The Sopranos: What Was Junior's Problem?

thank you of all the main cast characters that were with us to the show's six seasons Junior Soprano is probably my favorite the curmudgeonly uncle of Tony Soprano he has some of the best lines in the series you hear about the Chinese Godfather he made them an offer they couldn't understand junior is the boss in name of the family while Tony really runs things on the street though relatives their relationship is incredibly Rocky at times Junior serves as a mentor to Tony offering him advice when he can't turn to anyone else at other times though junior is extremely antagonistic to Tony scheming multiple times to have him killed overall junior is one of the most contradictory characters in this series he's clearly an intelligent cunning mobster understanding how to strategize for his own benefits on the other hand though he's often ridiculed by others and not respected as a leader in his own right so the question is what was Junior's problem why could he never take control of the family like he wanted to and why was his relationship with Tony so strained well in this video let's take a look at his character and find out keep thinking you know everything so people are so far behind in a race that they actually believe they're leading hey that's cute Corrado soprano known as Junior by his friends and relatives is the oldest living member of the soprano family he had two younger brothers a mentally disabled brother named Erica Lee and his younger brother Johnny Boy soprano Johnny would go on to marry a girl named Olivia and have three children Janice Tony and Barbara unlike his younger brother Junior never had a family he did have multiple relationships over his life but none of them worked out long term now he says that this is because he never wanted to bring a woman into his life as a mafioso but we get hints that this might not have been true and it might have been due to other reasons Junior eventually became a maid man and a capo in the demaio crime family interestingly Johnny was made before him despite the fact that he was his younger brother this would be a trend throughout his life despite being a long-serving mafioso in the family Junior was not the most respected of figures part of this is because he was seen as old-fashioned and not particularly Innovative when it came to crime this resulted in him being passed over for leadership of the family in favor of Jackie appreel another younger man eventually Jackie passes away from cancer and again the title of boss is up for grabs both he and his nephew Tony desire the position and Junior is willing to fight for it this time around Tony decides to allow Junior to be bossy and name however he secretly runs things with the backing of the other captains since he's the king of kings truth is every decision is made by me eventually Olivia reveals to Junior that situation with the capos and he decides to whack Tony to take control of the family however he doesn't realize Olivia is manipulating him as well for her own reasons the hit on Tony fails and the FBI Reveals His involvement Tony decides to take Junior and his supporters out but before he can get to him junior is indicted and sent to jail to await trial the FBI offer him a deal to say that Tony was the real boss of the family but Junior's Pride while that damn admit that he was played as a fool with most of his key supporters gone junior is placed in her house arrest while he awaits his trial he's in a much weaker position and though Tony allows him to keep the title of boss he runs things absolutely on the street Junior has no choice but to accept this Arrangement and the little money that is left to him Junior spends the next year under house arrest while his trial progresses he tries many things to get out of it including faking dementia which doesn't work however eventually they are able to intimidate a juror and a mistrial is declared though junior is temporarily free he's still an isolated man furthermore his fake dementia turns out to be legitimate as he starts forgetting things there are many reasons for how this could have developed including suffering from a fall down the courthouse stairs however it's implied that the isolation he's been suffering the past few years may have also contributed it going a little squirrely in this house Junior's dementia eventually leads in to shoot Tony by accident thinking he's his old rival Malanga not only is Junior arrested for this Tony ends up cutting him out of his life completely Junior spends the rest of his life in mental institutions gradually forgetting more and more of his life in his final scene Tony visits Junior who can barely recognize him and remembers nothing as his life as a mobster though Tony had hated Jr for shooting him we see him shed a tear that the man he once loved is now gone completely now Junior's life is obviously tragic he spends the majority of it alone without a family of his own he never gets the power or respect he feels he deserves and in the end he'll probably die alone in a miserable looking place but it didn't have to be this way Junior was obviously an intelligent guy he knew how to strategize often offering advice to Tony on this front when Richie gets out of prison he approaches Junior with an alliance to undermine Tony and take him out though Junior goes along with this when he realizes that Richie doesn't stand a chance against Tony he wisely betrays him in order to score what points he can with Tony so given how shrew Jr was why was he never able to achieve his dream and become the real boss of the family well one of the reasons is because of his leadership style junior is seen to be living in the past not pushing the family forward into new creative money making schemes like Tony another is his greed he Demands a lot from those under him and doesn't share the spoils like other more generous bosses would I mean when Jackie was acting voice no one minded because it all even died at the end of the day but your uncle Madam does he eat alone he doesn't even pass the salt however the biggest reason of course is his deep-seated insecurity one of his defining traits is his constant feeling of inferiority and a destructive way that he reacts to that feeling other characters note this about Junior as well man is driven in Toto by his insecurities one example of this is the fact that his younger brother Johnny was made before he was despite being the Elder Junior played a supporting role to his younger brother it's not clear if this is the reason why junior was insecure or if his insecurity caused him to be passed over but either way it would be a defining trait throughout the rest of his life even in the early days of the mob when he was running North Jersey alongside his brother junior did not seem to be respected by his peers he's made fun of by the other Mobsters including being laughed at when he falls down the stairs in fact junior is so insecure about the disrespect he feels in comparison to other guys like Dickey montesanti he ends up having Dickie whacked just to make himself feel better this insecurity may have also been why he never found a wife or had children we see that he did have a successful long-term relationship with Bobby San felipo however when she accidentally lets it slip the junior performs oral sex on her something that's seen as shameful in the mob Junior breaks up with her out of Pride despite the fact that she genuinely loved him he later seems to regret this as he tries calling her to get back together but she wants nothing more to do with him by that point Roberta San Felipe didn't call back did she I gotta be honest Junior when I ran into our fountains I waned that thing it's been very cold now a man's reputation is obviously important in the mafia as people can be killed over little things like that but it's clear that Juniors pride and ego led him to make decisions that he later regrets after all it's this very need to be respected that allows Tony to manipulate him with the title of Boss Junior wants it so badly that he doesn't even realize that Tony is the one in charge and even pays Tony for the privilege but his relationship with Tony is more complicated than just their struggles to be boss despite the fact that he tried multiple times to have Tony killed Junior obviously cares about Tony not only does he provide advice for Tony when he can't go to anyone else he's also something of a father figure to him he spent more time playing catch with him than his actual father in fact how many knowledge that I spend playing catch with you in fact when Juniors at the mental hospital the only thing he can remember is playing ball with Tony there was actually something interesting about this at the end of the first season Tony said it if you're lucky you'll remember the good times at the end at the end of his life Junior can't remember any of the bad things he did with his life only that he used to play ball with Tony it's a powerful statement about the relationship and what was important to Junior in his life well you don't recognize me we used to play catch however as much as Junior obviously loved Tony he was never able to admit it part of this was again due to the insecurity over the fact that Tony commanded more respect from the rest of the family than he did it's why he took every opportunity to put Tony down for his athletic performance it was a way of feeling Superior to him when I was young he told my girl cousins I would never be a varsity athlete and frankly that was a tremendous blow to my self-esteem he never even had the makings of advice to the athlete your father never had the makings of a varsity athlete you don't have the making of the varsity athletes all I know is you never had the makings of a varsity athlete however part of it was also their lifestyle any inability to share genuine feelings as a mobster people perceive emotions as weakness and that can often lead people to taking advantage of you this is symbolized when Tony confronts Junior about his mean comments he's watching a documentary about prairie dogs hiding from coyotes a symbol of how careful they need to be to avoid being someone else's prey I mean don't you love me all in all Junior was doomed to end up in a bad position he was part of an organization that preys on weakness and he had several personality issues that meant that he would never truly command respect the way that others did but for all the pain he went through over the course of the show there is one thing that's positive about his ending he's one of the few characters that got to leave the life in his own way free from the burdens of his past and that at least is something that we can all hope for believe me there's plenty I'd like to forget yeah you'll be about Bobby make my patrons an egg Ops gracing media Jazz Jake hits Sam cedarland Celery Man Jenna Marie Johnson Brad Smith Studios Uncle Mike Matt Joyce Countess Von zerovich and Luke p [Music] foreign

Channel: Pure Kino

Views: 453,678

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Id: lL71GX_ZUsg

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2023