The Top 10 Sopranos Episodes

What’s more American than a mafia story?

The Sopranos has gone down as arguably the greatest television show of all time, and for good reason. It arguably invented the antihero, at least for the TV format. It featured some of the greatest TV acting performances ever, especially from leads James Gandolfini and Edie Falco. It brought humor, dreams, irony, and unexpected twists into the serial drama format. Every aspect from the storytelling, to character development, to cinematography, music, and sound design – yes, even the music choices are brilliant – is top-notch.

I love a good mafia story. There’s something so incredibly American about the need to operate out of the confines of the law in order to beat the system and achieve the American dream. It speaks to our deepest, darkest, most taboo but also most admired aspirations and desires as a nation. Our obsessive materialism, our relentless tribalism in spite of the myriad possibilities of diversity and cross-cultural connection. Our generational traumas from the ‘old country.’

But that’s what The Godfather speaks to. The Sopranos takes all of this intergenerational burden and places it squarely in the 21st century. The conceit itself is brilliant: a mafia underboss has a panic attack and needs to see a psychiatrist. From there, the unpacking of Tony Soprano’s mind begins, revealing him to be sympathetic and vulnerable, but also a criminal narcissist and sociopath who is as deeply evil as he is loving and at times relatable.

There’s so much about this show that is brilliant as a whole, but it features outstanding individual episodes that are masterpieces in their own right – more so than any show I’ve ever seen. (Attack on Titan, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad are up there; other shows I’ve really loved like Fleabag, The White Lotus, and Cowboy Bebop are more great as a whole than as individual episodes.)

So here is my personal Top 10 episode ranking with very brief analyses. From now on, there are serious spoilers! I hope you enjoy and I welcome all and any discussion.

10. Pine Barrens (Season 3 Episode 11)

Paulie and Christopher end up on a nightmarish journey chasing a Russian mobster into the woods. This is commonly regarded as one of the greatest episodes, and while it’s not my personal favorite, it showcases The Sopranos’ genius ability to combine the humorous and the macabre, and to refuse to put a neat, simplified bow on any of its characters or plots.

RATING: 9.0

9. Long Term Parking (Season 5 Episode 12)

Long Term Parking is one of the gut-punching, all-around hardhitting Sopranos episodes ever. It perfectly weaves together so many different plots as they reach their climaxes: Tony B on the lam, Christopher confronting the reality of Adriana speaking to the FBI, and Tony and Carmela reconciling.

RATING: 9.2

8. I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano (Season 1 Episode 13)

Here’s another season finale, and this is the one that made me 100% sure I was going to watch this series to its conclusion. Built around Tony’s psychology as much as any episode in the entire series, Tony has to grapple with the reality of who ordered the hit on him. It ties up all the threads of the season with classic black humor.

RATING: 9.2

7. Made in America (Season 6 Episode 21)

One more season finale, and this one is the best one of all. The show’s ending is perfect not because it insists on ambiguity, or is devised to be controversial and extraordinary, but because it in fact stylistically and thematically matches everything the Sopranos is. In a story that explored a mobster’s deep consciousness in an unparalleled way, a cut to black was the only appropriate way to end. (Oh, and the episode actually managed to neatly tie up all the character arcs to make the ending extremely satisfying as well.)

RATING: 9.6

6. University (Season 3 Episode 6)

The unbridled viciousness of mobster life is on full display in this episode, which intelligently weaves together two separate tales of mysoginy: that faced by Ralphie’s stripper girlfriend, and that faced by Meadow in her college days.

RATING: 9.6

5. Whitecaps (Season 4 Episode 13)

Now we’re getting into the episodes that are both incredible episodes of television in terms of dialogue, music, story, and cinematography, but that are also my personal favorites. This episode, featuring the climax of Tony and Carmela’s relationship dynamic and eventual separation, is an absolute acting masterclass. The raw emotion and power of this episode is overwhelming.

RATING: 9.6

4. College (Season 1 Episode 5)

During a trip to Maine for Meadow’s college interviews, Tony sees a relocated mob snitch. This is the other episode in contention with Pine Barrens for the overall most highly critically regarded episode. And it lives up to its reputation. Tony’s personal and professional lives collide, brush up with his daughter, and redefine his relationship with his daughter forever. A perfectly told one-off story.

RATING: 9.6

3. Members Only (Season 6 Episode 1)

This is the best and most impactful season premier episode I have ever seen. It has a full arc for a side character that is one of the most emotionally devastating tragedies in the entire show. It features kickass, adventurous music and cinematography. And it has one of the most incredible, shocking twists in the series to boot.

RATING: 9.8

2. Funhouse (Season 2 Episode 13)

I’m personally a huge fan of the way The Sopranos uses dream sequences, and this in my opinion is the best in the show (closely edging out the extended dream that opens up the second part of Season 6). The ingenious sequence manages to bring a conclusion to the Pussy arc with a gut punch and then some. The merger of the surreal and the horribly real bloodshood, money, and pain associated with the violence of the mob are on a fireworks display.

RATING: 10.0

1. Kennedy and Heidi (Season 6 Episode 18)

This is one of the greatest episodes of television I have ever seen. It brings one character’s arc to a conclusion (Christopher) in a horrifying but fitting way, all the while setting up another character’s ending (Tony). I love this episode for the opposite reasons I love ‘Funhouse’: there are no rats, executions, or spectacular fever dreams – all of the mayhem, violence, horror, ectsasy, and shocking, spiritual and beautiful revelations of the world beyond come from banal, unexpected sources. The episode is exultant in masterful dialogue and acting, inventive filmmaking choices, and its deep dive into Tony’s psychology. These are the features that make the show what it is – perhaps the best of all time.

RATING: 10.0

Honorable Episode Mentions: The Blue Comet, The Second Coming, The Test Dream, Employee of the Month, The Knight in White Satin Armor, Join the Club, Isabella

New book depicts Jewish life in 1940s Japan

Hundreds of names written in Hebrew letters mark gravestones in Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki, but the less-than-1,000 Jews living in Japan today—mostly scholars, expats, and spouses—bear little relation to a tenuous Jewish past.

However, a forthcoming book by Chris Bock (May 25 – An Ordinary Man) provides colorful detail about the lives of some of these Jews. The book tells the story of Paul Patek, a World War II refugee from Vienna who worked in a Japanese steel company in the early 1940s, during the height of World War II and the holocaust.

I had a fascinating visit to Kobe in early 2021, where I saw the old synagogue there. This very syngogue has stood for over 100 years and survived World War II. It was around that time that Patek and his family lived in Tokyo and at some point in Hiroshima. As one of the very small number of Jews residing in this country, now for several years, I am always fascinated by the stories and histories of other Jews here, and it’s delightful to see one of those stories brought to life.

As Bock describes, the first Jews in Japan settled in Yokohama in the late 1800s, building the first synagogue in Japan there. Russian Jews escaping in the 1880s added to these numbers as the population shifted to Nagasaki and then Kobe after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.  

There were a few interesting reasons why Japan never joined in Nazi’s antisemitic ideology and hatred against Jews. One was that, as an aspiring empire/modern nation that did not benefit from white supremacy, Japan made efforts in the League of Nations to affirm the equality of all races. Other notable ones are that Japan may have had an inflated view of Jewish influence and power in the United States, and sought to take advantage of talented industrialist Jews fleeing Europe to build up its own powers.

The old synagogue of Kobe.

In fact, this last reason is why Paul Patek was able to get a Japanese visa as he desperately tried to escape Austria after the Nazis came to power. As a gay Jew, Paul was more than at-risk, and despite the Nazis’ vicious confiscations, he had a lucky lottery win that his Austrian boyfriend was able to collect and pass on. An Ordinary Man provides a broad, biographical sketch of the multitalented (rug weaver, piano virtuoso, entrepreneur, engineer) Paul and the rest of Bock’s family. (Bock’s grandfather Rudi was Paul’s nephew).

The book is rife with intriguing anecdotes and fascinating historical information. Bock details Nazi cruelties and declining life in Austria under their rule, the ingenious and desperate ways Jews managed (and failed) to escape Europe, Rudi’s days as the only non-Chinese student at a medical school in Peking, the lifestyles and struggles of Jewish refugees in Japan, and much more.

The book doesn’t have a strong narrative drive, and can feel a bit scattershot in terms of organization. Paul’s thread tends to disappear for a while as Bock adds descriptions about other notable or related persons, before wandering back to what Paul was up to. But I couldn’t always see the importance of these asides, and at times found myself in a sea of names and dates. While Paul is technically the protagonist, I also wondered if it was actually Rudi. I was interested to learn everything Bock was presenting in the text, but I can’t call the book a page-turner.

Still, I’m glad that I read it. It’s rare to not only see insight into some of the fascinating details of 1940s Jews in Japan— the cushy lifestyles with servants, the accusations of being American accomplices, the ensuing imprisonment and all. As Bock points out, there is a Chabad today in Omori, the same industrial area of Tokyo that was home to not only Paul but many of the Jews that did pass through Japan during these times. In An Ordinary Man, I found many of these small, sparkling threads of connection to the past to examine and hold.