The New SteveSilver.net

Top 13 “Sopranos” Episodes of All Time

Because there are thirteen per season, you see…

1. “I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano” (Season 1) The inaugural season’s finale begins with Tony recovering from an attempt on his life, and ends with him screaming at his mother for okaying it- all interspersed with various killings of Uncle Junior’s henchmen, and bad-ass pronouncements by Junior himself (“My nephew running things? Not in this life.”) I’ll put the last three hours of Season 1 up against any movie from the latter half of the ‘90s.

2. “D-Girl” (Season 2): Beneath the Jon Favreau/Janeane Garofolo Hollywood subplot was the series’ most moving scene: Big Pussy, as the FBI agents listen in on the wire, telling AJ what a great man Tony is, and later- still on tape- crying about it in the bathroom. All that, plus a great performance by “D-Girl” Alicia Witt- I’m not sure I can approve of a culture in which Jessica Simpson is a superstar, but most people have never heard of Alicia Witt.

3. “Pine Barrens” (Season 3): The lone masterpiece of the very uneven third season was the famous lost-in-the-woods-with-the-Russian-episode, in which Paulie and Chris find themselves lost overnight in South Jersey’s Pine Barrens, looking for an escaped Russian gangster. Full of great one-liners, the episode was directed by future Tony B Steve Buscemi.

4. “Isabella” (Season 1): The jump-the-sharkers who bashed Season 5’s “Test Dream” episode obviously don’t remember Season 1’s penultimate show, which featured Tony’s Lithium-aided fantasy of an apparitional character, “Italian exchange student” Isabella. Oh yea, and Tony gets shot- in slow motion, as he drops his bottle of orange juice- a nod to the “Godfather” films’ "orange death" motif.

5. “The Weight” (Season 4): The series’ most underrated episode began the transformation of Johnny Sack into one of its best characters. Angry that Ralphie made a fat joke about his wife Ginny, Johnny demands a hit on the Joey Pants character, leading to death threats flying in both directions and a hilarious visit to a family of inbred hitmen in Rhode Island. But in the last five minutes, we realize the entire spouse-is-too-fat theme of the episode was really about Tony, as Carmela spends a botched sexual encounter realizing that she’s no longer attracted to Tony and leaning towards Furio.

6. “Nobody Knows Anything” (Season 1): In the first episode of the series that I ever saw, Tony gets a tip that Big Pussy is working for the feds, from Det. Makazian (John Heard, who showed up next to Annette Bening in “Test Dream”). Tony later learns Vin was wrong- but even later, that he was right after all. The episode takes its name from William Goldman's famous summation of Hollywood.

7. “Long Term Parking” (Season 5): Last week’s episode, featuring the Tony/Carmela reconciliation, the end of the Johnny/Carmine war, and the whacking of Adriana, represented the long-awaited resolution of several long-simmering plots, while slyly referencing “Goodfellas” throughout.

8. “College” (Season 1): In the first episode that really put across the whole family/Family thing, Tony takes Meadow on a tour of Northeastern colleges, and in the process discovers a long-ago mob rat who he later kills. Remembered for Meadow’s “Dad, are you in the Mafia?” query. Also, for what it’s worth, the favorite episode of at least a couple of the producers.

9. “Unidentified Black Males” (Season 5): History will remember this one as the “Gay Vito” episode, but this Season 5 hour brilliantly tossed in four separate references to phantom black criminals, while also filling us in on the background of the most important storyline of Season 5, the Tony S/Tony B relationship.

10. “Funhouse” (Season 2): Another forerunner of “Test Dream,” the Season 2 closer saw a food-poisoned Tony hallucinating about standing on the Asbury Park boardwalk and being addressed by a fish speaking in Pussy’s voice (“these two guys on either side of me? They’re sleeping.”) Mostly given a pass, I guess, because it consisted of several short “fantasy” sequences instead of one long one, it ended with Pussy’s inevitable whacking, followed by a montage of family business activity set to Jagger/Richards’ “Thru and Thru”- after the season had begun with another montage, set to Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year.”

11. “Irregular Around the Margins” (Season 5): The third great hour of this season had the Chappaquiddick-like Tony/Adriana car accident, and also featuring the near-whacking of Christopher and the "Bye Bye Birdie"-like succession of gossip phone calls by the mobsters. Extra points for Christopher's admonishment of Tony, "you'd fuck a catcher's mitt."

12. “The Knight in White Satin Armor” (Season 2): The escalating Tony-Richie war culminates in the series’ most shocking moment- Janice’s shooting of Richie. Most shocking until the Vito thing, that is.

13. “Whitecaps” (Season 4): It’s far from perfect, and most fans recoiled at the idea of a whack-free season finale. But the episode that began Tony and Carmela’s separation merits inclusion on the list if only for Edie Falco giving the best single-episode performance in "Sopranos" history.

I forget anything? That's what the comments are for...

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 25, 2004 08:48 PM