On the late, lamented “Six Feet Under,” the dead departed dearly. On “The Sopranos,” they just get whacked. Often without warning or, to be sure, moral hesitancy, they’re frequently instant fodder for the fishes or the knives at Satriale’s pork store.
But throughout the show’s five seasons of cold-blooded carnage, there are still “whoa”-inducing moments, leading to our list of:
Top 10 ‘hits’
Brendan Filone (Anthony DeSando). A young punk slain for his freelance crime spree with Christopher, shot at close range while soaking naked in the bathtub. Images of his demise are intercut with scenes of Meadow and her high school chorus singing “All Through the Night.”
Matt Bevilaqua (Lillo Brancato Jr.). After his role in shooting Christopher, he’s dragged to a remote shack, screaming “Mommy, please, Mommy” as Tony and Pussy fire away. In a creepy case of life imitating art, actor Brancato is currently charged in the actual killing of an off-duty cop.
Richie Aprile (David Proval). A comment about Richie’s son prompts him to sock his lover Janice (Tony’s sister) in the mouth. As they prepare to eat dinner, Richie asks Janice if she’s going to cry. Janice raises a gun and plugs him. Twice. Tony enlists Christopher and another henchman to butcher the body, and Livia, haranguing Tony, remarks, “Babies are like animals. … Somebody has to teach ’em right from wrong. And if you ask me, I did a pretty good job.”
“Big Pussy” Bonspensiero (Vincent Pastore). His cooperation with the feds discovered, Tony’s longtime confederate Pussy — “you were like a brother to me” — is taken on an almost gentlemanly ride on Tony’s new yacht. Confessing to the strains of Frank Sinatra, Big Pussy is served a final round of tequila shots as well as rare hints of remorse from Tony. (Erroneous information as published at this point has been deleted from this text.)
Tracee (Ariel Kiley). In an orgy of animalistic abuse, Ralph pounds his pregnant, stripper girlfriend with his fists out back behind the Bada Bing. Tony is repulsed, though more injured by the insult to the club than Tracee’s slaughter: “How dare you … disrespect this place?”
Valery (Vitali Baganov). What starts as a simple errand to collect a payoff turns into a surreal nightmare. Christopher and Paulie knock out a Russian thug and take him by car trunk to the New Jersey pine barrens. He escapes, though later shot in the head by one of their bullets, never to be seen again. Meanwhile, Paulie and Chris’ genre-busting sojourn lost in the woods is a mix of “Survivor,” Samuel Beckett, and Abbott and Costello.
Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano). Tony and Ralph slug it out in a bloody kitchen fistfight. Ralph’s impromptu weaponry includes an aerosol cleanser, but he’s no match for Tony, who strangles his opponent. Ralph’s body is dismembered in the bathtub and later tossed from a cliff.
Minn Matrone (Fran Anthony). Paulie is caught burglarizing the home of Minn, a longtime friend of his mother’s. When Minn threatens to rat him out to Mama, they wrestle until he smothers her with an oxblood red sofa cushion. But not before she lectures, “You were always a little bastard.”
Adriana La Cerva (Drea Matteo). The unkindest kill of all. In a scene of visceral horror, the fetching, fatally dim Adriana is driven into the woods by longtime friend Silvio and gunned down like an animal, betrayed by her lover Chris. Though possibly engineered to free Matteo to jump to NBC’s “Joey,” her slaughter nevertheless combined coldhearted plot logic and true viewer torture and shock.
Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi). The mobster version of mercy killing takes place when Tony Soprano kills Tony Blundetto to spare him the sadistic torture planned by rival mobsters he has enraged. When Blundetto, carrying groceries, steps on the porch of the house where he’s hiding, Soprano quietly appears from around the corner and fires a shotgun into his head. Later, Tony tells Christopher to “go pick up your cousin. He should be buried.”
NOT TO OVERLOOK GOD’S INNOCENT CREATURES:
A wild deer, shot during Christopher and Paulie’s wandering in the New Jersey pine barrens wilderness.
Pie-O-My, the racehorse fatally injured in a fire believed to be deliberately set by Ralph Cifaretto.
Cozette, Adriana’s pet Maltese, smothered underneath boyfriend Christopher while he was relaxing, high on heroin.
AND FOR NATURAL DEATHS, none broke our hearts as badly as that of Livia, Tony’s willful, mythically self-absorbed mother who well lives up to her poisonous namesake in “I, Claudius.” Her fictional death came as a result of the actual demise of the great Nancy Marchand, who brought Livia to such memorable life in one of television’s more soaring swan songs.
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A primer
SEASON 1
Panic attack-prone Tony Soprano sees a shrink, the guys torch Artie’s restaurant for the insurance, and Christopher and Brendan hijack trucks for extra cash. Uncle Junior takes revenge on that and, for separate reasons, faces arrest. Tony gets Livia into a nursing home, where she plots with Junior to end her son’s life. And we meet the nuclear Sopranos: combative bourgeois babe Carmela, princessy daughter Meadow and shy, uncertain Anthony Jr.
SEASON 2
Tony’s hellish sister Janice shows up and becomes engaged to Richie Aprile. Big Pussy secretly talks to the feds. Furio, destined to be a Carmela flirtation, arrives from Italy. Christopher is nearly killed, and Tony dumps his mistress, Irina. Janice murders Richie, and Tony and the guys off Big Pussy.
SEASON 3
The Feds plant a bug in the Sopranos’ laundry room, Livia dies, Janice steals Svetlana’s prosthetic leg and Meadow dates a multiracial college boy. Tony’s shrink, Dr. Melfi, is raped. Tony romances and dumps Mercedes saleswoman Gloria Trillo. Christmas is a happy occasion, though Tony’s idea of gift-giving includes beating up Janice’s enemy and Meadow’s new boyfriend.
SEASON 4
Christopher avenges his father’s death, Uncle Junior prepares for a RICO trial, Tony and Ralph engage in a simmering feud and Tony gets word of ex-mistress Trillo’s suicide. Tony weasels out of a housing purchase by torturing the dealer by blaring Dean Martin music, and Carmela blisteringly confronts Tony about his adultery. Tony moves out.
SEASON 5
Tony Blundetto is released after 15 years in jail. He was arrested because Tony Soprano couldn’t make the job thanks to an attack by thugs. (In fact, secretly, a source of major guilt, Soprano had merely suffered a panic attack.) Carmela, hamstrung in her efforts to get legal help divorcing Tony, due to his clout, gives up and lets him return home. Adriana tries to enlist Christopher to join her in cooperating with the feds, only to be killed by Silvio. And Tony B.’s antics get him on a hit list and exacerbate Soprano’s struggles with rising kingpin Johnny Sack. Soprano himself executes Tony B. and squares things with Sack just as an FBI sting operation descends on Sack’s home. Tony Soprano narrowly escapes.
THIS SEASON …
Will Johnny Sack turn rat and threaten Tony’s freedom? HOW Will Adriana’s murder affect Christopher’s attraction to drugs and ultimate loyalty to the mob? What’s the real motive behind Carmela’s letting Tony move back in? And Tony Jr.? Event planning? What’s up with that?
