Nobody was surprised when “The Sopranos,” a show on HBO about the Mafia, quickly began racking up a body count. The part that perhaps was a little shocking, however, was the series’ willingness to kill off just about any character no matter their importance. In the days before “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead,” this type of “any character can die at any time” approach still felt novel for a television show — and “The Sopranos” reveled in the unease that its audience felt in knowing even their favorite character could be killed off before the next episode.
Very few characters on “The Sopranos” are classifiable as truly good people. Almost all of them are criminals, and willingly so. Even so, there are times when a character died on the show, and it still felt tragic and sad. Not everyone who was killed off “deserved it,” so to speak. And those are the examples we are going to be discussing here, characters that, in spite of making bad choices and doing bad things, deserved the chance to live long enough to turn their lives around — and seemed like they could have — only to have that chance taken away from them.
Just to be clear, we will only be discussing characters who very clearly died. That is to say, despite whatever fan theories exist out there as to who got whacked when the screen cut to black at the end of the “Sopranos” finale, Tony (James Gandolfini) and everyone else in the diner were exempt from this list.
5. Vito Spatafore Sr.
Some of the saddest deaths on “The Sopranos” are the ones that come while someone is trying to get out, or has already done so. And what makes things even more tragic about Vito Spatafore Sr. (Joseph R. Gannascoli), having left the Mafia and being in hiding, is that he did so in large part because he knew the consequences of his sexual orientation being discovered by the family. So Vito was trying to work a civilian job and was even allowing himself to have an actual public relationship with a man, rather than his previous approach of empty physical encounters done entirely in secret.
But it all got to be too much for Vito, and he left his new beau behind and reluctantly returned to his old life. Tony, knowing that having a gay man in his employ would complicate his relationship with raging homophobe Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent), not only rejects Vito’s offers to buy his way back into the crew but orders a hit on Vito. Phil doesn’t bother waiting for that hit and instead enacts one himself, with two of his men ambushing Vito and not only murdering him but violating him with a pool cue as a way to confirm that his being gay was the reason he was whacked.
4. Anthony Blundetto
Anthony “Tony B” Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) first shows up in “The Sopranos” in Season 5 upon his release from prison, after having spent 20 years there for a hijacking crime that his cousin, Tony Soprano, was supposed to be in on too. Given that, Tony B is offered a cushy opportunity to work with his cousin to make amends. Yet, admirably, Tony B decides not to resume his life of crime and instead tries to go straight. At least, that was the plan.
Tony B goes through all the steps of setting up a legitimate message therapy business, but bad judgment and poor decisions derail all the progress he had made — and he’s left with no choice but to partner with his cousin after all. Proving his previous reluctance to stay out of the Mafia correct because he knew what that life would do to him, Tony B becomes the absolute worst version of himself and ends up more or less starting a war in the process. It gets so bad that Tony Soprano himself is left with no choice but to off his cousin himself in order to set things right, and does so with a shotgun.
Sure, Tony B did a lot of bad things, and a certain amount of comeuppance was expected. But the fact that he tried to steer clear of the organized crime life — only to be killed by the cousin that dragged him into it — still makes Tony B’s death a sad one. The performance of the always reliable Buscemi definitely went a long way in making the character more sympathetic than he perhaps fully deserved. Buscemi also directed several episodes of “The Sopranos,” including ones that occurred both before and after his stint as an actor on the show.
3. Tracee
Sure, the show was all about pushing things to the limit, but did “The Sopranos” ever actually take things too far? For some, the murder of Bada Bing club dancer Tracee (Ariel Kiley) — more specifically, the circumstances of her murder — falls under that category. It was made clear that Tracee had been dealt an unfortunate hand that led to a life of struggle, and she certainly didn’t always make the best decisions. But many of those bad decisions came by way of self-preservation. After all, when you dance at a strip club that is owned and frequented by the Mafia, you have to choose your battles very carefully.
Among those battles was how to navigate her extremely toxic relationship with Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano), inarguably one of the absolute worst characters on the entire show. It’s difficult enough for a woman to break things off with an abusive partner under normal circumstances, but that is compounded significantly when said abusive partner is an unhinged member of the Mafia. When Ralph found out that Tracee was pregnant with his child, it wasn’t a huge surprise that he didn’t immediately change his ways and become a loving boyfriend and excited future father. But mere apathy isn’t Ralph’s style. Instead, he brutally beat Tracee to death, killing both her and her unborn child — and then mocked her battered corpse for good measure.
2. Adriana La Cerva
Like most people who grow up in and around Mafia families, Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo) never really had a reasonable option not to be part of the lifestyle. It’s easy to say that you would reject a life of crime even if it was thrust upon you and was being partaken in by everyone you know, but it’s impossible to know for sure just how strong your resolve would actually be if that were your situation. Adriana liked the perks of the lifestyle — the fancy dinners, the designer clothes, etc. — and willingly threw herself into it all.
Still, Adriana did often dream of her and her fiancé, Christopher (Michael Imperioili), getting out and living a quieter, less dangerous life together. And so, when the FBI threatened her into rolling over on the family, she decided to leverage it into an opportunity to get her and Christopher out of trouble while giving up others to satisfy the feds. It wasn’t just self-preservation for her own future, but a future for both her and Christopher. So when his reaction to finding out was to nearly strangle her to death, and then turn her in to Tony, who then had her whacked, it resulted in one of the toughest deaths in the entire series — not just for the audience, but for the cast and crew.
The writer of that episode specifically had her death occur off-screen because he couldn’t bear to actually script a visible demise for Adriana. Meanwhile, actor Steven Van Zandt — who played Silvio Dante, the man who carries out the hit — struggled with having to be so cruel and rough in the moments leading up to the fateful shot because of the affection he had for both Adriana and de Matteo.
1. Christopher Moltisanti
Was Christopher Moltisanti always a good person? Absolutely not. Did he make a lot of bad decisions that badly hurt others? Most definitely. It arguably lets him off the hook a little too easily to point out all the ways his life had been tragic outside of his control in justifying his worst flaws as a character. We are only products of our circumstances to a point, and beyond that, we need to own up to the choices we make in navigating said circumstances. All that being said, the overwhelming feeling from fans of “The Sopranos” in regards to Christopher’s death is that it was incredibly tragic, in spite of all the bad things he did that got him there.
Christopher didn’t ask to grow up in a Mafia family. He also didn’t ask to have to face a lifelong battle with addiction. In fact, he frequently confided in his cousin Tony, allowing himself to be vulnerable and asking for help. So when he sat bleeding in the car with Tony just after getting into an accident, and once again tearfully implored Tony to help him, it was both one of the saddest and most shocking moments in the entire series when Tony responded by putting his hand over Christopher’s nose and mouth and forcing him to asphyxiate on his own blood.
Christopher always seemed like he wanted to get out, and had the capacity to get out. And even though he would typically do something to put himself right back in, you still rooted for him — and were devastated when he didn’t make it. Especially given the way his end was one of the worst ways a person can die, and by Tony’s own hand, as Tony looked him right in the eyes.