The five episodes of ‘The Sopranos’ that confirm its legacy
There are some TV shows that seem to go far beyond the confines of the rectangular screen from which they emanate and traverse the boundaries into becoming a genuine cultural artefact, and given the artistic and cultural impression that The Sopranos has made ever since it arrived in living rooms across the world in 1999, the David Chase creation certainly fits into such a category.
The show focuses on James Gandofini’s character, the inimitable Tony Soprano, a New Jersey-based Italian-American mob boss, who must persistently juggle his familial commitments to his wife and children and the stressful and violent nature of his professional life in the criminal underworld.
All the while, Tony relates such issues to his therapist, Dr Jennifer Melfi, and through these sessions, we are afforded a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a mafia boss. The Sopranos features some of the greatest characters and moments from the history of TV, and it’s easy to see why the series is held in such high esteem.
With a remarkable 86 episodes of the iconic show to have been released between 1999 and 2007, it’s hard to point out the handful that summarise the series as a whole, but we’ve taken on the task of naming the five episodes of The Sopranos that confirm its legendary status within the world of television.
Five iconic The Sopranos episodes:
Season 1, Episode 5: ‘College’
Even as early as the fifth episode of the first season of The Sopranos, it was clear that Tony’s whole thing had to juggle his professional and familial commitments simultaneously. ‘College’ saw Tony take his daughter Meadow about a series of colleges in Maine, a first glimpse into Tony the father, not just Tony the mob boss.
However, the crime underworld is never too far from Tony, even when he’s all the way up in Maine and the sighting of a former mob snitch sees the head of the Soprano family take a brief murderous detour to take care of business behind Meadow’s back. This episode is the perfect summary of Tony’s entire dilemma: the management of his increasingly stressful life.
Season 3, Episode 11: ‘Pine Barrens’
Episode 11 of season three has to be one of the most iconic of all the excellent moments of The Sopranos as it showed that beneath the tough exteriors of guys like Christopher and Paulie, there lies a deep vulnerability that even the wisest and most masculine mobsters can never really escape from.
Christopher and Paulie find themselves lost in the New Jersey woodlands after chasing down a Russian mobster. Snowed in and at the point of freezing, they spend the night in a van, reluctantly cuddled up to one another. The Sopranos has never been afraid of moments of humour amid the darkness, but Pine Barrens really cranked the laughs up to 11.
Season 4, Episode 13: ‘Whitecaps’
While there are murders, underhand dealings, retributions and injustices throughout The Sopranos, sometimes the most interesting moments come in the relationships between Tony and the rest of his family members. Episode 13 of season four saw Tony’s marriage with the ever-patient Carmella hit breaking point, indicating the true source of the family’s issues.
Gandolfini and Falco are absolutely breathtaking, and Whitecaps is an hour-long argument between the two with all the authenticity of two master actors at work. All the tension of the previous episodes and seasons finally bubbles over, and the secrets of both Tony and Carmela come pouring out in one of the show’s undoubtedly most intense events.
Season 5, Episode 12: ‘Long Term Parking’
Another running theme of The Sopranos is, invariably, death, particularly of those with whom the audience became closely acquainted. Early on, we lost ‘Big Pussy’ and later Christopher, but few deaths were as harrowing as the inevitable demise of Adriana. After becoming an FBI informant, Adriana’s double life eventually becomes too much to bear, and when Tony catches on, he only has one choice – to silence her.
Adriana has already told Christopher about her informing, and it’s he who tells Tony. Silvio is sent to take Adriana to the hospital to visit Christopher, who has supposedly tried to kill himself, but as Silvio drives into the woodland, she begins to beg for her life. Silvio shoots Christopher’s fiancée off-screen, and audiences are left to ruminate once again on the ruthless nature of life in the mob.
Season 6, Episode 21: ‘Made in America’
Some eight years after the first episode of The Sopranos was aired, the legendary series finally reached its conclusion with an episode that truly confounded its audiences across the world. The last fans ever saw of Tony Soprano was him sitting in a restaurant with his family, enjoying a meal, having (hopefully) taken care of business once and for all. Things were really looking up for the Sopranos!
However, there’s tension in the final scene that suggests that danger is still afoot and when suddenly, out of nowhere, remarkably, David Chase decides to cut to black, leaving viewers to adjust their TV sets only to realise that this really was the end, and a highly ambiguous one at that. Some thought that Tony had been finally hit, echoing Bobby’s one-time words, “You probably don’t ever hear it when it happens, right?” but whatever the true ending of The Sopranos is, the final episode ensured it would remain one of the most-talked about TV series of all time.
