With The Many Saints of Newark being released in theatres this past weekend, it is only fitting that we discuss one of the greatest shows to ever touch television
More than anything, the positive reviews of The Many Saints of Newark allowed me to finally exhale. It appears that at the bare minimum, Many Saints is a good movie. Critics have liked it so far, and user reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. I personally have not yet been able to see the new film myself—though I am incredibly excited to—and the positive reviews have eased my stress.
Thank goodness that Many Saints didn’t sour the legacy of my favourite television show of all time: The Sopranos.
This article isn’t a review of Many Saints. This article is all about The Sopranos, one of television’s greatest gifts to the world. This is an article for those that have watched The Sopranos for hundreds of hours, and those who have never heard of it. It is a review for the die-hard fans, and it is a Many Saints primer for those new to the world of Tony and the gang.
This is simply a list of my personal top five Sopranos episodes, in no order, and what I believe makes these episodes so special. You by no means need to watch these episodes to understand what happens in Many Saints, but watching them will certainly give you a flavour of the world that Tony and the gang brought to life.
Please excuse my descriptions of some of the episodes that may be lacking, but I hope not to spoil anything for any new viewers. Moreover, this list is not exhaustive—I could easily make about five of these lists, possibly more. Those that have seen the show know of its significance; and new viewers discover it quite quickly.
“College” (Season 1, Episode 5)
There is a very specific reason that “College” sits on almost every list of the greatest Sopranos episodes ever, and it is because this episode essentially showed the world that The Sopranos was not just another mob show, and that it was here to stay.
The episode only focuses on two storylines and four characters. Tony and his daughter Meadow go on a road trip to tour New England colleges, and Tony’s wife Carmela has a temptation-filled night with the local priest, Father Phil.
In this episode, viewers get their first taste of the infamous slow-burn dissatisfaction that the show became famous for, and they see for the first-time what separates Tony Soprano from every other prototypical mob boss. Without giving away too much, prepare to be unsatisfied with the result of the relationship between Carmela and Father Phil, and prepare to be disgusted by the antics Tony gets up to while touring with his daughter around New England.
“Sopranos Home Movies” (Season 6, Episode 13)
This is one that the Sopranos super fans will hopefully thank me for bringing back into their collective minds. Arguably my all-time favourite episode of the series, it again reminds the viewer that this is not a regular gangster show.
The majority of the episode is set at a cabin in upstate New York owned by Tony’s sister and her boyfriend. As in “College”, the show focuses on these four characters for the majority of the episode.
The viewer really sees the breadth of Tony’s bad side here. After a conflict between him and Bobby, his sister’s boyfriend, Tony instructs him to do something that he knows he does not want to do. Tony – incredibly salty because of the result of the conflict – goes out of his way to make Bobby’s life more difficult.
Tony is often portrayed as a conflicted antihero. But surely in this episode, I was not rooting for him.
“Long Term Parking” (Season 5, Episode 12)
Thinking about this episode leaves a bad feeling in my stomach—there’s no other way around it. It took until season five for The Sopranos to win its first Emmy, and it is largely credited to this heartbreaking episode. This episode is the devastating conclusion to a two-season long character arc for Adriana, who was slowly turned into an FBI cooperator against her will.
A large part of why I believe The Sopranos is so brilliant is the way that it took the concept of a mob show and transcended that genre. It differed from the epics like Goodfellas and The Godfather because it was more of a human reflection of mob life, whereas those movies tended to stick to the general tropes.
In this episode however, The Sopranos goes back to its roots. At the heart of the show—in between the ridiculous characters, the incredible storylines, and the slapstick comedy—is the Soprano criminal family. In case you forgot, “Long Term Parking” reminded us all of the rules of life that underlie the entirety of the show.
“Pine Barrens” (Season 3, Episode 11)
“Pine Barrens” is simply The Sopranos doing what it does best: being purely entertaining.
The episode, directed by future cast member and famous actor Steve Buscemi, follows Chris and Paulie—two members of the Soprano family—as they get stranded in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in the middle of winter while trying to collect a debt.
As described by Rolling Stone, we see the “gangster-out-of-water elements” that made the show so special. Two gangsters, freezing cold, one without a shoe, lost in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night. Put simply, it is hilarious, and it is black comedy at its best.
“Whoever Did This” (Season 4, Episode 9)
This was one of the few times I truly remember being satisfied by what happened in this show. This episode concludes the storylines of Tony and Ralphie’s horse, Pie-O-My, and does so in a startling fashion.
This episode is truly something else. It will leave you speechless, especially after watching the development of Tony and Ralphie’s relationship throughout Seasons 3 and 4. “Whoever Did This” was The Sopranos ultimate moment of delayed gratification, and for that reason alone it makes my list.