn in a little closer. We've finally got the secret identity of Batman. So once you know Batman's secret identity, which you guys, you can learn in the first comic, but once you know Batman's secret identity, you now have to stop pretending that he's two different people, right?

26:23Joanna Robinson:Well, yeah, it's like both the Vampire Slayer or any number of other shows which start with the superhero, none of his friends know his identity. And then slowly over the course of the series, everyone knows. and Meadow knowing here unlocks this huge part of Tony not being able to lie to himself about - Right, exactly.

26:41Rob Mahoney:Now he has to reconcile it rather than just hide it from her. Dr. Melfi, it's learned that Dr. Melfi is a lady, which Tony, in one of the great unforced errors in television history, lied about before, and now Carmella knows. the hit that comes at the end of this show is so interesting to me because Tony could have, he could have, there's a world where this guy ignores the fact that he saw this dude. He ignores the fact that he saw this guy.

27:21Van Lathan:And his life would not change at all. Like nothing else would change if he just walked away and did not kill this dude.

27:26Rob Mahoney:As a matter of fact, I could make an argument that he could send Chris and them back up there and look for the guy and they would still find him. They would still find him. But so many of the decisions that happen in Sopranos are about Tony's impulses. They're not about things that he thinks about. They're about his impulses and how he's been programmed with those impulses, how therapy is helping him contextualize them analyze them, and talk about why they're there. And this show shows, this episode shows the force of that. It shows that it doesn't matter if I'm on a college trip with my daughter.

28:08Rob Mahoney:My impulse to violence in this situation that's been nurtured by my father and my uncle and the lifestyle, that will override sometimes even the safety of my family. And that's the central tension in this entire show. and it at the end when tony decides to kill and unmask himself to meadow his transformation into the guy who's going to be the boss of the soprano family is not complete because still some more satisfied but you see the trajectory of who he actually is it's the first time we see him

28:43Van Lathan:totally clearly and even then like his first instinct when meadow calls him on this and i'm I'm just so glad that you have a child character calling their problematic dad on something in episode five. So many shows overplay that hand and string out that plot. We're just confronting it. And his first instinct is to kind of half deflect it. It's first to fully deflect it and basically throw her under the bus as stereotyping him, extremely tough. And then to say, oh, no, it's just like gambling money. This isn't what you think it is. It's kind of dirty, but not as dirty as you think. and it takes basically the full episode for him to overcome that kind of instinctive barrier.

29:20Van Lathan:And even then, he's sort of keeping her at arm's length and I think kind of twisting this idea of them having like an honest and truthful relationship as a means to then also give him some plausible deniability. But having all of that as sort of an introduction to the show and, you know, this is the first, you know, we've done two shows that I have not seen. Lost was the other one and then this. Lost, we covered the pilot though. And so we were really jumping in from the beginning. I decided to actually honor the prompt and start with this episode.

29:49Joanna Robinson:Oh, you did it in reverse.

29:50Van Lathan:And starting it with her confronting him in the car effectively, so whether he's in the mafia or not, I think is kind of an ingenious side door into this story.

30:01Joanna Robinson:That's brilliant. I'm so glad you did that, Rob. And I think -

30:03Van Lathan:I'm committed to process, ultimately. Good posture, Mahoney. Thank you. I think that that is a huge advantage of this story.

30:14Joanna Robinson:episode is that it is self-contained. You could just watch this episode and you understand everything that's going on. You know, a question we like to ask about these, these hooked episodes is like, is it a typical episode? Absolutely not. Right. We're in Maine for half, like more than half of the episode. We're not in New Jersey.

30:30Van Lathan:Is that not typical? Like does Tony not work in admissions at like Bowdoin or something?

30:35Joanna Robinson:Bates. Um, we are, uh, you know, Christopher and Dr. Melfi are like literally on the phone. That's as much as they're in this episode. And it's a real three-hander between Carmella, Tony, and Meadow. And I really like what you were saying, Van, and how that's represented in the episode. I was so tense. Even though I knew what choice he was going to make, I was so tense in that moment when Meadow's like, turn that way for Colby. And he's, and the camera's like all over the place. And my adrenaline was pumping as he was deciding whether or not to just continue on this college trip with his daughter or chase this guy that he thinks he recognizes.

31:19Joanna Robinson:And then he makes the turn. And then the fact that she's like, oh, well, this will get us there anyway, was like really funny and interesting to me. and then all the way down into the death scene his decision to to kill this dude is um talked about all over the place um as a rubicon that television crossed that that forever changed so my understanding is that hbo hbo saw the script and they're like that's fine and then they saw how it was shot and the way in which Gandolfini is like sweating and spitting and bleeding and they were like no you can't have your main character do this he will lose you'll lose the audience they won't be able to root for this guy anymore if they watch him do this and then david chias puts his foot down he's like no this is a show in terms of like the code of the mafia and um tony's character and honor he's a worm if he doesn't do this he has to do this and so they showed it and the audience stuck with him and that's why we get Walter White cooking meth and like you know doing all the shit that Walter White does or all the shit that Don Draper does or etc etc etc down the line because Tony Soprano you know choked a guy to death in the woodlands of Maine that's why you know what I mean him choking that guy to death I mean that

32:43Van Lathan:scene is on fire like it is it is so good and you know we usually reserve some space to kind of talk about a specific scene. I think that is like by far the standout scene of this episode. And I think it is because it's incorporating so many different things we've been talking about, right? It is everything you just laid out, Joe, in terms of the historical importance of having a main character do terrible things. It is a guy who should be with his daughter off murdering somebody else instead and kind of making that like declarative choice. It's a mafia boss who's kind of like lashing out at what the world has become, right?

33:13Van Lathan:Like against this guy who turned state's witness and like making his own statement to try to hold on to a world that basically doesn't exist anymore. And it's just a guy who commits murder and then watches the ducks fly by. And I have to say, even before seeing the pilot, that moment just really hits. Like that kind of grace note at the end of the murder to stop and watch the ducks. Really lets you know what kind of show you're watching.

33:36Rob Mahoney:Do you guys remember that movie Funny Games? You ever see that?

33:38Van Lathan:Oh, yeah. Of course. And I say unfortunately not because it's bad, but because it makes my skin crawl.

33:43Rob Mahoney:Yeah. It's one of the I know it's not a horror movie It's definitely a horror movie That is a horror movie Okay So The director Michael Hankey What was his name? Yeah Hankey Hankey So Not to spoil it But there's a point in the movie I'm fucking spoiling I'm what I'm sorry I'm sick of the putrid Toxic spoiler culture Okay

34:07Joanna Robinson:Spoilers for funny games Yeah Jump ahead Right here

34:09Rob Mahoney:There's a point in the movie Where the family that's been abducted either the wife or the husband gets the upper hand and they're able to wrest control away from the intruders. And when you first watch the movie, you're like, oh, shit. They saved themselves. And then all of a sudden, one of the characters picks up the remote and rewinds the movie. Like, rewinds the movie and avoids that scenario. One of the most interesting comments on his own work that a filmmaker has ever made is saying, is the director said, the writer director said, at that point, you should probably turn the movie off.

34:50Van Lathan:Yeah.

34:51Rob Mahoney:Because you know, at that point, what's about to happen. You're just watching these people and their eventual demise. And now, there's no chance that they're saved. Some superhuman thing has flown in and made sure that they've been, you're now complicit in what it is that you're doing. It's a communion of sorts. Tony killing that guy at the end was our communion with Tony Soprano. We no longer had any illusions about who Tony Soprano was. That's it. He killed a dude while he was on a college trip with his daughter, and he liked it. Oh, he loved it. And he liked it. It was something that all of us getting up to the ledge of maybe he's not going to do this.

35:36Rob Mahoney:Maybe he's going to prioritize. He almost got Meadow killed. He almost killed Meadow in the car and if the hit, if the old people don't show up at the hotel and that guy shoots, he could kill Tony and Meadow. And none of that stops Tony because Tony Soprano is exactly who we know he is. But we make the same decision for him that we make for people in our everyday lives. As people, I think it's underrated sometimes at how we choose to look at the best parts of people. It's particularly the people that we know. I choose to remember uncles and people that I know that have done all kinds of terrible things as the guy who teach me how to use my left hand on the basketball court and the guy who told me about girls.

36:21Rob Mahoney:You're choosing by your intimacy with someone. And the choice that we make to make Tony Soprano into a hero throughout the run of this show is constantly tested by the writing of the show. And it gets very hard to do by the end. But this was our first test. And we went, you know what? He still loves his daughter. So he's okay. I can still root for him.

36:46Joanna Robinson:And I think what's genius about that is that that is baked into the other half of this episode, which is the Carmela storyline, right? Because you get this, you know, I love the Carmela stuff inside of this episode and something that has not genuinely, I don't know why I never saw The Sopranos before. I know why I didn't in 1999. I was in college and we didn't even have like basic cable. We had no television in my dorm room. So like I didn't know that I could have petitioned them to get us HBO, but we had no opportunity for this.

37:23Rob Mahoney:15 in one is what we call it. 15 channels and you can add HBO. You should have hit me, man. I got to show you. I should have known. I didn't finesse that shit.

37:30Joanna Robinson:I should have known. So I missed it when it started. And then why did I never watch it in the intervening years? I really could not tell you. There was nothing, I didn't think like it wasn't for me or anything like that. I just did not get to it. And then when I started working at The Ringer, it became a problem that I hadn't watched it. And I was just waiting to be able to podcast about it because I didn't want to like waste the experience of dipping your toe into something this massive and not be able to like have this conversation about it.

38:02Van Lathan:This is why you're also now a Patriots fan.

38:04Joanna Robinson:Yeah. You know me, Rob.

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38:40Van Lathan:It's actually a club with cool finds and like a whole community. It's a club. Of course, Jason. It's in the name. Sam's Club. Oh, yeah. Come join us. Sam's Club.

38:55Joanna Robinson:One thing I didn't, it didn't stop me from watching it. But one thing I wondered about was how are the women treated in this show? because I do know that, you know, Edie Falco won an Emmy for this episode. I know that Edie Falco is like revered inside of like the acting spheres. But I also remember in the height of the Skylar White, like all this bullshit that Carmela was sometimes like lumped in with these characters who were getting in the way of your fun time with your dude that did bad shit and the nagging wife who would stop him. So I was curious that can sometimes, that is usually a fandom thing and not a show writer thing.

39:37Joanna Robinson:And so I was curious how Carmela would be sort of treated inside of these two episodes that we watched. I love the room that this episode makes for her. I think Tony killing that guy is the moment of the episode. Yes. But her speech about why she is complicit is so stand out to me. And I think her, everything she says about, I love him anyway, is what Van is saying is, is what the show is asking us to do is just being like, we're, we're seeing Tony do this and we know why he has mud on his shoes and blood on his hands when, when Meadow asks him about it later. And we're going to love him anyway, the way that Carmela does, because that's, that's the communion.

40:21Joanna Robinson:That's the bargain. That's the complicity that we are entering into along with meadow along with carmel you know so that meadow can go to the nicest school so that carmella can have her big house um but also the emptiness that comes with that for carmella right like she wanted all of this but like she's the the closest she's getting to like intimacy is sitting hip to hip with a priest who's not ever going to be able to take her to you know where one wants someone to take them as far as i know i don't know what happens with father Phil down the road, but like, it does not seem like that, you know, we're vomiting instead of smooching.

40:56Joanna Robinson:It does not seem like we're going to get what we want from him. So I, I love that aspect. Van, what is your sense of, you know, obviously we're trying to avoid spoilers, but like your sense of how women are treating the show or the way the Carmela character is used in general.

41:13Rob Mahoney:So the important thing about the father Phil stuff to me in this episode was that it reinforce that she has a choice. Somebody is going to want Carmella Soprano. I think in a lot of these old timey movies, before somebody is going to walk out the door, you get this speech from this guy going, look at you. Who's gonna want you? I'm the man around here. I'm the fucking guy. I'm this, I'm that. You got the sense after two that K was going to be completely in the wilderness without Michael. He was going to take everything from her and the whole nine, you know. This is fucking Diane Keaton. I get it.

41:59Rob Mahoney:In this one, there's a guy that's completely intoxicated with her. Now, he's a weirdo for a lot of reasons, but he's totally intoxicated with her. There's someone that she has everything in common with. She almost has nothing in common with Tony at this point. Nothing except for their history. Her and this guy like the same movies. He loves her cooking. They have, their conversation flows. It's just everything she wants with her husband. Everything she wants with her husband is right there. She's still, even though it looked like it was about to go down, she still is in a position to have agency and make a choice to be in her marriage.

42:43Rob Mahoney:That question of why, why does someone who is decent choose this life mirrors Tony's why and that's something that runs throughout the entire show and we also learn at times that there is a part of Carmela that it mirrors Tony directly that she's kind of a female boss that she likes status and she She enjoys some of these things. And the choice to be with him is one that she struggles with, but one that she has made and actually can't contend with herself for making it. But this, first of all, two things. Sexual attention with the priest is always good. It's never not worked.

43:29Van Lathan:It almost always works.

43:31Rob Mahoney:Because you're thinking to yourself, you've taken this vial of celibacy.

43:37Joanna Robinson:Oh, the way that's shot? Yeah. The wafer?

43:40Van Lathan:very provocative to say the least we said they didn't go through with it but they kind of went through it

43:46Rob Mahoney:and by the way this priest who doesn't experience this release really for everything that is they've already energetically had sex he came over there to have sex with her without touching her and that is what is happening but when it's time for her to get the gratification that she actually wants which is someone to actually hold her and love her in actual physical human connection, he vomits. To put that side by side

44:17Joanna Robinson:with the scene that they're watching from Remains of the Day, where Anthony Hopkins is basically like...

44:24Rob Mahoney:He's trying to not get it. Orgasm. Trying so hard to not get it.

44:30Joanna Robinson:Of Emma Thompson.

44:32Rob Mahoney:I love that. Hey, back up. I can't do it. I want you. I want you. I don't want to want you, though.

44:39Joanna Robinson:I know, it's Fleabag season two. You love to see it. It really is. Rob, what did you think of this part of this episode?

44:45Van Lathan:I thought this half of the episode, it really is like half of the episode. First of all, I was as invested in it and maybe even more so than anything that was happening with Tony and the Rat. And so that in itself made me feel really confident in the future of this show, avoiding exactly the kinds of landmines you laid out, Joe. It's always a concern about how is the family part of this story going to be dealt with? and which of these stories is the side quest ultimately. And Tony is kind of dealing with that stuff in real time about like choosing his family life versus his mafia life. But having Carmelo have actual considerations, actual agency, having these stories feel like rich and it feels like there is not just time spent, but just exceptionally well-written dialogue and ideas and so much to like tangle with.

45:31Van Lathan:I would say it was just like one of the most, like I just felt so great about the directions the show could go in. I think the combination of that and the fact that even after everything he does in this episode and the weight of history telling me that I should know better than to like Tony, I still like Tony, means the show kind of has me right where it wants me.

45:49Rob Mahoney:You will like him to the end.

45:50Van Lathan:I don't know how you couldn't. There's just something – I mean, first of all, there's the Dandolfini element. And then there's just like how funny that character can be and how quickly he just completely shapeshifts is so fun to watch.

46:03Rob Mahoney:But they also fuck you. like they fuck with your brain with this guy I don't want to spoil it for you guys but there is there is another character in the show that is I'm just going to say in a couple of seasons that is mean to an animal the rage that that elicits from Tony the rage that that elicits from Tony that because this person has harmed, and even as Tony is taking out his frustrations on this person, he says, how could you have harmed this beautiful, innocent creature? He also sometimes, for no reason, sees his children in somebody and takes it out on mafia people. Really, I think it was the same guy.

46:56Rob Mahoney:But he, there's a, there's this brutal humanity to him where you know that if he had grown up in a different situation, he'd have been a nice guy.

47:09Joanna Robinson:That's what comes out. Okay, so Gandolfini is just, is this show what this show is if it's not Gandolfini in this role? No, no way. To remember also, so what I knew of Gandolfini before this movie was Get Shorty, the character that he plays in Get Shorty, right? uh yeah true romance but like get short like he's so good and get shorty and what he doesn't get shorty is like he's the heavy he's the hench but he's like cuddly and a little dumb and it's this whole dichotomy thing that is so so good and visually this is a supporting character type of guy that's this is not a leading man type of guy this is this is the hench this is the muscle this is the whatever so to bring Gandolfini into the lead here to allow him to be as funny as he can be as charming as he can be as like king of queen sitcom daddy as he can be at the end of this episode he's like Carmela you know like that's just like the Kevin James like ascendant inside of him so like all of that's in here and then inside of this episode college you know when I I was trying to pick what the scene of this episode was.

48:31Joanna Robinson:It's hard not to pick the death scene. It's hard not to pick Carmela's like, you know, confession essentially.

48:39Van Lathan:Or the communion, honestly. Either one can fly.

48:41Joanna Robinson:Or the communion. But when he's talking to Meadow at the restaurant about liking history, you know what I mean? And like whether or not his parents, like what if his parents had supported him going to college more? What if he had sort of become a history teacher? What is Tony Soprano history teacher like? What is that? So that, again, a road not taken inside of an episode where we saw him do that whole shtick. And to go back to what Van was talking about at the beginning of this idea of Tony as a character who wishes his parents had been the kind of parent that he's trying to be for Meadow now, which is, I'm so proud of you going to college.

49:20Joanna Robinson:This is very important. Your studies, your academics. that's and that's the like capitalist american dream immigrant story my my kids are gonna have it better than i did but he's saying my kids are gonna have it better than i did and again this might all fall apart as the seasons go on it sounds like it might but like and a different

49:40Rob Mahoney:life than i like he does not want he tried meadow to go into the life that he has you know what i mean so they don't but the people that he tried to make them into he couldn't do it

49:55Rob Mahoney:the people that he tried to make them into, he couldn't do it because he didn't have the tools. Yeah.

50:02Joanna Robinson:But that's another great moment inside of that scene in the restaurant when she confesses to him that she took speed and like amphetamines to get through the SATs and finals and stuff like that, right? And he says, Jesus, right under my nose, you'd think I, you'd know. And he, and she says, no, dad, you won't. like you won't know that I did this and you won't know what I'm gonna do in the future right

50:25Rob Mahoney:this is a high leverage scene because but he asked her something in that scene that I remember when I first watched it oh where'd you get it yeah and she fucking got it from Chris and so and if in fact Tony would have known that and so when he's saying that tour, I'm like, oh my god. Are we about to see the end of Moltisanti here? Not to spoil it, I had to say it. It's too juicy. And so she got it from Chris. She got it from Chris because Adriana was like, hey, she's going to go down and get it from the blacks on Jefferson Avenue. I don't know if they said blacks. They might have said some other words.

51:09Rob Mahoney:I don't know. I can't remember now. But it, and look, it's a, as a black watcher of the Sopranos, there's a communion that we took as well. So let's not dwell on it. Let's move on. But, but, but yeah. So like even in that stuff, I'll name another scene, this, the car chase scene. Yeah. Where he is putting his life and his daughter's life at risk, but he's still trying to dad it up. Yeah. He's still, that's cause you're talking to me. That's he's still trying to maintain the mask of, hey, it's not me driving 100 miles an hour to find somebody that I must kill. I'm just messing around here. The whole tension of the exorcism of Tony in this episode and of Carmela and kind of of Meadow, kind of an exorcism, which she talks about taking the pills.

52:07Rob Mahoney:All of that stuff that's happening in this episode. Fascinating stuff.

52:10Van Lathan:And I think like the alchemy of so much of what we're talking about is like you have that aw shucks dad played by the supporting actor type portraying like a character who is nostalgic for a time that he himself did not experience. It's just like his vision of what men were and what the mafia was. All of that like rolls together. I think it's such an appealing way.

52:29Joanna Robinson:There's no way for Rob and I to watch this without knowing certain things because The Sopranos was like too big. And I'm not saying I actually think of a voted most major spoilers, except for I think when I posted about this on social, some people shot some spoilers at me.

52:45Van Lathan:But who knows if they're all true?

52:46Joanna Robinson:I don't know. I'm pretending I'm choosing to believe that some of them are fake. But I know that Meadow is a character on the show. But there is a moment inside of this episode when Carmella is talking about her children, the risk she's put her children in growing up around this. And she's like, I can't help but feel like this is all going to come back on me or back on them. And right in close proximity to that, you've got this guy who has Meadow in his sights with a gun at the motel. And so, you know, even though I knew Meadow was in the show, I was like, if I were watching this in 1999, would I be really worried that Meadow is about to die right now?

53:25Joanna Robinson:Because Carmella said this and Tony's actions are leading to this. Turns out David Chase is a very smart storyteller and whatever those ramifications are and surely they're coming. They're more subtle than her just getting shot inside of episode five. and it's a slower roll than let's just put this all on the table at episode five of season one. You know what I mean?

53:49Van Lathan:I think part of the reason you can do that with The Sopranos too, and part of the reason that both of these episodes and mob stories just hit is there is never a dull moment and there will always be more opportunities to put these characters in danger. And so it doesn't feel like a cop-out that they're in the sights and nothing happens. And you also don't feel like this is going to be the only time that something like this will come up. I would imagine Tony's family will be, if not directly under fire, endangered in all kinds of ways over the life of this show. But because there's always a guy to see, because there's always drugs to get, because there's always guns to move or a thing to do, it's like the machinery of these stories just lends itself to all that danger all the time to everyone who's even remotely in the orbit of it.

54:31Van Lathan:And I think ultimately, when you have characters who are even the least bit interesting, it works. And when you have characters who are this interesting, I mean, it just fucking sings. Like no one needs us to say in 2025 that the Sopranos is good, but it's really fucking good.

54:43Joanna Robinson:Hot take. It's a good show.

54:44Van Lathan:It's a good show. You know,

54:45Rob Mahoney:the interesting thing about the danger is throughout the run of the show, the kids are never really in danger from mafia style crime, retribution stuff.

54:56Van Lathan:In that physical direct violence sort of way.

54:59Rob Mahoney:Meadow being in the crosshairs, there's some stuff that happens, but they're never really in that danger. The show does a great job. of crafting danger and stakes for each individual character. Like Meadow getting into college or her being able to go to the school that she wants to go to, that becomes something that you're actually invested into, that you see Carmella get invested to. AJ, as you guys watch more of the show, you're going to hear a lot of stuff about the kids on the show. You will. Okay? I hear a lot of stuff about AJ lots of about Meadow and they weren't always the most popular characters sure on the show however

55:43Van Lathan:you can even see between the pilot and five like Meadow feels like a completely different person like there's already like dramatic recalibration happening

55:51Rob Mahoney:as they get older their proximity to their parents will be when I say proximity I mean their issues with their parents will be so normal it will be the same shit that we all had with our parents hey yo why you don't want to hang out with me no more hey yo shape up why you getting in trouble in school hey yo like what it is who do you want to be we don't want you to do this we think you should be doing this like what are you like them challenging the ethics of their parents which we all had to do one day you had to sit down you had to be like I don't want to watch good the bad and ugly I think Young Guns is better that's ridiculous

56:34Van Lathan:it's not bad

56:35Rob Mahoney:but at the same time I had to challenge my dad on the fact that I did not want to watch that movie for 15th time let me watch Emilio Estevez

56:42Van Lathan:you didn't want your equivalent of going to get TN scones

56:45Rob Mahoney:right exactly see and so that entire but that's their thing now they ended up they ended up getting trouble and there's some stuff but their thing is actually the same shit that kids but it's just another thing for Tony yeah it's just another thing for Tony It's a thing where I have to dodge people taking shots at me. I have to make backhanded deals. There's New York coming for me. There's all these things. And I have to come home to you getting expelled out of school. I don't need this shit, right? That ends up being the thing that humanizes him, that those are the things that you can relate to.

57:26Rob Mahoney:Because other than that, he fucks everything that he sees. he kills whoever he has to he's a thief he's a liar he's all of that stuff but then there's this normal part of the show that you can just glom onto that continuously draws you back in

57:44Joanna Robinson:you're doing a great job selling this show thank you so much Van for your service something we like to do on this show is just to remember what time period these episodes debuted in So this debuted in 1999. If you had to pick the most 1999 thing about the episode College, what would you say it is? Rob, do you have an answer for this?

58:10Van Lathan:I think it's got to be the payphones.

58:11Joanna Robinson:That's what I was going to say. No texting?

58:13Van Lathan:No texting, Christopher? Five years later, and The Wire is a tribute to this, everyone's on a burner. Like, it's just, we're seeing...

58:21Joanna Robinson:There's payphones in The Wire, but yeah.

58:21Van Lathan:I mean, there's payphones too, but it's like you can see and feel the technology about to change in a lot of... I mean, like, this is... It happens on The Wire.

58:27Rob Mahoney:They literally go rip the payphones out on the wire. And there's no more payphones. For sure.

58:31Van Lathan:Yeah. Everything in these first episodes of The Sopranos is like backgrounded by a bunch of shit in a changing world that is making people feel isolated or this way or that. But like that one is, I think, pretty glaring. I will say the most 2025 thing or maybe the most 2024 thing, like finding out Tony is a Roman Empire guy. Like he's he would fit right in in any era.

58:51Rob Mahoney:Throughout the entire show. It's almost like they got that from The Sopranos. Throughout the entire show. He's obsessed. one of the dopest lines of the show. I don't want to ruin it for you, but he's obsessed with the fact that, you know, old Italy Roman Empire, he sits down and does stuff that I do now. Sometimes I just sit down on YouTube and I watch, this was the battle of whatever, 1917, and the shit will be three hours and I'm watching the whole thing, right? Throughout the entire show, he's that.

59:16Joanna Robinson:What Van's not telling you is all of those battles took place in Westeros. And he's talking about his Game of Thrones lore video addiction.

59:24Rob Mahoney:I just, two hour Robert Rebellion video, I'm halfway through it. I've watched a bunch of different ones.

59:29Joanna Robinson:I know.

59:30Van Lathan:That's too much. That is a cry for help.

59:32Rob Mahoney:I'm sorry.

59:32Joanna Robinson:No, no, no. He's educating himself. He's enriching himself.

59:36Rob Mahoney:I fuck with it. It's fantastic stuff. 1999 thing about the show. So the pay phones are definitely one. Oh, quality of DVD player. He comes over to watch the movie and she goes, I know that you love that DVD player.

59:50Van Lathan:No, my DVD player. My DVD player. If you know what I'm saying.

59:54Rob Mahoney:Put the CD in. Put it in. In the slot. That motherfucker's spinning. Make some circles. And so... Come on. We're all adults here, guys.

1:00:06Joanna Robinson:We are.

1:00:06Rob Mahoney:And so just that, the fact that it's like, hey, I happen to have Remains of the Day if you want to watch it. Well, guess what? Right now, we all got Remains of the Day. And we can watch it.

1:00:18Joanna Robinson:I don't even touch.

1:00:19Rob Mahoney:We can watch it whenever we want.

1:00:21Van Lathan:That's true.

1:00:22Joanna Robinson:You know Carmella. She's a real physical media person. Oh, yeah. She's committed to it. one other thing i want to say about father phil that adds a layer an extra layer of goodness to the fleabag forbidden fruit sort of thing is the fact that inside of this story he's a dead man if he fucks carmella right like there there's that in addition to like not just betraying your vows and all that which is no small thing but also the danger of the mob wife despite the fact that Tony can fuck whoever he wants, the danger of the mob wife, you know, stepping out on him and what would happen to Father Phil if that were to happen, so.

1:01:01Van Lathan:Again, there's just like so much happening. Again, there are those stakes happening. There's the sort of like dueling confidants for Carmelo with Father Phil and with Tony and his therapist, and the way that they are kind of superimposing and projecting their own insecurities on those other relationships. Like there's so much to unpack and I think that they do like pretty quickly and efficiently, but also leave a lot in the same way that any real life relationship and especially a marriage would leave a lot. There's just always stuff on the table. And for a show like this to already be tapping into so many different like primal things and thematic things and character beats where it's like, I'm two episodes in episodes one and five, which were not meant to be watched in sequence.

1:01:41Van Lathan:And I feel like I have a pretty good idea of at least who these people are at this stage in the story. Of course, some of them will change, some of them won't, but they do a great job of setting them up in contrast to another. And to be honest, I think college, weirdly enough, by completely separating Tony and Carmella, counterintuitively, because normally you want to see that relationship dynamic, but having Carmella talk about Tony and having Tony not really think about or talk about Carmella at all in his way, I think you're really clarifying a lot about these characters.

1:02:12Joanna Robinson:Anything else you want to say about college?

1:02:14Rob Mahoney:No, not necessarily. Just that, like, in my estimation, going back and watching it again for the show, there were so many things that were as compelling, if not more compelling, than whether or not Tony was going to get to this guy and kill him. I would say that over time, the Carmella father-Phil, that storyline, when I watched it this time, I somehow was more connected to that. This is the first time. I somehow saw that had me on the edge of my seat. Maybe because I've spent so much time with the other parts of it. But that, for some reason, worked more on me now as I've gotten older.

1:03:01Joanna Robinson:Maybe also because you're a pop culture podcaster now and you're like, I want a podcast about Willem Dafoe in the last 10 days of Christ.

1:03:08Van Lathan:They were straight up doing a podcast in the middle of this episode. It was incredible.

1:03:12Joanna Robinson:Would subscribe.

1:03:13Van Lathan:But I also would watch that show. Like, I would just watch the Carmella Father Phil show. I think that is a testament to the weight that it can carry in an episode like this, that it just feels self-sustained.

1:03:24Joanna Robinson:In terms of the pilot, The Sopranos, written and directed by David Chase, again, sort of written for Fox and CBS in a different sort of era. obviously there are things that happened that episode including like Chris shooting a guy in the back of the head while he's doing coke or whatever that are very HBO but Tony himself despite you know he runs someone down but like Tony himself does not get his hands dirty in a way that is more network minded than HBO minded and it was made in 1997 the pilot versus the show premieres in 1999. So you can tell that by how old the kids are.

1:04:08Rob Mahoney:Right.

1:04:09Joanna Robinson:Definitely big jump between the pilot and the rest of the, of the show. And then it, it's so funny because, you know, Bill brought this up when we were talking about task the other day and Rob and I were talking about one of our pet peeves sometimes in prestige television is therapy as storytelling exposition device. Right. And also inside of this mini series, the hooked mini series, we've been talking about voiceover as lazy pilot exposition. But the truth is, it's just like poorly executed versus that because the way it's clearly it can be done. Yeah. The therapy here and then the voiceover here and the difference between what Tony is saying in therapy and what we're seeing happen is comedy and also informing us about the world her interjections inside of therapy of like listen this is what i'm obliged to tell you about what legally i'm behold and you know helps helps put uh some scaffolding around that uh in a way that is really funny and and keeps us on our feet in terms of like what is tony saying and what do we believe happened um immediately inside of that episode all this stuff works like it's a great pilot.

1:05:23Joanna Robinson:Yes. Tremendous pilot.

1:05:24Van Lathan:It's really good. And the fact that all of that is happening to Lorraine Bracco is just like an extra bit of icing on the cake. Van.

1:05:33Rob Mahoney:It works perfectly as prologue to the rest of the series. It's definitely narratively unlike the rest of it. They make some direct choices. They change some stuff, right? After the pilot.

1:05:46Joanna Robinson:They like recast. Father Phil gets recast. Yeah. But Tony telling

1:05:52Rob Mahoney:the story of the current state of his life, to me, I'm not as big of an anti-voiceover person, but despite what's said in the adaptation, but Tony telling the story of his life and where he is in his voice works perfectly. I'm glad they didn't do it for the rest of the season because it would have robbed us of a lot of the dramatic tension that the show ends up creating. But for the first season, just kind of get us into the world. It works perfectly.

1:06:29Van Lathan:It gets you up to speed really well. And ultimately, for the purposes of our exercise, there is no good reason you should not just start with this pilot because it is excellent. Like, it's really, really great.

1:06:39Joanna Robinson:Yeah.

1:06:40Van Lathan:I think the only reason that I would argue, like, maybe try something else, whether it's college or otherwise, is because it does feel, because of that narration and that structure, like a touch more conventional. Like it feels like something I have seen before and that's from a 2025 lens for sure. College does not feel like something I've seen before. Like I've seen the field trip episode. I've seen the father-daughter stuff, sure. But like Mob Boss Takes His Kid to Visit Colleges is such a new wrapping on the things that I think I'm familiar with that it has like a different sheen to it, I would say, than overall the structure and the ideas and the crux of the first episode.

1:07:20Joanna Robinson:there's this thing that happens when you and honestly it's been a while for me since this happened just because of the nature of my job for as long as i've been doing it i i it has been my job to be on top of all of these things as they come out to hear it's good to be in something from the ground floor and i came too late for that i know but lately i've been getting a feeling that I came at the end, the best is over, is such a famous line and sentiment. And I think I knew it was from The Sopranos, but I'm not sure I knew knew it was from The Sopranos. So to hear something that iconic, that gets referenced again and again, when people talk about these feelings of ennui that we all cyclically go through in our lives or in the American culture, whatever it is, to hear it just dropped in naturally to the flow of an episode was like a record scratch you know as far back as i can remember i've always wanted to be a gangster like as big as that sort of moment for me watching this episode it was so again i'm gonna use the word intoxicating like i just really felt like i was like plugged back into something that was so important and you would

1:08:37Rob Mahoney:think that after that, that the death of the mafia would have been a recurring theme on the show. Never directly. It's looming. It's a specter that things are kind of falling off or weren't the way they used to be. But it's almost never directly engaged in it. I mean, there are scenes in this show where all the mobsters are watching their daughters at a soccer game. Like, it's never... That's the show. Yeah. Like, you know, that's the show. But setting it up that way just... It helps you contextualize Tony's existential dread. It's not that he is in his midlife crisis. He's wondering if his entire way of life is bullshit.

1:09:33But isn't that part of the midlife crisis?

1:09:37Joanna Robinson:It's like he is in his midlife crisis and thus the whole everything. Did I, I have had that actually feeling my whole life. You mean like how I feel about podcasting?

1:09:50Rob Mahoney:Did I get in on the ground floor? Am I at the end?

1:09:53Joanna Robinson:That's how I feel about like, that's how I felt about bookstores. That's how I felt about like all the things that I've done. I'm like journalism. I'm like, well, our past lives in the magazine is over, you know, like it's just it's it's it's a it's a very common feeling here at the end of all things. But I think that Tony and the way that Gandolfini plays him and the way inside of this episode, you get all of that. Plus, just the vision of him wading into the swimming pool in his robe, letting his robe get wet. He doesn't care in order to feed some baby ducks is like all in the mix here. And we're in New Jersey, which is not where we're used to, you know, these kinds of stories being told.

1:10:35Joanna Robinson:And so, guys, it's a good show.

1:10:39Van Lathan:It's a good show. Guess what? A dude getting obsessed with the baby ducks in his backyard was incredibly relatable content. I would love that kind of problem in my life, like them flying away. But portraying him in that way of someone who would break down in tears, not knowing how to process these baby ducks, who's having these crazy dreams about his dick falling off because he unscrewed his belly button the wrong way. And I have to say, that was yet another moment where I realized how dialed in I was on the show is I was just transfixed listening to him describe a dream. And listening to a person describe a dream is not a pleasant experience for me generally, and I would guess not for most people.

1:11:18Van Lathan:But here, it's just impossible to look away. And it is impossible to look away because of everything that he's been unpacking.

1:11:25Rob Mahoney:You know, I remember about that scene. Yeah. How different my reaction to the story was from Melfi's. I'm like, man, what's wrong with this guy, Melfi? What kind of bird? Little things like that ground, but there's nothing that Tony can come in there and say, he does get her a little bit, but there's nothing that Tony can come in there and say that she will not respond to clinically. Everyone else in his life responds to either his strength or his vulnerability. she just responds to him. And that becomes a challenge to him as well. Because she challenges him. She tells him things he doesn't want to hear.

1:12:06Rob Mahoney:She gives him hard truths. She reorients his mind around the way he thinks things are and the way that they really should be. And that is a push-pull in the show about whether or not Tony will be able to handle therapy that always exists as well.

1:12:25Van Lathan:I thought that moment in particular when they're talking about the symbolism of the waterfowl in his dream. And he's guessing, oh, because it represents the ducks and the ducks to me represent my fear of my family getting hurt. I don't necessarily believe that. That's what he's actually afraid of. It feels like the kind of thing that in that moment feels nice to say. But the fact that it's just kind of hanging in the air, whether that's true or not, hanging in the air, whether that's something to push or not. I have zero doubt that those kinds of ideas are going to be interrogated. That Tony is a character in therapy and without who's just going to be kind of pushed in these ways in terms of like, what do you actually believe?

1:13:06Van Lathan:And are those things even remotely true within the world of this show?

1:13:10Joanna Robinson:One thing I want to say about the experience of watching The Sopranos for the first time in 2025 is, and I'm going to hype up what we do. I could listen to Van, who has watched the whole series and thought about it for years and years. I could listen to him talk about this show forever. The fact that there is a wealth of thoughtful commentary. I was dipping a bit into Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller-Seitz's The Soprano Sessions book, which is an incredible read. Trying to, like, dodge spoilers and keep it to just them talking about these episodes. but incredible informative read that exists. I watched a little bit of a, like a Peter Bogdanovich interview with David Chase, like in the Sopranos kitchen talking, like the caliber of coverage and thought and analysis that exists around this show is just an extra experience on top of just the experience of watching the show.

1:14:14Joanna Robinson:And all of that is waiting for you. and it you can opt in or opt out you can watch things however you want to watch it it's always my preference to watch things while listening to people that i like respect and admire talk about it and do i align with them or do i disagree with them and how it it deepens your understanding that's true of a lot of the shows that we covered here breaking bad mad men um lost and and not to get like too much on a soapbox but um you know alan seppelwald just lost his job at the rolling at rolling stone the tv critics across the board are are getting let go because we are losing this art form of the of the people who know this industry inside and out and uh have access to the people who make it and can give you the depth of history behind the choices that are made here What did David Chase work on before he worked on The Sopranos?

1:15:11Joanna Robinson:What came before The Sopranos that informed The Sopranos? All of that context is so interesting and you need it. And so it's why I rail against binge culture. It's why I think week to week is so important, why I think it's important to take TV seriously and why I'm so excited for all The Sopranos, you know, podcasts and books and whatever that I can get my hands on in order to enrich the experience. And getting to talk to you guys about it is a huge part of that for me.

1:15:42Van Lathan:I think one of the most enjoyable parts about doing this whole process, Joe, with these hooked shows, which have all been kind of like all-timer shows, they feel, because of all that supplementary material and because of the distance from when they originally aired, there is a mythological quality to The Sopranos. That is something like, as you're saying, you could just spend an endless amount of time trying to get your arms around, not just like in the moment theorizing, but the contextualizing and deep dives and like attempts to grasp at a piece of art. And the fact that something like that can not just exist in the moment, but continue to exist in the form of those books and that criticism and podcasts and everything else, like it's still there.

1:16:19Van Lathan:And I think part of the trouble with the binge culture is not just that it exists, but it's like separating your mind from the idea of this is the thing I do to unwind at night from this is the thing that I can continue to engage in in all these other ways, regardless of when that writing or that analysis came out. Like that stuff is there to binge too for anyone who cares to do it. And I hope people do that with shows that they're digging back into. Like, I know that's something that I love doing after finishing a show, especially is like digging back into the stuff that people were processing in real time.

1:16:48Van Lathan:I worry that they don't though. Yeah. I mean, when the binge model first came out, it was so novel that I was like, oh,

1:16:58Rob Mahoney:interesting. And then I realized something that has to accompany television. Well, two things. Detail and ritual. Binge culture robs you of detail because it's too much content at once. So whereas Game of Thrones will come on and then we would legitimately on Twitter for the next couple of days, three, four days, talk about one or two scenes. You can't do that when something is really, when you binge it too much because there's so much thrown at you at one time. You don't know how to really contextualize and talk about it. You're trying to talk about the entire thing because you got it all. And then, just ritual.

1:17:41Rob Mahoney:Man, we watching it together. When I think about watching TV when I was a kid, I watched cartoons with my sister. I watched westerns and Bonanza and stuff like that with my dad. And then I watched Dynasty with my mom. and you know what was the one with the lady and she got pregnant and everybody freaked out she was a lawyer no she wasn't a lawyer she was on TV remember this show my mom used to love the show the lady she got pregnant on the show and the whole world flipped out and the vice president was mad at her what is this Murphy Brown like Murphy Brown

1:18:20Joanna Robinson:you say ritual when I think about that aspect of it I think about community it's the same thing It's ritual like it's Sunday night, we're going to watch The Sopranos, but also I'm going to watch it with these people. And binge culture absolutely obliterates that because we're all watching it at different paces. And then that thing that you referenced earlier, Van, the sort of like hyper-vigilant, toxic spoiler culture. Like you can spoil The Sopranos for me. It's my fault that I haven't watched it until 2025. I'm not that stressed about it.

1:18:47Van Lathan:We're past the statute of limitations, but also like you don't have to be an asshole. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. But you know what?

1:18:54Rob Mahoney:I'm not going to do it in community with you guys because there's things that I want you to be amazed by. Right.

1:18:59Joanna Robinson:And so that idea of sharing story together at the same time is such an important part of television because you can sit in a movie theater and watch a movie with someone, but you've got weeks or months. And this is why we loved covering The Pit or Severance or whatever it is. Or even, as I've talked about on multiple podcasts now, The Summer I Turned Pretty, that was a week-to-week release, and everyone lost their marbles over it. I just watched a video where Jennifer Lawrence was talking about her obsession with The Summer I Turned Pretty. But it's such a rarity to have that community and that monoculture, and it really is important.

1:19:40Joanna Robinson:And so that's something that I think is precious about television that I want to see us all re-embrace about television.

1:19:50Van Lathan:Well, and it's what eventizes it, too. Whether it's the sense of community, whether it's that wait and that anticipation for the next episode as opposed to binging it. there's also something from the ritual standpoint about watching a show with actual opening credits like every show now it's like it's either too much or not enough there's so many shows that are just kind of like here's five seconds of an image and here's the title card and now we're going to the show i understand that especially in a binging era but with something like the sopranos i want 90 seconds to like i want to i want to kind of ease into the world and understand like the mental space that this show wants me to be in.

1:20:27Van Lathan:And that's a complicated thing. And like some shows do it better than others with those themes. But this was one of I was really appreciative. Just like, let's just vibe check for a minute.

1:20:35Joanna Robinson:Do you know who's the villain behind that? The skip intro button. It really is.

1:20:39Van Lathan:Oh, yeah.

1:20:39Rob Mahoney:Yeah, I had to do it for Peacemaker this year, though. All right, now. Y 'all dancing a little too, it's a little too whimsical now. Let's get to the shit. All right, anything else

1:20:47Joanna Robinson:you want to say about The Sopranos? A massive piece of pop culture.

1:20:51Rob Mahoney:Oh, nah. The last thing I'll say before Rob goes, like, just, I'm so happy for you guys. I don't, a lot of times when people are just watching something, you go, I wish I was you. I don't, because it would rob me of so many things that happened in the last 26 years. But I do envy you. Envy you for getting able to experience all of this stuff for the first time. That's fucking amazing.

1:21:11Van Lathan:I can't wait to do it. Needless to say, I'm very hooked on this show. We're just going to have to find time for everything we're trying to cover, Joe, and also watching Lost and also watching this. I have one knit to pick as far as the college episode itself the guy that Tony is chasing after Fabian Petrullio aka Fred Peters just about the worst witness protection disguise I've ever seen like he's just like fully Clark Kented I'm just gonna put on the glasses and assume that I'm safe here you're not that far away like you're still in New England

1:21:41Rob Mahoney:that's my thing why don't you put some distance you know what I'm saying get a haircut you know if you're in Tacoma you're never gonna run into Tony you're not gonna see him guess what

1:21:51Joanna Robinson:come out to the coast have a job

1:21:53Rob Mahoney:go out there man try Boise he just wanted to he wanted to dip in the jersey and AC every now and again it's true so he that's what ended up his attachments got him killed

1:22:03Joanna Robinson:you know what witness protection movie I love is My Blue Heaven that's my favorite one it's not even close

1:22:11Rob Mahoney:I love My Blue Heaven the movie I contend right now the movie is erased in Ringer culture. It is one of the best mob movies ever made. It's so good. It's fantastic.

1:22:24Joanna Robinson:Yeah.

1:22:24Rob Mahoney:I love it. Steve Martin in the Steve Martin-nessness of all time. Love that movie.

1:22:32Joanna Robinson:Big accent work, big hair work. Just a lot is going on. Big fan. All right. Well, that has been our Hooked miniseries. That has been the Sopranos finale. We have now seen it. we will be back for task coverage for slow horses coverage and a bunch of other stuff that's coming Van anything you want to say before you go thank you so much for coming on

1:22:56Rob Mahoney:no problem I had a lot of fun guys appreciate it

1:22:58Joanna Robinson:alright bye