[classic swim]

I’m not on some third eye contrarianism. Not even wanting to express the same cold take on Tony’s fate for the quazillionth time.

I just believe it’s all the more rewarding to say it ended at the depressingly downsized Satriale’s as opposed to the sharp abrupt at Holsten’s.

You see T’s “death” in both scenes anyhow. It truly matters that less by that point. 

- - - - - - - - - -
 

As troublesome as it sounds, it took the great Sirico’s passing for me to really humor the theory behind Paulie Walnuts signing off on NY’s presumed Soprano hit.

For the longest time, I just didn’t welcome that thought bubble. And I don’t know why.

**Forgot the first season concludes with Paulie telling Sil he’s not sure about Tone’s leadership.**

From beginning to end, these characters were selfish assholes who killed their own, time and time again. They’d get hamstrung by their own deluded reasoning the more and more they kept doing what they did so poorly.

Point-blank: Tony attempts killing Paulie several episodes before the series was over.

The various things Gualtieri did to actually cause problems... none of that was really accounted for.

It had nothing to do with the Ginny Sack joke.

Tony just wanted to kill him for being annoying lol. That’s all it took. He grew so accustomed to getting rid of everyone that it just became second nature.
 

When ever Phil and those NY guys conspired to “sever the head” in Jersey, Paulie was shut down from their chopping board because he was old as shit and made for a decent pawn. Had nothing to do with him being a decent wise guy. He was a moldy goombah who wasted his life in a glorified crew. That was their estimate while they were focused on executing everyone else.



The last scene between Gandolfini & Sirico had some heavy weight that mainly worked for how guilty Paulie was. Even if there’s no concrete evidence to support Gualtieri being behind a Soprano hit, it’s absolutely still a confession by him.

He wasn’t some macho old school class act like he believed himself to be. He was a murderer like the rest, and often times a hyper emotional dickhead who had an adolescent’s view on loyalty. (He was also funny as hell.)

But sincerity with Gualtieri was there when it would count. More than what you can say about Tony. 

He genuinely felt sad for the “boss” who iced everyone around him and would’ve clipped him without thinking twice.

Them only having each other left in that world before the smoke cleared...

”I live to serve you, my liege.”

 

Goes hand in hand with me hating shit being needlessly generalized, but what I especially hated about the ‘stoner’ lumping was how it almost immediately put a giant stamp on the user’s forehead that said “I’m not smart enough to come up with a better way to say I don’t like this show.”

I recorded bumps years back where even Adult Swim itself had enough of that shit. One even spelling out what terms you should use, and what terms are obnoxious and annoying for them.

(This was of course kind of a thing within show creators and staff as well. Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick of Venture Bros also hated even when fans called their stuff “insane.”)

There’s probably a lot I could say on the passion I had/have for these shows, the real influence and importance of these shows, etcetera.

^ I actually don’t have to make these defenses and justifications anymore because everyone by now gets the idea, and the moronic term has long since been retired for most part.

But I realized how even back then, I never exactly had to hold the fort there either. It just wasn’t about that. I had weird love and loyalty toward this programming and group, but when it came to that word being used, all you had to do to shut it down was just that - - shut it down effortlessly. 

The attitude for me wasn’t “oh you’re a poopie head and this show is bestest!” It was more like “Nah, that’s not a real logical or intelligible critique. Get better material, dumbass.”

And that was the end of it.
 

—————
 

‘Cynical’ isn’t so much a new phrase used for usual suspects, but its use has been greatly accelerated ever since Smiling Friends recently came along.

And in contrast, ‘cynical’ is tricky because the word actually does have weight in modern comedy, and comedy as a whole. 

The reason why I’m starting to think the latter phrase is getting to be just as ignorant as the former is because it’s very much overused and misdiagnosed. Shows that aren’t even cynical or nihilist are getting called cynical and nihilist.

As contradictory as it sounds, I do believe it’s very much possible for a show to have plenty of mean humor but not actually be a mean show.

ATHF is a lot of things, but I reaaaaaally think it’s a misstep to look at the things done twenty years ago and think it was from actual nihilist framing. Doing that by definition is grossly looking too into it and is just fucking dumb. Watched it since the beginning and never once went out of my way to give it those buzzwords.
 

And I’m not saying all shows I like aren’t nihilist, but you also gotta know what the fucking word means! Y’know? 

That’s really what’s so funny about this.

Beavis & Butt-Head you can actually say is a cynical show, because the cartoon since its inception has always been that the kids are a cry for help and everyone’s mutually stupid, so they’re just doomed. Their world is built on precisely that.

Sometimes I’m not too sure enough if it’s a deliberate troll because these dumb as dog shit young people are earnestly trying to say that Smiling Friends can save lives. 

Some fans on the internet just need buzzwords and labels to attach to their shit, or else they feel like they’re gonna suffocate somehow.

Not saying I’m the better person for not putting and coining labels on my stuff, but if I’m gonna call something anything — — backing it up with reason should be a fairly simple task.