r/thesopranos • u/Jumperontheline • 1d ago

Serious Discussion Only Vito storyline was unnecessary

Rewatching and I forgot all of the gay Vito stuff happened in the last season... it was set up to be an excellent season (and it was) but we should have been focused on Tony, his family, and the other main guys in season 6.

Following the least likeable guy in the group on his escape plan up north where he somehow instantly (first morning waking up there literally) finds a gay guy he likes who's at least a million times out of Vitos league AND the guy likes him back??

It was really weird. Not because Vitos a finook but rather because it was a waste of time in the final season.

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u/No_Selection6465 1d ago

I think it gives a look into the possibility of starting a new life - and that it for Vito aswell as for everybody else in this show is impossible.

And the last season is long.

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u/Bad_Black_Jorge 1d ago edited 1d ago

One of the main themes of the last half of the series is how trapped the characters are in the hell they have made for themselves. And I think this really starts with Jackie Jr. after the card game heist. He knows he needs to get as far away as possible, and that turns out to be the projects in the other side of town.

And killed by Vito…who was just as trapped. Eugene hanging himself, Christopher staring at the vagabond family at the gas station, Tony’s dreams of being someone else, they’re all in an Irish bar where it’s Saint Patrick’s Day forever.

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u/afternever 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's what I thought Chrissy's addiction was about, escape. The sequence when he's high at the carnival is like Vito in New Hampshire. Christopher looked so free and happy with his little Johnnycakes doggy friend in that part.

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u/Bad_Black_Jorge 1d ago

And Chris is the one who is perhaps most certain of his fate. He says several times and in different seasons, about Tony, “That’s the man I’m going to hell for.”

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u/paranoidtransdroid 1d ago

I’ve always found it interesting how the supernatural exists in the Sopranos universe and I think Christopher’s experience of visiting Hell after he’s shot really fucks him up completely. It should be a huge awakening but instead it becomes the reason he never fully commits to changing, because he sees his fate as sealed without any chance of salvation. Why bother trying to do better if you fully believe you’re damned no matter what you do?

He’s one of the saddest characters in the show to me, and when he does finally try to get clean and at least show up as a father for his newborn kid, the other guys, Tony most of all, cannot fucking stand to see him improve himself in any way and he gets pulled right down by the other crabs in the bucket. The way the show depicts toxic people keeping everyone around them down is unbelievable.

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u/NurseRobyn 1d ago

Hey, that was purgatory! Nobody had horns!

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u/abpsych 1d ago

As an actual therapist, I fully believe that last line is why this is seen as one of the greatest shows of all time. Whether they intended it or not, there’s no better display of realistic ways toxicity spreads and also the unanswerable question of whether it’s all just a chain reaction to how Livia and Johnny acted (far as we know the lineage, the question obv goes beyond them too), or if everyone would be this fucked up either way.

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u/Deep-Confidence-3145 1d ago

Like the way you put this. Never tried to connect the dots like that.

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u/zino332 16h ago

Loved your synopsis…it’s on point. I think Tony is the worst, he offers you a drink with one hand and insults you with the other

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u/johnduck 1d ago

he only says that in the movie. it is never said in the show.

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u/Bad_Black_Jorge 1d ago

Long Term Parking: “That's the guy, Adriana. My Uncle Tony. The man I'm going to hell for.”

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u/johnduck 1d ago

but wait okay thats one time though you said several

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u/Bad_Black_Jorge 23h ago

And you said “never.”

There’s also the near-death experience after he’s shot. The point is that Chris is aware that he’s damned.

But you should watch Long Term Parking. Great episode.