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Ten of the best Sopranos episodes, chosen by its stars

<span>Photograph: Alamy</span>
Photograph: Alamy

More than a decade since it departed from our screens, The Sopranos continues to loom menacingly over the TV landscape like a New Jersey capo wielding a cleaver. Impossible to dislodge from the top of best-of lists (most recently it was voted No 1 in The Guardian’s best series of the century so far) David Chase’s groundbreaking mob drama is also still being pored over by fans, with lockdown providing the perfect opportunity for many to indulge in an overdue rewatch.

Among those joining in with the rewatching are former cast members Michael Imperioli (AKA Christopher Moltisanti) and Steve Schirripa (AKA Bobby Baccalieri). Their podcast Talking Sopranos revisits every episode of the show a week at a time, with insights on how it was made and discussions with some of the those who helped make it, including screenwriter Terence Winter and Carmela Soprano herself, Edie Falco.

So, with memories of goomahs and gabagool still fresh in Imperioli and Schirripa’s minds, we’ve asked the pair to nominate their favourite Sopranos episodes in chronological order. Warning: spoilers ahead, if you don’t want to know who does or doesn’t get whacked …

College

Season 1, ep 5
Steve Schirripa: This put the show on the map. It was quite amazing: here’s this guy Tony Soprano – he’s balding, he’s overweight and he just murdered someone while taking his kid to college. This was a lead actor, for maybe one of the first times or ever on TV, killing someone in cold blood. So that certainly is not your ordinary TV show. HBO thought they would lose the audience if the lead killed someone, but [Sopranos creator] David Chase said: “We’re gonna lose the audience if he doesn’t kill him. This is a bad guy and that’s what he does.”

The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti

Season 1, ep 8
Michael Imperioli: This is from a selfish point of view. It’s the episode where I realised they were going to make my character Christopher a main figure in the show and features some of the best scenes I got to do, with Jimmy Gandolfini and Tony Sirico [who played Paulie Walnuts], and a scene with Drea de Matteo [who played Christopher’s girlfriend Adriana], and I think they were some of the best scenes I got to do in the show. A defining episode for the character, and I just really enjoyed it.

Toodle-Fucking-Oo

Season 2, ep 3
SS: This is where you first see Richie Aprile, who was probably – in fact not probably – the scariest character on The Sopranos. He made you uneasy when he came on screen. David Proval is a phenomenal actor and played this role like he was born into it. From the moment that he meets Tony, you know this guy is going to be a problem. Sure enough, he was. He runs Beansie over, he paralyses him. For me that would have been enough for the boss to get rid of him, but Tony let it go way too far for my tastes.

Funhouse

Season 2, ep 13
SS: The episode when they killed Big Pussy. Vincent Pastore’s performance was out of this world. I don’t think Tony and Paulie and Silvio really wanted to kill him. He was a childhood friend, but they had no choice. He had backed them into a corner and I think there was a lot of emotion there. The audience still felt bad for him, even though he was a snitch and a murderer. The thing that’s amazing is that these are murderers, drug dealers, people that hurt innocent people. And yet you feel for these people, you root for some of them. My first day on the set Vinnie came up to me and said: “You’re going to replace me. How many fat fucks could they have on one show!”

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From Where to Eternity

Season 2, ep 9
MI: I’ve always had a soft spot for this, the first episode I wrote. It takes place with Christopher in hospital after getting shot. I tried to explore what these guys did in terms of Catholicism, heaven and hell. It features Paulie Walnuts going to see a psychic. It was fun to play with those complex, big ideas. I might have overthought it: these guys didn’t think much of the repercussions! They did what they did. I don’t think they think much of the afterlife to be honest. But the episode came out well.

Pine Barrens

Season 3, ep 11
SS: I love this episode, as everyone else did. One of the best hours in the history of TV, and a very funny episode. When you’re doing The Sopranos you’re playing it straight, like a drama. It’s just the writing and the circumstances they put you in that makes it funny. This was also the infamous episode where I twirled a dildo around off-camera to make Tony Soprano laugh. I enjoyed that!

Whitecaps

Season 4, ep 13
MI: An incredible episode, primarily because of Gandolfini and Edie Falco [who played Tony’s wife Carmela]. They’re buying a summer house down the shore but their marriage is falling apart. It’s so intimate. It’s like you’re really eavesdropping on these people’s lives. It’s so honest and raw and real. It’s some of the best acting I’ve seen anywhere. I’ll never forget it.

Marco Polo

Season 5, ep 8
MI: The last one that I wrote and one that’s like a little movie unto itself. It’s centred on this party for Carmela’s father but it revealed a lot of other stuff that was going on with the family. There’s a sex scene in the pool with Carmela and Tony. I just loved how they played it and how it reignited their relationship, that moment. That’s one of the great things about The Sopranos, and a reason why it changed TV. You watch a lot of shows and characters are pretty defined in the beginning. They don’t evolve over time. In The Sopranos they definitely did.

The Ride

Season 6, ep 9
MI: This is a really good episode for Christopher. It features a montage where he’s at a feast and he’s high, and that song Dolphins by Fred Neil plays. There’s something very lyrical and beautiful about it, and weird. That’s a really big one for Christopher. His addiction really starts in season one and then progresses. He was dabbling and always into coke. But heroin becomes this bigger and bigger issue. I think we portrayed addiction very honestly in the show, and people who have had addiction issues themselves, or through family or friends, appreciated it.

Soprano Home Movies

Season 6, ep 13
SS: This was one of the final nine episodes of the series. David Chase had enough confidence in me by then as an actor. So here I am with two Emmy winners [Gandolfini and Falco] and Aida Turturro [who played Tony’s sister, Janice]. Even after all these years working with these people, I was still in awe. The fight between my character Bobby and Tony is how two fat guys fight. They don’t fight a phoney, Steven Seagal-style fight. I think it turned out pretty good. We did 98% of that as the two of us without a stuntman. I was pretty sore after. Jim was a big, strong guy.

New episodes of the Talking Sopranos podcast are available weekly on all good platforms