The Sopranos

What was the point of the Melfi Rape sub-plot?

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More like Dr. Milfi, amirite!?

the literally couldn't have laid it on any thicker

betray her ethics and gain revenge (tell tony about the rape)
or
don't submit to her base desires (don't tell tony about the rape)

they even did a pretty blatent dream sequence about it

I understand the conflict presented, but then it went nowhere and was never mentioned again.

this
also this

one of the weakest moments of the show, along with Adriana being a talent scout

>along with Adriana being a talent scout
weak episode, but it had some great moments

Sometimes things happen for character development and not for """"muh plot""""

>Sometimes things happen for character development and not for """"muh plot""""
This incident didn't develop her character.

Fan service.

To give me fap material.

>it went nowhere and was never mentioned again
i think that's the point - my understanding was: Dr. Melfi was so stuck in her righteous ways, that she literally allowed the rapist to walk free, just so that she wouldn't rely on Tony to take revenge for her.

I think this was kind of cool in terms of writing, yet a really dumb choice made by her character.

It was to show she was literally willing to get raped for her profession.

That episode is constantly called one of the best of the entire show, pleb. It perfectly encapsulates the struggle Melfi has when it comes to Tony.

>things plebs say
It sets up the whole rest of the show. It means she's the only person Tony can't manipulate and bully, because she owes him nothing.
It shows us how much integrity Melfi has, unlike everyone else in Tony's life

The whole show was full of sjw subplots

Because the story was wrapped up, retard. She made her decision, she has to live with it.

What was the point of Melfi?

>but then it went nowhere
it literally was wrapped up in the last line of that episode

women being raped (like in real life) is sjw? the current cultural climate would mean half of Season 3 wouldn't make it on the air. "University"? Forgetaboutit.

greek chorus

A foil for Tony to talk about mafia shit

this show was too much for you kid

To think that at the time these episodes came out, Tumblr didn't exist. It was a simpler time.

What is the major difference in tone/theme/mood of shows before and after 9/11?

I didn't buy how it ended with melfi and tony.

so one night she's reading a book about personality types and she goes "holy shit why didn't I think about this six years ago?!" and dumps him?

gets much darker/more apocalyptic afterword

The series wraps for all the characters were weak, few shows are able to reconcile why major life events are happening to everyone at the same time in a manner that nessciates the story ending. In a way I admire Seinfeld for not even trying and for the Sapranos not doing "everyone moves away"

They had to scramble to find shit to do in season 3 after one of the antagonists died IRL
I still love season 3 except for the scene where AJ cries while wearing the military uniform

You think that's integrity? It's dumb pride. she's the educated intellectual and he's the criminal scum. Not telling tony about the rape is just to remind herself that she's better than him and make herself feel better.

She's that shallow and insane. If you can get your rapist killed, Do it. There's no excuse. If that spic raped someone else it's all on her. Dumb selfish bitch.

>If you can get your rapist killed, Do it. There's no excuse.
>mfw
You can't be this pathetic and jealous

Jealous of who or what? She's an idiot who would rather let a rapist go free to rape again than ask a lowly criminal for help she's insane.

I never understood how any of their discussions led him to "becoming a better gang leader", but they seemed to bring it up a couple times in the series. The only kind of related thing is she told him to read a specific book, but the show implies he's learning tactics from her and not from the most common book in the world

>constantly called one of the best of the entire show
That's an appeal to authority and not an argument

>i know the name of a fallacy so i win
yeah, nah

Dude, there's a number of Sopranos episodes that have their own self-contained plot. Why pick on this one in particular?

You'll understand when your older buddy.

Most Sopranos episodes are self-contained. I just watched the episode where Tony almost kills Chris for thinking Adriana was blowing him in that car accident and in the very next episode Tony and Chris are fucking around like nothing happened, literally making jokes with each other and shit

It would've destroyed her relationship with Tony as doctor and patient, there's that to think about as well.

I think it did help in her eventual break from Tony but it was needlessly long and in depth compared to how it could have been. It didnt even have to be a rape subplot to further the divide but it at least furthered that I guess.....

>the series wraps for all the characters were weak

I feel like that's the point. It's like life; there's no neat, tidy ending. Life just kind of goes on.

For example, AJs story was really only just beginning.

Whatever. In another episode they really should have followed this plot through to it's logical conclusion. That guy was pretty good at raping so it probably wasn't his first or last time. He rapes someone that Melfi knows/knows of and she has to agonize over her retarded decision not to act.

I'm probably older than you also:
>your
Dumbass.

I think that's part the episodic nature of the show and part how repressed all the characters are, particular the guys, by their need to keep up appearances for the mob and by their own emotional insecurity and fragility.

...

>Whatever.
Melfi's work was literally her entire life. She's shown to have a fractured marriage and a son that resents her alcoholism, it's no shock that she chose to retain that special relationship rather than hire Tony as a hitman.

I love that episode. The part where they do the montage of phone conversations that twist the narrative more and more. Classic. And incredibly accurate.

It's been a while since I saw the show but their relationship wasn't that special. She refused to see him on several occasions iirc.

She takes him back after he forces her to move out of town and one of her patients commits suicide possibly as a result - what does that tell you about how attached she was to him?

I have no idea but i can think of one thing seeing a bear eat my hunting mate.

God i guess this is how it must feel to get raped, i am so sorry on the behalf of all non-raping men.

Whenever i see a woman in trouble from now on i will protect her with all the might i can put up.

Meant for

>logical conclusion
The possibility that he rapes Melfi and then goes on to rape a female friend or acquaintance of Melfi, and Melfi knows about this and knows for a fact that he committed both crimes, is not only illogical, but practically impossible, in terms of probability. It's exactly the kind of thing a lesser TV show would do to teach a character a "moral lesson" while sacrificing any sense of realism or real-world authenticity, and exactly the kind of thing The Sopranos subverted.

to keep tony in her therapy.

He always does all the work. She refuses to see him and he always has to talk her around. Is she acting on the assumption that he'll always come back? you're not making any sense.

If he's so important why keep cutting him off in the first place?

meadow was so cute in season 1, but with beginning season 2 she looks different, still not bad but not as cute as in season 1.


time for some gabagool:

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She refuses to see him at most twice, once after he physically threatened her in Season 1 and once in Season 2 after he forces her to work out of a motel during the brief war with Junior. He walks out on her and "quits" literally dozens of times during the series, his commitment is far more tenuous, while she is literally bound by oath to help him.

Tony never took therapy seriously and never did any of the "work", like keeping a record of his dreams, or taking his medication as subscribed. She wasn't the best therapist, perhaps, but he was definitely a worse patient. Probably a large part as to why Melfi was so obsessed with saving him.

Did Tony sanction it or not, that was the purpose.

sopranos isn't above ridiculous coincidences to progress a story. Like tony recognizing an ex-hitman in the middle of bumfuck nowhere don't be dumb.

The "College" guy was very unlucky that Tony happened to be in the town he was relocated to, but it's not impossible, and wasn't something the show tended to abuse too much.

If there's one thing about sopranos it's that it's a small world and everyone is connected. Nothing happens without without someone who knows someone else or one of their relatives or something finding out.

>charcoal briquette
Yea, it was just pandering to sjw's constantly

Would Tony actually do anything though?

So that the viewer could self-insert.

Yes it did, it showed she absolutely will not give in to Tony's way of life.

TV shows have to do this though. You have to have a reason to be watching this episode at this point in time. There's a saying that writers ask themselves when writing a storyline - "why today?" because you have to justify why you are depicting this moment in time specifically, which often leads to uncommon occurrences being commonly utilized

...

He hated Janice and still kicked the crap out of the Russian guy who slapped her - what do you think he'd do for the one woman he loved and obsessed over, but couldn't ever have?

Making families who watched the show together feel uncomfortable.

So she's just arrogant? I always thought it was out of character for her to spare her rapist and almost certainly condemn other women to getting raped. She's already seeing a therapist just like tony does and seems interested in his way of life enough to research it.

I have trouble believing anyone could be that stubborn. Not just for herself but for future victims too.

>I have trouble believing anyone could be that stubborn. Not just for herself but for future victims too.
People generally only think for themselves. In this instance, she was thinking of her moral purity (superiority).

She's fascinated with him and his life, but also utterly horrified and mystified by it. She'd be destroying her own personal ethics by harnessing his rage and violence for her own revenge.

Isn't she kind of already violating her own code of ethics by seeing a therapist herself? How can she give sound advice when she can't even sort herself out?

Women who are legitimately raped let the rapists walk free all the time. You're thinking with reason because you're a man. Women lack this. They're more likely to make up a rape for personal gain than to report an actual rape.

I'm aware of that, also that women fantasize about rape but that's another topic for another time and probably another board.

There's no rule against that, in fact, it would be very easy to justify it on the basis of needing herself to be in peak psychological condition so as to give her patients the best care possible. See how easy that was?

It's like taking financial advice from someone who is deeply in debt and seeing a financial advisor though. She shouldn't be able to do that in good conscience

I just finished the series and I didn't expect that ending at all. WTF

Remember, when she sees her patients she sees them as a doctor, not a person. Now - the boundary lines obviously aren't very clear, her relationship with Tony spills over into her personal life quite a bit, but officially, the she's living two separate existences.

pretty much all therapists see therapists. Therapy is nothing but a huge circlejerk

its like takin a SHIT

it is common for therapists to get supervision and stuff like that.
they even have to do a therapy before they can begin with their work, nothing wrong with that.
it is people like you that see it as a weakness but often it is not.

Well witness protection would naturally seek to place someone precisely bumfuck nowhere so it isn't exactly unrealistic.

People are arguing she's so ethical but she's giving family advice when she's an alcoholic who doesn't even know how to maintain a good relationship with her own spouse and child how is that ethical?

AJ had the shittest arcs imaginable, nothing he did was interesting or thought provoking. Meadow was terrible but at least she wasn't as cringe worthy as AJ.

So why didn't Melfi confide in Tony to take the guy out after being screwed over by the justice system? It's a lot more realistic but in a sense I guess but I guess they wanted to show how the good hearted people get fucked over by society more while the ones with more corrupt souls are rewarded.

if you have little psychological experience you see that tony is cutting the borders slowly but enduring, for example giving her a coffee, which is the most obvious one.
he is a manipulating psychopath and you see that early in the show, even if you think everything is justified and he is a nice guy, he still is playing with humans, just not with his family.

I mean, every character on the show is shown to be morally duplicitous on some level, and living life ultimately not by some steadfast ethical code, but by whichever ways make things easier for them. She's not exempt from this, even though she is one of the most virtuous characters on the show.

You know who had an arc? Noah.

Is Tony dead?

what is even worse, the mother of tony, borderline or narcissist, is just the mother of david chase, who wrote the show.
he wanted to educate people about borderline ps and stuff like that.
when he finally found the actress for this role he thought "oh my god that is my mother" and she played the role very well.
sick shit, because i knew many women that are like this, when they are not beautiful anymore and get old they are just evil, and if they are young they just play their games like there is no tomorrow.

Since her ethics are flimsy at best, getting tony to kill her rapist would have certainly made her life easier, not having to think about the past and future victims.

The only strong argument IMO is that she didn't want to be indebted to him, not that her reasons were ethical. She's a smart girl and probably knew that when you owe a mob boss a favor you're gonna have a bad time.

>Since her ethics are flimsy at best, getting tony to kill her rapist would have certainly made her life easier
Exactly, which is why it's her shining moment, she takes the high road, when it would've been incredibly easy for her to instead indulge in violent revenge. She was satisfied with just the feeling of knowing that she could. I think throughout the entire show that's the moment where a character truly stands by their principles and doesn't give into base human instincts. Tony deciding not to fuck Julianna Skiff is another one, although he almost immediately goes back on it.

Also, of course. Tony scared the shit out of her and she was smart enough to stay well enough away from his business.

Oh shit I just realized she's the wife from Goodfellas.

It's about talking therapy leading to higher quality introspection. Just like it helps you face your own issues better it helps you see real life problems in a different way. She's the only one he spells out the intrigue etc. in the actual way he sees it because she's not a part of it. Just translating your thoughts into words to another person helps you see things in a more objective light.

remember when Paulie ratted on Tommy to the Gambinos for trying to rape her

If her shining moment is letting a proficient rapist go free she can have that one I guess. It might haunt her for the rest of her life. Maybe that's less scary than being forcefully coerced into banging someone who scares the shit out of her I don't know.

>AJ had the shittest arcs imaginable, nothing he did was interesting or thought provoking.
I don't really agree. AJ's arcs just showed him dealing with the reality of him just not being cut out to be a gangster and struggling with the fact that he will never completely fit in with his family.

I agree with the other poster I fucking hated AJ. It wasn't realistic at all. In reality everyone would be sucking his dick because his family is fairly rich and his dad is head of the damn mafia. Oh no but he has an existential crisis and tries to kill himself pfft. He's too young to be that disillusioned with wealth and power. It's got nothing to do with being cut out to be a gangster since his father obviously doesn't want that for him.

he tends to depressions, like his father, but at the same time he is no "alpha" like his father so i think the role isn't unrealistic but just annoying, i waited the whole show to finally see tony beat him.

Violence doesn't undo violence.

AJ was incredibly realistic. Reminded me a tonne of my younger self, pseudo-intellectual, resentful of his father, obsessed with the end of the world and politics for no real reason. Chase did a good job of writing an angry and confused adolescent in the 21st century, better than any other show.

I don't think it was being disillusioned with wealth and power, he was just a kid who didn't like to see harm come to others. A 'good' person, so to say. He had to deal with the reality of his father's entire life revolving around hurting, extorting, and killing others. And the resulting wealth of those activities was the wealth he grew up in. He even tries to be a gangster by helping those other mobster's sons beating and mutilating that other kid that owed them money. At that point he realises what the daily reality of his father's life is like and he tries to off himself.

And it might "haunt" her (it doesn't) for the rest of her life, but the consequences for her in that case are far less immediately severe than destroying her doctor-patient relationship with Tony and making her indebted to a psychopathic mobster.

Couldn't she just tell the police so he gets put in prison? It's not either ignore it or have him killed.