If you think, talk, or write about TV shows a lot, maybe you’re almost tired of The Sopranos at this point. Emphasis on “almost.” It’s the one that people think, talk, and write about perhaps most of all, and often in ways that sound hyperbolic. It also means everything has been thought, discussed, and written about, when it comes to The Sopranos, but despite all that, the show remains interesting, relevant, and worth keeping in conversation.
It’ll be a dark day if/when The Sopranos genuinely becomes insufferable to talk about, but for now, why not indulge a bit more? This show is about a mobster grappling with family drama and his own mental health, but it’s also about life more generally, and the various emotions connected to getting by in the 21st century. The Sopranos endures and remains a vital study of human nature, crime/injustice, and family, among other things, and these episodes represent the show at its absolute best.
10
“College”
Season 1, Episode 5 (1999)
This ranking won’t be in chronological order, but it still feels fitting to kick things off with a relatively early episode of the show’s run, and the one that many people call the first truly great episode of The Sopranos. It’s the fifth episode of the first season, “College,” and it mostly involves Tony (James Gandolfini) taking his daughter, Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), to various colleges she could attend, and then what happens when he spots an informant in hiding during said college tour.
Meadow raises suspicions here about Tony’s real job, and so he’s further motivated to keep what he wants to do to the informant from her, all the while still pursuing the mob’s code relating to how to deal with said “rat.” “College” sees Tony acting in a way that main characters in television shows really didn’t act before The Sopranos, and though it’s mild compared to what he does later—and compared to what other TV anti-heroes have done on-screen—it’s still something that can be admired for how bold and game-changing it was by the standards of 1999 television.
9
“University”
Season 3, Episode 6 (2001)
While she was looking at colleges in “College,” Meadow is at college (or university) in “University.” Funny how that worked out. That whole experience is contrastedin this episode with that of Tracee (Ariel Kiley), a pole dancer who works at the Bada Bing,a strip club that serves as a hangout for Tony and his crew. And that crew includes, at this point in time, Ralph (Joe Pantoliano), who’s a real piece of work.
He has a very destructive relationship with Tracee in this episode, and behaves in a way that makes him entirely irredeemable after this point… and he was no saint—of Newark or elsewhere‚before this point, too. “University” is incredibly intense and seems designed to drive home how awful and generally “not cool” the main characters are, with “Employee of the Month,” also from Season 3, being comparable in terms of being an escalation in intensity and grimness compared to how the show was before the third season.
8
“Soprano Home Movies”
Season 6, Episode 13 (2007)
The final season of The Sopranos was split into two, with 12 episodes airing in 2006 and the remaining nine in 2007. So “Soprano Home Movies” feels a bit like a season premiere, kicking off Season 6B (those final nine episodes), and doing so with what initially seems like a fairly low-key premise for the opening chapter of the last run of episodes.
Tony and Carmela (Edie Falco) go to a cabin to celebrate Tony’s birthday, and both Janice (Aida Turturro) and Bobby (Steve Schirripa) come along. Things go okay until they don’t, with a family squabble escalating to an alarming extent, which in turn has some serious consequences for Bobby, given what Tony decides to do to effectively punish him. It’s a surprisingly moving hour of television, and a vital one for Bobby and his overall character arc; nothing is quite the same for him after this point.
7
“Whoever Did This”
Season 4, Episode 9 (2002)
A little like “Soprano Home Movies,” Season 4’s “Whoever Did This” has an argument explode into violence, and there are once more some serious consequences. But also, those consequences are strangely humorous, when viewed a certain way, even if the comedy here is exceptionally dark, all the while also being oddly surreal and kind of nightmarish.
It’s a difficult one to explain beyond that, especially while keeping specific spoilers to a minimum, but the ride this episode ends up taking you on is quite phenomenal. It’s effectively placed within the season, too, and it ultimately ends up altering where you might’ve expected the final four episodes to go. They still go somewhere great (there is one more Season 4 episode worth mentioning in a bit, after all), but it’s great in a fairly unexpected way. Even in its back half, The Sopranos was continually more than capable of keeping you on your toes.
6
“The Blue Comet”
Season 6, Episode 20 (2007)
If you go by IMDb ratings, “The Blue Comet” is a top-tier episode of The Sopranos, and it checks out. It’s the penultimate episode of the show’s entire run, and it’s the one hour of the show where the stakes feel the absolute highest. There’s a sense of dread and tension in the final episode, too, but the conflict here, in “The Blue Comet,” is undeniably more explosive.
The Sopranos was never shy about killing off characters, but even by its standards, “The Blue Comet” is ruthless, both in terms of what happens and in terms of what you worry could happen. Again, there’s a bit of talking around this one, rather than talking about this one, but it would be a shame to give everything away on the off chance that you’re yet to watch this show. What matters is that this one does indeed feel like a fitting episode to have near a show’s conclusion, arguably scratching the same itch as the exceptionally high-stakes Breaking Bad episode, “Ozymandias.”
5
“Whitecaps”
Season 4, Episode 13 (2002)
“Whitecaps” does not join the ranks of season finales of The Sopranos that involved significant character deaths, be they cathartic or tragic, since the stakes are a little different here. This is an episode that mostly deals with the breakdown of Tony and Carmela’s marriage, with one too many instances of cheating driving the latter away from the former, potentially for good.
It’s an episode that sees Gandolfini and Falco giving especially great performances, getting a lot to chew on dramatically, and more than making the most of it. “Whitecaps” is a stressful and emotionally intense episode of The Sopranos for reasons that are a little different from most stressful and emotionally intense episodes of the show, but it’s arguably that which makes it stand out and feel particularly special.
4
“Made in America”
Season 6, Episode 21 (2007)
Alongside “Soprano Home Movies” and “The Blue Comet,” “Made in America” is a key episode in helping season 6B feel like the show at pretty much its strongest. Or, if you want to count it all as one massive season, then Season 6 is indeed a great one, even if the final nine episodes are generally better than those first 12 that aired in 2006.
“Made in America” is, of course, the very last episode, and it’s kind of infamous for reasons that everyone probably knows about, maybe even those who’ve not seen the show in its entirety. It concludes The Sopranos in a typically bold way, given how daring and game-changing the whole show largely was, but it’s probably even bolder here than one might expect. Everything that could be said about it specifically has been said, and if you know, then you know.
3
“Pine Barrens”
Season 3, Episode 11 (2001)
Representing The Sopranos at its funniest, “Pine Barrens” is legendary and, according to some, the single best episode of the show’s entire run. Much of it revolves around Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Paulie (Tony Sirico) having a very bad time after a hit goes wrong, and the person they were supposed to get rid of evades them. They give chase, and then get lost in the woods.
If you ever wanted to see The Revenant with lower stakes and everything played for laughs, not to mention with a pair of mobsters who kind of hate each other instead of an Oscar-hungry Leonardo DiCaprio, then “Pine Barrens” is the episode for you. And even if you didn’t ever want to see that (understandable), then “Pine Barrens” is still probably the episode for you. It’s great, and easily one of the most memorable hours the show ever aired.
2
“Long Term Parking”
Season 5, Episode 12 (2004)
Another essential episode of The Sopranos, in various ways, “Long Term Parking” is the penultimate episode of the show’s penultimate season, and the single best episode from said season. There’s an arc here that played out throughout much of Seasons 4 and 5 that comes to a rather bold end, and all the while, conflict that will spill over into Season 6 is also reaching dangerous highs.
The stakes are huge, in other words, and again, this one is difficult to talk about in detail. But “Long Term Parking” is a heavy-hitter and a powerful hour of TV. Like “Pine Barrens,” it’s a popular contender for the crown of “Best Overall Episode of The Sopranos,” but there might just be one that’s even better than the likes of “Pine Barrens” and “Long Term Parking.”
1
“Funhouse”
Season 2, Episode 13 (2000)
That single episode that tops all the others is “Funhouse,” which is a textbook example of how to best finish an already great season of television. There’s been a whole arc with Big Pussy (Vincent Pastore) that comes to a head here, and also, “Funhouse” is willing to get weird and surreal, owing to much of the episode being made up of fever dreams Tony is having due to getting food poisoning.
So, it’s kind of a dream sequence-heavy episode, but then the core drama here is also bold and game-changing, with “Funhouse” having a huge effect on the show’s remaining episodes after this point. Even more than “College,” it’s probably the first flat-out masterful episode of The Sopranos, and not only is it the show at its best, but there’s an argument to be made that it’s up there with the best episodes of all time, and from any show ever.
Source link
#Sopranos #Episodes #Time #Ranked