Corrado "Junior" Soprano

As the elder statesman and reluctant patriarch of the family, Junior Soprano delivers much comic relief, wisdom, and criticism of the younger generation throughout his time on the show. He and Tony have tension from the very first episode, and their rivalry in the first season highlights the complicated nature of their relationship.

Much of the first season involves Tony and Junior antagonizing each other through their underlings. Tony sabotages Junior’s plan to kill a rival named Pussy Malanga in his friend Artie’s restaurant, and Junior then enlists Tony’s mother Livia as a co-conspirator and ally in collusion against her own son. Junior hints at having Tony killed to Livia in an early conversation, and the show takes on an almost Shakespearian tone watching these two family elders contemplate the idea of killing a member of their own family.

Things escalate as the season progresses, as Christopher and Brendan hijack trucks under Junior’s control, which infuriates Junior even further. Junior once again consults his new advisor Livia, who steers him towards the idea that he should kill Brendan and put a serious scare into Chris, which he does. After Jackie Aprile Sr. dies, Tony cleverly arranges for Junior to take over the family so he can be the one who attracts attention from the FBI. Junior doesn’t recognize this manipulation, and we see his ego and pride take over as he assumes his new position at the top of the family food chain.

The power quickly goes to his head, and Junior begins enforcing rules and disrupting the apple cart in a manner that sends ripples throughout the organization. Livia and Tony take turns manipulating Junior into various actions during this period, but things change when Livia finds out Tony is in therapy, which she quickly reports to Junior who reacts with shock and disbelief.

Junior takes a break from all his New Jersey worries and spends some time in Florida with his longtime girlfriend Bobby. Junior’s love life is a source of interest and speculation throughout the series, as he never marries, which is highly unusual for a man of his generation and relative position. In this episode we find Junior performs expert cunnilingus on Bobby, but he is mortified at the idea of this ever getting out, as this is a serious taboo amongst the members of the “family,” who believe such an act to be feminine and possibly indicative of homosexuality.

But as is often the case in sopranoland, secrets don’t stay secrets, and on the golf course Tony antagonizes Junior about his oral sex fetish, and Junior fires back about Tony’s visits to a psychiatrist, which is seen by both as a kind of declaration of war. Tony hilariously laments this dilemma, saying, “Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this.” A further side effect of this development occurs when Junior breaks it off with Bobby, smashing a pie in her face and calling her a “fucking blabbermouth” for telling others about his enjoyment of oral sex.

Livia continues to manipulate Junior, and escalates his anger at Tony by informing him that three of his captains now have their mothers staying at Green Grove. Between this revelation, the jokes about his penchant for oral sex, and Mikey Palmice’s repeated insistence, Junior finally orders the assassination of Tony. There are complications with this plan and Junior gets physically ill as the situation continues to linger. Tony eventually kills one of his assassins with his quick reactions, and immediately suspects Junior is behind this development.

The FBI eventually confirm Tony’s worst fears and play him a tape where his mother and his uncle are plotting to have him killed. Tony begins systematically eliminating all of Junior’s key people, and with his world crumbling around him, the FBI arrives and offers Junior an incredible deal. If he testifies that Tony is really the power in the organization, he can go free. This is a key crossroads in Junior’s life, as swallowing his pride and telling the truth about Tony will result in his freedom. But his ego simply will not allow him to go down this road, and he defiantly tells the FBI, “My nephew running things? Not that strunz. Not in this life.” He is subsequently incarcerated as the first season comes to an end.

Junior finagles his way out of jail with the help of his longtime attorney Harold Melvoin by exaggerating some benign medical issues, and Tony informs him he has taken possession of all of his operations, and will now allow him to survive on a “subsistence level.” Junior is now living under house arrest and is racked with guilt over Tony’s estrangement from his mother Livia. He falls in the shower at one point (hilariously yelling “Sister’s Cunt” on his way down) and we find that Tony actually does still care about him when he carries him in his arms to the emergency room.

An interesting conversation occurs between Junior and Tony shortly afterwards, where we find out that Junior had a second brother named Ercole who was developmentally disabled and sent to live in a home by Junior’s parents, (Tony hilariously says he always thought they meant Junior when his parents talked about his retarded uncle.) This comes as a complete shock to Tony, but Junior gives him the news with a kind of stoicism. When he was growing up there was simply no room for someone with that kind of disability.

Having had his income trimmed so considerably, Junior begins getting anxious about the size of his legal bills and makes arrangements with the help of Richie Aprile to deal cocaine on their shared garbage routes. Junior and Richie grow closer and begin plotting against Tony when he refuses to let them continue to deal drugs. But it’s not all bad news for Junior, as he begins seeing a new woman named Kathryn Romano who is an old classmate of his (he overcomes his revulsion that he reconnected with her while she was getting her bunions checked out.) Junior eventually double-crosses Richie when their attempted coup against Tony fails, and he and Tony begin to grow closer again, despite the fact Junior once again contemplated having him killed.

In the third season, it is revealed that Junior has stomach cancer, and he becomes violently agitated when Bobby’s father dies, believing that “death comes in threes” and that this will somehow lead to his demise. Junior begins treatment and develops a strange man crush on his new doctor, “John Kennedy” who he believes is infallible due in part to his legendary name. When Junior gets a second opinion at Tony’s insistence, Dr. Kennedy drops him as a patient, which sends Tony into a rage where he harasses Dr. Kennedy into taking on Junior as a patient again.

This seems to be an important development, as Tony is now strongly advocating and caring for Junior like a parent, despite the fact Junior has betrayed him several times in recent years. In the final episode of this season, we see Junior’s cancer is now in remission, and our last images of him are passionately singing Italian songs at Jackie Jr.’s funeral. Given Tony, Carmella’s and other members of Tony’s inner circle hatred of Junior throughout the first few seasons, this seems significant, as he has now reassumed a patriarchal role in the family that others look to for advice and guidance.

The fourth season focuses heavily on Junior’s trial, and Tony and Junior begin the season fencing about their financial arrangement, as Junior’s legal bills are mounting. Junior seems noticeably more amorous with women in this incarnation, and his flirtations with a nurse at his doctor’s office backfire, as she turns out to be an FBI agent. Junior is disgusted with himself for acting like such a fool, lamenting, “it must have been that piece of tail,” and “time was, my instincts would have never failed me like that.”

Tony is now actively seeking Junior’s advice again, and when he is forced to arrange the assassination of his friend John Sacrimoni, Junior steers him to “The Atwell Avenue Boys,” a group of now elderly hit men Junior has used in the past. Junior soon gets distracted and even obsessed with minor details from his trial, as he pours over his legal bill looking for errors, and becomes enraged at what he perceives is an unflattering likeness of him drawn by the courtroom artist.

In an ironic turn of events, Junior, who has been feigning illness to avoid legal consequences, is knocked to the ground by a news crew outside the courtroom and actually shows some initial signs of dementia. The new legal strategy is to play up Junior’s mental incompetence, and some humorous exchanges take place as he attempts to convince the FBI of his impairment. This strategy does not ultimately work, however, and Junior is ruled fit to stand trial, although we the viewers are left to wonder if he is actually decompensating or not, as his behavior is growing increasingly erratic.

When the mental incompetence angle fails, Junior’s crew intimidates a juror who assures a hung jury, which results in Junior’s freedom. Although the rest of his crew is elated at this news, a visibly tired Junior retreats to the couch, which perhaps foreshadows a further decline in his mental and physical health in the coming episodes.

This suspicion is confirmed in the fifth season as he mistakes Larry David, and Jeff Garlin from the show “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” for him and Bobby, which is further evidence of the insidious onset of his dementia. This is again demonstrated later at Sunday dinner, as he repeatedly tells everyone Tony “never had the makings of a varsity athlete,” which was an insult from Tony’s youth that is an especially sensitive subject for him. Junior eventually utters this phrase one time too many, and Tony storms out in a rage, pronouncing that Junior is now “dead to him.”

Uncle Junior later wanders aimlessly looking for his brother Johnny (who has been dead for many years) in his bathrobe, and is eventually brought home by the police, (which he is very ungrateful for, telling them “go shit in your hat.”) It is clear now he has a serious mental illness, which his neurologist confirms for Tony on the golf course, which leads a now conflicted Tony to try with Junior one more time. In what is likely the most sensitive moment ever between the two men, a visibly saddened Tony asks Junior, “Why do you always have to say something mean. Don't you love me?” Neither of them speaks after this, but both have tears in their eyes as they contemplate everything that has happened between them over the years.

Despite his now serious dementia, Junior still provides some moments of comic relief, battling with his nurse Branca by asking her, “did you offer my nephew an aspirin?” and referring to her as a “cunt” under his breath when she doesn’t answer him. Later he gleefully says, “I heard he came all over the sun-visor” while gossiping about Tony and Adriana’s alleged oral sex incident.

When Tony befriends a woman Junior once considered marrying named Fran Feldstein, Junior asks “How could I bring this life we live on a woman?” which gives us some further insight into how and why he stayed single throughout his life instead of getting married. Junior later breaks down at a funeral (he is now attending funerals as a full-time hobby to get out of the house) and tells his doctor, “My life is only death, I’m living in a grave, I beat prison and for what? I have no children.” These conversations seem to demonstrate a man with deep regrets, as he begins voicing these sad proclamations with increasing frequency as time progresses.

In the final season of the show, we see that Junior has now totally decompensated into full-blown dementia, and how he is now almost totally dependent on others for his care. He and Tony look for buried money in Junior’s backyard, and we get a full callback to the first season when he becomes obsessed with Pussy Malanga, his longtime enemy who has been dead for nearly six years.

In one of the most shocking and surprising events in the history of the show, Junior eventually mistakes Tony (who is cooking Junior’s dinner) for Pussy Malanga and shoots him in the stomach. As Tony writhes in agony on the ground, a visibly terrified Junior stashes his gun under his bed and goes to the closet to hide. As the camera pans away, we are very uncertain as to the fate of either of these two men.

Junior is eventually arrested for this shooting and questioned, but he is very confused, and reports to the detective that Tony must have shot himself, as he “is a depression case.” He is sent to a mental institution after he is ruled to be mentally incompetent, and pleads with whoever will listen to go home. He tries to give Bobby a financial gift for Christmas, but Bobby returns it saying he can’t accept it. Junior eventually gives this envelope full of cash to an African-American orderly, telling him “one hand washes the other,” perhaps giving us the idea that Junior has one last trick up his sleeve. 

And soon we find out that he does. With the help of pharmacology, he is mostly back to his regular self and is soon running his own version of the “executive game” with the mental patients, where he is the bank, host, and master of ceremonies. He finds a loyal sidekick and enforcer in Carter, a young Asian man who helps him finish his stories, runs the card game, and backs him up with the other players. Junior bribes the orderlies and soon has the place wired as he sells coke and candy at a 500 percent markup.

But a new enemy emerges in the form of Lynch, a former professor who disapproves of Junior’s activities and takes every chance to inform on him to the authorities. Things between the two of them continue to escalate, and when the professor directly challenges Junior his old instincts kick in, and he gives the professor a savage beating. This marks the beginning of the end for Junior, as the orderly he had in his pocket (who he hilariously refers to as “Hormel”) is fired, and his medication is changed to help numb him out. He becomes more compliant with hospital rules, which bitterly disappoints Carter, (who looks up to him like a father) who then gives Junior a savage beating of his own.

In the final episode, we observe one last conversation between Tony and Junior as the show has now come full circle. Tony is still very angry with Junior, and pokes and prods at him verbally to get him to acknowledge that he shot him. In the end, we see Tony has finally come to realize that Junior does not remember him, and likely had no idea who he was when he shot him. Tony tells Junior that he and his father ran North Jersey, and even manages a smile when Junior replies, “that’s nice,” which are the last words they will ever speak to each other.

Analysis

Perspective on the World perceived through Experience of Psychological Birth Order

The idea of birth order predicts that a number of personality characteristics may develop based on a person’s position in a family. The first-born is often the leader and the responsible one. The second born child then chooses another role, as this one is already taken. The baby of the family is often adept at putting others in his or her service.

But these ideas are not set in stone. Adler offered the idea of psychological birth order to explain how these roles may at times get mixed up in families based on a number of psychological developments and environmental stressors.

This is an interesting idea to consider with regard to Junior and his younger brother Johnny. We learn from Junior that their father was a master stonemason who was very stern and serious (he once made Junior walk 11 miles home to teach him a lesson.) And yet Junior and Johnny had no desire to follow in their father’s footsteps, and instead joined the DiMeo crime family.

But we also find out Johnny was “made” before Junior in the family, which appears to have created some lifelong resentment that informs a number of Junior’s decisions. Junior has essentially been usurped as the eldest child, and Johnny has now assumed the alpha position in the family. This is also evidenced by the situation with Fran Feldstein, who was Johnny’s mistress for a lengthy period while he was married to Livia. Junior was in love with her first, and even had intentions of proposing to her, but then Johnny took her away from his older brother as Junior explains sadly to Tony, saying, “Then one night we were all at the 500 Club to see Enzo Stuarti. Your father shows up. Sy Devore suit, two-inch lapel - that was that.”

Later in the flashback scenes where we watch Johnny cut off Mr. Satriale’s finger, we again see that Johnny is the clear “alpha” in this scenario, with Junior simply acting as a backup. This is also evidenced in the scene where Johnny beats “Rocko” as he collects a debt. Junior is clearly not the dominant brother anymore, and he lives in Johnny’s shadow for the rest of their respective careers together in the “family.”

In thinking about this, it is easier to understand Junior’s all-consuming desire to become the boss in the first season. And even after he becomes the boss, he begins wielding power like a dictator, as if he’s making up for lost time and all those years feeling he had been passed over. His reliance on Livia to help with his decisions is also interesting to consider in this regard, as she was one of the only people that was likely to challenge Johnny’s personal or professional power when they were together. Seeing Tony’s rise may also be a reminder of some of his past hurts, as now his nephew has begun to outshine him, much like his father had so many years ago.

Because much of what we know and see of Junior occurs in old age, we may examine his life using Erick Erikson’s stage model. Erikson posits that each period of life comes with a specific challenge we must navigate. He calls the end of life stage “Ego integrity versus despair,” and describes this challenge as “Reflecting on one's life and either moving into feeling satisfied and happy with one's life or feeling a deep sense of regret.”

In considering Junior’s life in this regard, it is clear he harbors a number of regrets that prevent him from enjoying his golden years. In the first season, he seems to be ruled in large part by his own ego, and he demonstrates a serious need to “win” in his interactions with Tony, despite their differences in age and experience. After Tony defeats him and allows him to live only on a “subsidence level,” we see a kind of resignation set in with Junior. He laments his lack of children, his old house, and his lack of purpose in life as the season's progress.

And in the end, we see him at a shabby hospital in a sense decaying and left to die, having alienated the last people who loved him and were capable of taking care of him. His prophetic statement in season four that “Each of us is alone in the fucking’ universe” appears to have come true. Dr. Melfi once said to Tony, “If you're lucky, in the end you can let go of your pride. Let your loved ones care for you.”

Junior’s actions throughout the series did not produce this outcome, and in many ways he therefore fits more closely at the “despair” end of Erikson’s continuum. 

But man was he funny. Moldy old sweaters and all.