The show credited with ushering in the modern golden age of television, The Sopranos basically wrote the playbook for the nuanced anti-hero and slow-burning, season-long story arcs. Set in the world of New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano, showrunner David Chase was never shy about indulging himself by deviating from traditional storytelling norms. While the divisive series finale, which is still being discussed, was a poignant moment for Chase as a visionary storyteller, here are five other episodes (all available to watch on HBO NOW) of the times he elevated his craft and went a bit high concept with dream sequences, apparitions, and coma storylines, paving the way for shows like Mad Men to do the same.
Christopher’s near death experience drives Paulie to a psychic
After being declared dead for a few critical moments while in the hospital, Christopher wakes up to tell Tony and Paulie about the vision of hell he’d seen, consisting mostly of a bunch of gangsters in pinstriped suits, including a particular member of Junior’s old crew. This causes Paulie, who was already superstitious, to visit a psychic for insight. While the scene is played with deadpan absurdity, how the psychic seems to know what he does isn’t ever explained, and causes Paulie to become hysterically unhinged.
A brief flashback at Tony’s mother’s wake
With the unexpected death of Tony’s mother at the beginning of Season 3, “Proshai, Livushka” focuses on friends and family as they gather at the Soprano house after her funeral. While Paulie and Furio stand around discussing Survivor (more specifically, Furio’s plan to rob the winner of Survivor), Tony roots around in a hall closet with a mirror on the door. As he opens it, the mirror shows a brief glimpse of a departed cast member.
There’s also that awkward moment with the guy in the background during Janice’s eulogy to her mother, which was either a guest who got lost trying to find a bathroom upstairs or the world’s most well-dressed production assistant wandering into the shot.
An episode-long dream sequence
Dreams were another staple of The Sopranos‘ narrative that started back in the show’s early days. While it began with Tony, we would eventually see inside the minds of Christopher, Silvio, and even Tony’s therapist, Dr. Melfi, during the course of the series. In the case of Season 5’s “The Test Dream,” Chase took it one step further by having Tony’s dream take up the bulk of the episode. The elaborate, vaguely surreal sequence drew comparisons to A Christmas Carol, though many disliked it due to the way it diverted the focus away from the rising tensions within the show itself.
Deciphering clues from within a fever dream
In the Season 2 finale episode, “Funhouse,” Chase moved in and out of Tony’s food poisoning-induced fever-dream state and brought tensions to a boil and an ultimate resolution after dreams that saw Tony lighting himself on fire, shooting Paulie in the chest, and talking to an eight-pound fish version of Big Pussy.
A two-episode coma fantasy
For those who didn’t feel like “The Test Dream” or “Funhouse” spent enough time with the subconscious, “Join the Club” and “Mayham” went deep into soap-opera territory in Season 6 by focusing primarily on Tony Soprano, the accent-free precision optics salesman on a business trip in Costa Mesa, Calif., via coma fantasy, of course. In this story-within-the-story, Tony finds himself stranded, with the briefcase of one Kevin Finnerty instead of his own. While cleverly littered with bits of Eastern philosophy, as Tony repeats he’s trying to “reach Finnerty,” it also points out the exterior circumstances that are influencing what goes on inside his head.
