Wiseguy pimping, part 2
*rubs hands gleefully* Okay, so orca_girl has been drafted into my evil plans! The actual blast-from-the-past challenge announcement will be a little while in coming, as this is the crazy back-to-school time of year, but hey, that gives you time to suggest more fandoms, and there is no reason you cannot start thinking about it now if you want to... *g*
In the meantime, I bring you some more Wiseguy pimping. As before, all the linked clips are in DivX format; right-click and save, please! There are also a bunch of photos under the cut -- not too large, and all should be SFW. Heaps of spoilers for the given episodes, of course.
- link to part 1 of Wiseguy pimping
Loose Cannon (Download all clips in one zip file, 84 MB)
Sid is getting on Sonny's case for not getting enough out of a downtown territory being run by one Cecil Demont. On the personal front, things are getting complicated: Sonny's nephew Lorenzo, last seen as a cute five-year-old, is coming to town from Sicily, and Vinnie has gotten himself a girlfriend, known to the fandom as Gina Augustina From The Neighborhood, the widow of a police officer.
Sonny oh-so-subtly gets Vinnie to take Lorenzo on as a roommate. (15 MB) I think it is worth pointing out here that Sonny OWNS A HOTEL. Vinnie does not resist; apparently he thinks Sonny's cockblocking attempts are cute, and/or does not actually have any desire to make it with Gina Augustina From The Neighborhood.
The two of them head down to Cecil Demont's territory. Things do not go very well for our heroes, but we don't care, because that means we get the justly famous sunroof gun battle scene. (21 MB)
Afterwards, Sonny and Vinnie pick up Sonny's nephew Ray Vecchio Lorenzo from the port. I note that Lorenzo appears to be the only passenger on his ship, and also it drops him off randomly on an empty pier. *baffled*
Lorenzo seems a little strange, but what can you do? He's family. Vinnie suggests possibly he will grow on them, and they take him out to dinner, where Sonny has arranged for female company, including Gina Augustina FTN. Vinnie is uneasy about this, (5 MB) as he realizes nothing good can come of having his bf and gf in the same place at the same time, but Sonny gets all hurt, in that narrow-eyed, you-wouldn't-like-me-when-i'm-angry-because-i-will-shoot-you-in-the-head-twice kind of way, and Vinnie backs down.
At this point, we will take a station break for commercials, during which you can go read troyswann's story Adrenaline, a missing scene which takes place at this moment in the episode. Take as much time as you like.
"Hi, I'm Joe Isuzu, and I used my new Isuzu pickup truck to carry a 2,000 pound cheeseburger."
Honeycomb's big, yeah yeah yeah! It's not small, no no no!
Cats! Now and Forever at the Wintergarden Theater!
And now, back to our show!
Dinner is a bit tense, especially as Lorenzo keeps macking on Gina Augustina FTN. As they all leave, Sonny and Vinnie walk a ways off, discussing Lorenzo's wacky behavior. Lorenzo really doesn't like being talked about behind his back and responds by providing even more material and also some smashing bits of h/c. (6 MB)
(Note that Gina and the other girls are still back at the restaurant exit, so why Sonny and Vinnie seem to be about to get into a car together at the start of this is your guess as much as mine. Possibly they are planning to make out for a while before taking their dates home.)
Lorenzo continues his streak of wacky hijinks by killing Cecil Demont and taking over his gang, then sending them to raid a $300K cash run Vinnie is doing for Sonny. Also, he laughs a lot at inappropriate moments, so we know he's crazy. It turns out that Lorenzo is not in fact Lorenzo -- instead he is, no lie, a fugitive from an insane asylum in Sicily, who killed the original Lorenzo and swiped his clothes.
Lorenzo tries to sell Sonny on the new arrangement by handing him a pile of money (unbeknownst to Sonny, taken from the $300K Lorenzo has just stolen from him) and offering to be the new middleman for the territory. But Sonny is done with Lorenzo, who decides to move to Chicago and become a police detective -- wait, no, sorry; he decides to drop a bombshell and also give an important speech about the currency of death that... makes no sense whatsoever. (20 MB)
Vinnie reports in to Sonny about the raid; Sonny is not happy and accuses Vinnie of taking the money himself, gasp! Vinnie convinces Sonny otherwise by... actually, Vinnie doesn't do much convincing, he just stands there looking hurt. Sonny is convinced anyway because of... uh, hey, look, a pony! (9 MB)
Lorenzo has decided to go stuff Gina Augustina into a refrigerator*. Vinnie goes to the rescue. The climactic ending was probably a lot more shocking back before we all got to know and love Jack Bauer, but you'll just have to watch it yourself (8 MB) to decide.
In the end, surprise surprise, Vinnie realizes that he cannot have a relationship with Gina, because Sonny is as much as one man can handle it is too dangerous a life for her, and so his mature and adult solution is to... stop taking her phone calls. But he looks really sad while not picking up, so that's okay then.
The Birthday Surprise (Download all clips in zip file, 70 MB)
This one begins with the previously seen classic moment of Vinnie and Sonny sitting ringside with their dates for some amateur boxing matches, joking about prison rape and making juvenile jokes about local mobster Kiki Vanno. (9 MB) Vinnie then goes backstage to see his cousin Danny, who is one of the boxers and also pretty much the only member of Vinnie's family who is still speaking to him -- in fact, Danny has even gotten Vinnie a birthday present with a sweet if improperly capitalized message. Aww!
Thirty seconds later, Danny dies. (I know, you are shocked.)
Vinnie loses his shit and also three-quarters of his IQ points. At this depleted level, it does not occur to him that maybe it is a bad idea to go talk to the police in his cover as a heavy-duty mobster. The detectives are about as cooperative as you would expect. To make matters even better, Frank finds out and snaps Vinnie back hard for letting personal feelings interfere with his job.
So naturally, Vinnie goes back to the casino and asks Sonny for help. Except Sonny has also found out about Vinnie's visit to the Homicide department, and now he snaps Vinnie back hard -- for going to the cops instead of him. Poor Vinnie is just getting it from all sides today. But not to worry, Vinnie; Sonny promises to help track down the murderer.
However, for the moment they have other things to worry about: Kiki Vanno is going to introduce Sonny to the Zhoratso brothers, a pair of ultra-violent gangsters who are looking for a distributor. These guys are so messy that not even Pat the Cat will work with them, and Sonny is trying to decide whether to deal with them. Vinnie offers his advice, which is basically "hell, yeah." Sonny likes the advice a lot, and likes Vinnie even more. (30 MB for the whole scene, including some of the most egregious eyefucking in the entire arc)
Despite having been lectured by both his bosses, Vinnie has still not recovered his IQ points and seems in fact to be running a steady drip, because he now proceeds to get his OCB badge out of a jewelry box in Father Pete's office to try and badger the local coroner into speeding up Danny's autopsy results. This also doesn't work, but to be fair to Vinnie, that is only because the coroner violates all rules of television copdom by actually wanting some paperwork and authorization.
Frank once again finds out, has Vinnie hauled in by the cops, and yells at him some more. (8 MB) Among their other crimes, the Zhoratsos mutilated a young federal agent and got away with it, and Frank wants them badly. At the same time, Sonny is trying to track the mysteriously-disappeared Vinnie down. He is so upset that Vinnie is missing that he hangs up the phone upside down. Eventually, after an emo scene of smoking in the interrogation room,
Vinnie makes Frank a deal: find out who killed his cousin, and he'll deliver the Zhoratsos. Sonny bails Vinnie out of jail, and Kiki Vanno takes them to meet with the Zhoratso brothers at a gay bathhouse. (14 MB)
After some tension, they finally agree on a trial run using a small operation Sonny has going upstate in Buffalo. Vinnie reports to Frank, who meanwhile has spent the night driving all over creation interrogating Danny's fellow boxer Leon, and who now gives Vinnie the bad news: Kiki Vanno is the killer, and Vinnie can't have him. They're going to use him as cover for busting the Zhoratsos' operation, otherwise Sonny will realize that Vinnie is the one who ratted it out. Vinnie stalks out angrily.
The upstate operation goes down and ends in flames, or rather gunfire: both Zhoratsos are killed, and Vinnie gets arrested by Frank. Kiki Vanno, however, never shows up. But Frank has put the word out on the street that he was responsible; they figure he'll come in to the police for protection.
Sonny has to bail Vinnie out of jail for the second time in one episode, but he is in a good mood anyway. The Zhoratsos are out of the picture, and he got to keep the money. Yay!
Also, he's really excited because it's finally time to give Vinnie his birthday present! (10 MB, or here is the link for the spoilery picture) It is the jaunty red bow that really makes it special.
Vinnie says: O_O
One On One (Download all clips in one zipfile, 104 MB)
There is trouble in paradise, as many of Sonny's operations are getting unexpectedly raided by the cops. Sid Royce suggests that someone on the inside must be feeding them information and points out that Vinnie has nothing but 18 months in federal prison (uh, since when is Newark State Penitentiary a federal prison?) for cover. Vinnie accuses Sid of doing it to make them vulnerable to Patrice. Sonny shows general suspicion, and Vinnie flounces out in a huff, leaving his shiny gold Rolex on Sonny's desk.
Sonny comes upstairs to find Vinnie packing to leave. I really don't know how to do this scene justice in description; it's like something out of a romance novel, complete with kissing and jewelry exchange. Also, I am not sure there is a non-slash reading of Vinnie's impassioned speech. If Vinnie is not sticking around for the money or the goods or the apartment, what motive exactly is Sonny supposed to imagine him having? Okay, you could maybe make a case for deep platonic love, but it would be approaching levels of smarm not seen outside of Beach.
Anyway. You tell me. (14 MB)
So Vinnie puts his Rolex and his suit back on and goes back to work, where he meets Karen Leland (Annette Bening!), a fundraiser for the local ballet who has been hitting up Sid Royce for a corporate sponsorship. She puts the moves on him and invites him to the ballet the next night. (4MB, with a low-five from Sonny).
Meanwhile, Sonny -- yes, okay, they had a moment of deep intimacy three seconds ago, but clearly Sonny has Been Hurt Before or something -- has Vinnie's apartment searched. The searchers don't find anything in the place, but a background check turns up the incompetence of the OCB, who didn't think to cancel Vinnie's drivers license from Quantico, home of the FBI training academy. Sonny is not happy with the news. (14 MB)
Sonny wakes Vinnie up and takes him for a ride. You might think the jig was up, but no, no. (12 MB) Vinnie talks his way out of it by going through Sonny's wallet and pointing out that Sonny has an address in Washington D.C., and so if he were as wildly and unreasonably suspicious as Sonny, he might draw the conclusion that Sonny was cooperating with the Justice Department. Sonny, who does not otherwise appear to be a moron, swallows this analogy so easily that the only explanation is that he is blinded by love. (Actually, that is nearly a direct quote from the DVD liner notes.) Either that, or he bombed his SATs.
Frank discovers that the police have someone on the inside of Sonny's operation too. He comes to the casino to pull Vinnie out, disguised as the world's most lugubrious waiter. (18 MB)
Vinnie talks him out of it, just in time, as Sonny shows up to take him out to breakfast (clearly as an apology) and to the gym, where they discuss Sid's idea to beat the identity of the mole out of Frank. (6 MB)
Vinnie tries to get a warning to Frank, unsuccessfully (5 MB), and Frank is grabbed for torture, meep. The police mole turns out to be Karen Leland -- aka police officer Karen Molloy -- who is secretly having an affair with Sid (all together now: EW).
Vinnie also says EW, at which Karen points out that Vinnie is doing the same thing, just without sex. (14 MB, little does she know.) With her help, Vinnie tracks down the location where Frank is being questioned, and they rescue him.
Afterwards, Karen agrees to pull out and go into witness protection. Unfortunately, Sid Royce is not as gullible as Sonny, or at least not nearly so much in love, and Vinnie comes into the office the next morning to find the paper talking about her disappearance. (19 MB) I love how Vinnie just casually sits down at Sonny's desk here. Also, what the heck is Sonny doing in the background?
Sid does get some kind of comeuppance, however, as Sonny makes him apologize to Vinnie for casting aspersions on his character. Given how constipated he looks while doing it, it probably hurt him as much as being punched in the head several times, so Karen Molloy gets at least some justice. And Vinnie is left to angst, so really there is no bad for us.
As a reminder, these and more lovely eps can be yours in shiny DVD box sets! The current lowest-priced place (www.buyritedvd.com, which I hadn't used before) has them for only $19 a set; I have just gotten two sets from them, and they came fast and were in shiny lovely condition. Although I think you can get by with just the first one.
To start! I meant, to start! *runs away really fast*
In the meantime, I bring you some more Wiseguy pimping. As before, all the linked clips are in DivX format; right-click and save, please! There are also a bunch of photos under the cut -- not too large, and all should be SFW. Heaps of spoilers for the given episodes, of course.
- link to part 1 of Wiseguy pimping
Loose Cannon (Download all clips in one zip file, 84 MB)
Sid is getting on Sonny's case for not getting enough out of a downtown territory being run by one Cecil Demont. On the personal front, things are getting complicated: Sonny's nephew Lorenzo, last seen as a cute five-year-old, is coming to town from Sicily, and Vinnie has gotten himself a girlfriend, known to the fandom as Gina Augustina From The Neighborhood, the widow of a police officer.
Sonny oh-so-subtly gets Vinnie to take Lorenzo on as a roommate. (15 MB) I think it is worth pointing out here that Sonny OWNS A HOTEL. Vinnie does not resist; apparently he thinks Sonny's cockblocking attempts are cute, and/or does not actually have any desire to make it with Gina Augustina From The Neighborhood.
The two of them head down to Cecil Demont's territory. Things do not go very well for our heroes, but we don't care, because that means we get the justly famous sunroof gun battle scene. (21 MB)
Afterwards, Sonny and Vinnie pick up Sonny's nephew Ray Vecchio Lorenzo from the port. I note that Lorenzo appears to be the only passenger on his ship, and also it drops him off randomly on an empty pier. *baffled*
Lorenzo seems a little strange, but what can you do? He's family. Vinnie suggests possibly he will grow on them, and they take him out to dinner, where Sonny has arranged for female company, including Gina Augustina FTN. Vinnie is uneasy about this, (5 MB) as he realizes nothing good can come of having his bf and gf in the same place at the same time, but Sonny gets all hurt, in that narrow-eyed, you-wouldn't-like-me-when-i'm-angry-because-i-will-shoot-you-in-the-head-twice kind of way, and Vinnie backs down.
At this point, we will take a station break for commercials, during which you can go read troyswann's story Adrenaline, a missing scene which takes place at this moment in the episode. Take as much time as you like.
"Hi, I'm Joe Isuzu, and I used my new Isuzu pickup truck to carry a 2,000 pound cheeseburger."
Honeycomb's big, yeah yeah yeah! It's not small, no no no!
Cats! Now and Forever at the Wintergarden Theater!
And now, back to our show!
Dinner is a bit tense, especially as Lorenzo keeps macking on Gina Augustina FTN. As they all leave, Sonny and Vinnie walk a ways off, discussing Lorenzo's wacky behavior. Lorenzo really doesn't like being talked about behind his back and responds by providing even more material and also some smashing bits of h/c. (6 MB)
(Note that Gina and the other girls are still back at the restaurant exit, so why Sonny and Vinnie seem to be about to get into a car together at the start of this is your guess as much as mine. Possibly they are planning to make out for a while before taking their dates home.)
Lorenzo continues his streak of wacky hijinks by killing Cecil Demont and taking over his gang, then sending them to raid a $300K cash run Vinnie is doing for Sonny. Also, he laughs a lot at inappropriate moments, so we know he's crazy. It turns out that Lorenzo is not in fact Lorenzo -- instead he is, no lie, a fugitive from an insane asylum in Sicily, who killed the original Lorenzo and swiped his clothes.
Lorenzo tries to sell Sonny on the new arrangement by handing him a pile of money (unbeknownst to Sonny, taken from the $300K Lorenzo has just stolen from him) and offering to be the new middleman for the territory. But Sonny is done with Lorenzo, who decides to move to Chicago and become a police detective -- wait, no, sorry; he decides to drop a bombshell and also give an important speech about the currency of death that... makes no sense whatsoever. (20 MB)
Vinnie reports in to Sonny about the raid; Sonny is not happy and accuses Vinnie of taking the money himself, gasp! Vinnie convinces Sonny otherwise by... actually, Vinnie doesn't do much convincing, he just stands there looking hurt. Sonny is convinced anyway because of... uh, hey, look, a pony! (9 MB)
Lorenzo has decided to go stuff Gina Augustina into a refrigerator*. Vinnie goes to the rescue. The climactic ending was probably a lot more shocking back before we all got to know and love Jack Bauer, but you'll just have to watch it yourself (8 MB) to decide.
In the end, surprise surprise, Vinnie realizes that he cannot have a relationship with Gina, because Sonny is as much as one man can handle it is too dangerous a life for her, and so his mature and adult solution is to... stop taking her phone calls. But he looks really sad while not picking up, so that's okay then.
The Birthday Surprise (Download all clips in zip file, 70 MB)
This one begins with the previously seen classic moment of Vinnie and Sonny sitting ringside with their dates for some amateur boxing matches, joking about prison rape and making juvenile jokes about local mobster Kiki Vanno. (9 MB) Vinnie then goes backstage to see his cousin Danny, who is one of the boxers and also pretty much the only member of Vinnie's family who is still speaking to him -- in fact, Danny has even gotten Vinnie a birthday present with a sweet if improperly capitalized message. Aww!
Thirty seconds later, Danny dies. (I know, you are shocked.)
Vinnie loses his shit and also three-quarters of his IQ points. At this depleted level, it does not occur to him that maybe it is a bad idea to go talk to the police in his cover as a heavy-duty mobster. The detectives are about as cooperative as you would expect. To make matters even better, Frank finds out and snaps Vinnie back hard for letting personal feelings interfere with his job.
So naturally, Vinnie goes back to the casino and asks Sonny for help. Except Sonny has also found out about Vinnie's visit to the Homicide department, and now he snaps Vinnie back hard -- for going to the cops instead of him. Poor Vinnie is just getting it from all sides today. But not to worry, Vinnie; Sonny promises to help track down the murderer.
However, for the moment they have other things to worry about: Kiki Vanno is going to introduce Sonny to the Zhoratso brothers, a pair of ultra-violent gangsters who are looking for a distributor. These guys are so messy that not even Pat the Cat will work with them, and Sonny is trying to decide whether to deal with them. Vinnie offers his advice, which is basically "hell, yeah." Sonny likes the advice a lot, and likes Vinnie even more. (30 MB for the whole scene, including some of the most egregious eyefucking in the entire arc)
Despite having been lectured by both his bosses, Vinnie has still not recovered his IQ points and seems in fact to be running a steady drip, because he now proceeds to get his OCB badge out of a jewelry box in Father Pete's office to try and badger the local coroner into speeding up Danny's autopsy results. This also doesn't work, but to be fair to Vinnie, that is only because the coroner violates all rules of television copdom by actually wanting some paperwork and authorization.
Frank once again finds out, has Vinnie hauled in by the cops, and yells at him some more. (8 MB) Among their other crimes, the Zhoratsos mutilated a young federal agent and got away with it, and Frank wants them badly. At the same time, Sonny is trying to track the mysteriously-disappeared Vinnie down. He is so upset that Vinnie is missing that he hangs up the phone upside down. Eventually, after an emo scene of smoking in the interrogation room,
Vinnie makes Frank a deal: find out who killed his cousin, and he'll deliver the Zhoratsos. Sonny bails Vinnie out of jail, and Kiki Vanno takes them to meet with the Zhoratso brothers at a gay bathhouse. (14 MB)
After some tension, they finally agree on a trial run using a small operation Sonny has going upstate in Buffalo. Vinnie reports to Frank, who meanwhile has spent the night driving all over creation interrogating Danny's fellow boxer Leon, and who now gives Vinnie the bad news: Kiki Vanno is the killer, and Vinnie can't have him. They're going to use him as cover for busting the Zhoratsos' operation, otherwise Sonny will realize that Vinnie is the one who ratted it out. Vinnie stalks out angrily.
The upstate operation goes down and ends in flames, or rather gunfire: both Zhoratsos are killed, and Vinnie gets arrested by Frank. Kiki Vanno, however, never shows up. But Frank has put the word out on the street that he was responsible; they figure he'll come in to the police for protection.
Sonny has to bail Vinnie out of jail for the second time in one episode, but he is in a good mood anyway. The Zhoratsos are out of the picture, and he got to keep the money. Yay!
Also, he's really excited because it's finally time to give Vinnie his birthday present! (10 MB, or here is the link for the spoilery picture) It is the jaunty red bow that really makes it special.
Vinnie says: O_O
One On One (Download all clips in one zipfile, 104 MB)
There is trouble in paradise, as many of Sonny's operations are getting unexpectedly raided by the cops. Sid Royce suggests that someone on the inside must be feeding them information and points out that Vinnie has nothing but 18 months in federal prison (uh, since when is Newark State Penitentiary a federal prison?) for cover. Vinnie accuses Sid of doing it to make them vulnerable to Patrice. Sonny shows general suspicion, and Vinnie flounces out in a huff, leaving his shiny gold Rolex on Sonny's desk.
Sonny comes upstairs to find Vinnie packing to leave. I really don't know how to do this scene justice in description; it's like something out of a romance novel, complete with kissing and jewelry exchange. Also, I am not sure there is a non-slash reading of Vinnie's impassioned speech. If Vinnie is not sticking around for the money or the goods or the apartment, what motive exactly is Sonny supposed to imagine him having? Okay, you could maybe make a case for deep platonic love, but it would be approaching levels of smarm not seen outside of Beach.
Anyway. You tell me. (14 MB)
So Vinnie puts his Rolex and his suit back on and goes back to work, where he meets Karen Leland (Annette Bening!), a fundraiser for the local ballet who has been hitting up Sid Royce for a corporate sponsorship. She puts the moves on him and invites him to the ballet the next night. (4MB, with a low-five from Sonny).
Meanwhile, Sonny -- yes, okay, they had a moment of deep intimacy three seconds ago, but clearly Sonny has Been Hurt Before or something -- has Vinnie's apartment searched. The searchers don't find anything in the place, but a background check turns up the incompetence of the OCB, who didn't think to cancel Vinnie's drivers license from Quantico, home of the FBI training academy. Sonny is not happy with the news. (14 MB)
Sonny wakes Vinnie up and takes him for a ride. You might think the jig was up, but no, no. (12 MB) Vinnie talks his way out of it by going through Sonny's wallet and pointing out that Sonny has an address in Washington D.C., and so if he were as wildly and unreasonably suspicious as Sonny, he might draw the conclusion that Sonny was cooperating with the Justice Department. Sonny, who does not otherwise appear to be a moron, swallows this analogy so easily that the only explanation is that he is blinded by love. (Actually, that is nearly a direct quote from the DVD liner notes.) Either that, or he bombed his SATs.
Frank discovers that the police have someone on the inside of Sonny's operation too. He comes to the casino to pull Vinnie out, disguised as the world's most lugubrious waiter. (18 MB)
Vinnie talks him out of it, just in time, as Sonny shows up to take him out to breakfast (clearly as an apology) and to the gym, where they discuss Sid's idea to beat the identity of the mole out of Frank. (6 MB)
Vinnie tries to get a warning to Frank, unsuccessfully (5 MB), and Frank is grabbed for torture, meep. The police mole turns out to be Karen Leland -- aka police officer Karen Molloy -- who is secretly having an affair with Sid (all together now: EW).
Vinnie also says EW, at which Karen points out that Vinnie is doing the same thing, just without sex. (14 MB, little does she know.) With her help, Vinnie tracks down the location where Frank is being questioned, and they rescue him.
Afterwards, Karen agrees to pull out and go into witness protection. Unfortunately, Sid Royce is not as gullible as Sonny, or at least not nearly so much in love, and Vinnie comes into the office the next morning to find the paper talking about her disappearance. (19 MB) I love how Vinnie just casually sits down at Sonny's desk here. Also, what the heck is Sonny doing in the background?
Sid does get some kind of comeuppance, however, as Sonny makes him apologize to Vinnie for casting aspersions on his character. Given how constipated he looks while doing it, it probably hurt him as much as being punched in the head several times, so Karen Molloy gets at least some justice. And Vinnie is left to angst, so really there is no bad for us.
As a reminder, these and more lovely eps can be yours in shiny DVD box sets! The current lowest-priced place (www.buyritedvd.com, which I hadn't used before) has them for only $19 a set; I have just gotten two sets from them, and they came fast and were in shiny lovely condition. Although I think you can get by with just the first one.
To start! I meant, to start! *runs away really fast*