The 15 Best Episodes of ‘The Sopranos’

Tony Soprano’s therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, takes center stage in this episode. After a brutal sexual assault, she sees the name of her attacker as the “Employee of the Month” at a local sandwich shop. She later learns her assailant was let go on a technicality. In a session with Tony, she briefly considers asking him to avenge her rapist, but says no.

Prescribed lithium, Tony hallucinates a beautiful Italian exchange student, Isabella, who he believes lives next door. In reality, Tony has some nightmares to contend with, like barely escaping a hit put on him by his Uncle Junior. Or was it his mother, Livia? Dr. Melfi says his hallucination was due to the lithium, and takes him off the drug.

Tony’s squabbles with another Mafia family over a construction project and his relationship with his son dominate this episode. After a failed suicide attempt, Tony’s son, A.J., is put into psychiatric ward. After Tony admits he feels depressed, his wife, Carmela, blames him for A.J.’s condition. The relationship with the Lupertazzi family is further strained after Tony beats up another mobster.

Tony’s feud with a New York family led by Phil Leotardo continues, with Tony hoping it ends with him killing his own cousin, Tony Blundetto, to make peace. It doesn’t. At the end of the episode, Tony escapes as another New York mobster, Johnny Sack, is arrested by the FBI. Meanwhile, Christopher deals with the “disappearance” of his former girlfriend, Adriana.

Tony and his right hand man, Christopher Moltisanti, fight over a rumor that Tony and Christopher’s girlfriend, Adriana, were having sex when they were in a car accident. The two were actually driving to get cocaine. His wife Carmela also confronts him about the rumor. While this is going on, Adriana gets in deeper as an FBI informant. The title relates to Tony finding out he has a small skin cancer.

Fed up with Tony’s philandering, Carmela kicks him out of the house. This comes after Tony suggests they buy a shore home called Whitecaps. When the deal falls through, the owner refuses to return the $200,000 deposit. Tony blasts music from a nearby boat to get the seller to relent. Uncle Junior’s trial ends in a mistrial, while Tony and rival mobster Johnny Sack eye each other warily.

After arguing over who killed a horse, Tony kills mobster Ralph Cifaretto, who previously had murdered a stripper at the Bada Bing. Tony and Christopher dispose of the body piece by piece. Still on trial, Uncle Junior tries to feign dementia.

“Amour Fou” means crazy love, and that’s what Tony has with his latest girlfriend, Gloria Trillo. Gloria is unstable and Tony tries to break it off with her. Tony is also dealing with the fallout of a botched robbery that ended in several killings instigated by Jackie Aprile, Jr., the son of Jackie Aprile, a long-time rival. Tony wrestles over whether to kill Jackie Jr.

Tony’s troubled relationship with his mother, Livia, takes a sinister turn. After realizing his mother and his Uncle Junior were behind the hit on him, Tony goes to the nursing home where Livia just suffered a stroke. He tries to smother her with a pillow, but is stopped by staff. In other action, Uncle Junior is arrested by the FBI, and Tony and his crew whack some disloyal mobsters.

In the series finale, Tony kills his rival, Phil Leotardo. The fate of several other characters is also revealed. Uncle Junior suffers from dementia, daughter Meadow is engaged and announces her intention to pursue a law career, and A.J. works for a production company after his parents nix his idea of joining the army. But the ultimate fate of Tony is unclear. As he and his family sit in a diner, the screen goes to black. Series creator David Chase has confirmed that Tony was killed.

Mob rival Richie Aprile plans a hit on Tony, which should make things a bit awkward since Tony’s sister, Janice, is engaged to Richie. When Tony learns of the planned hit, he decides to do away with Richie. But during an argument, Janice shoots and kills Richie. Janice is then put on a bus to Seattle. Tony also tries to break off his relationship with his Russian mistress, Irina. She tries to commit suicide. Tony presents her with $75,000 to get on with her life.

Fun House likely refers to Tony’s fevered dreams after getting food poisoning from Indian fare. In one dream, he douses himself with gasoline while a lighter is lit. In another, he kills his capo, Paulie. In the real world, Tony and capo Silvio discover Big Bonpensiero is an FBI informant. They take him on a boat and kill him, but honor his request not to be shot in the face. His body is dumped overboard where he sleeps with the fishes.

The feud between the Soprano crime family and New York’s Lupertazzi family, led by Phil Leotardo, heats up. Phil orders a hit on Tony and his associates, but an FBI agent informs Tony of the plan. Tony in turn orders a hit on Phil, which goes down badly as his hitmen kill the wrong person. Bobby Baccalieri, who is married to Tony’s sister’s Janice, is gunned down while buying miniature electric trains. Another close associate, Silvio, is severely wounded and ends up in a coma. Dr. Melfi, believing she cannot help a sociopath like Tony, ends their therapy sessions.

Adriana admits talking to the FBI, and tries to convince her boyfriend, Christopher Moltisanti, to enter the witness protection program. He initially agrees, but later Silvio takes Adriana on a car trip and shoots her in a vacant lot. The lot is where Carmela intends to build a house with the $600,000 Tony gives her after she agrees to take him back. There is more feuding between Tony and the Lupertazzi family over Tony’s cousin, Tony B., having killed one of the New York family’s soldiers. Losing Adriana doesn’t seem to bother Christopher too much. He packs up her belongings, dumps them in a marsh, and leaves her Ford Thunderbird in the long-term parking lot at Newark Liberty Airport.

Paulie Walnuts and Christopher plan a hit on a Russian mobster, Valery. They think they’ve killed him and discuss where to dump the body. They decide on the Pinelands, a vast wooded area in southern New Jersey. After driving to the Pinelands, they discover the mobster isn’t dead. Valery escapes, setting off a bumbling chase as they nearly freeze and starve to death. They are lost in the woods as their car is stolen and Paulie loses his shoe. When the men reach Tony by phone, Tony tells the men Valery was once part of the Russian Ministry of the Interior’s special forces and killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed. Because the connection was garbled, Paulie tells Christopher the Russian killed 16 Czechoslovakians and was an interior decorator. The men are later saved by Tony and Bobby Baccalieri.