The Sopranos: Every Family Has The Good, The Bad, and The Awful

In one of those lost times down the YouTube rabbit hole, I came across videos of The Sopranos’s best moments. Almost an hour later I staggered off to bed after seeing highlights from the first two seasons. The highlights of a show that’s been off the air for over a decade are still infinitely more entertaining than just about anything that can be found on TV today. So much for the Golden Age of Television.

According to the website Bingeclock, it would take you three days and 14 hours to watch every episode of The Sopranos, back-to-back. I wonder how long it would take if I were to edit out everything that I didn’t like about the show? I’d guess that instead of beginning on Sunday and finishing up early on Wednesday afternoon, I could go to bed early on Tuesday evening.

I would take out every single visit to his psychiatrist. I realize that this was one of the main gimmicks in the series, but this part never worked for me, and now I just fast-forward through every scene of therapy. It’s boring. It’s two people having uninteresting conversations in a room. All of those doctor visits ended up nowhere, and in my opinion, dragged the narrative to a standstill every time they popped up (sometimes two or three in single episode).

Next, I would cut out most of his family. His mother was annoying and I never liked her acting. His wife was a screeching harpy, most of the time. I hated both of his kids so much that I felt completely cheated after the last episode when Meadow and JJ weren’t murdered in the diner. A very violent death for both of them would have been an enormous consolation after suffering through their terrible acting all those years.

In these highlight reels from all six seasons, there is hardly a doctor’s visit or family feud scene to be found.

The worst part about delving into the lives of his idiot children was the legacy this left in its wake. After The Sopranos, every crime series—hell, every series—felt that it needed to plumb the depths of the family, something I call the Meadow Soprano Effect. Ugh, I hated every one of them. Breaking Bad did something similar and recently, City on a Hill is boring me to death with the same tripe.

Instead of dwelling on his idiot children, his doctor, and other annoying characters, I wish they would have explored other people in the series, namely Furio. He was my favorite yet he only got a couple of great scenes. His way over-the-top shake-down of the massage parlor was truly one of the best action scenes in the series. And then they turned him into a little love-sick puppy fawning over…Carmella? That half-wit soccer mom?

What was great about The Sopranos was every second of the gangster stuff. I wouldn’t change a thing or a single character. This is the family that I tuned in to watch every episode.

My absolute favorite funny line among dozens and dozens of gems was in S04E10 “The Strong, Silent Type.”

After Christopher takes a beating at his drug intervention, everyone is at the hospital.

“He slipped off the kitchen counter spraying for ants?” the incredulous nurse asks Tony about Christopher’s injuries.

“Well, he was wearing socks.”

The series was a gold mine of humor. You could fill a few hours with only the quasi-literate malapropisms and stupidity of the gangsters.

“That’s why dinosaurs don’t exist no more,” Pauli explains.

“Wasn’t it a meteor?” one of the bimbos at the table asks.

“They were all meat eaters.”