In any conversation about the greatest TV shows of all time, you can count on The Sopranos being mentioned high up the list. David Chase’s beloved series reframed and interrogated the gangster genre in longform, unspooling the life of James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano – both in his domestic setting, and as the head of the Soprano crime family. Across its six seasons, it dealt out complex character development, shocking deaths, and one of the most-discussed finales of all time – several of the reasons it ends up in the upper echelons of any greatest-ever list. And now, in a major new roundtable interview with Empire to celebrate 25 years since The Sopranos debuted, Chase himself has named his favourite moments across the whole series.
Sitting down with cast members Lorraine Bracco, Steven Van Zandt and Edie Falco, Chase discussed his two standout moments in The Sopranos. “Neither of them is really to do with the show’s violence. The opposite, in fact, which says something,” he notes. The first comes from ‘The Weight’, the fourth episode of Season 4. “There’s a scene in which Johnny Sack discovers Ginny’s hidden cache of candy and he busts her on it and she starts to cry,” says Chase. “She’s on her knees. And she says that she knows that the other guys all look at their wives with appreciation. That scene makes me want to cry.”
Chase’s other pick comes at the end of that still-analysed-today finale. “When I hear ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, when I see Meadow running towards that restaurant... it still gets me today,” Chase says. “I don’t know what it is, whether it’s because I know the end is coming, but it gets the emotions even now.” Cut to black.
Read Empire’s full The Sopranos roundtable interview – celebrating 25 years of the show with David Chase, Lorraine Bracco, Steven Van Zandt and Edie Falco – in the Furiosa issue, on sale now. Order a copy online here.