Amazingly enough, I’m not the only one doing the Top 10 thing this week; What’s Alan Watching has already beat me to the punch and I’m sure there are more on the way. I’ve scratched out my final roster, so here are five honorable mentions to episodes that just missed the cut.



College Next to “Pine Barrens,” this is probably the episode most often cited as a favorite among cast members and fans alike – and for similar reasons. The major storyline is self-contained, memorable and almost high concept: while taking his daughter on a tour of colleges in Maine, a mob boss spots a former associate now in witness protection. Tony must balance his family obligations (keeping Meadow on schedule and out of trouble) with his Family obligations (identifying and whacking the rat). The simplicity of the episode is striking when compared to later seasons (there’s also a B-plot about Carmela’s almost-romance with Father Phil), as is the way the characters interact with at least some degree of truthfulness. Meadow and Carmela are so deep in denial now, it’s refreshing to look back and see them confront the truth about Tony head-on – if only briefly.

D-Girl Long before Cleaver, Christopher took his first shot at Hollywood glory by chumming up to Jon Favreau and bedding his development executive Amy Safir (Alicia Witt, hot and terrifying in that soulless movie-biz way). Now maybe I’ve never been gut-shot or kneecapped with a baseball bat (note: I said maybe), but I have had my screenplays dissected by Hollywood weasels using terms like “inciting incident” and “picture arcs.” That could explain why this one hits home for me; that, and Janeane Garofolo’s immortal reading of the line “I never had an egg cream.”



Amour Fou Most Sopranos seasons climax in the episode before the finale, and this penultimate third season episode is no exception. Tony realizes his goomah Gloria Trillo is just a little unstable, while Jackie Jr. crashes a mob poker game with disastrous results. Another top-notch example of Tony’s personal and professional lives snowballing simultaneously, as all the season’s threads are gathered up and tightened to maximum tension.

Join the Club and Mayham I mentioned this in last year’s recap, but it’s hard to separate these two episodes, which immediately follow Tony’s shooting in the sixth season premiere. Comatose Tony finds himself in an alternate reality or purgatory of sorts where Tony Soprano is a legit salesman and nice guy on a business trip to Costa Mesa. While Tony’s real life is in chaos – in-fighting and power struggles among his mob crew, grief and anguish among family members – his dream-self is mistaken for a lookalike named Kevin Finnerty, a turn of events that gets him in trouble with a group of monks and leads him to an otherworldly family reunion hosted by his dead cousin. It’s a “What if?” scenario turned existential nightmare. For comic relief, Christopher and Little Carmine host their initial pitch meeting for Cleaver. (“It’s about a wiseguy with a big mouth and bigger dreams.”)

And then there are these treasured scenes from episodes that don’t quite make the desert island list: Christopher’s intervention from “The Strong, Silent Type”, Carmela’s session with straight-shooting shrink Dr. Krakower (“One thing you can never say – that you haven’t been told.”) from “Second Opinion”, Livia’s wake from “Proshai, Livia”, Silvio and Christopher’s Lynchian visit with the Atwell Avenue Boys in “The Weight”, the “executive game” with Frank Sinatra, Jr. from “The Happy Wanderer”, and the William Burroughs “Seven Souls” montage that opened the sixth season.