The Sopranos is called the greatest television show in history. It is the tale of Anthony ‘Tony’ Soprano, a middle-aged man in psychotherapy who also happens to run a New Jersey crime family. Anthony means ‘priceless’; the choice of name is surely deliberate. The Sopranos is complex — all masterpieces are — but it is fundamentally about greed: for money; for sex (the crew inhabit the Bada Bing! lap-dancing club, where breasts are landscape); for alcohol; for power; for the base drug of food.
In the first episode Tony, who is played by James Gandolfini as a human devil, all need and charm (he is defiantly sexy with his fat hands and dachshund’s eyes), is almost human-looking. By the end, he is immense. He lumbers and breathes like an animal; a man returned to his original state. Food and death are very close in The Sopranos. The crew meet at Satriale’s Pork Store, where they buy food and dismember corpses.
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