{"id":583597,"date":"2026-08-05T04:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T04:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583597\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T04:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T04:18:08","slug":"how-the-late-vincent-pastore-gave-us-the-most-lynchian-moments-in-the-sopranos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583597\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Late Vincent Pastore Gave Us The Most Lynchian Moments in ‘The Sopranos’"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I\u2019ve only seen it posted online a few times, I 100% subscribe to the argument that the most Lynchian show that didn\u2019t involve David Lynch himself wasn\u2019t any of today\u2019s try-hard homages, but was actually The Sopranos.<\/p>\n

A classic in its own right, The Sopranos is the OG prestige television show and worthy of rewatches and studies on its own, but if you are a David Lynch fan and haven\u2019t watched through the show, it might be more appealing to you than you might think.<\/p>\n

It also has some great performances by character actor Vincent Pastore, who recently passed away, whose character Salvatore Bonpensiero gave us tons of great lines, laughs, sincere moments, and certainly some of the show\u2019s most Lynchian moments.<\/p>\n

RIP to Salvatore Bonpensiero<\/p>\n

Born to an Italian-American family in the Bronx in the late 1940s, Pastore didn\u2019t get into acting until he was in his 40s and, almost exclusively, chiefly played mafioso characters in his time. His first big break was with a small role in Goodfellas, perhaps the most important mafia movie of all time next to the first two Godfather films.<\/p>\n

Like many characters from Goodfellas, Pastore eventually found a role in The Sopranos, where he earned a Screen Actors Guild Award and was both a standout performer and fan favorite. <\/p>\n

His character, which we have to admit is a spoiler here, does meet an untimely end, and it\u2019s a major plot point of the second season\u2014with remnants of the decision haunting the show\u2019s lead Tony for the rest of the show\u2019s timeline.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

‘The Sopranos’<\/p>\n

Credit: HBO<\/p>\n

The Surreal Moments of ‘The Sopranos’<\/p>\n

Of all the seasons of ‘The Sopranos’, the second season in particular has a very Lynchian<\/a> influence, with several dream sequences serving not only as odd looks into characters\u2019 psyches as a major part of the plot and storyline, but also spurring realizations and bringing about very real decisions.<\/p>\n

The most iconic of these dream sequences features Tony visiting a pier, where Sal appears to him as a talking fish and references the infamous Mafia saying \u201csleep with the fishes,\u201d letting Tony know that his character has been serving as an FBI informant.<\/p>\n

Tony, of course, decides to take out Sal, and the decision haunts the character for the rest of the show\u2019s run, with episodes making sometimes subtle, sometimes quite overt, references to fishes and Tony\u2019s guilt for taking out what could be considered his best actual friend in the show.<\/p>\n

Pastore’s Legacy<\/p>\n

Outside of the Lynchian moments, which are among the strongest David Lynch-esque sequences in many try-hard modern attempts, The Sopranos is certainly one of the best shows for creating (and eventually remembering) iconic characters that actors got to truly live in\u2014often for the rest of their careers.<\/p>\n

Pastore, like many other alums from the show, would go on to have several more roles and appearances in film and television, but often more or less reprising the same character he was known for in The Sopranos.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve watched the show, or are rewatching like I am myself right now, there\u2019s also a haunting oddness to his character\u2019s death and Pastore\u2019s heartfelt plea of \u201cnot in the face\u201d at the end that resonates not just in the show, but also outside it\u2014especially if you happen to see a fish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While I\u2019ve only seen it posted online a few times, I 100% subscribe to the argument that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,20055,93,61,60,246472,246471,246470,189586,246469],"class_list":["post-583597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-david-lynch","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lynchian","tag-prestige-tv","tag-salvatore-bonpensiero","tag-the-sopranos","tag-vincent-pastore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}