The best season of The Sopranos is tough to nail down. Season 1 features the general premises and ideas of the entire show, and it's phenomenal to re-watch the show again a few years later since the writers and creator David Chase do such a good job of wrapping up the ideals from Season 1 in the final season.
Season 1's main ideals are that Tony Soprano's life as a gangster is unstable. He's unsafe, and his wife, Carmela, is scared stiff that when he dies or goes to jail, she will be left with nothing. A majorly intriguing point to Tony's life is that as a viewer, you not only get to see Tony's mob-boss centered life, but his other life as a father and husband. The juxtaposition between his two lives is stunningly portrayed in a realistic manner throughout the entire series; when family is good, work is not. When work is good, family is not. At times, Tony experiences joy through the family. At times, it's work. Sometimes, life just sucks all around, which is why he sees a shrink, played by Lorraine Bracco. Throughout all of this, all of the seasons in Season 1 (and 2, 3, and even the majority of episodes in Season 4) are just perfectly meted out to give the viewer the perfect mix of drama, violence, humor, and plot and character development. The first few seasons are especially artistic, in that the camera work and effects are just...different. Without knowing much about video production, I struggle to describe it, but it's definitely artsier than your typical drama on ABC or CBS.
But, this post isn't to give a season blow-by-blow (or should I say hit-by-hit) synopsis. I'm here to discuss the top five non-Soprano characters. Obviously Tony would be in my Top 5, but that's a little unfair. Kind of like saying that Omar is your favorite character from The Wire. I mean, duh...that's as simple as determining that food is delicious and days off from work are fun.
5. Benny Fazio. Benny doesn't really appear until Season 5 when some of the original characters start to thin out a bit, but really gives a pleasurable performance. Played by Max Casella (yep, of Doogie Howser M.D. fame!), he plays a low-level crew guy who has a super cute pregnant wife, but can't resist that hot piece of ass who's hosting for Artie Bucco at Vesuvio. That escalates into a confrontation between Artie and Benny...Artie goes to Benny's house to kick the shit out of him, and actually does. Benny retaliates by sticking Artie's hand in a giant pot of searing-hot marinara. ("Gravy," for you Sopranos purists.)
4. Furio Giunta. What.a.badass.MoFo. Brought over from "the boot" in negotiations, Furio delivers some killer lines and scenes throughout his brief stay in Jersey in Seasons 2 and 3. One scene that comes to mind is when Tony finds his Uncle Junior's cancer doctor on the golf course and lays down a threat. Tony asks Furio if he likes golf, and Furio responds, "Stupid a-fucking game." His thick Italiano accent and pure intimidating presence alone put him in the top 5. Furio proceeds to smack the doc's hat off, claiming, "You gotta bee on-a you hat." That scene is entertaining, but doesn't compare to the scene below it, which is by far Furio's finest (but brutal) moment.
3. Pauly "Walnuts" Galtieri. Pauly is just a classic character. He's unsure of himself at times, and has a weird aversion to believing that the people he's "whacked" over the years are haunting him from the grave. He's closed-minded, short-sighted, and a nitwit, but he's got some killer lines, and above all, he's mostly trustworthy and loyal. (Save for that one time when he told Johnny Sac about that joke about his wife while in the can.) Pauly has some of the greatest lines from the show; too many to list. One of my favorites is featured below in the video, about men's shoelaces and bathrooms. Another favorite of mine is not, though, which goes something like this, as he and Tony are watching a show about snakes:
Pauly: "The amazing thing about snakes is that they reproduce spontaneously."
Tony: "What do you mean?"
Pauly: "They have both male and female sex organs. That's why somebody you don't trust, you call a snake. How can you trust a guy who can literally go fuck themselves?"
Tony: "Wouldn't you think that expression would come from the Adam and Eve story? When the snake tempted Eve to bite the apple?"
Pauly: "Hey, snakes were fucking themselves long before Adam and Eve showed up, T."
The hair, his famous proclamation when he hits the Colombians ("Oooh my fuckin' BAWLS!") and the wondrous Pine Barrens episode in Season 4 earn Pauly a spot in the top 5.
2. Artie Bucco. I just love this guy. He wants to be "in" so badly but let's face it, he's just an average guy who has no business being connected. Artie's facial expressions and mannerisms, and vocal intonations, really make the character for me. He just tries so hard to be tough, and he doesn't have it. I love how he practices his tough-guy routine. "Message machine broken?"
1) Silvio Dante. SteveVan Zandt plays Tony's number 2, Silvio. Silvio takes pride in being the number two, and he plays the back burner role quite well. Silvio serves as comic relief and advisor to Tony, and, like Artie, I just can't get over his facial expressions. I'll let the video do the talking, but Van Zandt creates such an unforgettable character that I can't help but put him at my #1 favorite non-Tony-Soprano character. The first video is a collaboration of quotes, including Silvio's oft-quoted lines from The Godfather and Raging Bull, but the second video might be Silvio's finest moment on the entire show. "I love fuckin' cheese on my feet!"
