The Sopranos

The Sopranos was a U.S. television show that broadcast 86 episodes in seasonal blocks of 8-12 episodes on the cable service HBO from 1999 to 2007 depicting the daily life of an Italian-American crime family in New Jersey. Centered around the family ties and criminal business enterprises of crime boss -- and suburban father -- Tony Soprano, the show employed extended sequences of comedy, fantasy, and ironic, stylized representations of violence to advance the story. David Chase, the show's creator, wrote most of its dream sequences. The show's popularity made it the most highly rated cable television program its entire final season, rivalling broadcast network television's numbers when it maintained an audience of about five million households, and three times that number when an episode's subsequent airings are included (Nielsen's "coverage" rating).

Cast

For the run of the series, Tony's immediate family composed his wife Carmela (Edie Falco), eldest daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), youngest son Anthony Jr. or "A.J." (Robert Iler), and himself (James Gandolfini). His mother Livia (Nancy Marchand) died early in season two, but his uncle Corrado "Junior" Soprano (Dominic Chianese) played a key role each season, as did his nephew Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) and, starting with season two, his sister Janice (Aida Turturro).

Christopher and Uncle Junior were also part of Tony's crime family, which also included, for the run of the series, Tony's consiglieri Silvio "Sil" Dante and captain Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri. Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero (Vincent Pastore) was a captain Tony, Paulie, and Sil murdered early in the series when they discovered he had turned FBI informant. Tony's guilt over murdering his longtime friend returned thematically from time to time, as did Big Pussy himself via fantasy sequences.

Other prominent crime family members included: Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo), nephew Christopher's longtime girfriend whom Tony had Sil murder late in the series when the FBI pressured her to turn informant; Robert "Bobby Bacala" Baccalieri (Steve Schirripa), uncle Junior's soldier and assistant who eventually married Tony's sister Janice and became a captain; Jewish loan shark Herman "Hesh" Rabkin (Jerry Adler), Tony's sometime advisor; John "Johnny Sack" Sacrimoni (Vincent Curatola), head of New York's Lupertazzi crime family until he was convicted and imprisoned in the final season; and Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent), who replaced Johnny Sack and was murdered in the war he started with Tony.

Aside from criminal and family, the story incorporated many other kinds of recurring supporting characters, such as FBI Agent Dwight Harris (Matt Servitto) and Tony's non-criminal childhood friend, restaurateur Artie Bucco (John Ventimiglia). Tony's psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) played a prominent role throughout the series, appearing in almost every episode, and the show thematized Tony's ongoing psychotherapy as much as his family and criminal business. The show even occasionally portrayed Dr. Melfi's own psychotherapy sessions with Dr. Elliot Kupferberg (Peter Bogdanovich).

The Last Episode and Its Controversy

The final episode aired on June 10, 2007, resolving Tony's war with Phil Leotardo when Phil's men betray him and his murder is depicted gruesomely and ironically. At a gas station, Phil urges his twin grandchildren to wave "bye-bye" to him as they sit in his car, whereupon Tony's hit men shoot Phil in the head. When Phil falls dead his own car runs slowly over his corpse, graphically crushing his skull on the audio track as we watch the two infants smiling innocently in the car unaware of what's beneath them. Among other plot elements, the episode also resolves the direction troubled A.J.'s life takes into an entry level filmmaking job after his attempted suicide, Meadow declares with conviction her desire to become a defense lawyer, and the elderly Uncle Junior's dementia becomes total as the intensely dramatic penultimate scene with Tony reveals Junior doesn't even remember that he "once ran North Jersey."

While the last episode typified the series, its final sequence raised a controversy because it ambiguously represented the series's actual final moment by employing non-linear technique to a far greater degree than all the previous episodes. More characteristic of an auteur's style, the director and show's creator David Chase's technique raised the ire of many devotees enough to threaten canceling their HBO subscriptions and vent their dissatisfaction and even rage at Chase publically on web sites. The episode became so well known that prominent 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton parodied it to produce one of her campaign's promotional videos.

External links

• The Sopranos at HBO's web site.
• The Sopranos at Internet Movie Database.