The Sopranos Season 4 Episode 9 'Whoever Did This' Full TV Reaction!!
Added 2023-02-20 18:30:02 +0000 UTC
Comments
I appreciate your post as well. I've seen Once Upon a Time in the West a few times and never noticed that piece of music in this episode was a sample. Hope they get to that one someday. As great as most of the Leone movies are, that one may be the best.
Marcus Cato
2023-02-23 22:06:07 +0000 UTCGreat analysis!
JG
2023-02-22 19:37:28 +0000 UTCkeep'em coming. even as a super fan of the show, i'm always finding new ways to look at specific moments in the series.
Carlos Hurtado
2023-02-22 16:25:14 +0000 UTCI think there were some deeply practical reasons why Tony never verbally leveled with Chris about what happened to Ralphie. It was a conversation they couldn’t have for a few reasons, but mostly potential future legal reasons. Chris couldn’t spill the beans in the future if he didn’t “really know”. The condemning words never left Tony’s mouth, but from appearances it was pretty obvious that something went down. A wordless dance between them was necessary. Chris knew as well as anybody about the larger implications, and it’s a game they continued playing with an unexpressed wink. As such, Chris was as happy as anyone to adopt Tony’s newly engineered New York angle. And think about the bigger picture, the way New York probably sees it: two of Tony’s captains have now “disappeared”. That’s an inherently untrustworthy foundation for future business and personal matters.
David Wilkins
2023-02-22 14:31:38 +0000 UTCThis is by far my favorite episode of Sopranos because it shows just how great of an actor Joe Pantoliano (Ralphie) is and how amazing the writing is on this show. To make me cry for Ralph of all people, who is one of my favorite characters, but is one of the worst if not the worst, is incredible. It shows you just how much Ralph changes in one episode. P.S. Ralphie didn't start the fire
Dominic Matich
2023-02-22 08:58:29 +0000 UTCI enjoyed the read!
Nicky D
2023-02-21 08:33:29 +0000 UTCOooh, never thought of that.
Nicky D
2023-02-21 08:31:15 +0000 UTCThe fight between Ralphie and Tony is so well done. It’s violence that is ugly and sloppy and completely stripped of Hollywood glamor or glorification. It does, however, look just how you would imagine a spontaneous fight to the death over scrambled eggs between two out of shape but lethal middle-aged sociopaths would look. When it’s finished, we feel shocked and dazed and even a sort of sad for Ralphie—and we all HATE Ralphie! Amazing. Just amazing.
Robert Livingood
2023-02-21 08:17:34 +0000 UTCDavid Chase is such a dick to his audience lol. The one episode where Ralphie acts like a human being and is a sympathetic character and Tony murders him in a rage over the suspicion that Ralphie might have killed a horse. This is another episode where Tony's true sociopathic self is revealed.
Jeffrey Miller
2023-02-21 01:08:12 +0000 UTCJoe Pantoliano won an emmy for this episode and it was well deserved. Ralphie was a character you hated to love, because as awful and chaotic as he was he made for damn good TV. This is one of The Sopranos’ gems. It has just about everything you could want in an episode. It starts off very lighthearted with Junior’s fall that was mostly played for laughs and Ralphie’s prank call, pivots into a dark, gloomy almost-redemption arc for Ralph as he seems to turn a new leaf after his son’s accident, then things explode when Pie-o-My passes in a suspicious accident. Did Ralph do it? I personally think he did as he would have had incentive to collect the insurance money to pay for hospital bills, but knowing The Sopranos it wouldn’t surprise that Ralph met his untimely demise over something he didn’t actually do after all the crap he’s pulled. Ralph has been likened to the Devil in this series. This episode has lines pulled straight from the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”. “Please allow me to introduce myself”, when Ralph meets the surgeon. “Pleased to meet you”, Ralph says to Monsignor Jughead, who later tells him “Where were you when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain?” Also Tony says to Paulie, “How about a little sympathy?” Goats have historically been linked to Satan. Pie-o-My’s goat friend survives the fire, who faces the camera as if to convey who the culprit is. For this reason I think Ralphie did burn down the stable. James Gandolfini actually burns himself for real after offing Ralph. Apparently Gandolfini and Michael Imperioli were hammered when filming the scene of them tossing Ralph’s body into the water. In horse racing it is tradition to bury the hooves, heart, and head. Ralph’s head and hands are buried. Even though Tony kills Ralphie over Pie-O-My, there’s the subtext of Tracee being the main reason Tony ultimately decides to end him. There was always animosity between the two of them over Tracee’s death, even if Tony couldn’t admit it due to the rules and customs of the mob. Also, I think that deep down Tony couldn’t stand Ralph actually trying to better himself after being in therapy himself for years with little progress. Ralph was at a low point in his life, and this is when Tony realizes he could break the news of Valentina to him with no consequence. We’ve seen Tony as a more ruthless and manipulative individual this scene. I love the choice of song for the end credits, which is a sample of the harmonica from the movie Once Upon a Time in the West. It sounds so twisted and cold, like a morbid version of a Western theme. In the episode “He is Risen”, Tony and Ralphie have that western style confrontation while playing craps. This episode wraps up the long standing feud between Tony and Ralph, and because a made man was killed without permission, this has major implications in the dynamic between Tony and the rest of his crew. Sorry for the wall of text, I consider this episode to be a masterpiece and one of the crowning achievements in all of fiction and I always have a lot to say whenever I rewatch this.
Sol95
2023-02-21 00:46:02 +0000 UTCTony's line of "she was a beautiful, innocent creature" I always thought had double meaning between Pie-Oh-My and Tracee
Shaun Eberle
2023-02-20 23:04:41 +0000 UTCThe fight between Tony and Ralph is great. It’s believably awkward, and the use of the bug spray makes me wince every time. Ralphies murder is a way to explore the worst sides of Tony. He idealizes the "strong, silent type”, and yet he kills his top earner in an emotional outburst with zero proof. Colossal waste of money, over a person who he protected earlier against Johnny Sack. Of all the times Ralph could have died, this was the worst of all. His impulsiveness got the best of him.
Carlos Hurtado
2023-02-20 20:35:57 +0000 UTCAnd here we reach another moment where all the tension building, anti-climax and misdirection really pays off. I'm sure a lot of us who love this show, knowing that season 4 might be a bit slower than the others, have been waiting for this moment for a few weeks now.
Marcus Cato
2023-02-20 19:05:12 +0000 UTC"She was a beautiful innocent creature, what did she ever do to you?" He's not just talking about Pie-O-My, but also Tracee.
Shehab Dawoud
2023-02-20 19:01:34 +0000 UTC
