The Sopranos is easily in the mix as the very best television show of all time.
I consider it my duty to solemnly (and geekily) contemplate the top television shows of all time.
Editor’s note: check out The Best 100 TV Shows Ever, which as of this writing, has The Sopranos in the numero uno slot.
For me – and for any serious watcher of TV, I’d like to believe – The Sopranos is easily in the mix as the very best television show ever made.
While The Sopranos sits on the shoulders of great crime and mobster films that came before it (The Godfather Parts I and II, Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and so on), it’s a deeply influential and groundbreaking work of art in its own right. I’ve watched the entire series several times already, and find I enjoy and get much out of each run.
The Sopranos has what I like to call a “vortex effect” that compels me to (compulsively) watch as many episodes as I can get my hands on once I get going. For years, that meant ordering out to Netflix and greedily waiting by my mailbox for a few DVDs at a go. But now that I own the entire series, the vortex can have a deliciously vicious pull that takes a major sprint of episodes to escape from.
I’m in the center of a Sopranos vortex at the moment (and what better time than the summer for this?), and here are some of the things that particularly struck me this time around:
It’s quirky
The Sopranos pilot episode is one of my very most favorite hours of television (I have it in mind to write a lengthy essay on it, in fact… one day it will happen!), and I absolutely love that the very first thing you see is Tony Soprano (James Gandofini) staring at a sculpture in Dr. Melfi’s (Lorraine Bracco) outer waiting room with a puzzled look on his face. I think about that moment a lot as it’s more representative of the show than shoot outs and bloodshed, although there are of course elements of the latter. But the fact that so much time and energy is invested in “small” moments, regular life-type moments, and the comedy that comes out of the mundane and ridiculous situations that punctuate real life – Paulie Walnuts, played by Tony Sirico, eyeing the painting of Tony-as-general with Pie-O-My as though it were staring back at him is a quintessential example of this – makes the violence and “mobster stuff” that does bare its ugly face every now and again all the more powerful.
It’s subversive
A book can easily be written about how Tony Soprano is a great anti-hero because we love him despite the fact that he does fairly monstrous things on a regular basis. But there’s a lot of other wonderfully subversive things sprinkled throughout The Sopranos as well. A great example is Jackie Aprile, Jr.’s (Jason Cerbone) death. Jackie Jr. seems to be set up as a nearly irredeemable if mildly tragic figure: Tony can’t corral him and set him on the straight and narrow to appease his conscience and the memory of Jackie’s late father, while Jackie Jr. seems determined to bullshit Tony, Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), and everyone else around him while sliding into mafia life. His disastrous decision to rob a poker game (egged on by disastrous mentor Ralph Cifaretto, played by Joe Pantoliano, and a story about how Tony himself got his big “break”), which produces several killings, seems to easily write him off to his fate.
His fate is to get clipped himself (by Vito Spatafore, played by Joseph R. Gannascoli, I realized this time around) of course, but before that happens there’s a wonderful sequence where we see Jackie Jr. hiding out in the projects. He’s being hidden by the fantastic Michael K. Williams (Omar Little from The Wire), but more importantly we see a different side to Jackie Jr., a side that could have emerged if he were not raised under the shadow of gangsters and mob life. I love the short scene where he plays chess with Williams’ bright daughter. There’s something almost redemptive about it in a way, if only because we see Jackie in a mode where he’s not bullshitting anyone and not emulating what he thinks a man/made man should be. It turns out to be the last conversation that he has as he gets popped outside in the next scene. It’s subversive and powerful and another example of how real-life interactions interspersed with the specter of violence create compelling drama on this show.
It’s got layers on layers
We all know this, of course. But the incredible thing is how much you learn from multiple viewings. Because of the long gap between seasons when it originally aired on HBO, and because I actually didn’t start to watch the series regularly until Season Three or so (I know, it’s sacrilegious, but I didn’t have HBO during the show’s early going) there are things I’m just “discovering” now that I feel positively sheepish about not knowing before. Example: I now realize that Beansie’s (Paul Herman) storyline goes like this: he gets completely jacked up in New Jersey by rageaholic Richie Aprile (David Proval) – putting him in a wheelchair – prior to making several appearances later in the series when Tony visits Miami.
It’s hilarious
Again, another obvious statement but I’ll note that the humor holds up remarkably well on later viewings. I think again it’s because this is such a well written show, it’s comedy that stems from real life situations, and often undercuts dark moments. Tony uses sarcastic retorts as an innate defense system, and guys like Paulie and Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) are often hilarious without quite meaning to be.
There’s some really weird and interesting cameos
I mentioned Michael K. Williams above. Then there’s Will Arnett, normally known for off-the-wall performances such as on Arrested Development, who plays a very strait-laced husband to “Danielle,” the undercover agent sent in to get close to Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo). There’s also a litany of Hollywood stars who have cameos playing themselves, such as John Favreau (who learns quickly that hanging out with Christopher, guns, and cocaine is not a good combination) and Ben Kingsley.
There’s very few boring parts
With all of the plotlines, characters, and situations developed over 86 episodes, it’s astounding how few sequences feel weaker than the others. Only one really comes to mind: Season Five, Episode Seven’s “In Camelot,” where Tony spends several extended scenes with his father’s old mistress, Fran Felstein (Polly Bergen). It’s kind of interesting to learn more about Tony’s similarities to his father and his respect for the “classy” mistress, but on later viewings it’s the only time where I’m tempted to hit the old fast forward.
And on an overall level, I’d say that Seasons Three through Five are slightly less intense and compelling than One, Two, and Six (or Six/Seven) as a whole.
The tensions doth build
Finally, it’s a pleasure to watch each season’s arc ever so slowly and carefully add up its disparate strands and threads and puzzle pieces and build the momentum to a sudden outburst of clashes, revelations, twists, and slights of hand. And sometimes the “twist” is that there is no twist, which is the mark of master craftsmanship (this is why I have total respect for the infamous series finale).
Overall, there’s so much to absorb, to learn, and to enjoy from going back to The Sopranos… which is why I’m going to stop writing right now and head back into the vortex.
This piece originally appeared on TV Geek Army.