There was a moment on this past Sunday's "Sopranos" episode that made me think creator David Chase and the writers are just as irked by this "how come nobody got whacked?" nonsense as I am.
About halfway through the show, when Tony goes to meet Johnny Sack in the parking lot of Giants Stadium, Johnny complains about the female loan shark character, and part of his critique is (I'm paraphrasing) "all she wants me to do is whack everybody- whack whack whack whack!"
We know that Chase, most notably in last year's Columbus Day episode, has often used the show's scripts to answer various critics of the series; perhaps this throwaway line was meant as a rebuttal to all those fans who panned Season 4 because the only major whacked character was Ralphie.
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 23, 2004 07:57 AMWow, you're a really active blogger!! Where do you find the time to write all these posts? Or watch all the TV you report on? Do you work from home? Or do you sit at starbux and and watch the world go by?
Just curious...Meg :)
Posted by: Meg at March 23, 2004 11:44 AMOh, tsk, tsk. I'll chalk it up to you not being a New Jersey native, but they weren't in the parking lot at Giants. They were at a stadium where you could see into the field, which would be impossible with the closed design (and infamous swirling winds) at the Meadowlands. I'll have to wait for a repeat to see exactly, but based upon the Keyspan sign, I'm pretty sure they were in one of the outfield lots at Shea.
Posted by: Matthew :) at March 23, 2004 08:29 PMYou know, I thought it looked like Shea, but why would he and Johnny both drive all the way out to Queens, when they both live in New Jersey?
Posted by: Stephen Silver at March 23, 2004 08:55 PMIt was Shea, and Johnny may live in Jersey, but he does business in New York.
I was only disappointed with one thing this Sunday, the female loanshark who was described as a "tough woman" in pre-season publicity. What was her instant reaction the moment Frank Vincent pointed a gun at her? This is a tough woman?
I loved Bobby's ignorance of Janice's history. "Wait a second...roadies?"
Posted by: Bill McCabe at March 23, 2004 10:52 PMIt's funny, my first reaction was also "yikes, North Caldwell to Flushing, that's an awfully long way to travel." The rerun was on tonight (bless HBO), and it's definately Shea; you can see some fuzzy Mets logos on the wall behind them. They're in the left-field parking lot; if they were in right field, the scoreboard would have made up most of the background. I don't know where the Ferris Wheel behind Tony came from, though, I don't know of any that are in Flushing Meadows Park, but it's not inconceivable that they shot the scene twice; once using Shea as the background for one character, and once on Coney Island or someplace else for Tony's background.
Posted by: Matthew :) at March 23, 2004 11:38 PM