Jackie Aprile Sr. -- At Full Length -- in "The Deuce" on HBO

Its well known "Sopranos" lore that actor Michael Rispoli came very, very close to being cast as Tony Soprano, but that eventually James Gandolfini was chosen instead. Gandolfini got the part and the glory and the high pay, and TV history. I guess it is sort of how like Mickey Rooney didn't get to play Archie Bunker and Carroll O'Connor got history.

Rispoli DID take the short but important role of "Jackie Aprile, Sr." and appeared in a few episodes of Season One of The Sopranos. Jackie Sr. turned out to be a very important role on the series.

For we meet Jackie Sr. as he struggles with stomach cancer -- while still performing his duties as "acting boss" of the New Jersey mob, and then watch as, over just a few episodes and a few weeks of story time, Jackie is reduced to barely being conscious and aware of anything in his hospital bed as Tony Soprano sadly watches his friend disappear before his eyes. And die.

Its good that we got to see Jackie Aprile Sr. right at the start of The Sopranos, because his ghost hangs over many of the ensuing seasons. His more primitive and ugly brother Richie Aprile arrives as Tony's most dangerous antagonist of Season Two. His superhot jock of a son, Jackie Aprile, Jr. comes to prominence as the bane of Tony's existence in Season Three(dating Tony's daughter Meadow and disobeying Tony's orders to stay out of criminal activity.) And all through the series, Jackie's widow Rose stands by as the best friend of Carmela Soprano even as she weathers addtional tragedies after Jackie's death.

Rispoli as Jackie even gets a flashback(I can't recall the season -- two?) in which we see him hale and hearty and running his crew before cancer arrived. Its interesting to see him as the boss and Tony as kind of "the big galoot enforcer" of that crew.

Anyway, I personally always enjoyed Rispoli's brief performance as Jackie Sr. and very much liked how he hung over the entire series and I was very sorry he missed that shot at big stardom -- though Gandolfini made it his own and had star qualities proven both before and after The Sopranos.

Thus, imagine my surprise -- and pleasure -- when Michael Rispoli got ANOTHER Mafia gang boss role in ANOTHER HBO series -- set in the 70's -- called The Deuce. That three-season series opened in 2017 -- 18 years after The Sopranos premiere -- so Rispoli really had to wait for the opportunity(after working in other jobs in between) but he made the most of it.

Watching Michael Rispoli in The Deuce as Rudy Pipilo is a two-part treat. Since cancer isn't dogging the character, we pretty much get to see how Jackie Aprile Sr. would have functioned, top-speed, top-boss, day to day.

And we also get to see an "alternate Tony Soprano" who rather convinces us that Gandofini was the best choice overall -- perhaps more for the suburban husband/father side of the tale rather than the gangster tale.

There's only one problem: The Deuce -- about sex in the 70's in the worst parts of NYC -- is pretty disgusting a lot of the time, The Sopranos downplayed such ugliness and The Deuce wallows in it.

The sex is wall-to-wall but The Deuce makes the point that sex at this gutter level is anything but sexy: hookers, pimps(pretty much all monstrous abusers of women), the porn industry...it gets pretty gross after awhile, dealing with the realities of hygiene and bodily fluids and..weirdly, Rispoli's appearances as an amiable but ever-more-dangerous gangster kingpin in the life of "hero" bar owner James Franco(and his CGI twin, also played by Franco)...is almost a relief after all the "Taxi Driver" filth and grime.

Hey, maybe the sex in The Deuce(and the dysfunction and criminal cruelty of the people involved in it) will entertain you. It didn't me -- but seeing Michael Rispoli FINALLY get to play a mobster lead at full length was worth it.