'Many Saints of Newark': 5 'Sopranos' episodes you need to watch before the new movie
Break out the moozadell and gabagool.
“The Many Saints of Newark,” David Chase’s long-awaited prequel movie to his Emmy-winning mob drama “The Sopranos,” finally arrived in theaters and on HBO Max Friday, 14 years after the show went off the air in 2007.
The gritty film stars newcomer Michael Gandolfini as young Tony Soprano, playing the role embodied by his late dad James Gandolfini for six seasons of the HBO hit. The movie is sprinkled with younger versions of fan favorites from the series, including Tony's mom, Livia (Vera Farmiga), Paulie Walnuts (Billy Magnussen) and Tony's Uncle Junior (Corey Stoll), and centers on a character mentioned but barely seen in the show, Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola).
Whether you’re new to the “Sopranos” or a longtime fan, here are the episodes you should watch that will help prepare you for “Newark.”
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1. Season 1, Episode 7, ‘Down Neck’
“Newark” briefly recreates a flashback from this early episode, when Tony and his rebellious sister Janice (Mattea Conforti in the movie), witness their dad, Giovanni “Johnny Boy” Soprano (Jon Bernthal), being carted off by police while at an amusement park.
Another notable moment from this episode is between Tony’s son, A.J. (Robert Iler), and his mom, Livia (Nancy Marchand), when A.J. tells her that Tony sees a psychiatrist. “He does not,” she disgustedly responds. Livia’s resistance to therapy and anti-depressants is a key sticking point between the younger Livia and Tony in “Newark,” with a heated confrontation about her refusing to take medication and her rigid belief that people who seek help for mental health are weak. A scene between Tony and a school guidance counselor also parallels his older self’s reluctant therapy sessions with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) from the show.
2. Season 3, Episode 2, 'Proshai, Livushka'
A Black person finally takes center stage in the “Sopranos” universe with Leslie Odom Jr.’s “Newark” character Harold McBrayer, a fixer for Dickie who becomes his rival. Harold confronts racism from disparaging mobsters and goomahs (an Italian term for “mistresses”), as he watches his community literally burn to the ground in the 1967 Newark race riots.
Harold seems like Chase’s attempt at course-correcting. His nuanced arc is in stark contrast to other Black characters we saw throughout “Sopranos,” who were stereotyped as drug addicts (“Watching Too Much Television”), gangsta rappers (“A Hit is a Hit”) and nameless criminals (“Unidentified Black Males”). In fact, the only Black person with a noteworthy recurring role was Noah (Patrick Tully), the half-Black, half-Jewish boyfriend of Tony’s daughter, Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler). Tony’s racism is perhaps most overtly exposed in this uncomfortable episode, in which he hurls slurs at Noah and eventually drives a wedge between the smitten college couple.
3. Season 4, Episode 1: 'For All Debts Public and Private'
In this tense Season 4 opener, Chris tracks down the cop, Barry Haydu (Tom Mason), who allegedly murdered his dad, Dickie. Breaking into his home and handcuffing him, Chris angrily interrogates Barry, who denies any involvement in the killing. “Newark” depicts Dickie’s death outside his home when Chris was just a baby, allowing viewers to see whether Barry really killed him.
4. Season 6, Episode 18: 'Kennedy and Heidi'
"Newark" opens with a shot of Chris’ tombstone, with Chrissy himself narrating from beyond the grave. "I met death on Route 23," he says. Chris, of course, is referring to this late Season 6 episode when he gets into a car accident while driving one night with Tony. Chris asks Tony to call him a taxi because he wouldn't pass a sobriety test. But after noticing a tree branch impaled the empty infant car seat, Tony realizes that Chris would've killed his own baby daughter had she been in the vehicle. He then pinches Chris' nose until he suffocates to death while choking on his own blood.
5. Season 6, Episode 21: 'Made in America'
Plenty of famous "Sopranos" locales pop up throughout "Newark," including mobster hangout Satriale's Pork Store. But none is more iconic than Holsten's ice cream parlor, where Tony may or may not have gotten whacked to the tune of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" while out to dinner with his family in the much-debated series finale. Holsten's makes a couple of appearances in the new movie when a young Tony and his best friend Artie Bucco (Matteo Russo) go there after school. Later in the film, teenage Tony anxiously waits for somebody at the restaurant. (Cue the doorbell.)