Vince’s favorite episode of The Sopranos, season 6a episode 8, “Johnny Cakes,” is discussed with Leah Carroll, a writer, podcaster, and author of Down City: A Daughter’s Story of Love, Memory, and Murder.
Leah is a uniquely qualified visitor since she has a personal connection to Nicky Bianco, a former member of the Rhode Island gang who introduced her to arugula. That is the new standard. On PYAG, you can only be a guest if you’ve been fed by a real made dude. If you’d like leek soup cooked by a Gotti, contact us. If not, piggy, just enjoy the crap we’re dumping into your dish.
Vito, the most notorious bottom of the Soprano criminal family, is exposed to the titular Rhode Island delicacy by a volunteer firefighter beefcake named Johnny, in a kind of a reverse. Vito can eat what Johnny feeds him, but can he eat the love and attention he desires as well? This episode was created for the modern cynical misanthrope, as indicated on the pod, so don’t expect love to free anyone.
While Vito is looking for himself in New Hampshire, our favorite failure, AJ Soprano, is looking for himself in New Jersey. Blockbuster provides a lot of advantages. Assassination attempts on Uncle Junior were a chance for him to study knife fights in movies and use the methods in an assassination attempt. As AJ is, however, he fumbles the sword before he can avenge his father. AJ is a good man in the sense that he is too soft and inept to kill anyone. (To obtain his father’s approval through murder), the poor boy never had a chance.
