Characters / The Sopranos: The Soprano Family

The Sopranos Main Character Index
The Soprano Family (Tony Soprano, Christopher Moltisanti) | DiMeo Crime Family (Capos | Soldiers | Associates) | The Lupertazzis and Other Criminals | Mob Wives, Sweethearts and Goomahs | Law Enforcement and Civilians

Character-Specific Pages

• Tony Soprano
• Christopher Moltisanti

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Tropes related to the Soprano Family

• Big Fancy House: Tony's house in North Caldwell is very lavish and expansive, complete with a pool and guest house.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Pretty much all of the notable Sopranos have their own emotional baggage. Doesn't help that most of the men are involved in organized crime too.
• Family Business: Most of the men are involved with the Jersey mob while the women all turn a blind eye. Tony makes a point to not involve A.J. and Meadow in the lifestyle. Seems to have succeeded in AJ's case, but Meadow on the other hand...
• Hereditary Curse: There are a few. Depression is a notable one along with narcissism.
• In the Blood: Janice is the Livia of her generation, and Tony slowly starts adopting the worst traits of his mother. Eventually, even A.J. does too.
• Nepotism: Tony and Carmela pull a lot strings for the benefit of their children's education and careers.
• Nouveau Riche: For Tony's household. Most of the upper-class citizens they interact with consider them illicit social-climbers behind their back.

Carmela Soprano

Carmela Soprano (née DeAngelis)

"You really don't hear me, do you? You think for me it's all about things."

^{Click here to see Carmela in 1973}

Played by: Edie Falco, Lauren DiMario (The Many Saints of Newark)

Wife of Tony Soprano. Enjoys the lifestyle that Tony's money brings in, but struggles with his infidelity and the dirtier aspects to his profession.

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• Affectionate Nickname: "Carm". Her father sometimes calls her "Mel" or "Mellie".
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Says that Tony being a gangster made their courtship more exciting, and later on she lusts for the ruthless enforcer Furio.
• All for Nothing: She desperately wants her daughter Meadow to be able to escape the life. Not for lack of trying, it fails.
• Alpha Bitch: Much like how Tony often still acts like a high school jock, Carmela often acts just like a high school girl who is at the top of the social hierarchy chain, such as whenever she goes out of her way to show off her latest luxury purchases.
• Book Dumb: Unlike Meadow, Carmela is rather ignorant about film and literature. Best shown when she decides to help AJ with one of his essays for school and he still only gets a "C".
• Consummate Liar: Downplayed, but she's better at this than even Tony. She never gets caught in her deceptions:
  • She never admits to having stolen $40,000 from Tony's birdfeeder, no matter how often it comes up.
  • Long after Meadow Soprano has figured out that her father is a member of the Mafia, Carmela continues to uphold the deception that Tony and his ilk are unfairly persecuted by the government for being Italian-Americans.
  • She has had three affairs of varying intimacy while she and Tony are married. The only one Tony finds out about (the one with Furio) is the one she goes out of her way to tell him about in a fit of anger, and it's her most chaste affair.
  • She throws Meadow's acceptance letter to Berkeley in the trash in order to prevent Meadow from jumping at the chance to move to California, then plays innocent when Meadow finds it stained from the trash later on in the same episode after Meadow has received other compelling acceptances.
• Distracted by the Luxury: Her main trait. David Chase even describes her as being something of an ascended Gold Digger.
• Egocentrically Religious: She uses religion mainly as means to absolve herself of her complicity in her husband's crimes, as well as an excuse to spend time with Father Phil.
• Everyone Has Standards: When she learns that AJ's science teacher had his car stolen she asks if Tony can help find it. When Tony implies that he can use it as leverage to raise AJ's D+ in the class, Carmela objects, saying he needs to earn those grades.
• Fatal Flaw: She has two:
  • Carmela has a nasty case of insecurity. Despite being financially stable while married to Tony, she deep down wants to make something of herself and branch out, but completely lacks any of the motivation or skills to do so due to having nestled herself into the role of a pampered housewife for so long. This often makes her jealous of some of the other wives, such as Angie Bonpensiero, who have managed to create a successful life for themselves.
  • Denial: Carmela struggles being married to Tony deep down, but she's often running and/or distracting her conscience with bullshit justifications or the material wealth that Tony's lifestyle provides.
• Female Misogynist: Carmela really likes to tear down successful women.
  • She looks down on Angie Bonpensiero when she is doing badly, and goes out of her way to avoid her when she sees Angie working in a grocery store. Later on when Tony buys her a Porsche, she makes a big show of parading it in front of Angie and Ginny Sack, both of whom were left financially struggling after the deaths of their husbands. Angie politely shuts her up by revealing the new Corvette she bought (in cash, no less!) with the profits from Pussy’s body shop.
  • Meadow's friend Hunter got kicked out of college and Carmela silently mocked her for it. Then Hunter tells Carmela she straightened up and got into med school and you can see the light go out of Carmela's eyes.
  • She more than once uses her husband's position to put the squeeze on women with authority.
• Hiding Behind Religion: Carmela uses the Catholic church as a justification for staying married to Tony despite his line of work and infidelity.
• Hot for Preacher: Close, but no cigar. She has some Unresolved Sexual Tension with Father Intintola and they almost do something midway through Season 1, but it doesn't happen. He makes sporadic appearances later on during which it is implied he still possesses some feelings for her.
• Housewife: Her role throughout most of the series. Indeed, even when considering divorce from Tony, she has no real ideas for what she would do after going independent.
• The Hypocrite: Her other defining character trait. For instance:
  • She calls out Tony on the dirtier aspects of his profession but has no problem with the luxurious lifestyle it gives her and later calls upon his corrupt influence to get her spec house approved for construction.
  • Encourages Meadow to seek options in her life, but has no prospects or aspirations for her own life after planning to divorce Tony beyond seeking a significant alimony. Meadow calls her out on this.
  • Implicitly blames Tony for AJ believing that "the world owes him a fucking living," in Tony's words from 3x13, "The Army of One", but explicitly feels entitled to Tony's illicit earnings, as she states to Tony in 5x09, "Unidentified Black Males."
  • Speaking of AJ, she constantly complains about how lazy and disrespectful the boy is and that he needs to be straightened out. However, it's shown that most of the reason AJ became such a brat is because Carmela coddles him and refuses to give him any real discipline. When it's suggested the boy be sent to military school, Tony is all for it while Carmela is hesitant.
  • Criticizes Tony's depressive and moody habits, blaming him for passing those habits onto AJ, but acts basically the same way when she feels unfulfilled or isn't getting what she wants, bundling herself up in the couch in 3x07, "Second Opinion," after having her moral complicity in Tony's lifestyle underscored by Dr. Melfi's referral, and suffering from ill health in 4x13, "Whitecaps," when she is heartbroken once Furio flees America. These events mirror Tony's own bedridden states in 1x12, "Isabella" and 2x13, "Funhouse." She is about as prone to depression as Tony and copes in similar manners, but never admits it.
  • There's also the basic hypocrisy of adopting the persona of a faithful Catholic housewife when she is fully aware that her husband is a first-hand murderer. "From Where To Eternity" implies this, and "The Knight In White Satin Armor" shows that she knows Tony covers up murders where needed when Tony tells her that Janice killed Richie Aprile, and Tony took care of it. "The Blue Comet" also indicates that she is also fully aware of Tony's ongoing involvement in violence, as she is unfazed about the family needing to go into hiding due to the gang war between New Jersey and the Lupertazzi family, beyond being dismayed that it's something that still needs to happen at their age.
  • In "Live Free or Die" she argues that "there must have been some reason" when Meadow explains how she met an Afghani family at her law internship who had been persecuted under the Patriot Act. This, coming from a woman who constantly derides the federal government for persecuting her husband and family purely based on their Italian-American heritage.
  • She occasionally complains that Tony hasn't matured past his high school jock personality while she herself often acts like a high school Alpha Bitch.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Talks occasionally about her past chances of a different life outside the Mafia, but she ultimately loves the life of luxury.
• Ignorance Is Bliss: She takes this sort of attitude towards Tony's criminal activities, including the fact he's almost certainly killed people, and taken numerous mistresses. As long as she doesn't hear about it or see it, she's able to tolerate it and pretend it doesn't happen, because she enjoys the life of luxury he provides her. Tony, for his part, is perfectly happy not mentioning what he does, for plausible deniability, on the chance he's ever indicted and she's required to testify against him.
• Ignored Epiphany: She meets with a psychiatrist who spells out very bluntly and clearly that she's deluding herself saying her violent mob boss, serially cheating husband with a temper is a "good man", she's actively enabling him by sticking with him and benefiting from his blood money, he'll never become a "good man", and the only good course of action for Carmela is to take the kids and get out of there. She's shaken to the core by his extremely frank and accurate examination of her situation, but by the very next episode, she's back-peddling on his advice and ultimately sticks with Tony due to the life of pampered luxury he provides her.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Carmela very much knows that she is entirely dependent on Tony to maintain her glamorous lifestyle, but the patriarchal lifestyle of the Mafia and her lack of self-discipline prevent her from actually making something of herself. She takes these insecurities out on others she believes are below her and is easily stunned into silence when those people turn out to be more independent and successful than her.
• Mafia Princess: She enjoys the big house, expensive clothes and jewelry, no need of a job, and ability to use her husband's connections to get her things that Tony's criminal activities bring in, putting up with a lot of abuse simply because she refuses to give it all up.
• Male Gaze: "Sentimental Education" treats viewers to a lingering shot of Carmela's nude, shapely rear after she's just had sex with AJ's guidance counselor.
• Masochism Tango: With Tony. They have a bad relationship, both mistreat each other, Carmela is in serious denial, Tony is a serial cheater (and everything else)... but they find it impossible to break up.
• Mama Bear: In the first episode, when she thought someone was breaking into her daughter's window, what does she do? She grabs the biggest machine gun and marches outside with Tony in tow. It turned out Meadow was sneaking out of the house, but the thought counted. She has a similar reaction when she spots a bear near the house while she's alone with AJ.
• Not So Above It All: She likes to act superior, but is most certainly not above using her mob connections for her own ends.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: She has a very smug and condescending attitude when interacting with waitstaff or store employees. She also serves as a dark example of this in that she has no qualms about invoking Tony's reputation or his connections to force people to give her what she wants.
• Parental Hypocrisy: In the series, she frequently scolds and punishes Meadow and AJ whenever they engage in underage drinking. Her only scene in The Many Saints of Newark shows her alongside Tony and Artie trying to obtain beer for a Wild Teen Party.
• Pet the Dog: She’s got issues, but she’s a genuinely involved mom who communicates with her kids and wants what’s good for them.
  • In the second episode she's sympathetic when AJ's science teacher has his car stolen and asks Tony to help recover it. Tony decides to pull a You Owe Me on the guy but Carmela was honestly interested in helping him out of genuine empathy.
• Pretty in Mink: Tony buys her some furs. One is a sable coat, but he asks they make love with her wearing nothing but the coat.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Invokes the nefarious power of the Soprano surname from time to time.
• Sex for Services: Her affair with AJ's principal is identified as this by the teacher, as she always mentions how she wishes there was some way for AJ's grades to improve while they're in bed together.
• Stealing from the Till: Or Stealing From The Duck Feed Bin to be precise. She steals from Tony's cash stash after discovering the nail of one of his goomahs, which Carmela uses to send a message to her husband. Tony gets it and lets it slide, initially.
• Stepford Smiler: Works hard to maintain an image of domestic bliss and dignity despite her own serious misgivings about the family.
• Supreme Chef: All the mob wives are expected to be good home cooks, but the consensus is that Carmela takes the prize. Her lasagna and ziti are known even to the wiseguys in New York.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With several men.
• Wicked Pretentious: Carmela thinks of herself as cultured and partakes in cultural activities like visiting museums or starting a film club. But it's clear that Carmela's understanding of art is extremely limited thanks to living in her mob wife bubble. When Meadow and her Columbia friends discuss the Homoerotic Subtext in Billy Budd at dinner, Carmela is completely out of her depth and the only thoughts she has on Citizen Kane come from the film review by Leonard Maltin she read before watching it.

Meadow Soprano

Meadow Soprano

Played by: Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Are you in the Mafia?

Daughter of Tony and Carmela.

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• Amoral Attorney: The finale implies she's on her way to becoming one as she starts to favor Law over a medical degree.
• Armor-Piercing Question: She delivers one to AJ, who at that point was still ignorant of what Tony does for a living.
  Do you know any other garbagemen who live in a house like this?
• Big Sister Instinct: Despite her flaws and constant bickering with him she does love A.J. She comforts him in Season 1 when Tony gets shot, covers for him when he gets drunk and tries to help him out of his depression in season 6.
• Brainy Brunette: Unlike her dumbass brother AJ, Meadow is bright enough to be a pediatrician or a lawyer.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Initially (especially in The Pilot), leading to several You Are Grounded! instances.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Calls Tony out on his hypocrisy and line of work time and again; Tony "calls" her back, however.
• Character Development: In the early seasons, she's shown as a smart, spoiled, party-goer, over-dramatic, in-denial, and in some ways, a troubled kid. In the later seasons, she would later learn the consequences and reality of life, money, education, politics, and relationships.
• Cool Big Sis: Carmela is angry with her for covering up for A.J. getting a downtown hotel room and getting drunk with his friends; Tony responds, based on his own childhood, that that's what big sisters should do. Beyond that, she also tends to be the only member of the family in later seasons who doesn't treat him entirely like a lost cause, even pointing out to her parents that his struggles with depression could lead to him attempting suicide - something that she's proven right by.
• Corrupt the Cutie: She starts as a principled girl who has contempt for the Mafia, but she is gradually dragged into the masquerade. By the end, she is engaged to Patsy Parisi's son, and it is implied she will become another mob lawyer.
• Daddy's Girl: Played straight at first before being defied, as Tony seems to grow more annoyed with her disapproval.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Reconstructed. Carmela desperately wants to avert this trope, which is why she tries to force Meadow into medicine, and Meadow, for the most part, seems like the Only Sane Man who won't be dragged in. However, she is eventually corrupted through association with the mob and is well on her way to becoming an Amoral Attorney, to Carmela's disappointment and sadness.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Tony gets very angry when she dates a boy who is half African American and half Jewish.
• Deadpan Snarker: Meadow is a bright young girl, and her "smart mouth" (lampshaded by Carmela) is every bit a match. She can keep up with the best of them on the show when the mood takes her, which is often.
• Foreshadowing: As early as the first season, she comments on how cool Sharon Stone looks in Casino, a remark one can expect from Carmela.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "responsible" to AJ's "foolish". Unlike her brother, Meadow is a model student who eventually attends Columbia. However, by the end of the series, this becomes somewhat blurred as she becomes engaged to Patsy Parisi's son and is well on her way to becoming a mob lawyer, while AJ is still relatively clean and has a hope of a legitimate future.
• Freudian Excuse: She applies it to a whole collective, reasoning that the poverty and dire conditions of the Italian Mezzogiorno breed crime. In-story, being born into the Mafia gradually catches up to her too.
• Hollywood Genetics: Meadow is noticeably darker than anyone else in her family due to the actress being Cuban and Sephardic Jew rather than Italian. In the show, Carmela recalls her mother lamenting how dark Meadow's skin was as a baby.
• Hypocrite: Like father, like mother, like daughter, but a subtler example.
  • Meadow presents herself as an open-minded liberal, having gone to an Ivy League school, becoming engaged with political and anti-racist discourse, and having a more critical, modern attitude towards her Italian-American heritage. However, when it comes down to it, she doesn't blink at adopting the mafia byline in 5x09, "Unidentified Black Males," that "African-Americans" killed Jackie Aprile Jr. when defending the wiseguys from Finn's accusations of violence. She also, surprisingly easily, turns a blind eye to her family's homophobia when Vito is outed, also to Finn's dismay, and doesn't show any concern about what such revelations will mean for him.
  • Prides herself on her adulthood and independence, but is completely financially dependent on her family. Carmela calls her out on this, and Meadow has no real defense.
  • As Tony points out during a conversation with Artie, Meadow made a big show of wanting to be an independent adult and go to a far away college like Berkeley in California, only to wind up attending nearby Columbia where she still comes home almost every weekend so Carmela can do her laundry and cook for her.
  • Reaches its apex in Season 6 when she accepts a job as a lawyer specializing in white-collar crimes. She is fully aware that her father is complicit in financial crimes (and has been as early as Season 1, in 1x05, "College").
• I Am Not My Father: Gradually subverted. Although she opposes her dad's criminal lifestyle at first, she eventually accepts it, refers to civilians as "outsiders", and defends him against (true and accurate) accusations of him being a violent gangster.
• Insufferable Genius: To Meadow's credit, she's quite smart for her age. Unfortunately, by the end of the series, she's decided to use her intellect for evil in helping the mob, making her a more active participant in their amoral behavior than Carmela.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Columbia; she's unaware this was somehow invoked by her mother.
• Lack of Empathy: She shows no concerns about the fact she effectively gave Vito a death sentence by outing him to Carmela and Tony.
• Like Father, Like Son: Meadow becomes just like her movie Carmela by the end of the series, hypocritical and willfully ignorant of the Mafia's degeneracy.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Meadow is generally a very bright girl who's wary of her father's criminal associates. However, her infatuation with Jackie Aprile Jr. completely blinds her to the fact that he too is an aspiring mobster, Smug Snake, and an all-around Jerkass with a sick sense of entitlement. Even after she catches Jackie cheating on her, Meadow continues to pine for him.
• Love Makes You Evil: Furthermore, Jackie's death and Meadow's devastation over his passing essentially serve as her Start of Darkness, which sees her beginning to fully immerse herself into her family's mob lifestyle.
• Mafia Princess: Although she starts off disliking her father's lifestyle, she gradually becomes more accepting of it, defends Tony from other people's accusations of him, and eventually considers herself a mob "insider" who is going to become an Amoral Attorney and marry one of Tony's soldier's sons.
• Mouthy Kid: Is often mouthing off in the earlier seasons, even when she's caught having a debauched party at her grandmother's empty house.
• Never My Fault: Tony remarks that if he had a quarter for every time she's said something wasn't her fault, he'd be able to own a private jet on 24-hour stand-by.
• Non-Idle Rich: Has a job as a social worker for the poor.
• Not So Above It All: Starts off naive and rebellious but later relents and accepts her father's criminal activities, even going so far as to defend him against strangers. By the finale, she's implied to be on her way to embracing the mob lifestyle entirely.
• Soapbox Sadie: Once she starts college. She feuds with Tony over her black/Jewish boyfriend.
• Spanner in the Works: She accidentally sabotages the FBI's attempt to wiretap Tony's basement by taking the disguised lamp the agents had used to listen in to Tony's conversations to her college dorm. A moment of later Dramatic Irony has Tony getting pissed that she took the lamp to school when had wanted to use it.
• Spoiled Brat: She trashed her grandmother's house and her only punishment was having her credit card be taken away. Though this ends up being Subverted after she overhead Janice angrily confronting her parents over it and ends up cleaning the house without her parents telling her to do so.
• Start of Darkness: In the first few seasons, she is much more free-spirited, rebellious, and openly opposed to Tony's line of work, but gradually becomes more accepting of his lifestyle and taking his obviously false cover stories at face value, defending him from accusations of criminality and even getting upset at a friend discussing their affairs with "outsiders", primarily after the death of her ex-boyfriend, Jackie Jr.. By the end of the series, she's engaged to the son of one of Tony's soldiers and on the way to becoming a mob lawyer, much to Tony and Carmela's distress.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Let's be perfectly honest: Meadow's pretty good-looking, while her dad? Not so much. Lampshaded; when Janice mentions Tony's "good-looking kids", Tony jokes, "even with our genes."
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Vito was already taking heat for his alleged homosexuality, but it was still in the realm of hearsay (the mobster who levied the charge was considered an untrustworthy "Irish drunk" by Tony) until Meadow admitted to her parents that Finn saw him going down on a guy; Tony has Finn recount his story to the crew and Vito is marked for death.
• White Sheep: Gradually subverted as being born under a Mafia boss of a father catches up to her, ultimately influencing her decision to become a defense attorney for the mob.
• You Are What You Hate: During most of the series, Meadow rebels against her father and his lifestyle. But by the end of the series, she ends up defending her father's lifestyle, chastises other mob kids for speaking frankly in front of "outsiders", and even embraces the role of crime family wife, being engaged to a Mafia family attorney.

Anthony "AJ" Soprano Jr.

Anthony "AJ" Soprano Jr.

Played by: Robert Iler

"It's just that Tony has always loomed so large for AJ."
"Well, maybe it's just that AJ is a selfish boy who doesn't give a shit."

Son of Tony and Carmela.

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• AM/FM Characterization: In all seasons, he's portrayed as a fan of heavy metal, via product placements (shirts, coats, posters, and stickers) of bands like Pantera, Nevermore, Mudvayne (whose concert he attends in "All Happy Families"), Slipknot, Coal Chamber, Stuck Mojo, Machine Head, and Fear Factory. By the end of the series, having grown more worldly and introspective, he discovers and begins analyzing the early work of Bob Dylan.
• Ancestral Name: Named after his father, Anthony.
• Beard of Sorrow: Grows one during his breakup with Blanca and suicide attempt.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Moves with his father for a while because Carmela disciplines him, but it doesn't work as Tony is not a fun pushover.
• Big Little Brother: His actor hits a growth spurt between Seasons 2 and 3, which makes him taller than Meadow throughout the rest of the series.
• Book Dumb: His academic record is mediocre at best. One of his high school teachers even refers to him as "Fredo Corleone." Eventually, he flunks out of junior college and gives up on education altogether.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: "Brilliant" is stretching it but there are hints throughout the series that AJ is a bit brighter and more capable than he appears and could do decently well at a few things, such as construction work, event planning, business management, and even school work if he ever put in the effort. Not to mention that he becomes more interested in 'intellectual' topics towards the end of the series, such as philosophy and politics.
• Bungled Suicide: Late in Season 6, AJ attempts to drown himself in the backyard pool. His father saves him.
• Butt-Monkey: Things seem to conspire against him.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Openly critical towards his mother. His confrontations with Tony are rarer since his father is a fearsome guy.
• Character Development: He becomes more cynical and socially aware in the final season. The finale implies that he might finally find a direction in life.
• Conspiracy Theorist: He has a phase towards the end where he is obsessed with the government's involvement in Iraq, among other things.
• Cynicism Catalyst: He falls to pieces when Blanca leaves him, growing angrier and angrier at the unfairness of the world that he attempts suicide.
• Dumbass Has a Point: He isn't exactly wrong when he calls out Tony or Carmela for their hypocrisy or points out social injustice and crises towards the end.
• Dumbass Teenage Son: He's lazy, irresponsible, not very bright overall, and is never shown with a grade higher than a C. He's also a teenager who is Tony and Carmela's son.
• Dumb Jock: He's a good football player at least.
• Dumb Muscle: Very briefly in the last season and a half-assed one at that.
• Foil: To Tony and Livia both. He inherits their depressive worldviews, narcissistic tendencies, and amoral nature. However, he completely lacks their intelligence, independence, charisma, and grit, making him extremely ineffective as a student, adult, romantic partner, or criminal. Indirectly serves as an example of the negative outcomes of the American experiment and the consequences of tireless positive reinforcement and self-affirmation (through Carmela's protectiveness, schooling, and psychiatry) without authoritative parenting, moral guidance, and personal struggle. Livia, who had none of those benefits, is perfectly capable of sustaining a self-directed life, even if she was a depressed narcissist, emotional abuser, and filicidal parent—she still survived The Great Depression and life as a housewife to an exceptionally violent and neglectful husband. Tony, who grew up in a bad neighborhood, suffered under Livia's thumb but has access to some of the benefits of the American environment, may still be a depressive, cold-blooded criminal who uses therapy as a crutch to justify his behavior but has a better relationship with his family and remains an effective and charismatic leader capable of effecting results upon his surroundings. AJ has all of their faults, but absolutely no impetus to develop their strengths, and his resulting ineffectiveness is the primary reason he is unable to become an effective criminal like his father. He is thus a counter to Tony's belief that all he needed in his own childhood was a loving mother - AJ has this, but lacks everything else required to become a successful and independent adult.
• The Eeyore: From spoiled brat to depressive teen, the rest of his family invariably finds him a huge drag.
• Follow in My Footsteps: Defied by Tony, who is more than aware that AJ is not capable of joining the Mafia. So we never ever see AJ at the Bing or Satriale's.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "foolish" to Meadow's "responsible". AJ is shown to be a terrible student and has no work ethic, resulting in him eventually flunking out of college and having limited career prospects. However, by the end of the series this becomes somewhat blurred as it's shown that, unlike Meadow, he has avoided getting dragged into the world of the mafia while Meadow is implied to be on track to following that path.
• Formerly Fat: Loses quite a bit of weight over the course of the show (particularly around Season 4), and grows enough that he's practically lanky compared to what he was as a child.
• Freudian Excuse: Tony really has no idea what he's doing as a father to AJ; his emotional neglect, verbal abuse, and incredible Parental Hypocrisy in combination with Livia's words of misery lead to AJ developing a very cynical and nihilistic worldview and very poor work ethics. Carmela spoiling him with luxuries in combination with her empty nest syndrome fears only makes things worse by making AJ more despondent and dependent into his adult years. That's in addition to AJ being raised in an environment that even his far more intellectual sister wasn't able to escape unscathed from. It's implied that AJ is also fully aware that he isn't suited to being like his father but also knows he doesn't have his sister's intellect, and his listless demeanor is due to his feeling trapped and with no clear direction for his life.
• Friend to All Children: He gets along great with Blanca's son Hector.
• He Is All Grown Up: Starts off looking not too far off from his father, as far as weight is concerned, but sheds the pounds and grows in height enough to become a fairly attractive man.
• Hidden Depths:
  • In the fifth season, he shows a genuine aptitude for event organization. He throws a backyard party with his friends and nets himself a $300 share after expenses.
  • While dating Blanca, he makes a genuine effort to be a good boyfriend and independent provider and, despite being forced into it by Tony, takes to construction work quickly and makes a sincere effort at it, even impressing his parents with his work ethic. Later, when working at a pizza restaurant, he expresses a desire to work in the restaurant business.
  • He occasionally shows a genuine interest in history, knowing who Sacco and Vanzetti were in the first season when they are brought up, reading about Christopher Columbus and forming a much more critical view of his actions in contrast to the rest of his family's hero worship and sincerely enjoying history classes in college that deal with the Middle East conflict, even if it eventually plays a part in his later decline.
• Hollywood Genetics: The showrunners clearly expected Robert Iler to look more like James Gandolfini as he aged. As an adult, AJ is half the size of his father Tony, and looks nothing like him. Tony finally acknowledges it in the final season, handwaving it by saying that he takes after his wife's family.
• It Runs in the Family: The panic attacks and depression come from his dad.
  • More darkly, the final episode implies he has also inherited his cruelty and lust for violence, and that perhaps his depression was ultimately the result of these needs going unfulfilled due to a lifetime of being shielded from his family's work. In particular, the uplifting joy he describes feeling by narrowly escaping the SUV fire mirrors how Tony escaped his own depression by evading the hit put upon him in Season 1 - something that also involved an SUV accident.
• Lazy Bum: Tony notes that A.J. shrinks away from anything that involves work.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Zigzagged. On the one hand, the lazy, timid and directionless AJ is nothing like the hot-blooded, decisive, and ruthless Tony. On the other, a few characters have pointed out that AJ's laziness and entitlement are qualities Tony also has and the final season confirms that he also inherited Tony's depression but even more severe, to the point of attempting suicide. On a more positive note, he also shows more capability of building a life away from the mafia than Tony ever did and is far more capable of empathy and genuine kindness.
• The Load: While under duress, Carmela once told him to his face that he is "a cross that the rest of his family has to bear", a description AJ was clearly hurt by.
• Manchild: By the time AJ reaches young adulthood, he's still acting like a lazy and spoiled teenager. After Tony has to step in to keep AJ from being charged for attempting to kill Junior, he flat out tells AJ he's not a little kid anymore and he can't keep bailing him out from serious trouble like this.
• Mistaken for Gay: Tony suspects that AJ may have been engaging in homosexual activities during his stay at the suites in New York. He also thinks that AJ's interest in becoming an event manager is 'a bit gay'.
• Narcissist: It must run in the family. He is almost entirely unempathetic to others, exploits his status and connections as thoroughly as possible without limit, never once internalizes any form of criticism of his own behavior, and becomes particularly vain as he grows older. One of the final examples of this in the series happens when Tony comes to his room and informs him of Bobby's death. AJ's first response is to lament how inconvenient it is for his own depression and coping process.
• Never My Fault: He struggles to accept any responsibility for what he's done, just like his parents.
• Nice Guy: When he cares enough, he can be a very kind and respectful individual, such as when he is in a relationship with Blanca and makes a sincere effort to be a good boyfriend and father figure to her son Hector, and he at least lacks the violent nature of his father and a misplaced sense of self-righteousness of his mother and sister.
• Pyromaniac: Implied towards the end, when he credits breaking out of his depression to the excitement of watching his SUV accidentally catch fire.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Iler slimmed out over the course of the show, so the show added dialogue in which AJ complains about the healthiness of the food his parents are serving, and Tony gripes about his "obsession" over his weight.
• The Slacker: Definitely the lazier of the two siblings; doesn't once look like he's interested in anything involving actually working towards his goals. This can be at least partially explained by his later depression diagnosis.
• Spoiled Brat: Deconstructed. On the surface, A.J. is basically the living embodiment of the rudderless spoiled rich kid. Upon closer inspection, it's clear that his arc is one of the most realistic examples of a kid developing juvenile depression. For those who have lived through it, he checks literally every symptom ("laziness", nihilism, low self-esteem, and finally "broken heart" trigger).
• Stealing from the Till: Fired from his job at Blockbuster for stealing promotional items.
• The Unfavorite: AJ claims that the overachiever Meadow is the family favorite over him, the screw-up, but she counters that, as Italian-Americans, their parents will always favor their son.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Downplayed, he's an attractive enough adult but he has a number of female love interests who are considerably better looking than him.
• Unconfessed Unemployment: At one point, he tells Carmela everything was "fine" at Blockbuster, despite having been fired for three weeks.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It was through him that Livia found out that Tony was seeing a psychiatrist.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Wants to live up to his father's perceived expectations, but fails. A tragic example has him trying to emulate Michael Corleone's rise by attempting to kill Junior.
• White Sheep: None of the Sopranos are what you could call good people but AJ could be seen as this for them by the finale, albeit more for lacking any extreme negative traits than possessing particularly positive ones. He lacks his father's violent and aggressive nature and his mother and sister's hypocrisy and undeserved sense of self-righteousness and the finale even implies he has a chance of creating a life away from the mob while Meadow is about to be dragged into it.

Corrado "Junior" Soprano

Corrado John "Junior" Soprano, Jr.

"Keep thinking you know everything. Some people are so far behind in a race that they actually believe they're leading."

^{Click here to see Junior in 1967}

Played by: Dominic Chianese, Rocco Sisto, Corey Stoll (The Many Saints of Newark)

"You may run North Jersey, but you don't run your Uncle Junior! How many fuckin' hours did I spend playing catch with you?"

Tony's uncle and de jure Boss of the Soprano crime family.

---

• Affably Evil: Junior is generally a genial and friendly old man with a wicked sense of humor, so long as you don't get in his way.
• Alas, Poor Villain: His last appearance in Season 6's episode "Made in America". It is clear that his Alzheimer's has progressed to the point he is unaware of his surroundings and remembers nothing of his past other than playing catch with Tony. Seeing what his uncle has become almost reduces Tony to tears.
• Apparently Powerless Puppetmaster: Played With. After a brief power struggle in the first few episodes, his nephew Tony allows him to believe he's The Don while Tony is the de facto boss. However, Junior still tries his best to leverage his seniority and the loyalty of his underlings to run things behind Tony's back, undermining and even attempting to organize a hit on his nephew. Afterward, he's arrested and put under house arrest to await trial (not for the hit; the authorities had been building a case against him for years and the timing is just coincidental). Junior agrees to continue playing the part to avoid retribution from Tony and continues to advise him throughout the series. To the feds, of course, he plays the part of a bemused senior who doesn't know anything, while simultaneously trying to act tough and in control around Tony and the other gangsters; the truth is somewhere in the middle, and as he gets older he begins to show signs of genuine dementia.
• Authority in Name Only: Junior is made de jure boss of the Di Meo family, and actually keeps the title for a few seasons despite Tony's role as de facto boss.
• Bad Boss: Junior starts abusing his new power as boss almost immediately, taxing Tony's friend Hesh at the suggestion of Livia.
  • He has Donnie murdered for making jokes about Tony (someone who he himself plans to murder) just because he thinks it means Donnie might be the type to insult him behind his back.
• Bald of Evil: He's been bald since at least the seventies and is a vicious mob boss.
• Batman Gambit: He claims in front of Tony Soprano that he was only feigning a conflict between Tony and himself in Season 2, believing that the aggressively ambitious Richie Aprile would take this as a sign that he was against his nephew. Richie would then reveal his plans to Junior who’d then reveal them to Tony. He was not wrong.
  • Subverted, however since he only told Tony this in order to convince Tony he was always on his side; he chose to reject Richie’s offer after finding out the other capos did not respect Richie and he would not be an effective leader.
• Berserk Button: The mere implication that someone is laughing at him or making fun of him will set him completely off. He has Donnie whacked on the assumption he could be making jokes about him, and has Dickie Moltisanti whacked in the early seventies for laughing at him when he falls in the rain.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: In Season 1 with Tony's mother, Livia. Their "kinship" ends after Junior realizes she was not only using him as a pawn to have her son murdered but was willing to let him take full blame for it if the feds found out what happened.
• Butt-Monkey: Always suffering mishaps and embarrassments, whether getting his hand stuck down the plughole of his kitchen sink for 6 hours, to discovering his capos have been working behind his back. After season 1, he spends the whole time either going stir-crazy under house arrest or suffering illnesses, finally developing dementia.
• Call-Back: In the first episode of the series, Junior complains to Tony about the many hours he spent playing catch with him as a kid. In the last episode of the series, when Tony asks if he knows him, all Junior can recall is that he used to play catch with him.
• Cassandra Truth: He warns Tony early on that Christopher is a loose cannon. Tony comes to know this very, very well by the final season.
• The Consigliere: While not his official role, he often acts as this for Tony in addition to Silvio, especially in Seasons 3 and 4. His decades of experience as well as him being an Excellent Judge of Character make him an effective advisor.
• Deadpan Snarker: Says a witty, often dirty line every other episode.
• Death Glare: Gives one to a courtroom artist whose rendition of him was not entirely flattering.
• Diabolus ex Machina: A number of events outside of his control conspire to oust Junior from the position of boss early on:
  • His preemptive hit on Tony goes belly-up because the hitmen Mikey Palmice hires to do the job decide that guns are close-range weapons.
  • Green Grove gets bugged in no small part because Tony decides to begin hosting his clandestine meetings with capos there behind Junior's back, leading to significant mafia traffic being observed by the feds in the retirement home. As a result, Junior's conversation with Livia about whacking Tony is recorded and used as evidence to have him arraigned.
  • The fastest handing down of federal indictments in the series sees him and his key players incarcerated and arraigned for grand jury within only a couple of months of his tenure, consolidating most of the power in Tony's hands.
• Dirty Old Man: Junior is a shameless flirt and it gets him into trouble a few times. A nurse he regularly flirts with turns out to be an FBI plant and his downfall into senility starts when he turns around to greet an attractive reporter and hits his head on a boom mike.
• The Don: Only in name, though.
• Due to the Dead: He seeks to attend the funerals of old acquaintances, but only because this frees him from his house arrest for a while.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • He doesn't stand for anyone ridiculing his institutionalized deceased brother, Ercole "Eckley" Soprano.
  • For all their disputes, Junior does genuinely love Tony and treats him as the son he never had. He snapped at Richie Aprile for talking about a hit on Tony. Yes, he himself tried to have Tony killed just a season before, but that was more due to the Cosa Nostra code dictating Junior put the organization over his family. By the end of the show, the only memories he has left of Tony are not of the mob boss that usurped him but of the boy he used to play catch with.
    Junior: That's my nephew you're talking about! How dare you in my own home!
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Surprisingly, he thinks that Ralph Cifaretto's joke about Johnny Sack's wife was unfunny, and mentions that back in his day, mobsters would not be making these kinds of comments about each others' wives.
  • He is against selling drugs to children. When his tailor tells him his 14-year-old grandson was killed by a drug peddler, Junior is genuinely horrified and later tracks down said drug peddler and kills him off in (almost) the exact same way the boy died.
  • He considers it embarrassing when mobsters run (literally) from awkward situations.
• Evil Is Petty: Hesh quite accurately describes Corrado as a man "driven entirely by insecurities." The Many Saints Of Newark reveals that it was he who had Dickie Moltisanti killed, for the crime of making him feel emasculated and laughing at him when he tripped in the rain.
• Evil Old Folks: In the first episode, he is plotting to kill a rival at his favorite restaurant. He becomes boss of the North Jersey Mob shortly thereafter and conspires with Livia to kill Tony.
• Evil Uncle: He conspires to have Tony killed on several occasions in the first two seasons.
• Excellent Judge of Character: In contrast with Tony. Might have something to do with the big glasses. Tends to see people for exactly who they are, and, although he is susceptible to flattery, is very difficult to actually fool (unless you're a pretty woman returning his flirtations):
  • Sees Christopher for the liability he is very early on, and encourages Tony to have Christopher taken out more than once.
  • Although he collaborates with Livia, at her urging, to have Tony whacked, he is under no illusions about how conniving Livia can be, and immediately sees through her attempt to play senile following the failed hit. While Tony accuses Junior of having been played for a fool, there is truth to Junior's argument that he would have acted the same way without her influence, once he found out that Tony had been making moves behind his back to run the family, as this is a pretty standard no-no in the mafia. Furthermore, while Junior denies that Livia knew she was setting Tony up to be whacked, his earlier interactions with Livia, as well as Dr. Melfi's postulation that Corrado loves Tony, and wouldn't want to tell him information that would only hurt him, implies that he is being deliberately obtuse for Tony's, his own, and the family's benefit.
  • Warns anyone who comes into any kind of contact with his niece Janice about how dangerous she is (including Janice herself, when he is suffering from dementia and can't actually recognize her in Season 6). No one listens, to their detriment. Janice is also generally unable to manipulate Corrado anywhere near as well as she can push Tony's buttons, as Corrado is fairly indifferent to her usual games (such as when she comes to see him about Bobby). In fact, Janice actually ends up helping Junior achieve his own ends instead (such as when she encourages Bobby to shake down a jointfitter's union rep on Junior's behalf).
  • Correctly surmises that no one likes Richie Aprile, and that throwing in with Richie is a bad idea. He turns out to be right, as Janice, Richie's then-lover, ends up killing him out of disdain before Tony's crew gets a chance to.
  • He concluded that Jackie Aprile Jr. was a moron who would never amount to anything when Jackie nearly drowned in a pool of water that was only three inches deep as a kid.
  • On a subtler note, he promotes Bobby Baccalieri to one of the highest positions in his own crew. Bobby turns out to be one of the most reliable, loyal, and levelheaded wiseguys around, in spite of his initial appearance to others as a coddled oaf.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Junior’s pride is the cause of most of his problems. In fact, his refusal to turn state’s witness against Tony is likely less about old-school values of mafia loyalty but rather that he refuses to admit his nephew outfoxed him and he was made boss in name only.
  • Lust is another one for him.
    • His philandering in Boca resulted in the conflict between him and Tony at the end of Season 1.
    • In season 3, he uses his doctor's office to conduct meetings with Tony, believing the feds can't bug the place. He is technically right, but he completely fails to realize the attractive nurse he was flirting with is actually an undercover FBI agent.
    • His flirting with a pretty reporter at the end of Season 4 causes a boom mic to hit him on the head and trip down a flight of stairs, which could be pointed to as the cause of his senility from Season 5 onwards.
• Faux Affably Evil: Can be a kindly old gentleman, but he is someone who is willing to have members of his own blood family murdered.
• Greater-Scope Villain: For the series as a whole. The Many Saints of Newark reveal that if not for Junior ordering Dickie to be whacked, Tony (his nephew) and Christopher (Dickie's son) would never be fully entrapped by the life of crime and all the misery that happens to them and those around them would have never happened.
• Grumpy Old Man: A fairly obvious example. In an early episode, Tony jokes about giving him his DVD player so he can watch Grumpy Old Men. This just annoys him further.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Is an extraordinary singer. He literally brings a room full of mobsters to tears.
  • Despite being a Politically Incorrect Villain, he holds a rather progressive view towards the subject of mentally-disabled people, snapping at Tony for calling his brother Eckley "retarded" and lamenting that Eckley had been born in an age where people like him were frowned upon.
• Humiliation Conga: After failing as a Big Bad in Season 1, he suffers increasing emasculation and eventual senility. It's equal parts hilarious and depressing.
• Hypocrite: He scolds Big Pussy for trying to run from FBI agents, stating that it's undignified. But Junior himself does the exact same thing a year or two later when he sees FBI arresting members of his crime family at Jackie Aprile Jr. funeral.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: He hedges his bets well in the conflict between Richie and Tony, eventually siding with the latter when the former fails to garner adequate support for his coup.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Displays shades of this; he is often surrounded by people who try to care for him (Bobby, Janice, and to an extent Tony) but his bitter personality and dementia eventually drive them away. Note that he himself ends a relationship with his girlfriend, Bobbi, for gossiping about his skill at performing cunnilingus, and abruptly truncates a promising budding relationship with Catherine Romano in Season 2.
• Irony: Towards the end of Season 1 when his mind is still fully intact, upon learning that Tony may be leaking mafia secrets to his therapist and is forced to live up to his title of Boss, Junior makes the conscious decision of ordering a hit on his nephew. After the hit fails and most of Junior's crew is killed off, Tony and mostly everyone sans Carmela seems to forgive him for the deliberate attempt on his nephew's life. Fast forward five seasons when Junior's mind is clearly in the early stages of dementia and senility, he mistakenly confuses Tony with his long-dead nemesis "Little Pussy" Malanga and almost fatally shoots him. Despite not being in his right mind and having no memory of the incident, Junior finds himself shunned and ostracized from both his blood family and crime family for his actions.
  • Early in the first season, in retaliation for imagined slights and insubordination, he sets up Christopher Moltisanti for a mock execution. In the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark, we see that he arranges a hit on Christopher's father, Dickie Moltisanti. And that one was fatal.
• Jerkass: He's ruthless, egotistical, and often very emotionally stoic.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In season one, Tony repeatedly goes behind Junior's back and undermines his authority. Even after learning about Tony's therapy Junior tries to be lenient. As much as the audience may have an affinity for Tony, Junior actually has a strong The Dog Bites Back justification for his actions.
• Married to the Job: Never married, and his one stable relationship was ruined by the business and related gossip.
  • His decision to have Tony whacked in Season One also demonstrates this. Real-life Mafia law dictates that loyalty to the mob is expected to supersede loyalty to family. Thus, even though he doesn't actually want to kill his own nephew, he feels he must out of obligation to his duties as a mob boss.
• Mentor Archetype: Tony seeks his counsel often, and for good reason, as Junior provides sound, experienced advice, before losing his marbles.
• Narcissist: To essentially the same extent as Tony, although he has more explicit Kick the Dog moments to exhibit his own narcissism, such as expecting Bobby to quickly overcome his grief from the death of his wife in order to threaten a jointfitter's union official. Although whether this is due to genuine narcissism or his status as a curmudgeonly old man is subjective.
• Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Junior liquidates Rusty Irish for selling drugs to children, which led to the grandson of Junior's tailor committing suicide. This is viewed as old-fashioned and the other capos resent him, as it was a bad business decision.
• Nerd Glasses: Dominic Chianese has said the trademark oversized glasses are the character, and he would even wear them in all the rehearsals.
• Nice to the Waiter: Played With. He's very abrasive towards Bobby, his loyal and resigned assistant. But he does authorize Bobby's "bump up", leading to him eventually becoming the third highest-ranking member of the crime family.
• Noble Demon: Despite his villainy and callousness, deep down, he does love his nephew. And, throughout the series, he makes several attempts at healthy female relationships. Which, unfortunately, go sour once his ego and/or business acumen come into play. He also genuinely loves AJ and Meadow, his grand-nephew/niece, respectively.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He's in his 70s by the time the series begins and he is never seen killing anyone personally. He does order a few murders and beatings, but he gets his minions to carry them out.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Junior adopts this tactic in Season 4, feigning dementia to beat the competency hearings for his RICO trial. Later, it turns out that he is actually developing the condition.
• Offing the Offspring: Attempted twice with Tony, the offspring of his brother but a son-figure nevertheless.
  Vito: He Marvin Gayed his own nephew.
• Out of Focus: Gradually appears less over the course of the series, particularly after his dementia sets in. He only appears in two of the final nine episodes.
• Parental Substitute: In flashbacks, he is revealed to have been more of a father figure to his nephew than Tony's actual father, "Johnny Boy" Soprano, who largely neglected his family in favor of pursuing his own appetites and ambitions. A scene in The Many Saints of Newark shows him telling Johnny Boy that his duties "raising" Tony somewhat negatively impacted his looking after crime family affairs. Johnny was in prison for five years, so Corrado was around a lot more when Tony was a teenager.
• Passed-Over Promotion: He is the heir apparent of the family, but Tony steps in and up.
• Pet the Dog: During the first season, he genuinely seems to love his nephew, Tony, like a son despite growing increasingly resentful of his widespread influence within the DiMeo crime family. This is evidenced by his apparent unease over ordering Tony's assassination even while firmly believing that he poses an imminent threat to his position as Boss. However, after Tony effectively strips him of all his power and influence by the beginning of Season 2, nearly all his feelings of affection towards his nephew are tainted by a deep-rooted contempt that endures throughout the remainder of the series.
  • In the second season, he tells Richie that he plans to give a pair of new sneakers to the impoverished kid who washes his car.
  • While he routinely gives him shit, he does care for Bobby. He tries to protect him by warning him about Janice and sends him some money for his family in season 6. He also gives Bobby a key bump up in rank in the crime organization.
• Playing Sick: Straight example to dodge criminal prosecution, and then ironically twisted as he is really going senile.
• Pragmatic Villainy: While he's a bit old-fashioned in his mindset, he can be pragmatic when needed. He initially considered siding with Richie in Season 2. But after he assessed the situation and realized Richie wasn't respected, he decides things are better with Tony in charge and decides to let Tony in on Richie's plans so he can score some brownie points.
• Puppet King: Tony sets him up as one in the aftermath of Jackie Aprile's death. Following Dr. Melfi's advice, Tony's plan is to allow Junior to be nominally in charge while Tony and his crew make the real decisions from behind the scenes. Unfortunately it doesn't play out that way. Junior eventually catches on to the true nature of the arrangement and tries to have Tony killed. Later Junior's arrest puts an end to what little power he actually had.
• Sanity Slippage: Senile dementia. Showcased in two episodes of note; First in "Where's Johnny?" when a disoriented Junior wanders off in search of his (deceased) brother, "Johnny Boy," forcing Tony, Janice, and Bobby into a day-long search that ends when he's finally returned home by the police. Then again at the end of "Members Only," when he confuses Tony's late-night presence in his home for his (also deceased) rival "Little Pussy" Malanga^note the guy he had killed in the pilot, and the one Tony torched the original Vesuvio to keep Junior from killing him there. and shoots Tony in the stomach. Season 6 sees him ostracized by the family following this incident, dooming Junior to increasingly shabby state care and finally a Loss of Identity.
• Scatterbrained Senior: Invoked after suffering a head injury after leaving court, where Junior and Tony conspire to make it appear is mentally unfit to stand trial to avoid jail time due to dementia. Then it ends up played straight when Junior develops dementia for real, wandering through the streets in his pyjamas looking for his long-dead brother, shooting Tony after mistaking him for an also long-dead rival, and eventually forgetting who Tony even is and that he was ever part of a crime family.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Everyone in the cast (save for Livia) is a potty mouth, but Junior swears more than all of them.
• The Smart Guy: Despite his ineffectiveness as a leader and his senility in later seasons, he's far from stupid in the first four seasons, and as noted above, is an Excellent Judge of Character to pretty much everyone on the show who isn't a pretty woman. A more impulsive villain would've sided with Richie in Season 2, but Junior's intelligence allowed him to recognize that Richie wasn't respected at all when compared to Tony. He also recognizes that Christopher Moltisanti would be more of a detriment to the mob than an asset early on in Season 1, in spite of Tony's nepotism.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Shortly after Jackie Jr.'s death, Uncle Junior idly comments that the kid was always a "dumb fuck" who nearly drowned in a couple of inches of water once. Inappropriate, sure, but Corrado's appraisal was pretty accurate...
• Tap on the Head: A news crew's boom mic hitting his head causes him to fall down the stairs outside the courthouse following one of his trials. It's later theorized this incident might've triggered his onset of dementia.
• Thicker Than Water: Subverted when he backs Tony against Richie Aprile. He invokes Pragmatic Villainy as he's better off with his nephew, but then again he's still mad at Richie for suggesting a hit against him.
• Token Good Teammate: Strangely, for a given value of good, he is this for Tony's parental figures (Johnny, Livia, Dickie Moltisanti, and himself), seemingly being the only one who genuinely cares for the well-being of Tony, and acts more like a normal parent to him than his actual parents or Dickie.
• Trying Not to Cry: When Tony asks him if he loves him, Junior's mouth starts to quiver but no tears are shed.
• Two Decades Behind: A good part of the reason many of the mobsters are reluctant to accept him as boss of the family is that they consider him to be too old-fashioned and insistent on being the group being Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters at the expense of Pragmatic Villainy.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: He almost hits his girlfriend Bobbi with a closed fist during their nasty break-up, but can't bring himself to do so, settling for punching the wall behind her instead, and smashing a pie in her face.

Livia Soprano

Livia Soprano

"Oh, poor you!"

^{Click here to see Livia in 1967}

Played by: Nancy Marchand, Laila Robins, Laurie Williams, Vera Farmiga (The Many Saints of Newark)

"Oh, Mr. Sensitive now. Well, if it bothers you, maybe you better talk to a psychiatrist."

Tony's hateful and abusive mother.

---

• Abusive Parents: A real piece of work who threatened to stick a fork in Tony's eye when he was 10 years old, among many other examples. When Tony is asked to recall 'warm loving memories' of her as a child by Dr. Melfi, Tony is genuinely trying hard to come up with any specific ones for a full minute and the only one he can think of his when his father hurt himself in front of everyone.
• Accentuate the Negative: Livia's favorite pastime. She never has a good word to say about anything or anyone. Or, as put by her own granddaughter:

  Janice: You know Grandma pretty well, don't you?
  Meadow: I guess...
  Janice: What is she in to?
  Meadow: *smiling wryly* I dunno...Negativity?

  • A discussion where Tony brings up Dr. Melfi's theories with Janice mentions that Livia is incapable of happiness.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: For all the fighting with and abuse she heaped on Johnny Boy, and in part marrying him to improve her lifestyle, it is clear Livia was deeply attracted to him and especially aroused by the way he violently extorted Satriale's to put food on the table for her and their family.
• Ambiguous Situation: Whether she has traces of dementia. Though it's universally agreed that she was faking her symptoms at the tail-end of the first season in order to avoid any blame for her part in trying to have Tony killed, she does seem noticeably more befuddled and genuinely confused at Tony's accusations toward her near the end of the second season. Though that could also be explained away by her general narcissism and Never My Fault complex. Ultimately, it's open to interpretation whether she ever had it all.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: When Junior is out for Christopher's blood, Livia counsels him to be merciful because Christopher put up some storm windows for her one time. This ultimately saves Christopher's life.
  • The Many Saints of Newark shows she held Dickie Moltisanti (Christopher's father) in very high regard, so that could also have played a part in her advocating sparing Christopher.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With Junior Soprano in Season 1. Their "kinship" ends after Junior realizes she was not only using him as a pawn to have her son murdered but was willing to let him take full blame for it if the feds found out what happened. By the end of season two, Junior basically wants nothing to do with her.
• Character Catchphrase: She has several, and all of them reflect malice or self-pity or both on her part. "Oh, poor you!", "I wish the Lord would take me now!", "I don't know what you're talking about!" In general, she seems prone to repeating sentences and phrases verbatim rather than constructing original sentences.
• The Chain of Harm: When discussing why their mother is the way she is, Janice suggests to Tony that it was because Livia's own father wasn't exactly a great parent to her either. Tony thinks that while that might be part of why, it could also be that Livia inherently could not experience joy, so she coped by taking away the joy of others.
• The Consigliere: An unofficial one to Junior, who often seeks her counsel on mob matters. Given a darker spin when it becomes apparent that Livia manipulated him too.
• The Cynic: An evil, abusive mother with a very negative view of life.
  Livia to A.J.: Who says everything has a purpose? The world's a jungle....In the end, you die in your own arms......It's all a big nothing. What makes you think you're so special?
• Deadpan Snarker: She has her moments.
  Livia: Water, water, water. It's like I'm living next to Gunga Din
• Doting Grandparent: About the only people she shows affection towards are her grandchildren. She's overjoyed when Anthony Jr. comes to visit her in the hospital and gives Meadow money as a reward for getting accepted into good colleges.
• Death by Irony: She fakes a stroke to escape the fallout from a failed hit on her son at the end of season 1. She dies of a real stroke at the start of Season 3. though unlike most examples of this trope, it's not like Livia would have been bothered by the coincidence.
• Death Seeker: Zigzagged. Definitely shows hints of this. She's shown to constantly scour the obituary columns and even smiles when Tony threatens to kill her after it's implied that she induced a stroke through her own built up rage. Though she also manipulates Janice into a position where she's not able to kill her at the start of the second season.
• Drama Queen: She's a phrasecatcher for Johnny Boy's "Always with the drama". As Tony says during his therapy with Melfi: for her, "every night was like a night at the opera."
• The Dreaded: Not so much in life, where she was a point of insecurity for Tony, but definitely becomes this in death. We're treated to at least two unsettling dream sequences where Tony fearfully envisions a silent, shadowy figure who resembles Livia.
• Due to the Dead: Even at her funeral, she is the source of friction. Nobody has anything genuinely good to say about her.
  "His brother was worse!"
• The Eeyore: A miserable, selfish, cagey pessimist, who only becomes worse with age.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She seems genuinely fond of her grandchildren and uses her influence with Junior to keep Christopher from being killed. She also softens up a little towards Janice during their "bonding" at the beginning of Season Two^note until she finds out about the DNR. Unfortunately, this is as far as her redeeming qualities go in the series.
• Evil Matriarch: An evil mother who takes pleasure in tormenting people around her, especially her son Tony, who even after her death goes on to have nightmares of her in a sinister shadow form, ominously watching and waiting for him to join her inside a house.
• Evil Old Folks: Extraordinarily manipulative, and not above putting a hit on her own son if it gets her what she wants.
• Family-Values Villain: Strangely, despite being surrounded by mobster figures like Tony and Junior, she hated swearing and cursing, and also disliked other people swearing in front of her.
• Freudian Excuse: According to a conversation between Tony and Janice, their maternal grandfather Vito "was no prize" when they were discussing Dr. Melfi's theories about Livia. Also, according to her bio on HBO's website, she grew up poor and miserable, marrying Johnny Soprano to get out of her immigrant family's rut - only to find life as a housewife to be equally miserable and unfulfilling. She took her misery out on everybody around her.
• Gaslighting: She'll insult, demean, and belittle her children at every opportunity, and in the very next breath will claim no such thing happened, she did a fantastic job raising them, and they're just ungrateful.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Even though she failed to have her son murdered and ends up dead in Season 3, her negative influence still lingers on her family until the end of the series. Basically, she's a large part of why Tony's and Janice's capacity for empathy is so underdeveloped and a major factor into AJ's crippling depression, and her shadow looms over all their toxic family interactions. In short, she succeeded in negatively influencing the psychological profile of Tony, and it was ultimately her who destroyed her own family.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: As evidenced in flashbacks, she used to be an incredibly explosive and violent woman.
• Hated by All: At her funeral, nobody can think of a single nice thing to say about her (at best, statements were said that sounded positive, but were neutral at best), until Carmela just comes out and says what everyone was thinking: Livia was a horribly dysfunctional woman who spread misery everywhere she went. Nobody disagrees with this assessment, not even Livia's own children.
• Hate Sink: Easily one of the most despicable characters. Livia derives little pleasure save to hurt and making others miserable. She psychologically tortures Tony as much as she can and has a hit put out on him in revenge for trying to put her in a nursing home. Her abuse of Tony has been there for years.
• Hypocrite: She plays the part of the lonely widow and proclaims her late husband was a saint, yet she treated him very badly and Tony states that he can't remember her ever visiting his grave.
  • She accuses her maid of stealing a plate, which, not a breath later, she clarifies is the one she took from a restaurant in Rome.
• I Was Quite a Looker: In the flashbacks to Tony's childhood, Livia was portrayed by the very attractive and petite Laila Robins who appeared as a pretty and picture-perfect 1960s Housewife with eyeliner and a bouffant; in the present day, she appears to be a frumpy elderly woman with a sour disposition. A bit meta given that Marchand in her younger years looked similar to Dr. Melfi. The Many Saints of Newark seems to bear this out, casting the frankly stunning Vera Farmiga as a younger Livia (though admittedly the hair and costumes don't do her any favors).
• It's All About Me: Even when hearing that Jackie Aprile Sr. is dying of cancer, she can't veer the discussion away from her own misery.
  • Her attempt on her son’s life by telling Junior he’s seeing a therapist is fueled by her paranoia that Tony is using therapy to bash his mother. Ironically, Tony at this time is overly defensive of his parents in therapy, not realizing they caused many of his subconscious psychological problems.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Seems to have been born wearing them and hasn't taken them off once in her seven decades on the planet.
• Jerkass: She's ruthless, cruel, abusive, evil, manipulative, toxic, and narcissistic.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She's absolutely correct about Janice "bonding" with her just so that she can have her old house.
• Joisey: Speaks with a stereotypical New Jersey accent (despite technically being from Rhode Island).
• Lack of Empathy: She's never seen to be compassionate with Tony, or anyone else for that matter, except maybe her grandchildren.
• Lady Macbeth: For Junior; she manipulates him into trying to kill Tony.
• Manipulative Bitch: Livia is essentially this, as she manages to influence Junior, Artie, and Janice to turn against Tony in two short seasons.
• Meaningful Name: Not for nothing does she share a name with a Roman ancestor.
• My Beloved Smother: Despite the fact that she attempts infanticide, she is most definitely this with the best example being in the series' pilot.
• Narcissist: She’s one of the biggest narcissists in the Soprano family, as she cares about very little outside of her own issues.
• Never My Fault: She spends all her time complaining about her kids' abandoning her and ignores the fact that she was a lousy parental figure, instead drawing attention to Tony's ill-gotten wealth and counting that as proof that she did a great job as a mother.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: It's practically one of her catchphrases to refer to her late husband as a "saint", almost always to emotionally manipulate the person she's talking to, negatively comparing them to her infalliable image of him. Tony notes she never said a single nice thing about his father when Johnny was still alive, and her continuous nagging and fights eventually turned him into a shell of his former self by the time he died.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Though debatably somewhat senile, she also tends to play it up as a cover for her more unforgivable deeds.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Granted her behavior towards her in-laws was the same as to everyone else, but she was very toxic to them nonetheless. Notably, Carmela is the first person to Speak Ill of the Dead at her funeral, Hugh follows her with similar comments, and Barbara's husband Tom gives them a "hear, hear".
• Offing the Offspring: Narrowly thwarted, as is the ensuing Vorpal Pillow from Tony.
• Perpetual Frowner: As befits her personality, Livia almost always has a look of misery and displeasure on her face.
• Pet the Dog: Some of her interactions with her grandchildren are surprisingly pleasant:
  • When Meadow is telling Livia about her college admissions results, Livia lets out an incensed "Who do they think they are?" after hearing the rejections, then gives Meadow $20.
  • She's pleased that A.J. takes the time to ride his bike down to see her and disapproves of his parents sending him to a psychiatrist, believing there's nothing wrong with him.
  • While he's not directly related to her, she also has some affection for Christopher and even gets Junior to spare him during a war with Tony because he helped fix things around her house and was polite to her.
  • The Many Saints of Newark shows that while she had low opinions of black people as a whole, she defended the black family that moved onto the Soprano family's street while Johnny Boy was in prison, noting the father was a doctor and they were a nice family.
  • She also had a special affection for Dickie Moltisanti, with her son Tony noting that he's the only person his mother listened to, and gave him special presents.
• Racist Grandma: She is of course, on top of everything else, racist. She's certain the black maid Tony hires to take care of her is stealing from her. The maid in question manages to last a single day in her company before walking off in disgust. She also refused to ever seek therapy or counseling, dismissing it as a "racket for the Jews".
• Resentful Guardian: She was simply not cut out to be a mother, saying that children were like dogs to her.
• Sanity Slippage: Senile dementia, though it's sometimes hard to tell if she's faking it or not due to how manipulative she can be.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: She didn't fill out any of the memory journals Carmela sent, kept very few pictures of her family, and wanted no funeral, because she didn't believe anyone cared enough about her to warrant anything to remember her by. Of course, this is entirely her own fault, because she spent her entire life being vicious, biting, and manipulative to anyone who had the misfortune to cross her path. Sure enough, nobody at her funeral can think of anything nice to say about her and most of them didn't even want to come, only doing so because she's Tony's mother.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She is one of the most regularly seen and central characters in the first season, then makes more sparse appearances in the second. After that, as a result of Marchand's death, she disappears entirely (bar an infamously awkward CGI appearance in "Proshai, Livushka"). However her influence looms large over the rest of the series, and she is maybe the most essential character after Tony.
• The Sociopath: Attempting to have her own son murdered is the obvious example, but she has plenty of others: she shows zero concern or sympathy when Tony mentions that Jackie Aprile Sr. is dying, and she callously closes the curtain on the woman in the hospital bed next to hers after she mentions that she has cancer.

Janice Soprano

Janice Soprano Baccalieri

Played by: Aida Turturro; Alexandra Intrator & Mattea Conforti (The Many Saints of Newark)

Sister of Tony Soprano who lives in Seattle at the start of the series.

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• Abusive Parents:
  • Much like Tony, she was the victim of this in the form of her spiteful mother, Livia, who relentlessly criticized her appearance as well as her failed string of romantic relationships.
  • She later becomes a pretty bad parent to Bobby Baccala’s kids, as they see through her charades easily, and after his death, the kids are stuck with her alone.
• Aloof Big Sister: Played with but subverted. In Season 1, Tony speaks of her this way to Dr. Melfi when describing how she left him and his younger sister to endure the brunt of their tyrannical mother's abuse in order to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle. Similarly, Tony all but admits in the same therapy session that he was perpetually anxious of the possibility that she was his father's favorite child. In Season 2, she returns to New Jersey and quickly reopens old wounds by ingratiating herself with their mother, Livia, in order to become the prime beneficiary of the estate. However, it is later revealed that she is just as much a victim of Livia's abusive parenting as her younger brother.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • While in high school, she dated the brutal Richie Aprile, whom she is later revealed to remain attracted to despite the abusive nature of their prior relationship. While they briefly resume their relationship in Season 2, she kills him in reply to new abuse.
  • In Season 4, she replaces Richie with the violently unstable mobster, a rising Ralph Cifaretto.
  • A psychiatrist makes her realize the Electra complex pattern and guides her to break it, so she begins to look for the reverse. She quickly dumps Ralphie with some lame pretext and starts to pursue Bobby Baccalieri, a Gentle Giant who is the exact opposite of her previous type.
• Berserk Button: Do not bring up her estranged son Harpo. Tony forces her to meltdown one time using him simply because he can't bear seeing her happy.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Shitty personality aside, Janice is quite the vivacious, curvaceous woman and has attracted the attention of many men throughout the series.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Constantly pestering and bickering with her brother, the head of the family.
• Cartwright Curse: Similar to the Aprile crew capos and the ostensible Aprile Curse, all the men who have been romantically involved with Janice on the show have met horrible demises, one of which she was directly responsible for. Richie was fatally shot by Janice after he punches her. Ralphie was beaten to death by her brother Tony. Bobby was gunned down by Phil Leotardo's hitmen during his "decapitation" of New Jersey. Although Richie's and Ralphie's demise could be connected to the Aprile Curse, both of their brief flings with Janice suggest the existence of a "Janice Soprano" curse as well.
• Catchphrase: "There's a lot I could say right now that I am not gonna say."
• Consummate Liar: When she has something to gain, she is second to none in feigning sentimentality and manipulating those around her with gossip and half-truths.
• Cool Aunt: Her seemingly laid-back and free-spirited personality along with her liberal outlook charms even Meadow, who is largely distrustful and contemptuous towards adult figures in her family. This is subverted when she reveals her narcissistic and vindictive nature by angrily calling upon Meadow and her friends to be punished for wrecking Livia's house where she plans on living.
• Didn't Think This Through: She didn't do her late mother any justice by conducting a remembrance in the great room of Tony's house. Just ask Carmela.
• Faith–Heel Turn: Has a short-lived and shallow Christian rebirth. Her narcissism afflores again in no time.
• Fatal Flaw: Much like her brother, her quick temper often gets her into more trouble than its worth, causing Tony to come and clean her messes.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: She deceives Bobby at first with it, pretending to be like the other mob-wives while presenting Carmela's food as her own. She half-tries later to somewhat evolve, but only manages to serve prepared food and bad meals, showing she is too lazy, too neglectful to serve others, and too uncaring to be bothered or even realize it.
• Foil: For Tony, despite having many of the same traits.
• Freudian Excuse: Same as Tony's, less than stellar parents and upbringing.
• Granola Girl: At first. It fades as she gets settled into Jersey.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Just like Tony, she tends to explode in violent outbursts.
• Hate Sink: A toxic, annoying, manipulative, contemptible woman. It's quite amazing that she proves to be less likable and empathetic than her brother Tony, a ruthless yet intelligent crime boss.
• Hidden Depths: She's one of the few characters on the show to be openly tolerant of homosexuality, having lost a close friend during the AIDS crisis during her time in Seattle.
• Horrible Judge of Character: At one point during an argument with Carmela, she tells her that Richie's stay in prison has made him more sympathetic towards the plight of women. Carmela scoffs at her.
• Hypocrite: For all her New Age talk, she's as much an Heteronormative Crusader as Carmela or Tony.
• I Was Quite a Looker: She's still quite attractive as an adult, but in high school, she was lusted after by many of the boys Tony knew growing up, much to his chagrin.
• It's All About Me: Big time. Nearly every decision she makes in the series is based on whatever will benefit her personally. Her decision to disregard her late mother's wishes for no big funeral or wake rests solely on the fact she doesn't want others to perceive her as cheap, not because she actually cared about Livia (Tony had to pay for her plane ticket in full and threaten to leave her out of Livia's estate to get her to even come to the funeral).
• Jerkass: She's an incredibly obnoxious, narcissistic woman with a Hair-Trigger Temper.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In Season 2 when she notes Carmela's untapped potential and dependency on Tony, then in Season 4 when she tells Bobby his prolonged grief over his wife is unhealthy.
• Lady Macbeth: She was manipulative towards Richie, telling him he deserved more than he received. When having sex, she made suggestions of him taking over as boss and goaded him into the power play he organized against Tony. She also manipulated Bobby by scaring his children after their mother's death. She knew Bacala would call after being unable to cope with their fear and confusion.
• Lazy Bum: Spends most of her time doing nothing, like watching TV or resting, claiming some certified disability or another, yet is quick to recriminate others when they request any form of minor help from her, citing she is very busy or unavailable.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Janice serves as a sort of stand-in for Livia at times as she's just as toxic, narcissistic, and manipulative. Lampshaded by Tony in "All Happy Families" when he notes that Janice has taken on many of their mother's traits and has started to excuse Livia's behavior and abuse.
• The Load: Has a parasitic life that only generates problems for the actual money earners.
• Mama Bear: Is genuinely upset when her stepdaughter Sophia appears to be taken advantage of during her volleyball game, and though she definitely overreacts (physically attacking the mother of the offending player), the concern is there. Janice even lampshades this trope when she later tries to explain her over-the-top actions to Sophia.
• Manipulative Bitch:
  • She frequently encouraged Richie to defy Tony, because she wanted to be married to the boss. One night while having sex, which ended abruptly when Janice said "Oh baby, you're the boss... it should be you," Richie became upset, and told Janice he needed to be loyal. Janice's response "Tell that to Paul Castellano," is a reference to the real-life slaying of the Gambino boss by John Gotti.
  • Frustrated with Bobby's refusal to commit, she sent Bobby's children instant messages via her Mac, choosing a user name that appeared satanic, and indicated to them that she was watching them by referring to things in their room (which she was able to see from her window) and succeeded in scaring them badly. She subsequently rushed over to help comfort the distressed Baccalieri children and curry favor with their bewildered father.
• Narcissist: An "amorous" example given that she also exhibits traits of histrionic personality disorder (See Theodore Millon's "Personality Subtypes") as evidenced by how she actively seeks to make herself the center of attention regardless of the circumstances while making such events as dramatic (i.e: theatrical) as possible, much to the chagrin of Tony and Carmela. However, unlike Tony, Janice also exhibits traits typically seen in "unprincipled" narcissists, given that she pursues a highly parasitic lifestyle with hardly any shame whatsoever and seems almost completely incapable of forming any genuine attachments to those around her.
• Obfuscating Disability: Diagnosed with a condition that grants her social benefits, it's hinted and discussed that it's a fabricated phony excuse.
• Never My Fault: She's always finding reasons to shift blame away from herself, and never takes accountability for her many flaws.
• Parental Favoritism: She has envy of Tony for the attention her mother Livia gave to him. In turn, Tony thinks Janice was Daddy's Girl.
• Pet the Dog: Openly calls out Richie's homophobia towards his son, saying that him being gay should make no difference.
• Put on a Bus: Literally at the end of season 2, but Tony's solace is short-lived as she comes back for good the next season.
• Really Gets Around: In her youth, she was notorious for her rampant promiscuity. Upon returning to New Jersey, she continues her promiscuous ways to a slightly lesser extent as a Gold Digger who hops from one rising mobster to another.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Given a pretty severe one by Tony in "Where's Johnny?", where he calls her out on leaving him to take Livia's abuse.
• Spanner in the Works: She completely derails Richie's plans to oppose Tony by killing him. She did her brother a massive favor and she didn't even plan on it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Apparently after she hooks up with Bobby, although Tony sees right through it.
• Wicked Stepmother: After she marries Bobby. Bobby's kids hate her for the obvious reasons, and even more so after Bobby is murdered, leaving Janice their sole caretaker. Janice is of course so narcissistic she's clueless to how much Bobby's kids despise her and thinks she's doing a great job.
• Wife-Basher Basher: She shoots Richie Aprile to death after he punches her.
• You Are What You Hate: She effectively becomes Livia by the end of the series once she becomes the sole caretaker of Bobby's children.

Anthony "Tony B" Blundetto

Anthony "Tony B" Blundetto

"Put me in, coach!"

Played by: Steve Buscemi

Cousin of Tony Soprano who is released from jail in season 5.

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• Affably Evil: Gets along well with most of the mobsters and is generally a fairly likable sort. He's still a violent thug and a hitman, however.
• Animal Motifs: Although not a specific one. Janice describes him as a "fox", and Phil Leotardo frequently refers to him as a wild animal even after his death, with Tony S being incapable of keeping him under control until he has to give him a Mercy Kill a la Old Yeller.
• Berserk Button: Their murder of Angelo Garepe (Tony B's best friend from prison) gets the Leotardo brothers gunned down by a vengeful Tony B. Billy dies while Phil lives, prompting a Roaring Rampage of Revenge from the latter that drives Tony B on the run and sours the Lupertazzi's relationship with the DiMeo's.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Is usually pleasant with most people, but he has a vengeful streak.
• Broken Pedestal: Tony S looked up to Tony B when they were younger, and he continued to idolize him once he got released from prison. Tony B's impulsive attack on the Leotardo brothers sours Tony S's perception immensely.
• Bullying a Dragon: Is probably the only person who can insult Tony Soprano to his face and get away with it (though, Tony S does lose a little patience over it).
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Mild example in his bullying of Christopher during his youth, in tandem with Tony.
• Butt-Monkey: Sees himself as one, though most of his misfortune is his own fault.
• Chronic Villainy: Despite attempting to go straight, Blundetto is unable to stay away from the mob life after he is released from prison, due to a combination of Hard Work Hardly Works, Better Living Through Evil, and sheer greed.
• Chekhov's Skill: His medical knowledge saves the life of Christopher during his feud with Tony.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Threatened with this by Phil Leotardo after killing his brother Billy. Ultimately, Tony S finds some middle ground by graphically blowing Blundetto's face off with a shotgun.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's a wise-ass, which causes minor drama after his release when he makes cracks about Tony.
• Diabolus ex Machina: He is days away from co-opening his own-business after studying and working hard, but one night, he finds easy money in the street dropped by some drug dealers and starts to reconnect with the the nocturnal, criminal life with it. This derails his legit life.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Blundetto has two kids of his own and tries to teach them right from wrong.
• Et Tu, Brute?: The last thing that goes through his head, other than a shotgun shell, is the realization and glimpse of his dear cousin poised to kill him.
• A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Tony B finds $12,000 on the street that was left by drug dealers fleeing the police. He then proceeds to immediately piss it away on new clothes and gambling, in an effort to keep up with the (much wealthier) other mobsters.
• Genius Bruiser: Has an informed IQ of 158, and his bruiser qualifications are well remembered by Carmine Jr.'s faction.
• The Ghost: He doesn't make a physical appearance in The Many Saints of Newark. However, it's because of him (who told Janice who told her parents) that Livia and Johnny Boy discover Tony S (along with Artie and Jackie) hijacked an ice cream truck.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Indirectly. Tony S feels guilty and wants to overcompensate his cousin because Tony B was arrested at the beginning of his promising criminal career, while Tony S, Blundetto's partner, got away that night due to an unrelated panic attack caused by Livia which made him skip the crime scene. Blundetto doesn't seem to mind Tony S's better luck.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Starts as Reformed, but Rejected, but it's eventually subverted as he finds himself liking the easy thrills of the criminal life rather than the hard work of going straight.
• Informed Attractiveness: Janice claims Tony B was “a fox” in his younger days, and that the photos on the news don’t do him justice.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Before prison, according to Janice.
• My Greatest Failure: Hinted to be his lost relationship with his daughter Kelli. While Tony B reconnects with the rest of his family after his release, Kelli is far from the picture. When watching Tony S and Meadow bond at Hugh's birthday, his face sports a pained expression.
• Nepotism: He is given a special treatment because he is Tony's cousin, a thing that his underlings increasingly resent to the point of near rebellion.
  Tony Soprano: Ya know what John? I’ll give you undignified. Go fuck yourself. You and Phil and whoever. He’s my fucking cousin.
• Nice Guy: At first. This persona gradually falls apart over the course of Season 5.
• No Name Given: Steve Buscemi is credited only as "Man" when he appears in Tony Soprano's coma dream.
• One-Steve Limit: To avoid confusion with Soprano, he's called Tony B, or Tony uncle Al.
• Only Sane Man: He resolves Tony S and Christopher's dispute in a non-violent way.
• Outdated Outfit: His Miami Vice suit.
• Pet the Dog: While he was somewhat of a bully to Christopher in the past and present, he saves him from being executed by Tony S by proposing a way to definitely confirm whether the rumor of Adriana cheating on Christopher with Tony S is true or not.
• Psychopomp: Credited as "Man", he appears in season 6 as a doorman guiding Tony through purgatory.
• Rage Breaking Point: He feels exploited by his Korean partner/boss Kim due to having combined his normal workday hours with setting up shop, and is also sleep-deprived due to his social life. When Kim walks into the new parlor and watches him at work, Tony B violently snaps and beats him.
• Remember the New Guy?: Lampshaded when Bobby Jr. mentions that he's never heard of Tony B.
• Retired Badass: Subverted: tries to retire but the criminal life catches up with him.
• Retirony: Subverted: After getting out of jail, he wants to leave the Mafia and set up a massage parlor. Rather than trying, he realizes he just doesn't have the patience for an honest life and throws these plans down the drain, returning to the fold. Soon afterward, he gets caught up in a minor mob war with the Lupertazzi family and Tony S is forced to kill him.
• The Runaway: His daughter Kelli ran away from home.
• Self-Made Man: Subverted: he tries to start a respectable business with his Korean boss, but it goes nowhere.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Although he's dead by the end of Season 5, his murders of Joey Peeps and Billy Leotardo would end up being the snowball that caused the avalanche of the New York-New Jersey war in Season 6. It's possible his actions may have indirectly led to the death of Tony Soprano himself, depending on your interpretation of the show's ending.
• The Smart Guy: Aside from his IQ, he actually had a decent plan for his release and was able to study and pass exams despite his new work life. He even points out Meadow's intelligence.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Smoothly fires back at any remark sent his way.
• Spanner in the Works: An outsider in the Lupertazzi civil war who is brought in and escalates the conflict.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Just Got Out of Jail in season 5, but has trouble fitting in because of his past and his desire for a new life. He's looked down on by the hardcore criminals and distrusted by civilians.
• Tattooed Crook: His tattoos play up his ex-con status and his dubious morality.
• Thicker Than Water: Tony establishes a protectorate over him, granting Blundetto an extended protection because they are kin. It is ultimately subverted when Tony finally decides to kill him to appease New York.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Christopher tells Adriana that Tony S would act as a mentor to him when he was a kid, only to turn into a bully whenever Tony B was with him.
• Tragic Villain: Sort of, with a definite emphasis on the "villain" aspect. He genuinely wants to go straight, but his criminal tendencies, greed, and sheer bad luck thwart his plans, leading to his death. In a more straight example, despite his genius-level IQ, his upbringing prevented him from really taking advantage of it. If he hadn't been brought up in a life of crime, he could have gone very far in life.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: These are his defining character trait. While he is indeed a very intelligent man, he is an absolutely awful decision maker who usually lets his temper and/or greed get the best of him.
  • When he discovers the Leotardos whacked his former cellmate, whom he had a close friendship with, he attempts to murder the two of them in a fit of rage, killing Bill and injuring Phil. It's clear right away no part of this hit was thought out at all, as Tony B immediately has to go on the run indefinitely, abandoning his children, and putting the DiMeo and Lupertazzi families on the brink of a Mob War, as the latter demand Tony B's head, putting Tony in a very difficult situation of sentencing his own family to death.
  • He earns the respect of his boss Mr. Kim, who openly loathes him at first and admits he only hired Tony B as a favor to Tony S. He even convinces him to invest in his massage parlor, but then destroys the relationship by assaulting Mr. Kim in a fit of rage.
  • He finds $12,000 on the street at a time when his family is struggling financially, only to immediately waste it on new clothes and gambling.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Shortly after being released from prison, his reckless bid to revive his criminal career drags Tony Soprano's entire organization into a bloody civil war engulfing the whole of Carmine Lupertazzi's massive underworld empire. The fallout from his murder of Billy Leotardo continues all the way to the end of the series and results in several more members of both the DiMeo and Lupertazzi families either dead or severely harmed, including Tony Soprano himself possibly.
• Visual Pun: The subject of a couple in 5x06, "Sentimental Education:"
  • Throughout the episode, Tony B. regularly slips or struggles to walk while working at the laundromat for Mr. Kim. He's having trouble getting back on his feet.
  • When Tony B. has finally had it, and assaults Kim in the unfinished massage parlor, throwing him into the koi pond, there's a shot of a koi fish splashing helplessly on the floor. Tony B. is a fish out of water since coming out of prison and trying to go straight, and is floundering.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Goes on the lam after his quarrel with the Leotardos.

Johnny Boy Soprano

Giovanni Francis "Johnny Boy" Soprano

"Let this be a lesson to you. A man, honors his debts!"

^{Click here to see Johnny Boy in 1967}

Played by: Joseph Siravo, Jon Bernthal (The Many Saints of Newark)

Tony's deceased father, the former captain of the Soprano crew.

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• Abusive Parents: Along with Livia he formed one half of the trope that applied towards Tony and him ending up the way he did. Johnny Boy leaned especially towards physical abuse, intimidation, and neglect, whereas Livia was more psychologically, verbally, and emotionally abusive.
• Awful Wedded Life: To say that Johnny and Livia did not have a happy marriage is an understatement. Livia was a miserable woman who both verbally and physically abused him, while Johnny had no qualms about ditching her in moments of need so he could prioritize his personal desires. The only reason they got married in the first place was that Livia saw Johnny as her ticket out of poverty, while Johnny found her physically attractive.
• Ax-Crazy: Easily rivaling Richie Aprile, he was frighteningly brutal and straightforward in running his business. Notice his maniacal behavior when he cut off Mr. Satriale's finger with a butcher knife for failing to pay a gambling debt.
• Bad Liar: When Livia has a miscarriage and he finally shows up at the hospital (having spent the evening with his mistress), Livia sees right through his feeble excuses and lies. Only his young son Tony's (reluctant) corroboration of his alibi (sort of) gets him off the hook.
• Broken Pedestal: Increasingly becomes this as Tony learns some unpleasant facts about his father that substantially tarnish the esteem with which he once held him.
• Butt-Monkey: It's mentioned that Livia basically made him one.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: He cuts the pinky finger off of Mr. Satriale while Junior holds him in place.
• The Corrupter: He basically made Tony what he is.
• Dirty Coward: As tough and outright Ax-Crazy as he was in his criminal life, at home Johnny Boy feared and let Livia bully and walk all over him. He was so afraid of confrontation with her that he silently threatens Tony into covering for him with a cowardly fake story to cover up for having been off with his mistress while Livia was in the hospital suffering from a miscarriage.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted. It's shown as another example of how horrid a person Livia was.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Probably his sole redeeming quality is that he went out of his way to provide for Eckley, his and Junior's mentally handicapped brother.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Perhaps the most tragic aversion ever, culminating in him ordering Tony to murder a man at 22 years old, not long before he was to be a father himself.
  • He's beaming with fatherly pride at his daughter Janice's confirmation in his first scene in The Many Saints of Newark.
• Famed In-Story: A widely remembered and revered gangster.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Even more than Tony. Johnny's temper was genuinely animalistic.
• Hate Sink: Given that he was a psychopathic mobster who preyed on honest working people and made Tony what he is, it's not hard to imagine that Johnny Boy was written to be unlikable. Though unlike Livia he clearly had a veneer of charisma that most people swallowed and believed, considering him to have been a great, fun-loving, stand-up guy even years later after his death.
• Henpecked Husband: Tony is awed and annoyed by this, a powerful mobster dominated by his nagging wife.
  Tony: My dad was tough, he ran his own crew. Guy like that, and my mother wore him down to a little nub. He was a squeaking little gerbil when he died.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Had a chance to go west and live a less criminal life, but Livia ruined it.
• I Gave My Word: He announces at his daughter Janice's confirmation that if she completed her religious duties (going to her catechism, practiced her Latin, etc.) he'd shave off his mustache, which he did, shortly afterward. Say what you will about his other moral failings, he at least followed through on this.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Was likened to Victor Mature in his prime, and is played by the very handsome Jon Bernthal in the prequel film.
• Jerkass Has a Point: One of the only good things he did as a parent was warn Tony not to be a compulsive gambler; while he still mercilessly profited off those kinds of people, Johnny Boy was well aware of the problems that particular vice could lead to. In later seasons, Tony ends up running into issues from failing to internalize this particular lesson.
• Narcissist: Even more so than Tony. In addition to being very vain and impulsive, he consistently prioritized his ambitions and appetites over the well-being of his own family.
• Papa Wolf: He was largely a neglectful and sometimes outright violently abusive parent to his children, but he also frequently doted on them by giving them treats and cash, and would definitely take a hand if he thought they might be harmed in some fashion. He is swift to get in his friend and colleague Dickie Moltisanti's face when he slaps his son Tony in a deleted scene from The Many Saints of Newark.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being a consummate narcissist and neglectful father, he is occasionally seen displaying paternal affection towards Tony Soprano in flashbacks. This can be seen when he scolds Janice for mocking Tony and later expresses sincere (albeit unsettling) pride in his son for not fleeing in terror after watching a delinquent gambler get his finger sliced off. He is also beaming with parental pride at Janice's confirmation in The Many Saints of Newark and gladly goes through with his promise to shave off his beloved mustache if Janice completed her religious studies. Additionally, according to Corrado "Junior" Soprano, he also went out of his way to provide for their mentally handicapped brother, "Eckley", up until the time of his death.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Basically all the mobsters of his crew were racist to at least some degree. But he absolutely loses it when he comes home from prison and discovers that African-Americans have moved into his neighborhood.
• Posthumous Character: He only appears in flashbacks in the series proper, but is shown at his prime and in full flower as an active main character in The Many Saints of Newark.
• Reckless Gun Usage: The infamous incident when he fires a handgun through his wife Livia's beehive hairdo (just to shut her up) is finally depicted in The Many Saints of Newark. Not only was the firearm discharged right up against his wife's head, but the other passengers in the car (Dickie and Joanne Moltisanti) were inches away in the back seats. If the car they were all riding in didn't happen to be a convertible, it's likely at least some of them would suffer hearing loss.
• Sadist: He takes sick joy in intimidation and outright brutality. See how he laughs at Dickie Moltisanti's bloodying of "Buddha" Bonpensiero for his crude comments about Dickie's goomar Giuseppina.
• The Sociopath: He meets all the criteria of a classic sociopath. He's a cruel, brutal, manipulative, ruthless, narcissistic, sadistic thug who rules his business through fear and intimidation.
• Ungrateful Bastard: His wife Livia pulls out all the stops to put together a lavish party for him after his release from jail. He is totally unimpressed, and maybe even annoyed, despite all the effort Livia put towards welcoming him home.
  • He also heaps a rather unreasonable amount of abuse on his older brother Corrado, insinuating it's his fault black people have moved into their neighborhood, and the crew is suffering setbacks.
• You Have Failed Me: Takes this attitude towards Junior when he returns from prison and sees that their crew has largely faltered under his older brother's temporary stewardship.

Barbara Soprano-Giglione

Barbara Soprano Giglione

Played by: Nicole Burdette and Danielle Di Vecchio

Sister of Tony and Janice.

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• Aloof Big Sister: Younger actually, she is quieter and more withdrawn than her loud-mouthed and dramatic older siblings.
• Catchphrase: "Will someone tell me what's going on?"
• Emotionless Girl: She displays little emotion when she's onscreen. A Deleted Scene in The Many Saints of Newark shows she was this even as a young child, as when she witnesses Tony having a panic attack and passing out, she just stares at him for several seconds before calmly yelling to Livia that Tony "had another one of his fits".
• Flat Character: The one member of the Soprano family who appears that we learn the least about. About the only thing that's apparent is that she's quiet, has little connection to the rest of the family, and she exists.
• Happily Married: Appears to be in a normal marriage.
• Hufflepuff House: The most inconsequential member of the Soprano family. After season 2, she tends to only show up at funerals.
• The One Who Made It Out: The only member of the Soprano family to have no involvement with the mafia while living a normal, comfortable life.
• Only Sane Woman: She's this to Tony and Janice, being the only one to escape the cycle of abuse in their family and knowing that it's best for her to just let Tony take care of Livia's arrangements.
• Practically Different Generations: It's implied that part of the reason she's so distant from Tony and Janice is that she's over a decade younger than them.
• The Quiet One: You quickly get the sense that the way Barbara coped with the general dysfunction of her family was by being as unnoticed and quiet as possible and keeping her head down.
• Satellite Character: Her only character trait seems to be being the normal Soprano sibling. She is seen infrequently, usually only visiting her siblings for family functions, weddings, or funerals.
• White Sheep: The one Soprano with a life outside the mob.

Soprano Extended Family

Hugo "Hugh" and Mary De Angelis

Hugo "Hugh" and Mary De Angelis (née Pellegrino)

Played by: Tom Aldredge and Suzanne Shepherd

Carmela's parents.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: Hugh is generally a laid-back guy, but at Livia's funeral he goes on an angry rant about how horrible the woman was and ignores his wife's protests about it.
  • He also takes zero shit off of Carmela when she accuses him of looting her spec house construction site.
• But Not Too White: Inverted, when Meadow was born, Mary was disappointed by the dark skin tone of her granddaughter.
• Butt-Monkey: Hugh doesn't get much respect from his family and suffers a series of illnesses and injuries.
• Construction Is Awesome: Hugh built the amazing Sopranos house, one of the few things in their lives that is never a subject of contention. Not so much in the modern times with Carmela's spec house, which comes close to a dead end due to Hugh lack of familiarity with the new regulations.
• Cool Old Guy: All things considered, Hugh is a laid-back and casual chap.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Hugh's wife and daughter treat him like a lackey; only Tony shows the man some consideration.
• Good Is Not Nice: Mary is quite obnoxious, but her objection to Tony's presence at Hugh's birthday is ultimately a valid one, considering that Tony is a mobster. Carmela, however, warps it into some form of cultural persecution and gives her mom a Reason You Suck Speech. Hugh, meanwhile, is both good and nice, but adores Tony and is unwilling to confront the evil nature of the man.
• Henpecked Husband: Mary bosses her husband around and nags him a lot.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: While Hugh is a civilian with his own construction business, he's still not an honest businessman. He frequently used his family connections to the mob to his advantage, such as by getting contracts to projects without having to place high bids or skirting regulations that would cost him more money.
• Morality Pet: Hugh to Tony, most likely because Tony sees his relationship with Mary similar to his own parents. It gets to the point where Hugh refuses to have his birthday unless Tony is present. Somewhat subverted in the final season when Tony starts pointing fingers at Hugh in therapy.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Oh so very much subverted at Livia's funeral.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Mary is embarrassed by Tony, whom she regards as a rustic Nouveau Riche. Averted with Hugh, who gets along famously with Tony and is one of the few civilians with whom Tony is entirely affectionate and personable.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: While not part of the mafia himself, Hugh and his construction company were able to reap many benefits from the group thanks to his relationship to his mobster cousins and son-in-law.

Harpo "Hal" Soprano

Harpo "Hal" Soprano

Played by: N/A

The estranged son of Janice.

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• Butt-Monkey: The poor guy can finally say which would be worse: Having Janice as a parent or being abandoned by her and left to live on the streets.
• The Ghost: Never seen. Only mentioned in dialogue. On other shows, a never seen, not important to the plot child of one of the main characters seem like perfect fodder for being mentioned once and then never again but from Janice's first season all the way to her final scene in the series, Hal is referenced, making him a definitive part of Janice's character.
• Long-Lost Relative: He’s not mentioned often, except when Tony wants to piss off Janice, and Janice appears to have totally lost track of him over the years. Tragically, the family as a whole seems to ignore his existence and never make attempts to reach him, despite Tony claiming he’s “the boy’s uncle.”
• Named After Somebody Famous: Discussed/mocked. He's not named after Harpo Marx but after the song "Harpo's Blues."
• Only Known by Their Nickname: His surname is never mentioned.
• Parental Abandonment: What Janice did to him or "lost custody" as she likes to put it.
• Street Urchin: He's living on the streets, according to Janice.
  • Conversely, she also claims his father took him back to Canada.
• White Sheep: As bad as he has it, growing up far away from his family means he’s probably not as morally bankrupt.

Ercole "Eckley" Soprano

Ercole "Eckley" Soprano

Played by: N/A

Brother of Corrado Jr. and Johnny Soprano, uncle of Anthony.

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• Born in the Wrong Century: Junior laments that had Eckley been born later, the family would have had a lot more resources to help him with his disability and he might have been able to be a contributing member of society. Instead, they had no choice but to leave him to live in an institution as there were no other options at the time.
• Brainless Beauty: According to Junior, he has handsome and fit, but he was mentally disabled.
• Dumb Muscle: Junior says he was strong like a bull, and handsome like George Raft.
• The Ghost: He's never seen.
• Long-Lost Relative: To Tony, he learns of Eckley's existence years after his death and is genuinely shocked he had another uncle. Given the attitudes in the 1930s through to the 1960s towards people with conditions like Eckley's, this is not surprising.
• One-Steve Limit: Shares a name and nickname with the jailed boss of the DiMeo crime family, another off-screen character.
• Morality Pet: Could be seen to have been this for his brothers Corrado Jr and Johnny Boy given Junior's obvious affection for him and Johnny Boy made sure he was provided for until his death.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Junior snaps at Tony for calling Eckley "retarded", this hints at the love he held for his mentally disabled brother.
• Posthumous Character: Junior remarks he died a little before Johnny, so about fifteen years before the show starts.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: The way Junior speaks of him suggests that due to his condition, Eckley had a childlike innocence and thus was the only uncorrupted of the three Soprano brothers.

Richard "Dickie" Moltisanti

Richard "Dickie" Moltisanti

"Growing up with the family takes a toll."

Played by: Alessandro Nivola

Christopher's late father (and Carmela's first cousin), killed (apparently by a corrupt cop) when he was little.

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• Anti-Hero: The Many Saints of Newark shows that for all of his violent tendencies and prejudices, Dickie, more so than the other mobsters, struggles with the morality of the crimes they commit and tries to put just as much good into the world as the bad he does.
• Broken Pedestal: Christopher eventually reconciles the fact that his previously idolized father was little more than a violent junkie. Even more tragically, it turns out that he actually wasn't.
• Cool Uncle: To Tony. Janice even considers him her favorite uncle.
• The Corrupter: The Many Saints of Newark shows that his influence on Tony's life is what turned him into the ruthless and brutal crime boss that he is today. However, it was largely unintentional on Dickie's part and he tried to distance himself from Tony once he realized the effect he was having. Unfortunately, he's killed not long after making this decision.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He feels incredibly betrayed after forcing Giuseppina to admit that she cheated on him with Harold. He feels betrayed enough just on account of her being unfaithful to him, but it's that much worse when she admits it was with Harold, the very same rival that he's embroiled in a bitter turf war. Chances are he might have let her live had it been anybody BUT Harold.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Dickie maybe a murderous mobster, but it's clear that he loves his family. He is a great uncle to Tony, had a healthy relationship with his wife, despite cheating on her, and clearly adores his son, christopher. This is even applied to his father who judging by Dickie's expression was accidentally killed by him and was outraged by his fellow mobsters that they would watch TV on his funeral.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He confronts his father when he finds out Giuseppina was abused and thrown down the stairs just like his mother was when he was a kid.
• Functional Addict: During Johnny Boy's welcome home party in The Many Saints of Newark (during the middle of the day, mind you), Dickie ducks out of the house into an alley to drink hard liquor straight from the bottle. However, his drinking is never shown to cause him any serious problems or impede his work. In fact, the stories about him being a junkie come from Livia's gossiping about the pills on his body at the time of his death; Dickie had smuggled them for Tony who wanted to help his mother.
• The Ghost: Is this in the series proper, appearing in only a single photograph.
• History Repeats: He was Tony's Evil Mentor, and Tony later fills that same role for Dickie's son, Christopher.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: During the shootout scene with Harold's gang, Dickie manages to shoot the driver of a moving car from quite a distance. Guess he would later pass this to his son, Chris.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Generation Xerox and History Repeats aside Dickie is almost the exact opposite of his son, Christopher.
  • Dickie was never shown consuming drugs or any kind and aside from a scene where he chugs liquor in private he comes relatively clean, unlike his son, who is a complete junkie.
  • Dickie is never shown abusing his wife, Joanne or his goomah, Giuseppina until she revealed she cheated on him, and in fact, hates Domestic Abuse since his dad did it to his mom in the past. This is in contrast to Christopher, who often hits and abuses Adrianna, especially when he's high on drugs.
  • Mob career wise, Dickie is never shown to use his father's name to his advantage and is a capable soldier of the mob. This is in contrast to Chris, who despite being a capo, commits numerous fuck ups and only gets off easy due to Nepotism.
• Mistaken for Junkie: Unlike his son, Dickie wasn't a junkie at all - he simply had prescription anti-depressants on him when he was murdered. Livia, unaware that said medication was meant for her, gossiped about it and it's implied this snowballed into Dickie's reputation for being a drug addict long after his death.
• Patricide: He murders his abusive father, Hollywood Dick, in a fit of rage.
• Pet the Dog: Gets a number with Tony in the prequel movie, especially when he essentially has to help raise him once Johnny Boy goes to prison.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He has a low opinion of the African-Americans he does business with and calls Giuseppina a "nigger-lover" after she confesses to cheating on him with Harold.
• Posthumous Character: He's been dead for decades by the time of the show, but his influence continues to be felt by Tony and Christopher.
• Predecessor Villain: For Tony - in addition to being his Evil Mentor, Dickie's crew includes Silvio, Paulie, and Big Pussy, all of whom work for Tony by the time the series begins.
• Shrouded in Myth: Christopher's perception of his father is funneled entirely through Tony's rose-tinted recollection of the man.
• Villains Out Shopping: When not on the job, he volunteers his time coaching a youth blind baseball team^note They play a modified version of the game using a ball that beeps so the players can hit and catch the ball by using their hearing. Several of his players attend his funeral at the end of the film, showing how much they appreciated him.
• Wife-Basher Basher: Accidentally beats his father to death after he pushes his stepmother down the stairs.

Aldo "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti

Aldo "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti

Played by: Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark)

Dickie's father and Christopher's grandfather.

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• Abusive Parents: Dickie tells Giuseppina that his dad used to beat him up everyday when he was a kid.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: He justifies his domestic abuses on his partners that some women like the 'rough stuff'. This only pisses Dickie off even more that he eventually kills his dad.
• Advertised Extra: Played With: Ray Liotta's presence in the trailers makes no mention of the fact that he's playing twin brothers; Aldo dies by the end of the first act by Dickie's hands and the scenes from the trailer are actually his twin brother Sally.
• Asshole Victim: His death at Dickie's hand comes after years of abusing Dickie's mother and throwing his new wife Giuseppina down some stairs.
• Domestic Abuse: He shows his true colours when he kicks Giuseppina down a flight of stairs. According to Dickie, he was also this to Dickie's mom.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While initially enthusiastic about Benito Mussolini when he was younger, he held nothing but contempt for the dictator in his later years.
• First-Episode Spoiler: Promotional materials didn't show that Aldo dies during the first act of the film and the scenes with Ray Liotta are actually of his twin brother Sally.
• Patricide: a victim of one, courtesy of Dickie.

Salvatore "Sally" Moltisanti (SPOILERS)

Salvatore "Sally" Moltisanti

"I was 25. I murdered a made guy in our own family. I’m here for a good reason. You don’t need to help me."

Played by: Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark)

"Pain comes from always wanting things. But what do I know? I'm a murderer."

Dickie's uncle, imprisoned as of 1967.

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• Ambiguous Situation: At one point he seems to disappear without Dickie noticing. This coupled with the possibility that he was lying about coaching a baseball team for blind kids suggests that Sally may be a figment of Dickie's imagination.
• Backup Twin: Introduced immediately after Dickie kills Hollywood Dick.
• Card-Carrying Villain: His folder quote implies this, freely admitting he is a murderer.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Treats everyone like absolute shit, but wasn't lying about Giuseppina being a slut.
• Living Lie Detector: Sally is not fooled for even a second by Dickie's cover stories for the murders of Hollywood Dick and Giuseppina. He bores holes into Dickie with his eyes, while Dickie keeps his eyes downcast. He also gives out sly little quips to drop hints to Dickie that he sees underneath the cover stories. For example, he lets on that Hollywood Dick never bothered to involve himself with the kind of business he was found dead in. He also lets out a quiet "so young" when Dickie first indicates that Giuseppina is gone. Note also the "So much tragedy in your life" as a summative follow-up.
• Papa Wolf: Implied to be this to Tony, given he warns Dickie away from the kid.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Implied by the trailer, in which he warns Dickie to stay out of teenage Tony's life.
• The Stoic: Remains stone-faced in all of his appearances.
• Wicked Cultured: A self-admitted murderer who openly discusses Buddhist philosophy and jazz music.

Tom Giglione

Tom Giglione

Played by: Ed Vassallo

Husband of Barbara Soprano.

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• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Tom's a Nice Guy to everyone in the Sopranos family with the notable exception of Livia. He flat out refused to let her live with him and Barbara when she brought up the subject and later supports Carmela and Hugh when they Speak Ill of the Dead at her wake.
• The Generic Guy: Receives absolutely no characterization.
• Happily Married: As far as the series can show, he and Barbara enjoy a very calm life away from her family's drama, in contrast to the lives of her older siblings and their spouses/partners.
• Hufflepuff House: He's the husband of one of the Soprano siblings, yet makes only a few appearances.
• Nice Guy: He's perceived as this by the rest of the family.
• Only Sane Man: He and Barbara collectively play this role in the Soprano family.

Brian Cammarata

Brian Cammarata

Played by: Matthew Del Negro

"Thanks Tony! You're a great guy!"

Carmela's cousin and a financial advisor.

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• Brick Joke: Borrows Tony's power drill in season four. Tony eventually forgets what happened to it and has to give Tony Blundetto a rudimentary drill in season five.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: He's clearly seduced by the flashy aspects of the criminal life and likes to casually hang around with the professional thugs.
• Evil Genius: Tony's fiscal advisor and the brains behind the HUD scam.
• Morality Pet: Initially, Tony does Brian favors to earn praise from an upstanding civilian. As Brian gets drawn into Tony's criminal lifestyle, this role deteriorates, and Tony loses interest in this friendship.
• Villainous Friendship: Downplayed in that Brian is not officially part of Tony's organization, but still notable because the two have a rare rapport and Brian acts as consigliere in a major scheme.

Pat Blundetto

Patrizio "Pat" Blundetto

Played by: Frank Albanese

A retired soldier of the family. Uncle of Tony Blundetto and Chris Moltisanti.

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• Back for the Finale: He reappears in "Made in America" to visit Junior and warn Tony about Janice's schemes.
• Call to Agriculture: He retired from the business to live in a farm.
• Cool Old Guy: Well-liked by his nephews and most other mobsters. He even supports Chris' sobriety when most of the made guys disparage it.
• Disposing of a Body: His farm doubles as a mob graveyard, where at least three bodies are buried.
• Honorary Uncle: Uncle Pat is not a blood relative of Tony S. Pat's brother Al Blundetto married Quintina Pollio, Livia Soprano's sister.
• Retired Monster: He's a former DiMeo family soldier who was allowed to retire after he developed health problems. However, he still acts as an advisor to the organization and lets them use his farm as a graveyard to hide bodies.

Joanne Blundetto-Moltisanti

Joanne Blundetto Moltisanti

Played by: Nancy Cassaro (season 2) Marianna Leone (Season 4,5, and 6), Gabriella Piazza (The Many Saints of Newark)

Christopher Moltisanti's mother.

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• Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: While she and her son have a rather rocky relationship, both of them do care for one another.
• Butt-Monkey: Loses her husband when her son was an infant and much, much later loses her son as well. On the plus side, at least she still has her grand daughter.
• Genre Savvy: She quickly figures Phil Leotardo is not good news.
• It Runs in the Family: She had problems with alcohol much like Chris's problems with drugs.
• I Was Quite a Looker: While it was never brought up, The Many Saints of Newark shows that she's a very beautiful woman in her prime.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's very grumpy when Christopher visits her and at Chris's intervention supports the idea that Paulie should beat him up. Nonetheless, she does care for his well being and is devastated when Christopher dies.
• Mama Bear: She tries to protect Chris from a very vengeful Phil Leotardo when he confronts her, trying to learn Chris' whereabouts. Granted, she gets scared and runs away, but it's perfectly sensible as Phil is an Ax-Crazy gangster who has no problem harming (or outright murdering) women.

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