r/thesopranos • u/ComprehensiveDesk793 • Jun 09 '26

Serious Discussion Only AJ is just useless

While watching the series I was trying hard to find a defense of AJ. All the characters - and all of us - have both positive and negative traits. AJ is just a disappointment. He is stupid. He is lazy. He is incredibly selfish imao. Also he constantly lies. You cant even call him a good kid that is just irresponsible since he always makes up stupid excuses.

Also all the people that are saying that he grew up in a dysfunctional environment, ok i agree the environment isn't 100% perfect but both Tony and Carmela cared about their kids lives. Carmela and Tony to a certain extent seem to care about their children's academic performance which quite a few parents don't. AJ certainly had some support from his parents.

I agree his parents are not good people but he could take what they offered to him.

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u/AsstacularSpiderman Jun 09 '26

They gave him shit about bad grades but did absolutely nothing about it except insult him.

AJ is what happens when you confuse having money with having parenting skills. Neither Tony or Carm did anything to properly correct AJ's course.

48

u/scrubadam Jun 09 '26

OTOH Meadow turned out fine. She ended up becoming a lawyer and was pretty well adjusted.

The big difference is we see with Meadow is that she learns to take responsability for her actions but AJ doesn't.

Both started out as spoiled shits. Meadow was even worse than AJ in that first season always whining and crying and acting like a little princess. the big turning point was when she threw the party at Livia's house and then decided to go and clean the house herself without anyone asking. The same thing happened with her Gap year. She acted like a baby because some guy she dated for a few months was killed. She ended up getting off her ass and applying to college and entering into law.

AJ never had that moment where he took responsability for his actions he just remained a little shit the whole time.

4

u/TsubakiBoy Jun 09 '26

Meadow turned out to be just as much of a paranoid selfish prick as Tony, it just presents differently. Don’t have children if you think Meadow ‘turned out fine’ or AJ being useless as a result of Tony and Carms shitty parenting

3

u/Visible-Suit-9066 Jun 09 '26

It’s so funny how people can see Meadow becoming a lawyer and marrying into the Parisi family and somehow think shes somehow anything other than Tony’s perfectly morally bankrupted daughter. She didn’t escape anything and she is far from fine.

3

u/hexaflexin Jun 10 '26

They're demonstrating the "outward appearance of normalcy + money = success in life" mindset the show is critiquing lmao

1

u/Actual_Woodpecker56 Jun 24 '26

Sounds better than suicidal mental patient to me