The Sopranos Series — Part I: Tony Soprano

An analysis of the dominating force in the greatest show of all-time.

It’s been 4 days since I deactivated my X account, which has freed up more time to complete my book, Demonic Lust & Fate, improve my sleep, and of course, rewatch The Sopranos for the 8th time. I wrote True Detective S1: The Spectrum of Man during my 2023 winter hiatus, so perhaps we make this a tradition.

I don’t watch new shows or movies often because they’re usually terrible. I like to rewatch things that captivate me and then understand every crevice of them. The best films and shows leave you noticing new things and thinking about them differently after each viewing. This is very much the case with The Sopranos.

I’ve caught a lot of heat for my Sopranos takes. For example, when I said that David Chase created Tony’s son AJ to remind the viewer that despite how much effort parents may put into a child, sometimes you just get a shitty one — I received extreme vitriol from all corners of RW Twitter, Reddit, and even ‘Sopranos Twitter’ (a real thing). All this told me was there’s a lot of AJ’s in the world.

The Sopranos is too deep for one post. There’s too much to analyze and there’s many ways I could go about this series. At first I considered ranking the most admirable male and female characters (Johnny Sack & Dr. Melfi) to the most contemptible (Ralphie Cifaretto & Livia Soprano). I also thought about focusing on specific dynamics that aren’t discussed much. For example, the generational divide between Zoomers/Millennials (soft, skeptical and naval-gazing) and Gen X/Boomers (tough, naive and selfish) that Christopher Moltisanti and Tony Soprano represent, is still highly relevant today. I haven’t decided yet.

I’m going to begin the series by analyzing the most respected and complicated character of all-time. This will pave the way for future analyses given Tony’s psyche dictates the psyches of most, if not all, Sopranos characters. Everyone lives under Tony’s shadow.

The Sopranos is the greatest show of all-time because it challenges the viewer’s conception of human nature, morality, and themselves. David Chase holds a mirror up to the viewer by revealing the inner world of a powerful man — the corrupt, murderous, womanizing, providing, protective, brutally honest, and animal-loving Tony Soprano.