The Sopranos Season Three, Episode by Episode Review

EDITOR'S NOTE: IF YOU DON"T CARE ABOUT MY PERSONAL STORY BELOW, SKIP TO THE FONT CHANGE AND CLEARLY MARKED EPISODE 1 REVIEW A FEW PARAGRAPHS DOWN, WHERE THE REVIEWS BEGIN

The Sopranos changed my life. It was the cherry on top of 1999, the greatest year of my life. I was fortunate enough to turn 18 that year, the year human culture and civilization peaked, the greatest year in cinema, one of the greatest years in music, and the year The Sopranos, perhaps the greatest television show ever made, premiered. However, by the start of Season Three, I was in college, did not have HBO, and had to wait until the show premiered on DVD to watch it. Season Three was the first in its entirety that I wasn't able to watch as the show was airing, but that did little to dim my enjoyment, when I rented it from Blockbuster and watched it over a couple of days. Being able to watch the show that way felt like magic in the early 00's, far before streaming was even a thought. 

Now, for the first time in over 20 years, and for its 25th anniversary, I'll be running the third season of The Sopranos throughout the rest of 2026, and will post a quick review of every individual episode on this very post. Each new review will appear here on the first day of each month (two in November and December). I can't wait to watch and talk about these episodes. 

Lord above, things ain't been the same since The Sopranos walked into town... 

EPISODE 1 -- "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood"
Written by: David Chase; Directed by: Allen Coulter

Originally Aired: 3/04/2001

Life goes on in The Sopranos' world. Pussy Bonpensiero might be somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, but Tony and his crew keep up the bad work, and Tony's family life continues. The FBI also decide that they've got to let any hope of Pussy still being alive go, along with all their hopes of using him as a rat. None of their tapes of Pussy talking to Tony reveal anything of serious recrimination, and now the FBI wants to ramp things up, by putting a microphone in the one place Pussy told them Tony talked business in The Soprano house: the basement. To do this, they'll have to have The Soprano's home to themselves for two hours. There's one day of the week, Thursday, where Tony is at his headquarters at The Bing, Carmela is at tennis practice, Meadow is off at college in Columbia in New York City, AJ is at school, and the maid is at the park with her husband, studying for the U.S. citizenship test. Thus, the majority of "Mr Ruggerio's Neighborhood" reveals the current status of each Sopranos family member as they're tracked by surveillance, to the strange strains of a musical mashup of the mod spy sounding theme from the old television show "Peter Gunn," and The Police's ode to stalking, "Every Breath You Take." It seems that Tony is still the same charming and powerful sociopath he's always been. His crew is doing great, except for Patsy Parisi, whose twin brother was whacked under Tony's crew several years before. Patsy is drinking heavily, mourning his brother, and suspecting Tony to the point that he shows up at the Soprano's house with a gun, breaks down crying, and pees in the pool, before leaving (a confused, surveilling FBI sees it all). Later on, Tony, knowing something is amiss, forces a seemingly sober Patsy to swear he's moved on from his grief--Tony isn't shown to have thought about his departed friend Pussy once in the episode, so why shouldn't Patsy be able to move on? Patsy swears. Meanwhile, Carmela sees the end of yet another of her quiet romance dreams, as her tennis coach announces he's moving away, and she and new racket-handler, Adriana, receive a new young female instructor who lusts after the scantily clad Adriana almost as much as the spying FBI do. Anthony Junior is still making bad choices, ditching school to smoke with friends, while Meadow is struggling to adjust to the constant noise of Manhattan. Meanwhile, the Polish housekeeper is struggling with her angry husband, who left a lofty engineering job in Poland to work menial jobs in America. The FBI make progress in the Sopranos' home, and even make fun of the soon to explode basement water heater. They aren't laughing, though, when the water heater does explode, severely flooding the basement, and jeopardizing and postponing their Soprano house bugging. They're able to finish the job a week later, but the possible benefits of this are debatable. The first FBI listening session reveals a mild argument between Tony and Carmela over exercise equipment.  T and Carm work it out and fall into a boring conversation about the minutia of life, briefly interrupted by the housekeeper's husband, who Tony is putting to work on an engineering job. The Polish former bigshot is building a drainage structure in the basement, as Tony makes sure that if this NEW water heater explodes, it will drain harmlessly into the yard.

EPISODE 2 -- "Proshai, Livushka"
Written by: David Chase; Directed by:  Tim Van Patten

Originally Aired: 3/4/2001

"Proshai, Livushka" presents perhaps The Sopranos' most significant family plot development, in an episode that is subtly unhinged (and which originally aired as part of a double-premiere, immediately after "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood.") At the start, Tony is passed out in a pool of blood on his kitchen floor. Before Carmela arrives to awaken and treat him (he's badly cut his arm on broken glass), the screen suddenly rewinds, a technique of extreme significance considering that the episode uses Tony's viewing of an old VHS copy of 1931's The Public Enemy as a framing device and possible decoder. "Proshai, Livushka" rewinds to minutes before, when Meadow and both classmate and possible future romantic partner, Noah, are watching The Public Enemy, Tony's favorite film, on VHS in the family living room. Tony arrives as the two are about to leave, and introduces himself to the Los Angeles-born Noah. Tony is racist toward the half black, half Jewish Noah, while Noah is both insufferable and pretentious. Tony intimidates Noah and tells him to stay away from Meadow, and while he uses racism as a method of attack, it's clear through later comments and actions in the episode that Tony would have still found a way to attack Noah even if he was as white as the pure-driven snow. Subsequently, an upset Meadow gives Tony the stink eye throughout the rest of the episode. After Meadow and Noah leave, a spiraling Tony goes into the kitchen, starts prepping some cold cuts, see Uncle Ben on a package of rice, has a panic attack, and passes out. The episode had used a newspaper headline about garbage collection-centric mob violence (and a quick sequence of that) as a red herring cause to Tony's panic attack before the rewind, but now that it's revealed that domestic events are the actual cause, and caught up to the present, Tony does have to deal with the subject of the newspaper article. The recently deceased Richie Aprile has been replaced by Ralphie Cifaretto (played by a surprisingly menacing Joey Pantoliano), and while Junior is high on the latter's earning ability, Ralphie is even more volatile than Richie was, using semantics to bend Tony's orders about halting the violence. Tony's top mob concern, though, is that his mother will testify against him on last season's stolen airplane ticket case. Tony pays Livia a visit, but immediately regrets it when she displays her usual nihilistic behavior. He makes sure to let her know, though, that he should have kept giving her the silent treatment after she attempted to have him murdered in Season One. Livia Marchand, who plays Livia, had recently passed away, and CGI is used to place her face from previous scenes onto another actress' body for this scene. The quality of this caused a minor uproar in 2001, but in the 25 years since, CGI has been used so much to badly attempt similar things, this scene barely stands out now. But whether this moment bothers the viewer or not, it's tough to argue that the show doesn't put its best foot forward with how it deals with Marchand's and thus Livia's death in the rest of this episode. Tony finds out, shortly after his visit to Livia, that his mother died of a massive stroke in her sleep. Tony would have a hard time knowing how to feel in the situation even if he wasn't a sociopath. He visits Melfi, who barely talks while Tony works through his feelings, as he declares that he is a bad son for being happy that his evil mother has died, though he still seems to be in denial about just how negatively she affected his life, and seems more relieved than anything that she can't testify against him now. Tony's non-Mafia involved sister, Barbara, tearfully informs Tony that Janice won't be coming back home to pay respects to their mother. Tony screams at Janice on the phone, dismissing her fears that she shouldn't come back to Jersey because she murdered Richie there, and unfortunately for everyone who has the misfortune of interacting with her, Janice goes back home. Tony's lousy sister immediately makes her presence known, hunting for secret cash at Livia's house, insisting the family gives Livia an expensive funeral despite the fact that the gloomy matriarch declared she didn't even want one, and aggressively telling her mother's caretaker, the one-legged Ruskie, Svetlana, to give back the items Svetlana insists Livia left her. Meanwhile, a barely peripheral gangster, Ray Curto, is shown to have taken Pussy's place as FBI informant. Finally, the wake and funeral come, though clearly Livia was right that a funeral is not needed, as no one really wants to attend, and only does so out of family obligation or out of respect for Tony. Silvio bitterly complains to his wife that he's missing the Jets home opener for the funeral (also a subtle clue that it's the beginning of fall). Christopher, Adriana, and Furio get high at Christopher's apartment. The wake is just a chance for several officials and mob members to talk shop with an emotionally distant Tony. The funeral is a robotic, yet beautiful ceremony that just gives the FBI more opportunity to snap photos of the crime family...but then the episode gets spooky. Earlier, just after Livia's death was announced, A.J. complained to Meadow about having to break down the Robert Frost poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," for school. However, after Meadow explains the poem's death-centric themes and leaves A.J. alone in the Soprano house, Anthony Junior hears a ghostly creak on the stairs outside his door, quietly freaks out, then calls out hopefully for the ghost of his grandmother. Now, in the episode's final act, the funeral ceremony moves to the same house, for a Bucco-catered banquet where the attendants happily avoid talking about the deceased. Tony seems distant, lamenting to Carmela about Meadow's lost innocence (perhaps his outburst at Noah earlier also stems from the fact that Meadow was watching Tony's favorite movie with a man who wasn't him). Tony also barely listens to Furio drone on about a scheme to milk the winner of the television reality show, "Survivor," then shuts a mirrored door, and Pussy's ghost is standing right THERE in the reflection, looking on in disapproval. The specter is gone as soon as it appears, but Tony does a double-take, sure he's seen something. However, Tony is soon called to the sitting room by Janice, along with all other attendees, to offer up a fond memory of Livia--an activity Tony had previously told Janice should by no means happen. This is after Tony has briefly escaped the ghosts inside his house, only to be tormented by Artie out by the pool, as the chef--Tony's oldest friend, since Tony recently murdered his other best friend, Pussy--angrily tells Tony that their secret (that Tony burned down Artie's restaurant in Season One) dies with Livia. Now, Tony angrily tells Janice he forbid this hippie stuff, but it's too late, everyone has gathered. Predictably, no one has anything nice to say, even when pressed by Janice. Tony hangs in the periphery of the room, with the stairs out of focus behind him. A strange, possibly masked figure comes down them, looks over Tony's shoulder for a moment, then walks back up these same stairs where A.J. heard creaking earlier. Is this a ghost? A spirit of another deceased family member? Did this haunting figure hear 1945's "If I Loved You," Livia's favorite song, playing in the sitting room, and come down to investigate? This moment can't be a production error, as despite any comment from the crew, David Chase obviously intended for it to be left in--this shot of Tony is not only lingering, but could have easily been excised if it was an accident--and spectral figures on staircases become a motif as the show goes on. Clearly, The Sopranos' world and this house are haunted. The past itself always haunts The Sopranos and Tony in particular, almost like a conscience that's attempting to break its way into his sociopathic soul. Eventually, Carmela breaks the awkward attempts at positive comments (as well as Christopher's coked out philosophical ramblings about personal appearance and unique identify) with some of her most honest dialogue in the entire show. She declares just how awful Livia was, that everyone there knows it, and that Livia drove a wedge in Carmela's own family by negatively effecting her relationship with her own parents, who are also in attendance. Carmela's father, after angrily down-dressing Carmela's mother's attempt at diffusion, agrees in a cathartic explosion of emotion, and Barbara's husband, less emotionally, but still vocally, agrees with Carmela as well. Carmela reflects that even from the grave, Livia has power to cause turmoil, the Buccos announce that dessert is available, and the morbid shindig comes to a close. That night, Carmela rightfully sleeps more soundly that she ever has, but Tony tosses and turns. Eventually, Tony goes downstairs to watch The Public Enemy, as he's been working his way through the film throughout the episode. As Tony sees the loving mother in the film prepare the house for the return of a son that she doesn't know is dead, Tony suddenly begins to sob. Is he finally processing the death of his mother...or simply responding to the scripted events onscreen? Furthermore, he himself began the episode as if he was a rewindable character in a film. Is this just metacommentary on the fact that Tony is a fictional character watching another fictional character...or is there something deeper here, and is every action that Tony commits--either due to his own sociopathy or because of the harsh events of his youth and his family business--a scripted event over which he has no control? Is it all commanded by the spirits themselves? Or maybe David Chase just likes VCRs.

EPISODE 3 -- "Fortunate Son"
Written by: Todd A. Kessler; Directed by:  Henry J. Bronchtein

Originally Aired: 3/11/2001

"Fortunate Son" is such an incredibly dense episode of The Sopranos, by its ending, the titular "Fortunate Son" could be almost any male in the show's cast of characters. To start, Christopher prepares for his regular drug maxing and relaxing with Adriana, only to get a call that he needs to dress up and meet Paulie. Christopher correctly guesses that he is finally about to be a made man, though ironically, Paulie picks him up at a strip mall, in front of a KB Toys. This being Christopher, the show's resident screw up looks out the window during the eventual ceremony, only to see a raven he thinks is staring at him. He takes this as a negative portent, particularly when he immediately mishandles the betting operation Paulie hands him to celebrate his new status. Also ironically, particularly in a Soprano's way, the ceremony contains religious and stone cold serious blood oaths, and yet immediately afterward there's a party featuring two kissing, topless strippers (fitting the show's themes, these and all strippers in the series have massive, obviously fake breasts, and Tony stands behind them, looking bored). Christopher later runs into a resentful Jackie Aprile, Jr., who angrily sulks through most of the episode, until Tony tells him to act right, swearing that he didn't kill Jackie Junior's Uncle Richie, which is technically true, even though Tony lies when he says that Richie is still alive and in witness protection. Tony also reiterates to Jackie Junior that the deceased Jackie Senior wanted his son to finish his classes at Rutgers, become a doctor and NOT join the mob. Tony even mentions that he doesn't want his own son in the mob either, and later tells Christopher not to involve Jackie Junior in any of his criminal pursuits. However, as Christopher now owes thousands in betting money to Paulie (from which Paulie kicks up to Tony), he hits up Jackie to enact a scheme heard from the young, wannabe mobster earlier, to rob a charity benefit concert at Rutgers. With Jackie as the getaway driver (who promptly wets his pants when the situation gets hairy), Christopher robs the concert, kicks up the money to Paulie, who then kicks up the money to Tony. Tony is angry that Christopher didn't follow his Jackie Junior-related commands, but when he calls the newly made man, a stressed and exhausted Christopher hides under the covers and doesn't take the call. Tony is dealing with a multitude of his own issues. Janice is feuding with Svetlana, and steals the latter's prosthetic leg, when Svetlana won't return the records she swears Livia wanted her to have. Tony is called by Svetlana to the recently deceased Livia's house to fix things, only to angrily find she's there with Tony's old mistress, Irina. Young women continue to vex him, as Meadow continues to give Tony the silent treatment from college, though she clearly misses home, and seems to be dating a man Tony hates only to get her father's attention. However, Tony's main stressor is the knowledge (gained at Christopher's ceremony afterparty) that the New York mafia are well aware that Tony has panic attacks and is seeing a therapist. Tony heads to Dr. Melfi, telling her that he needs to see results, or he'll stop seeing her. Melfi gets Tony (in between a betting call) to focus on the possible cause of his panic attacks, and makes the connection that they are strangely tied to food. Tony then envisions a childhood memory where he sat in the car outside a butcher shop (ironically, Satriale's, the future Soprano family headquarters), got out against his father's wishes, and witnessed his father and a young Uncle Junior chop off Mr. Satriale's pinky for not paying a gambling debt. Older Tony claims he was not scared, but got a rush from witnessing the amputation, and in the flashback, Tony's father says he's proud of his son for not panicking or running away. However, later that night in the flashback, as the Soprano family of old (including young Janice) sit around the table with a bunch of free meat, "donated" by Satriale, Tony's mother and father dance and grope inappropriately in front of the children, seemingly aroused by the ill-gotten food. As the knife slide's into the juicy meat, Tony passes out, his inaugural panic attack. In the present, Anthony Junior finds himself continually asked to stay out of both criminal and family-related discussions, just as his father was asked to stay in the car. First, it's a mob-related conversation around the grilling pit, then it's a Carmela and Meadow discussion about Meadow's issues with Tony. A.J. makes his own father proud when he puts his body in harm's way to jump on a fumble during a football game. Anthony Junior seems unimpressed with himself, and only gives in to a celebratory dinner with his father when Tony disparages AJ's request to just play video games together instead. AJ is also pressured to start thinking about college by his parents, but decides it isn't for him when he visits Meadow and feels overwhelmed and intellectually inferior after seeing the other students. As the episode closes, AJ's coach makes him a captain...just like AJ's father was a mob captain before becoming boss...and just like Tony, AJ has a panic attack, his inaugural one, passing out in front of the entire team. The "Fortunate Son" title here is both literal and ironic. Literally, Tony and his family, both business and biological, receive riches and power because of their made status or closeness to it. Jackie Junior even invokes comments made by The Empire Strikes Back's Yoda, when he admits that becoming a doctor will take a lot of time and hard work, but becoming a mobster is a much quicker and easier route to riches and power (Luke: Is the dark side stronger? Yoda: No...but easier...more seductive). And yet, the unsavory fallout of a criminal life causes so many unintentional, and perhaps spiritually karmic complications, it hardly seems fortunate at all.

 

EPISODE 4 -- "Employee of the Month"
Written by: Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess; Directed by: John Patterson

Originally Aired: 3/18/2001

To Tony's great annoyance, he is getting phone calls directly to his house from his ex-mistress, all because Janice stole her cousin's prosthetic leg. This is just one of his many annoyances, which makes it easy for him to tell Melfi he hasn't done his homework after his breakthrough with her in the previous episode. He hasn't made an anxiety log and goes right back to dismissing his issues, reinforcing the frequent suggestions to Melfi from her recently reconciled husband, as well as her therapist, that she should drop Tony as a client because she can't help him. Melfi reminds Tony that it was he who recently demanded more of her, and she suggests Tony bring Carmela in with him and later that he see a behaviorist, but Tony is again dismissive, droning on about Anthony Junior and the way he avoids putting effort into anything, just like his father...Tony. Melfi later accidentally drops Tony's name in front of both her therapist and her husband, the former of which tells Melfi she must have wanted to name drop Tony deep down, the latter of which bristles at Tony reinforcing negative Italian stereotypes. Tony also continues to stress over Jackie Junior, and he's still angry at Christopher, but even more Ralphie, who brings Jackie Junior to visit someone who owes him money, purposely pushing the encounter to violence, and involving Jackie Junior not only in helping him beat the man, but in robbing him (Ralphie is also now dating Jackie Junior' mother). Tony promotes someone else over Ralphie, insisting it's not just this, but many of Ralphie's incidents that's caused him to be passed up, but it's clearly Tony's promise to Jackie Senior to keep his son out of mob life that's driving his decision (Christopher, as opposed to Ralphie, gets a brief lecture for involving Jackie Junior in his own scheme, then a kiss on the cheek and an "I love you...you're a good boy." Hmm...maybe Tony just doesn't like Ralphie...). To pile up Tony's minor irritations, Johnny Sack moves to Jersey from New York, insisting it's only because his obese wife, Ginny, wants to live there, and not because he is bringing the New York mob into Jersey. All of this, though, feels like small potatoes in light of the episode's major plotline. Melfi, leaving a session with Tony, and just getting off the phone with her husband, is raped in the parking garage stairwell. It's a brutal, horrific scene, perhaps the most horrific in the entire series, and other than a brief shot of the rapist just a minute before the act, comes completely without warning. Melfi's husband is angry, and her son is even angrier. The police soon catch the man, but due to bureaucratic negligence, he is set free without consequence. Melfi goes to eat at a local restaurant but throws her drink on the floor and leaves when she realizes that her rapist is the restaurant's "Employee of the Month," giving the episode its title (in typical Sopranos irony, Britney Spears' insipidly poppy and upbeat, "Oops!...I Did It Again," is blasting through the restaurant speakers). Melfi creates a cover story that she's been in a car accident, and calls Tony's house. Carmela answers, and ironically, Tony is in the background, raging at the injustice that someone has eaten the last piece of cake from the fridge. Carmela shows her usual distaste for Melfi, which seems to lead Tony into placatingly telling Carmela about Melfi's idea to bring her into Tony's sessions. The rapist's release causes extra tension in the Melfi household, as Melfi's husband rages at his own ineffectualness, and Melfi rages that he seems to be more concerned that the rapist had an Italian last name than that Melfi actually got raped. They make up, but Melfi has a dream that gives her more consolation than anything her husband can say. In the surreal dream, where Melfi puts dried macaroni into a vending machine, gets her arm stuck in said machine, then gets attacked again by the rapist, a rottweiler suddenly appears and tears the attacker to shreds. Melfi awakens to a husband who is wearing an eye mask and sleeping prissily next to her, but she feels a sudden power in the knowledge that at any moment, she can tell Tony what happened, and Tony will kill the rapist. Rather pointedly, another scene cuts immediately from Melfi's husband powerlessly clenching his fist to Tony's hands, clenching an ax, as he tears through a stack of logs (there's also an intentional moment earlier showing a closeup of the husband cutting vegetables, cooking dinner, a domesticated act contrasted with Tony's axe-wielding machismo). Also ironically, after Tony warns the supremely unlikeable Janice that she shouldn't get mixed up with the Russians and  should just return Svetlana's leg, Janice is attacked and beaten by some Russian thugs, until she returns the leg, and Tony disgustedly tells her that due to her trouble-making, he will now have to take action against the Russians--ironic again, as Janice has brought this trouble on herself, despite Tony's warnings, yet Melfi, an innocent, hides what has happened to her from Tony, and her attacker faces no retribution. During their first post-attack session, Tony shows concern for Melfi's state, but (again) ironically mentions that the problem with the world is that people who are minding their own business are smashed into by others...ironic because Tony is often the one doing the smashing. Few shows ever did irony as well as The Sopranos. Later, Jackie Junior stops by the Soprano house, and Tony reinforces that he should stay out of the Mob business, but then Meadow stops by from college, and she and Jackie do some brief flirting (Tony also brings up Meadow's black boyfriend, and Jackie insists to Tony that he won't mention it to anybody). Despite their earlier jokes at Ginny Sacks' weight, Tony and his crew show up at Johnny's new enormous country home for his housewarming party. Tony seems on the verge of a panic attack as he sees Ralphie cozy up to Johnny. I should mention here that most shows would struggle to simply do Melfi's storyline justice, but The Sopranos easily juggles multiple ongoing storylines around Melfi's, while not only giving her story its due, but hitting it out of the park. Lorraine Bracco's award-worthy performance as Melfi certainly helps. The episode wraps up that storyline with a note of ambiguity, as Tony arrives for another session. He lets Melfi know that he has now been putting in the work she requested, and that he is even amenable to the suggested behavior therapy. Melfi, wanting her Rottweiler close, insists that Tony not do the behavior therapy, and instead stay on as her patient. She then breaks into tears, insisting that it is only knee pain from the accident. As a comforting Tony asks one final time if there's something else Melfi wants to say, the camera gives an intense close-up of her face as she answers, "No." It's ambiguous whether Melfi is honoring the "social compact" she mentioned to her therapist earlier, by not acting to have her attacker murdered...or if she's relishing the power of simply knowing that she can have her Rottweiler murder the man any time she wants.

 

EPISODE 5 -- "Another Toothpick"
Written by: Terence Winter; Directed by:  Jack Bender

Originally Aired: 3/25/2001

Coming Soon...