Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are doing something
a little special today. We really are. Because
usually, you know, we take a really broad topic
like the history of coffee or the future of AI
and we drill down. But today we are going fully
subterranean into a very specific moment in pop
culture history. Right. We are looking at the
exact moment a television show went from. You
know, a promising pilot to an absolute masterpiece.
Which is a pretty big claim. It is a big claim.
But I think the evidence really backs it up.
We are talking about The Sopranos today. But
not the whole series, right? We aren't boiling
the ocean here. No, exactly. We are zeroing in
on season one, episode two. The episode is titled
46 Long. 46 Long. It aired on January 17th, 1999.
It was written by the creator himself, David
Chase, and directed by Dan Attias. And honestly,
this is the episode where the show truly begins.
That's an interesting distinction. Because, I
mean, everyone remembers the pilot, right? The
ducks in the pool, the collapse of the barbecue,
the very first panic attack. But you're saying
the pilot isn't really the show yet? Not exactly,
no. You have to remember how television production
actually works. A pilot is often filmed months,
sometimes even a full year before the series
actually gets picked up by a network. Right,
they make the one episode to sell it. Exactly.
So the actors are still sort of figuring out
who they are. The writers are testing the boundaries
of the world. Even the sets are different. If
you look really closely at the pilot, the pork
store is different. The Soprano house feels slightly
different. Oh, I never noticed that. Yeah, it's
subtle, but it's there. So 46 long. the first
time they are back on set as an ongoing series.
This is where the rubber meets the road. So our
mission today for you listening is to unpack
how this specific hour of television really expands
the universe, how it sets up the central conflicts
that run for years and perfectly balances that
unique mix of suburban boredom and mob violence.
And we have a great stack of sources for this
deep dive. We're looking at production notes,
detailed plot breakdowns, and some really sharp
critical reception from heavy hitters in the
TV criticism world like Alan Sepp. Spinwall and
Emily St. James. We have a lot to get through.
We really do. And what's fascinating here is
that 46 Long establishes the core formula of
the entire series. It shows us Tony Soprano not
just as this terrifying mobster, but as a guy
dealing with the most mundane, frustrating, everyday
problems imaginable. Which he then tries to solve
with well less than mundane methods. Right. Oh,
absolutely. Some of the plot points in this deep
diver just. Unbelievable. There is a stolen car
subplot early on that is just pure comedy. It
is. It really is. But it also serves a very specific
purpose. But before we get to the funny stuff,
we have to look at the psychological underpinnings.
Because this is the episode where the relationship
between Tony and his mother, Livia, goes from
just difficult to a full -blown crisis. Okay,
let's unpack this. Because I actually want to
start with that funny stuff you mentioned. Sure.
It really highlights that collision between Tony's
two worlds. You have the suburban dad life and
the crime boss life. And it all starts with a
high school science teacher race. Right. So let's
set the context for you. It's 1999. The economy
is absolutely booming. Suburban New Jersey is
this sort of bubble of relative safety and affluence.
And in that bubble, we have AJ Soprano, Tony's
son. Right. He's not a bad kid, but he's struggling
a bit in school. And he has a science teacher
named Mr. Miller. And Mr. Miller has a problem.
A very standard suburban problem. His car gets
stolen. right out of the school parking lot.
It's a Saturn. Do you remember Saturns? The plastic
cars. They don't even make them anymore. That
really dates the episode to the late 90s. It
does. It was the quintessential sensible teacher
car. So the car is gone. Now, in a normal family,
you'd call the police, you'd file a report, and
you'd wait for the insurance payout. You'd complain
about the deductible at dinner. But this is the
Soprano family. And crucially, it's Carmela who
steps in here. She does. And that's a really
important character note right from the jump.
We often think of Carmela as the one trying to
keep the darkness out of the house. But here
she is actively bridging the gap. Right. She
initiates it. Exactly. She persuades Tony to,
quote unquote, help find the car. She tells him
his car was stolen, Tony. Do something. She knows
what that means, right? She isn't naive. She
is absolutely not naive. She knows she isn't
asking Tony to call the local precinct and check
the stolen vehicle logs. She is asking him to
use his other resources. Because she wants to
be the hero. Yes. She wants to be the good neighbor,
the helpful, involved parent who magically fixed
the problem for the teacher. She wants all the
social capital that comes with being the powerful
family in town, but she desperately doesn't want
to see the violence and intimidation that makes
that power possible. So Tony. Tony sighs and
puts the word out. He rolls his eyes, which is
classic Tony. He hates these little domestic
errands, and he recruits Salvatore Big Pussy
Bonpensiero. Pussy runs an auto repair shop,
a body shop. So he's the natural choice to have
his ear to the ground regarding stolen vehicles
in North Jersey. And because they are highly
efficient criminals, they actually find the thieves.
They do. They track down the guys who boosted
the Saturn. But here is the twist. And this is
where the mob logic completely crashes into normal
reality. They locate the vehicle, but it's too
late. Right. It has already been chopped for
parts. The seats are gone. The engine is stripped.
The car is effectively just a metal skeleton.
So game over, right? You just tell the teacher,
sorry, we tried. Call State Farm. You would think
so. That would be the rational adult thing to
do. But Tony Soprano cannot admit defeat, especially
not on a favor. No, his ego won't let him. Exactly.
He cannot go back to Carmela and by extension
the school and say, I couldn't handle it. That
damages his reputation as the guy who can make
things happen. It makes him look weak. So what's
their solution? The solution is completely absurd.
Pussy and the crew decide that since they can't
return the original car, they will simply replace
it. Like just buy them a new one out of pocket.
No, of course not. They aren't going to actually
spend their own money. They simply steal another
car. They steal a Saturn to replace the stolen
Saturn. Exactly. They find another Saturn of
the exact same model. They steal it, they clean
it up, and they present it to the teacher as
if it were his original car. Hey, Mr. Miller,
we found it. We found it. Here you go. And the
teacher. What is his reaction when they roll
up to the school with this recovered vehicle?
Just absolute terrified confusion. Because you
have to imagine being the science teacher, you
know who these guys are, or at least you heavily
suspect. They hand you the keys. But they aren't
your keys. They're different keys. And looking
at the car, it's the wrong color. It's the wrong
color entirely. It's a completely different shade.
I think the original was green and this one is
blue or something along those lines. And the
teacher is just standing there holding these
foreign keys, looking at a car that clearly isn't
his. And Pussy Bomb Pensiero is just smiling
at him, basically daring him to say something
about it. That is incredible. It's gaslighting
on an industrial scale. Here is your car. Don't
mind the paint job. Don't mind the keys. Just
say thank you and drive away. It's the ultimate
punchline of that subplot. And looking at the
analysis from our sources, specifically the critic
Alan Sepinwall, this storyline represents the
broader, lighter end of the comedy spectrum for
the show. Yeah, it feels almost like a sitcom
plot, but just with felonies involved. It really
does. Sepinwall actually notes that at this stage,
creator David Chase was still fiddling with the
knobs. He calls this subplot not quite right.
It's a bit cartoonish compared to the heavy psychological
drama we see later in the series. Right, because
in later seasons, the show gets much darker,
much more grounded. Exactly. This feels a bit
more like Get Shorty or a comedic mob movie than
the trademark Sopranos tone. But even if it's
a bit broad. I feel like it tells us something
vital about Tony. Absolutely it does. It shows
Tony actively trying to be the good dad and the
good neighbor, but he only has bad guy tools
in his toolbox. He literally cannot solve a problem
without creating a victim somewhere else. That's
a great point. Right. To fix Mr. Miller's problem,
some other poor schlub in New Jersey had to lose
their Saturn. It's a zero sum game with Tony.
He transfers misery. He doesn't ever actually
eliminate it. That is a perfect way to put it.
He wants the suburban accolades. Yeah. But he
uses the mob tactics to get them. But speaking
of those mob tactics, let's pivot to the other
side of the coin. The actual business. Right.
The family business. Because 46 Long introduces
us to the next generation of criminals. And they
are, well, they are incredibly messy. Extremely
messy. We are talking about Christopher Moltisanti
and his friend Brendan Filoni. Now, Christopher
Ron. We met in the pilot. He drove Tony around.
He seems like the heir apparent to Tony. But
Brendan Filoni, he is a piece of work. Brendan
is crucial for understanding the generational
conflict at the heart of the show. He represents
everything the old guard hates. He's loud. He's
disrespectful. He has absolutely no sense of
history or protocol. And the source material
makes a very specific point to mention that Brendan
has a meth habit. Meth. In 1999, I feel like
we usually associate the mob with, you know,
cocaine or alcohol or cigars. Right. The older
guys, the made men, they drink scotch. Maybe
they do a little powder cocaine on the weekends
in the back room. But crystal meth? That's a
street drug. That's dirty. That's unpredictable.
It's chaotic. And that chemical instability fuels
a lot of the chaos in this episode. Brendan is
twitchy. He's paranoid. He has that aggressive,
restless energy that comes from being up for
three days straight. So what do these two geniuses
decide to do? They decide they want to make a
big score to prove themselves. So they hijack
a truck, specifically a shipment of DVD players.
And we really have to pause and remember the
context here for the listener. This is 1999.
DVD players were the absolute cutting edge of
home entertainment. They were luxury items. A
single DVD player could cost $400 or $500 back
then. A whole truckload of them. It's tens of
thousands of dollars. It's a goldmine on royals.
So they pull off the heist. They bring the haul
to the Bada Bing. And this is another key thing.
It establishes the Bing as the headquarters,
right? Yes. In the pilot, we saw them hanging
out at Santani's Meat Market, which was an actual
real location in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But for
the series going forward, they built the Bada
Bing sets. This episode really cements Silvio
Dante's strip club as the main office. It's where
the real business gets done. So everyone is happy,
right? Great score, lots of money to go around.
Far from it. This brings us right into the internal
politics of the DiMeo crime family. It turns
out the trucking company they hit, Comley Trucking,
actually pays protection money. to Junior Soprano.
Tony's uncle. Tony's uncle. And in the strict
mob code, this is the cardinal sin. You do not
touch a business that is paying protection to
a made guy. Especially a capo like Junior. It
is a massive violation of protocol. It's basically
stealing money directly out of Junior's pocket.
So this leads to a sit down. And I love this
term. It sounds so civilized and polite. We're
going to have a sit down. It is effectively the
court system of the underworld. And this scene
is vital for world building. We see the clear
hierarchy. We have Tony, who is a capo. We have
Junior, who is also a capo. And we have the acting
boss, Jackie April Sr. Jackie April is the boss.
I feel like people always forget that in season
one, Tony isn't actually the DOS yet. Correct.
People often conflate the later seasons where
Tony is fully in charge at the very beginning.
At this point, Jackie April is running things.
But Jackie's sick? He has stomach cancer. He
looks frail in this scene. Yeah, he doesn't look
well at all. He's eating, but he looks exhausted.
And he has to mediate this bitter dispute between
his two top captains. So Jackie plays judge.
What's the official ruling? He rules that Tony's
crew has to pay restitution to Junior for the
disrespect and the lost revenue, specifically
$15 ,000. And Tony has to ensure his guys never
touch calmly trucking again. That's a hefty fine.
But Tony accepts it right. he knows the rules
of the game tony accepts it immediately he's
a professional he knows they screwed up and got
caught he nods he agrees to the terms but christopher
christopher is furious why He's the one who screwed
up. He robbed the wrong truck. Because Christopher
has this immense, unearned sense of entitlement.
He thinks he is due his button, which means becoming
a formally made man in the mafia. He thinks he's
this rising star untouchable. So he actually
tries to argue with the ruling during the sit
down. He starts to mouth off to the boss and
his uncle. That seems incredibly suicidal in
that room. It borders on a death wish. Tony has
to immediately shut him down physically. And
then after the meeting, Tony uses this as a teachable
moment, a very harsh one. How so? What does he
do? Tony tells Christopher that the $15 ,000
fine is coming entirely out of Christopher and
Brendan's end of the profits from the DVDs. And
on top of that, Tony is still taking his full
captain's cut off the top. So Tony gets paid.
Junior gets paid and Christopher and Brendan
get nothing. Worse than nothing. They did all
the work. They took all the physical risk and
they probably ended up losing money on the deal
after paying the fine and the kickbacks. So Tony
is squeezing them to teach them a lesson. Just
know your place in the food chain. Exactly. And
this sets up the central conflict that Emily
St. James points out in her critique of the episode.
She calls this episode a confident expansion
of the show's sense of generational conflict.
You have the old school represented by Junior
and Jackie April. Right. The guys who wear suits.
Yes. These are men who genuinely care about rules,
territory, respect and hierarchy. They view the
mob as a structured organization with an unbreakable
code. And then you have the new generation coming
up behind them. Christopher and Brendan. They
are the MTV generation of mobsters. They are
reckless. They are drug addled again, going back
to the meth versus the scotch. They want everything
immediately without putting in the decades of
work. They want the glory. They see the mob life
as a way to get rich and famous fast, not as
a solemn lifelong oath. They quote gangster movies
constantly. They act like they are literally
in Goodfellas or Scarface instead of real life.
It's the classic kids these days argument, but
with loaded weapons. Precisely. And that. generational
tension doesn't just go away after the sit down.
It escalates because Christopher and Brendan
don't actually learn their lesson. You'd think
losing all that money would scare them straight,
but it just makes them angrier and more resentful.
Right. Let's talk about section three, the escalation,
because despite getting slapped with a fifteen
thousand dollar fine and being told explicitly
by the boss not to touch that specific trucking
company ever again, they plan another heist.
It's pure hubris and it's drugs. The sources
note that for this second heist, both Christopher
and Brendan are extremely high on cocaine. Their
judgment is completely impaired. They are sitting
around stewing in their perceived mistreatment.
And Brendan convinces Chris that they should
hit Comley Trucking again to get back what they
lost. What are they going after this time? Italian
suits. Another truck from Comley. Brendan has
a tip from an inside guy. He thinks it's an easy
score. He basically says, Junior won't know.
We'll just do it fast and fence the stuff quietly.
But something happens with Christopher right
before the job. Yeah. This is a really interesting
character moment for him. It is. Brendan arrives
to pick Christopher up for the job. It's late
at night. It's pouring rain outside. But Christopher
is incredibly stoned, just lying on his sofa,
staring blankly at the ceiling. And he gets surprisingly
reflective. He backed out. He does. He says,
I'm not going. He talks about a quote he heard
somewhere, something about fear knocking at the
door. It's a rare moment of clarity amidst the
drug haze. Maybe it's intuition warning him.
Maybe it's just pure laziness. But he decides
to stay home on the couch. That decision probably
saved his life. Or at least his entire career
in the family. Absolutely. Because Brendan decides
to proceed without him. Brendan is unstoppable
at this point. He's high. He's manic. He needs
the win. So he takes two inexperienced associates
with him instead of Christopher. Associates.
That's a very polite mafia way of saying random
guys he found on the street. Exactly. Muscle
for hire. And this is where the relatively light
comedy of the earlier car theft entirely shifts
into dark tragedy. This isn't funny anymore.
They stop the truck. They pull the driver out
at gunpoint. But during the hijacking, one of
these inexperienced associates drops his gun.
Just drops it like he's just clumsy. Clumsy.
Nerves. Wet hands from the rain. He drops the
weapon. And when it hits the wet pavement, it
discharges. And the bullet hits the truck driver.
It hits him right in the chest. Kills him instantly.
So now it's not just a grand theft. It's a felony
murder. An accidental senseless death. Over some
designer suits. This is a massive escalation
for the series. Now they haven't just stolen
from Junior's protection racket again. They've
brought serious heat and a body count. The police
will be actively investigating a homicide. The
Teamsters union will be up in arms. Junior will
be absolutely apoplectic. Tony must be furious
when he gets the call. He is beyond furious.
When he finds out the fun good uncle act is completely
gone, he grabs Christopher, who... Remember,
wasn't even at the robbery, but is guilty by
deep association. And he physically manhandles
him. He throws him against a wall. He has to
fix it before a war starts. Right. He orders
Christopher and Brendan to return the entire
consignment of suits directly to Junior and to
beg for peace. He is doing desperate damage control.
He knows this unauthorized murder could start
a shooting war within the family. But I love
this specific detail because it just perfectly
sums up. The moral rod of the show. Tony is still
Tony. Yes. This is one of my absolute favorite
details in the entire episode. Tony is screaming
at Christopher about respect and rules and how
monumentally stupid they are. But before they
box up the stolen suits to return them to Junior
as an apology, Tony goes through the rack. He
literally goes shopping. He browses. He picks
out a few nice Italian suits for himself. He
holds one up against his chest to check the fit.
Sorry about the dead driver and the massive disrespect,
Uncle Junior. But here are most of the suits.
It perfectly encapsulates the hypocrisy of these
guys. They talk endlessly about sacred codes
and ancient honor, but if there's a free expensive
Italian suit sitting right there, they're taking
it for themselves. Tony capitalizes on the massive
screw -up even while he's violently condemning
it. It's pathological. It really is. So we have
the mob chaos completely spiraling out of control
on one side. We have dead truckers and stolen
cars. But arguably the more emotionally dangerous
storyline is happening back in the quiet suburbs.
We need to talk about Livia Soprano. The matriarch.
Played brilliantly by the incredible Nancy Marchand.
If the mob stuff is the muscle of the show, Livia
is the psychological spine. In 46 Long, we see
a domestic crisis that finally forces Tony's
hand regarding her care. It starts with a fire,
right? Yes. Olivia is alone in her kitchen. She's
cooking mushrooms on the stove. She gets distracted
or maybe just confused by her age. The pan catches
fire. The kitchen quickly fills with thick smoke.
And she just stands there, almost paralyzed,
staring at the flames until her neighbor finally
sees the smoke and calls for help. It's a terrifying
sign of her declined ability to live alone safely.
It is. And Tony, trying his best to be the dutiful
Italian son, steps in. He insists on hiring a
live -in nurse to help her around the house.
He hires a woman, I believe she's Trinidadian,
to stay with Olivia. full time. Which is a very
practical, normal solution for an aging parent.
A very expensive, very practical solution. But
Livia is not a practical woman. She is a pure
agent of chaos. She behaves so terribly towards
this poor woman. She is openly racist. She is
demanding she is cruel. She constantly accuses
the nurse of stealing from her. She deliberately
makes the environment so incredibly toxic that
the nurse just quits. She actively drives the
help away. Deliberately, yes. She wants to maintain
her total independence. Or perhaps she just desperately
wants to be a martyr. She wants to be able to
say to her friends, see, no one can stand me.
My terrible children are trying to put me away
with strangers. But then comes the turning point.
The accident in the driveway. This is the moment
that changes everything for that family. Livia
is driving her car. It's a big, heavy, old American
sedan. She gives her best friend Fanny a ride.
They were parked in the driveway. Livia is talking,
complaining as usual, not paying attention. She
goes back out to the street. But she forgets
to actually shift the car into reverse. She hits
the gas pedal hard. The car is still in drive.
It shoots forward unexpectedly. She hits Fanny.
She physically pins her friend against another
parked car or a brick wall. And Fanny is badly
hurt. Very badly. A broken hip. Multiple severe
injuries. It is serious trauma. And it makes
it undeniably clear to everyone. Livia cannot
live alone anymore. She certainly cannot drive.
She is an active danger to herself and the community.
So Tony. has to finally make the call. The decision
literally no child wants to make for their parent.
Green Grove, the retirement community. It's a
retirement community. I can hear Tony yelling
it now. He says it over and over again. It's
not a nursing home, Ma. It's a retirement community.
He desperately compares it to a luxury hotel
at Captain Teab's, which isn't even a real place.
He actually means Captain Teab's in France, but
he mixes up the name. He is trying so hard to
sell it to her, but really he's trying to sell
it to himself. He feels immense crippling guilt.
But she is eventually forced to move. And this
leads to a quiet scene that is incredibly revealing
about Tony's fragile psyche. The house clearing
scene. Right. Livia has finally been moved out.
The family house is empty. Tony is there alone,
packing her things up into boxes. It's quiet.
The air is still. He's just walking slowly through
the rooms where he grew up. And he finds the
photos? He finds an old box of black and white
family photos. Pictures of himself as a happy
little boy. Pictures of his father. Pictures
of the whole family smiling together on the beach.
And he has a full -blown panic attack. Nearly.
The sources specify he nearly suffers another
panic attack. He gets extremely dizzy. He has
to sit down heavily on the stairs. He grabs an
old throw pillow and just smells it. That sensory
detail. smelling the pillow it's so incredibly
intimate and sad it is it's the literal scent
of his childhood but we have to ask why does
it trigger panic is it just sadness about his
mom getting old i don't think so i think it's
the intense cognitive dissonance he's looking
at these staged photos of a smiling happy normal
family but that wasn't his reality Exactly. His
actual memories, the reality of his childhood,
are of a mother who explicitly threatened to
smother his children with a pillow. A mother
who was relentlessly miserable. a father who
was a violent gangster. The massive gap between
the idealized image of the happy past and the
dark reality of his trauma is what physically
shorts out his brain in that moment. This connects
directly to his therapy sessions. We really have
to talk about Dr. Melfi because Tony takes all
of this mounting stress, the stolen Saturn, the
hijacked DVD trucks, the mother burning the kitchen,
and he brings it all into her office. He does.
And in this specific episode, he uses a very
famous phrase. To describe his mother to Melfi,
it's one of the most memorable descriptions in
the entire show. He tells Melfi he desperately
needs to stop his mother with her black poison
cloud. That is such a visceral, haunting image.
A black poison cloud. It's almost Shakespearean.
It shows exactly how toxic her mere presence
feels to him. It's not just that she's annoying
or difficult. It's that she literally infects
his mind. She darkens his entire world. But Dr.
Melfi, she doesn't let him off the hook with
just a poetic metaphor. She confronts him with
a really hard truth. She really pushes him here.
She listens to him complain endlessly about the
cloud, and she finally says, you have feelings
of hatred toward your mother. Whoa. You do not
tell an Italian son from New Jersey that he hates
his mother. Exactly. It's a massive cultural
taboo. It's a biological taboo. Tony rejects
it immediately and violently. He explodes at
her. He says, I don't hate my mother. I love
my mother. She's a sweet little old lady. He's
actively gaslighting himself in the chair. He
is. He claims he feels guilt, not hatred. He
says the real problem is just that he's a bad
son. He absolutely cannot accept the conscious
idea that he hates the woman who gave him life,
even if he just described her as a black poison
cloud. He can't bear Melfi's clinical words,
so he just storms out of the session. But all
those intense feelings have to go somewhere,
right? Melfi said earlier in the episode that
if he doesn't acknowledge the feelings, he will
simply displace them. Displacement. It's a very
classic psychological defense mechanism. You
take the intense aggression you feel toward a
highly dangerous target, like your terrifying
mother or your boss, and you redirect it safely
toward a safe target, someone who simply can't
fight back. And that perfectly leads us to the
Bada Bing and poor Georgie. Georgie Santorelli,
the resident bartender at the Bing. He's a big,
sweet, slightly dim guy. He really becomes the
physical punching bag of the entire series. Set
the scene for us. Because this is the true climax
of the episode's emotional arc. Tony is standing
at the bar in the club. He's drinking heavily.
He's already incredibly on edge. He's just walked
out on Melfi. He's just forced his mother into
a home. The guilt and the repressed rage are
just boiling inside him. And Georgie is struggling
trying to use the telephone behind the bar. Is
it like a complicated phone system? It's just
a slightly advanced multi -line office phone.
Georgie is trying to transfer a call or put someone
on hold and he just can't figure it out. He's
fumbling with the buttons. He's asking annoying
questions. Tony, how do I do this? Tony, the
line is blinking. What do I press? And Tony just
snaps. But you have to notice exactly why he
snaps. The source material notes that Georgie
is using the phone in a manner strikingly similar
to Livia. It's that exact type of flustered incompetence.
It's that maddening inability to handle a very
simple modern task. It instantly reminds Tony
of Livia burning down the kitchen with the mushrooms.
It reminds him of Livia crashing the car into
Fanny. It reminds him of the helpless black poison
cloud. So he physically attacks it. He grabs
the handset of the phone, the big, heavy plastic
receiver, and he just brutally beats Georgie
with it. He smashes it into his head repeatedly.
It's incredibly violent. It's sudden. Completely
disproportionate to Georgie's minor crime of
not knowing how to use the hold button. That
is Melfi's clinical prediction coming true in
real time. Yeah. He literally couldn't hit Livia.
So he hit Georgie instead. Exactly. He displaced
the aggression. Georgie is the physical proxy
for his mother. It's a brilliant piece of television
writing because it perfectly connects the B plot
at the strip club directly to the deep emotional
A plot with the mother. It shows us that these
two separate worlds of Tony's aren't actually
separate at all. They constantly bleed into each
other. The psychological stress of the son becomes
the physical violence of the mob boss. It's fascinating
how the show weaves these completely different
elements together so seamlessly. But speaking
of weaving things together, I want to jump to
section six and talk about the actual production
a bit, because there is a major casting scoop
in this episode that changed the course of the
whole show. Oh, yes. This is a genuinely great
piece of TV trivia. We have to talk about the
actress Drea DiMatteo. Everyone knows her as
Adriana LaServa, Christopher's longtime girlfriend.
She becomes one of the most deeply tragic and
important characters in the entire series run.
But she wasn't always Adriana, right? No. If
you go back and watch the pilot. Episode one,
Drea DiMatteo is actually in it. But she isn't
playing Adriana. She plays a completely generic,
unnamed restaurant hostess. Really? Just a background
actor, basically? Yes. In the pilot, Tony and
Artie Bocco are talking at Vesuvio, the restaurant.
Drea DiMatteo walks into the frame. She welcomes
them and she shows them to their table. She has
maybe one single line of dialogue. She's literally
just credited as hostess. So how on earth did
she get the massive upgrade to a main cast member?
David Chase, the creator, was watching the dailies,
the raw footage from filming the pilot. And even
in that tiny brief five second interaction, he
saw something special. He really liked her energy.
He liked her authentic Jersey look. He liked
her screen presence. So when they were writing
46 Bowl months, long months later, and they decided
they needed a girlfriend character for Christopher
Chase, said, bring that girl back. The hostess
from the pilot. Let's give her a real role. That
is. Huge. So she basically auditioned for the
role of a lifetime without even knowing it. Exactly.
And think about the butterfly effect of that
one decision. If she had been just a little less
charismatic walking them to that table, we might
have had completely different actors playing
Adriana. Or maybe the character wouldn't have
been written to be as prominent in the story.
But Drea DiMatteo took that unexpected opportunity
and just ran with it. 46 Long is her official
debut as Adriana LaServa. It really shows how
organic the development of the show was in those
early days. They were literally building the
place. plane while flying it. Let's look at what
the television critics thought of this episode
looking back. We mentioned Alan Sepinwall earlier
regarding the stolen car subplot. Right. Sepinwall
is one of the definitive Sopranos critics. His
take is very balanced. He heavily praised the
Tony and Livia scenes as being fully formed right
out of the gate. He said they were already operating
on par with the show's future greatness. Which
makes perfect sense. That specific dynamic is
the core engine of the entire show. If the Tony
and Livia stuff didn't work, the show probably
would have been canceled after one season. Agreed.
But he was notably critical of the Saturn car
theft. He felt it was chase, still fiddling with
the knobs, trying to find the tone. It was a
bit too broad, a bit too light. It felt like
a completely different network TV show for a
few minutes. On the other hand, we have Emily
St. James from the AV Club. She took a slightly
broader, more thematic view. She praised the
episode overall for being a confident expansion
of the world. She really focused on that generational
conflict we discussed earlier, the innocent civilians
versus the mobsters, the old guard versus the
young upstarts. She felt it brilliantly showed
how very different kinds of people come into
violent conflict in this specific New Jersey
universe. She argued that this episode proves
definitively that the show can sustain itself
long term beyond the initial hook of the pilot.
plot was a little goofy, the episode absolutely
succeeds in building out the world. Absolutely.
It establishes the permanent rhythm of the series.
You have a frustrating problem at home, you have
a violent problem at work, and you have a tense
therapy session to try and make sense of it all.
And usually you fail to make sense of it. So
what does this all mean for the listener? When
we look at 46 Long as a whole completed package?
It permanently cements the formula. The Sopranos
isn't just a show about whacking people and eating
pasta. It's about the deeply mundane universal
frustrations of modern life. Elderly parents
who refuse to stop driving, co -workers who can't
use simple office phones, incompetent subordinates
who mess up projects. But it's all amplified
by the capability for extreme sudden violence.
Tony is completely squeezed. He is squeezed by
his biological family, Livia's rapid decline
and his crime family junior's fragile ego and
Christopher's drug fueled recklessness. It's
essentially extreme stress management with a
loaded gun. Precisely. And the underlying tragedy
is that he's actually not very good at managing
the stress. As poor Georgie found out the hard
way. It really is a master class in character
development. Even the slight flaws in the episode,
like the broad comedy car plot, tell us something
important about who Tony desperately wants to
be. True. He wants to be the good guy who fixes
things for his community. But his nature means
he inevitably breaks everything he touches. Well,
that brings us to the end of our deep dive into
46 Long. It's amazing how much dense material
is packed into just the second hour of the series.
There is one final thought I do want to leave
you with today. A slightly provocative question
for the listener, if you will. Let's hear it.
We talked extensively about Tony seeing those
old childhood photos and nearly having a panic
attack on the stairs. And then very shortly after,
he brutally beats Georgie with the phone because
he reminds him of Livia. I want you to really
consider this. If Tony hadn't seen those old
photos in the empty house, if he hadn't been
so freshly reminded of his innocence lost, would
he have reacted so violently to Georgie at the
bar? Well, that's really interesting. You're
asking if the nostalgic feeling itself is actually
the trigger for the violence. Exactly. Is it
the warm memory of the past that makes his dark
present completely intolerable? Does remembering
the sweet boy he was make him deeply hate the
violent man he has become? We usually think of
nostalgia as a warm, fuzzy, comforting feeling.
But for someone like Tony Soprano, nostalgia
is a dangerous weapon. It starkly highlights
the massive gap between the innocent child in
the photo and the violent adult beating a man
over a phone. And feeling that gap is just too
painful for him to bear without lashing out.
That is definitely something to chew on. The
hidden danger of nostalgia. Indeed. Thank you
for listening to this deep dive. If you're re
-watching the series this week, keep an eye on
those different colored keys in the replacement
car scene. It's the little details like that
that make the show great. Catch you on the next
one.