The Sopranos - Was Little Carmine Secretly a Genius?

it's no secret that many of the characters on the sopranos are not exactly at the top of their class characters like georgie aj and paulie could have drowned in three inches of water what sun to zoo the chinese prince machiavelli tony time too zoo zoo zanzu [ __ ] ass kiss but of all the ivy leaguers on the show the dumbest of them all has to be little carmine despite being the son of a boss little carmine is not a respected guy his accomplishments are mediocre some of you know i've had nine pictures under my subspecies four in the south beach trumpet series alone each with 30 000 plus dvds in print his social awareness is hysterical jesus christ come on what the [ __ ] why would you possibly bring that up and his defining characteristic is his constant malapropisms i am reminded of louis the whatever's finance minister does something he's an old-fashioned guy pop very allegorical you're at the precipice tony of an enormous crossroad a pint of blood costs more than a gallon of gold the point i'm trying to illustrate is that of course no one wants all-out conflict but historically historical changes have come out of a war but is there more to this character than meets the eye something hidden we might have missed on first glance let's take a look at the hair apparent mr brainless ii carmine lupertazzi the fundamental question is will i be as effective as a boss like my dad was and i will be even more so but until i am it's gonna be hard to verify that i think i'll be more effective [Music] carmine lupertazzi jr known as little carmine is the son of carmine senior the boss of the lupitazi crime family that bears his name despite being a capo in the family little carmine is removed from new york affairs and lives in miami where he owns disco clubs and we all assume to be johnny because the sun's down in miami or at the discos and whatnot fix his wet t-shirt contest that [ __ ] little comment and after what five years in florida fixing wet t-shirt contests and uh let's say manages a tasteful art company point is i talked a little carmine and he's interested in developing into his company he does porn he is first introduced in the season 4 episode calling all cars when tony goes down to florida and asks him to help resolve the hud dispute with his father though little carmine agrees to try and convince his father to be reasonable when carmine senior begins showing more praise for tony than him little carmine intentionally fans the flames of the conflict out of jealousy the next time we see little carmine is in the fifth season when his father dies from a stroke though initially on good terms with johnny sack a conflict emerges between the two as they both vie for the title of boss johnny is supported by the newly released shah of iran while little carmine is backed by his father's former conciliary angelo gerepi and respected capoh rusty millio however rusty is only using little carmine as a puppet to try to run the family through the conflict gets bloody when johnny whacks lorraine caluzzo a bookie who supports little carmine as a side note little carmine had a sexual relationship with her despite the fact that they're second cousins which is a little gross and what kind of a man bangs his second cousin what are you the freaking cardinal in retaliation little carmine has johnny's favorite associate joey peeps killed tony's cousin tony blandetto does the hit which drags new jersey into the conflict however when johnny has angelo killed little carmine decides to back down and acknowledges jon as the new boss of the lupertazzi family little carmine's out he's dead seems like him and johnny worked out a deal i knew he'd cave he's a [ __ ] [ __ ] that kid johnny doesn't get to enjoy the title for long though as he's soon indicted on racketeering charges while he's in jail and phil serves his acting boss little carmine chooses to avoid mob politics and instead partners with christopher to fund his cleaver movie the movie ends up being a success and another picture he can add under his sub-species after johnny dies in prison from lung cancer the title of boss is again up for grabs when it appears that doc santoro will emerge as the winner tony meets with little carmine and asks him to take charge instead however little carmine declines realizing that being boss won't bring him or his family any happiness phil eventually emerges as a new boss of the family and his resentment of tony brings the two sides to the brink of war little carmine tries to broker a peace between the two but he mucks it up and a war is started anyway though devastating for the new jersey crew the war drives a wedge between phil and his right hand man butchie in the serious finale tony is able to negotiate a piece with little carmine's help that ends and phil's death he also gives aj a job at his movie production company that keeps him from enlisting in the military like i mentioned little carmine's defining characteristic is his low intelligence he's viewed as an idiot by his fellow mobsters that's common knowledge the guys [ __ ] much of this is due to his malopropisms where he uses a big word to sound smart but ends up misusing the word the comedic effect where you caught that alexandra very observant the sacred and the propane however if we look deeper than the surface we can see that carmine is smarter than people give him credit for for one thing he's one of the few people empathetic enough to be considerate of christopher's alcoholism i usually send the bags up hit the bar decompress a little unless you're against it what are you talking about you're in aaa gave the stewardess near food she put down the champagne i just don't want to make you feel uncomfortable he's also frequently sought out to mediate conflicts and in the end he does manage to broker a peace between new york and new jersey even hbo's website lists him as someone who shouldn't be overlooked but the strongest case for his intelligence is the fact that he was able to walk away from the game throughout the series we see how much pain the crown has caused tony with all the conflict he has to deal with and the fact that he's now the prime target for the fbi tony becomes increasingly angry and depressed with each season he's got the world by the balls and he acts like everything's a big [ __ ] imposition being at the top he's isolated himself yeah it's just him and his money unlike tony little carmine is able to realize that the power just isn't worth it even their meeting at the golf course shows how different they are when the scene opens tony is gambling both literally with his fortune and figuratively with his life by being boss he's so stressed and miserable he orders something unhealthy to bring a little joy to his life really cheers day however little carmine is eating healthy and being active by playing golf it's great foreshadowing to who's going to live longer the dream he has about his father also shows some surprisingly great insight from the character the paper crown his father wears represents how meaningless the title of boss really is and the empty mellifluous box symbolizes that despite the outward benefits he would have nothing even if he got the title that dream with my father the empty box wasn't about being boss it's about being happy [Music] in the end little carmine ends up as one of the few happy characters on the show able to enjoy his life with his loving wife and kids with no fear of ending up dead or in prison that's enough for anyone to call him a genius but his intelligence might go even deeper than that what if little carmine didn't actually give up on being boss what if instead he was manipulating events to turn out exactly how he planned them and in the end he's the one secretly controlling both new york and new jersey the theory goes that little carmine was intentionally creating conflict between phil and tony in the meeting of mines he brings up phil's brother right as they're about to agree to a peace deal which sends phil into a rage and blows up the deal your brother billy whatever happened there all right ted whatever happened there the shooting whatever happened there god rest his soul this is usually viewed as another screw-up but what if he intentionally did it to set phil and tony on a course for war we know that he is capable of manipulating emotions on purpose when he meets with his father and johnny on the golf course he intentionally inflames his father against tony he likes to talk to talk i don't know what what'd he say his turf his appraiser son of a [ __ ] now the reason he does it in this case is because he was simply jealous of his father praising tony but even still it's established that he is capable of emotional manipulation now the question is why would he want to create a war between phil and tony what would he have to gain especially since he had a chance to become boss but turned it down well maybe he learned from his fight with johnny sack that having the title of boss was dangerous and instead decided to run things from the shadows after all that's what his mentor rusty did with him jesus rusty john's worried he might find another puppet like little carmine try to run the family through but if he was following rusty he would need a puppet to manipulate phil is obviously not going to be it since he supported johnny which may be why he had to be eliminated hence the war the war also had the benefit of separating butchie from phil and butchie is the most likely candidate to take over after phil's death he would make a great puppet to rule the family through and during the final meeting butchie looks at little carmine before agreeing to tony's terms which perhaps shows that he does take orders from him however there is a lot of contradictory evidence as well if he wanted a war between new york and new jersey why did he try and mediate after tony attacked coco you could say that he's trying to appear neutral but that sounds more like mental gymnastics to make the theory fit also how do we explain that he acts stupid even when he's not engaged in mob business so as fun as this theory is it's unlikely that little carmine is secretly a 5d chess master playing with people's lives no the more realistic answer is that little carmine is what he appears a pawn that realized that the only way to win the game is not to play thank you so much for watching the video and especially thank you to everyone who subscribed to me i just hit a thousand subscribers which is an incredible milestone when i started this channel last year i never thought my videos would appeal to so many people you all are awesome and i plan to continue to make great content that i hope you'll enjoy thank you [Music] you

Channel: Pure Kino

Views: 1,057,347

Keywords: Sopranos, The Sopranos, Many Saints of Newark, Tony Soprano, The Many Saints of Newark, James Gandolfini, Many Saints, Sopranos Tony, Sopranos Prequel, Talking Sopranos, Sopranos Varsity athlete, sopranos best moments, sopranos ending, sopranos death, sopranos analysis, Little Carmine, sopranos little carmine, sopranos carmine lupertazzi, little carmine tony, sopranos little carmine tony, little carmine moments, little carmine malapropisms, little carmine death

Id: bFqnCVT4uDY

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021