"I'm in the waste management business"
The Sopranos changed television. Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) is a New Jersey mob boss who starts therapy. "I'm in the waste management business," he says. "Everybody's gotta have a little waste management, right?" He's also depressed—panic attacks, blackouts, a mother who tried to have him killed, a wife who knows too much, a mistress who wants more, and a crime family that threatens him constantly. Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is his therapist, and through their sessions, we see a man who can order murders and still be crushed by his mother's disapproval.
The show's genius is scale: Tony's family (Carmela, Meadow, Anthony Jr.) and his Family (the DiMeo crime family) overlap messily. He can't separate them. His mother Livia (Nancy Marchand) is one of television's great villains—passive-aggressive, manipulative, genuinely evil. His uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) is jealous, ambitious, and eventually senile. His nephew Christopher (Michael Imperioli) wants to be a Hollywood player but can't escape his inheritance. The show is Shakespearean: kings, princes, betrayals, tragic flaws. But it's also domestic: dinner tables, school runs, suburban houses with blood in the basement.
Eighty-six episodes, six seasons, complete. The finale—Tony in a diner, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" playing, the screen cutting to black—is the most discussed ending in television history. Did he die? Did he live? David Chase won't say. The point is violence is always possible, death is always near, and we're all in the diner waiting. "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" a character says earlier. That's the thesis: mob life, family life, all life—is waiting for something you won't hear coming.
The Sopranos invented prestige television. Before it, TV was episodic; after it, TV was novelistic. James Gandolfini's Tony is among the greatest performances ever filmed—charming, terrifying, funny, broken. He kills a man in one episode and makes his son breakfast in the next. He's a monster. He's a father. He's human. "He's a good man," Carmela insists. He isn't. That's the tragedy.
Characters & Acting (10): Gandolfini's Tony is iconic. Edie Falco's Carmela. Michael Imperioli's Christopher. Perfection.
Conceptual Density (10): Therapy, family, identity, evil. The American Dream as nightmare. Dense, literary, brilliant.
Resolution (10): The cut to black is perfect. Ambiguous, inevitable, infuriating, brilliant. TV's best ending.
("Pilot" (S1E1) — The introduction. "I'm in the waste management business."
("College" (S1E5) — Tony takes Meadow to colleges. And kills a man. The template.
("Pine Barrens" (S3E11) — Paulie and Christopher lost in the woods. Comedy masterpiece.
("Made in America" (S6E21) — The finale. The diner. "Don't stop believing."
US: HBO Max
UK: Sky Go, NOW