The life of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) was the very definition of complicated, and with him through it all (well, most of it, anyway), was his therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). A soft-spoken, level-headed psychiatrist whose relationship with Tony was at the very core of The Sopranos (available to stream anytime on HBO Now), she was able to help him confront some very difficult truths about himself in a way that no one else could have.
As showrunner David Chase once explained, the core of The Sopranos’ story was “a man goes to his therapist,” and, like he did with the show’s elaborate dream sequences, he put tremendous importance on the unique relationship that these two characters developed. Here’s a ranked look back at some of the most revealing moments that he had inside Dr. Melfi’s office.
5. Tony’s Real Concerns About His Son
One of Tony’s most affecting moments comes out of a discussion about his son, A.J. (Robert Iler). After A.J.’s increasingly bad behavior gets him expelled from high school, Tony opts to send him to a military academy, believing its the best thing for him. Unfortunately, one night, as A.J. tries on his uniform, faced with the reality of being shipped away from his home, he passes out from a panic attack. “He’s got that putrid, rotten f*cking Soprano gene,” he tells Melfi, who’s quick to point out the subconscious self-loathing behind a statement like that. Going beyond typical parental concern, Tony is flat-out terrified about what the future holds for his only son. Given that Tony’s also in the midst of burying the only son of his late best friend, Jackie Jr. (Jason Cerbone) who was killed on his order, it’s easy to see why Tony fears the worst.
While Melfi had asked Tony about the possibility of his son following in his footsteps before, Tony simply shrugged it off, telling her that, in his world, he’d “never make it.” Of course, that conversation was purely hypothetical, whereas this one comes about when A.J. seems to be approaching a point of no return, and Tony comes close to tears when thinking about what might happen to him. This time, Tony starts to break down, allowing himself to show some genuine vulnerability while he asks the question “how are we gonna save this kid?”
4. Confessing His Feelings For Her
When Tony and his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco), were separated, and he was no longer in therapy, he became obsessed with the idea of taking his former psychiatrist out on a date. Melfi, who tells him she’s flattered by his gesture, keeps him at an arm’s length, citing a conflict of interest because of their prior doctor/patient relationship. Still, Tony persists, even setting up a fake therapy appointment just so he can ask her out to dinner. He confesses his “true” feelings in her office, explaining that it’s the place that they’d been the most honest with one-another — blissfully unaware that he’d just broken that trust by lying to her.
After she declines his dinner invitation, he shows up again one night in her waiting room, this time with two tickets to Bermuda. It’s Tony at his most boyishly vulnerable, his voice breaking nervously as he admits that she’s turned him into “half a stalker.” Despite Tony’s best efforts, Melfi rejects him again, this time including a pretty concise, thought-out rundown of all his unappealing characteristics, finally telling him that she has a moral opposition to his way of life.
It’s a level of honesty that Melfi wasn’t able to show Tony when she was his therapist, one that only reveals itself after his tireless persistence. Clearly not used to that kind of honesty, Tony shouts a few choice expletives and storms out of her office. Though it doesn’t take long before he starts sending her passive-aggressive apology notes attached to lavish gift baskets to try and win back her favor. Eventually, she does agree to take him back, at least tentatively, and Tony manages to swallow his pride (something else he’s not used to), and returns to Melfi’s office again, this time as her patient. Although it’s mostly because Melfi’s the only person he can talk to about his love for another woman, but he’s still willing to humble himself to do so.
3. Tony Denying His Heartache
Over the course of one really bad day, Tony gets food poisoning, realizes that his best friend, Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero (Vincent Pastore), has been talking to the FBI, kills him, dumps his body in the ocean, and he gets arrested for a stolen airline ticket he’d given to his mother. During the therapy session that follows, he selectively rants about this really bad day, blaming the whole thing on Indian food and his “goddamn idiot of a mother.” Melfi, meanwhile, senses something else is wrong, and keeps pressing him about the rage he’s showing, believing it’s masking a much greater sadness — all of which he outright denies.
It’s not the first (or the last) time that Tony lied to Melfi, but it was the first time that Melfi felt comfortable enough to call him out on it. She pressed him about his true feelings, while Tony simply scowled at her, fake-crying while musing the words “poor me” in a tone all too reminiscent of his late mother. There’s no big revelation for Tony here, but as he leaves his session mumbling the words to “Maybe, Baby,” it’s clear that Melfi is better at seeing through his tough guy facade, and that Tony is getting worse at hiding his true feelings from her.
2. Dealing With The Truth About His Mother
Going against her usual style of gently nudging Tony towards his own breakthroughs, Melfi tells him that his life is still in danger after he’d survived a recent assassination attempt. Not only that, but she tells him that his mother, Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand), was the one who was behind it all. Tony’s more than a little upset by this accusation, and he flips over her table and looms heavy over her, making very specific, very violent threats to her for even suggesting such a thing. It wasn’t until the FBI surprised Tony with some candid recorded conversations between his mother and Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) that revealed that Melfi was right about the whole thing.
Knowing the truth, Tony returns to Melfi’s office to apologize for his violent outburst, hoping to earn back enough of her trust to warn her of the danger she’s in. “You been a good doctor to me,” he tells her on his way out the door, leaving Melfi’s life to be turned upside down by the very gang war she helped predict, forcing her into hiding, and seeing her patients out of a rundown motel room.
Still, even after this severe fallout, Melfi shows that she’s still willing to take Tony back, albeit not right away. Years later, Tony romanticizes those early days in therapy they spent together, like some kind of forbidden affair where he first learned to become a more effective leader. Melfi, on the other hand, went from seeing it as some kind of vicarious thrill ride to years later believing she’d been “charmed by a sociopath.”
1. Tony’s Guilt About His Cousin
The biggest revelation Tony has in therapy happens when he comes face-to-face with an event that’s haunted him his entire life. Twenty years earlier, Tony’s cousin, Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi), was arrested at a heist that Tony was supposed to be at, but wasn’t. As a result, Blundetto spent 20 years behind bars, losing his wife and daughter in the process, while Tony goes on to great wealth and success. Once his cousin’s out on parole, Tony becomes overwhelmed with guilt, and eventually gives Blundetto a coveted position managing a casino. Little by little, Tony starts to fear that his cousin may be involved with a war that’s been brewing between two New York factions, while his panic attacks begin to occur more frequently as a result.
When he tells Melfi about this uptick in panic attacks, she does what she does best, doling out tiny pieces of the puzzle so he can figure out and face the problem on his own. For those two decades, Tony always said he’d missed the heist because he’d been jumped “by some black guys.” It’s a familiar excuse used frequently by his associates — even one his own cousin uses earlier in this very episode. As Tony starts to connect the dots, he almost has a panic attack right there in Melfi’s office, yet she persists, calmly talking him through it while making him focus on what really happened that night. It turns out, all those years ago, Tony had gotten into a fight with his mother, which prompted a panic attack, causing him to pass out, and miss the job he would’ve gone to jail for.
It’s an enormous weight for Tony to get off his chest, and you can see the relief wash over him once he manages to get the truth out. Melfi likens the process to giving birth, whereas Tony says it’s “more like taking a sh*t.” Afterward, Tony’s even able to come to repeat his revelation to his cousin during what would be their last conversation. It seems inconsequential — if not a little backhanded — to Blundetto, realizing that everything he’d gotten since being released was out of Tony’s guilt. For Tony, however, it gives him a sense of closure to a situation that he doesn’t see a way out of.
