Meadow Soprano

As the daughter and sometimes “Italian princess” of the Soprano family, Meadow is an interesting study in the female experience of a mafia upbringing. Already a pouty teenager by the time the show begins, we see her evolution (and in some cases regression) throughout the series.

In the first season, we see Meadow as a fairly typical rebellious teenager, and her parents worry she is hanging out with the wrong crowd as opposed to focusing on her future. These fears are substantiated when Meadow and her friend Hunter work to acquire Crystal Meth to help them study for the SATs, which eventually leads to them asking Christopher to help them score. Christopher reluctantly agrees, but this soon sets off a series of misunderstandings that will affect everyone involved.

Another recurring theme in the first season involves Meadow gradually learning about and then accepting what her father does for a living. In one of the first episodes, she directs A.J. to a mafia themed website which had profiles on a number of their family friends. At Jackie Aprile’s funeral, she sees FBI agents snapping photographs of everyone and gives her brother a knowing nod, as they both develop a deeper understanding of what their family is involved in.

A seminal episode for Meadow is the episode “College,” where Tony takes her on a college tour of several schools in the northeast. It begins with a frank discussion between the two of them, where Meadow asks Tony point blank if he is in the mafia. Tony at first denies it, but eventually opens up to her, which leads to her confessing to Tony she had tried ecstasy. Although Tony is furious, the conversation is overall a healthy one as they establish a level of trust and honesty they previously hadn’t experienced.

This trust, however, is short-lived, as Tony identifies a “rat” named Fabian Petrulio as they are driving, and follows him at high speeds trying to make a firm identification. Meadow is highly alarmed by his sudden change of behavior, and the rest of the episode is a kind of cat and mouse game between the two of them. Meadow clearly recognizes something isn’t right, and her trust in Tony erodes as the episode progresses.

Meadow’s burgeoning sexuality is also an issue as the series progresses. This issue comes to light during an episode where Meadow is on the school’s soccer team and befriends a girl named “Ally,” who is later revealed to be having sex with their coach. Tony strongly considers murdering the man, but in the end, he is arrested on rape charges and sent to jail. When a drunken Tony stumbles in and brags, “I didn’t hurt nobody,” we see Meadow consider this as it relates to her friend’s sexual betrayal at the hands of the coach.

Meadow’s acting out behavior escalates in the second season, as she begins throwing parties at her grandmother Livia’s now empty home, which is brought to Tony’s attention by one of the cops under his control. Meadow, who has now become adept at manipulating her parents, steers them to a punishment where she loses her Discover card for three weeks, which she considered a slap on the wrist. Her knowing smile as she walks away from this interaction shows is that she too is beginning to believe she is free from consequences.

But later we see a different side of Meadow, as she hears Janice (who had previously advocated for her), essentially call her a spoiled, entitled brat with no respect for anything or anyone. Meadow is clearly disappointed by Janice’s opinion of her, and when Tony goes to change the locks on his mother’s house we see Meadow diligently scrubbing the floors, indicating she may have some responsible characteristics.

Tony’s profession and Meadow’s life later collide when her friend Eric’s father David becomes heavily indebted to Tony over a gambling debt. Tony essentially ruins David’s life collecting this debt, which also involves giving Tony his son’s car, which Tony then gives to Meadow. Meadow refuses to accept this gift, and the situation escalates when Eric yells “Fuck you and fuck your gangster father,” and withdraws from a performance they were supposed to do together. As is often the case with the Sopranos, Meadow ultimately benefits from these behind the scenes machinations and ends up getting to perform a solo at the school’s pageant.

Meadow’s pending college career becomes an issue as time progresses, and she originally has her heart set on attending Berkeley out in California. Carmella is strongly against this idea, and forcefully bullies both her neighbor Jeanie Cusamano as well as her twin sister Joan into writing Meadow a letter of recommendation to Georgetown. This is the first episode we see Carmella take such an aggressive role in Meadow’s life, and her machinations behind the scenes again benefit Meadow at the expense of another student.

Meadow eventually decides to attend Columbia University in New York, which is a major relief to Tony and Carmella. The next season is concerned with her transition to college, and Meadow’s dating life also intensifies during this season, as well as her continuing independence from her parents.

Meadow begins dating an African-American man named Noah during the first part of this season, and Tony openly voices his disapproval to this boy when he tells him he will not stand for his daughter dating a black man. This development creates a major wedge between Meadow and Tony, with Carmella left to run interference between the two of them. Meadow eventually loses her virginity to Noah and confesses to Carmella she has fallen in love with him. Tony fumes throughout this entire process and the two argue about race throughout this ordeal.

Noah eventually breaks up with Meadow, as he believes her to be too negative and cynical. Although this delights Tony, she eventually gets close to Jackie Aprile Jr. and begins dating him, which is a development that ends in disaster all around. The irony of this situation is that Tony is pleased with the fact that Meadow is finally “sticking with her own kind,” which is in a sense true if you examine most of the men in her life, who are Italian, averse to work, serial womanizers who chose to make their living through criminal enterprises.

Meadow and Jackie’s relationship deepens, but both Tony and Meadow begin to see some cracks in his charming exterior. Tony warns him to stay away from the mafia lifestyle, which Jackie repeatedly ignores. Meadow begins to question both his honesty as well as his intelligence as she gets to know him better. His luck runs out with both Meadow and Tony at about the same time, as Meadow catches him with another woman and breaks up with him, and Tony catches him with a gun at a strip club and proceeds to pummel him into submission.

Jackie soon totally decompensates, and after he robs a card game and shoots a family associate, Vito shoots him in the back of the head with the approval of Tony and Ralphie. At his funeral, Meadow gets drunk and is disruptive, and we see a new conflict between Tony and Meadow developing over Jackie’s death. An interesting development occurs when Jackie’s sister says, “he was killed by some fat fuck in see-through socks” (the truth), and Meadow strongly disagrees with this, denying the existence of the mafia and sticking to the story that Jackie was killed by drug dealers. This is an important development, which perhaps foreshadows Meadow’s ongoing rationalizations regarding the mafia as it relates to her life.

Season Four marks a serious regression for Meadow, as she uses the death of Jackie to neglect her studies, avoid work, and start excessively partying with her friends. It is revealed she hasn’t signed up for classes, and her new plan is to move to France to work on independent films. An alarmed Tony arranges for her to see a psychiatrist, who takes a “coddling” approach to Meadow by condoning her drug use, helping her rationalize her inactivity, and even going so far as to question if Tony has ever molested her.

Meadow eventually returns to Columbia, but not before confronting Tony about Jackie, when she sarcastically criticizes Tony by saying, “look at Mr. Mob boss.” This is a marked contrast from the tone she took with Jackie’s sister denying the existence of the mafia, and this pattern of flipping back and forth between denial and acceptance of the lifestyle is a theme that will continue throughout Meadow’s life.

Meadow grows up considerably over the course of the next season, as she begins studying to be a pediatrician as well as volunteering at the South Bronx Law Center, which provides legal aid for the underprivileged. Tony is highly critical of this development, but Meadow seems to be evolving into a compassionate and caring person who wants to make a contribution to society beyond her own financial gain.

Meadow eventually meets a much more traditional boyfriend named Finn Detrolio, an aspiring dental student who is shy and polite, and unaccustomed to the chaos that comes from dating a member of a mafia family. This is readily apparent at their first dinner party, where an ignorant and nearly illiterate Carmella rails against homosexual themes in literature, including in the novel “Billy Budd” which has been assigned to Anthony Jr. in his English class. This situation causes some tension between mother and daughter, which will be apparent throughout the rest of this season.

Despite some hiccups (for instance Tony berating Finn for trying to pick up a dinner tab), the two of them grow closer and eventually move in together unbeknownst to Tony and Carmella. Tony even secures Finn a job doing “no show” construction work, but he quickly becomes uncomfortable after witnessing the violence and apathy of the crew. An important conversation occurs between Finn and Meadow, where she again defends the actions of the “family,” by saying the Italians in her world learned how to resolve conflict with violence based on their cultural history. Finn scoffs at this explanation.

Finn’s experiences at this new job mark the beginning of the end for the two of them as a couple, as he witnesses Vito performing oral sex on an underling, which creates a terrifying situation for Finn where he fears Vito is trying to either seduce him or kill him (he may be right about this.) In what is surely one of the most exhausting scenes in the history of the show, Finn and Meadow spend a long, hot evening deciding if they are going to break up, move to California, or stay together. They eventually decide to get engaged at the end of this discussion, although more trouble looms on the horizon.

When Tony is shot at the beginning of the sixth season, Meadow rises to the occasion for the family, (unlike A.J. who is virtually useless), and provides care for her father, advocates for his medical care, and assists her mother with household activities. Finn is now living in California but comes to be with her to help get through this crisis. Meadow’s voice reaches Tony during his coma, and we are led to believe this may have even saved his life.

Tony eventually recovers, and Finn is interrogated by the crew regarding what he witnessed between Vito and the security guard. He is equally terrified and disgusted by this interaction, and appears to be getting less tolerant of the complications that continue to arise from dating a Soprano. Meadow once again defends her father and the family regarding her perceived harassment of Johnny Sacrimoni at his daughter’s wedding, and Finn is now openly critical at what he believes is her blind spot regarding her family. Meadow also begins working at a firm specializing in white-collar crime as opposed to the law center, which appears to indicate a shift in her belief system as she nears the end of her undergraduate degree.

Despite some rocky moments in their relationship, Meadow moves out to California to be with Finn while he is at dental school, and she calls and wishes the family Merry Christmas from the west coast. But we soon see that the signs of trouble in this relationship have been too much to overcome, and she announces that the two of them have broken up during the episode of the “Cleaver” premiere. Now living back home again, Meadow once again contemplates her future in New Jersey.

Meadow eventually begins dating attorney Patrick Parisi, the son of Tony’s underling Patsy, which both Carmella and Tony seriously question given his past reputation and relationship to one of Tony’s subordinates. Meadow inadvertently gets involved in the war between the New York and New Jersey families, and when a New York associate makes sexual remarks to her when she is on a date with Parisi, Tony nearly beats the man to death, which further escalates the war.

Meadow eventually gets engaged to Patrick, and is now determined to go to law school instead of medical school, which Tony and Carmella are initially disappointed with. This quickly changes when Patrick and Meadow discuss how she may eventually get to work in the area of white-collar crime and corruption, and the camera cuts to Tony beaming with immense pleasure when he hears this news.

It would be interesting to know what might happen to Meadow if she did indeed see her father murdered in front of her (she was just walking into the restaurant when this likely happened). Given the way she reacted to Jackie Jr.’s death, we might predict this would be emotionally crippling for her to witness, and it’s hard to underestimate the effect this event may have had on the entire Soprano family.

Analysis:

Perspective on the World perceived through Experience of Psychological Birth Order

In traditional models regarding birth order, the first-born child is usually the responsible leader who often acts as a kind of assistant to the parents and even at times a kind of surrogate parent. This is mostly true of Meadow, as she and her brother are very different in their approaches to education, goals, and achievement. She often acts as a guide and mentor to A.J., whose naïve and often helpless approach to the world is much more consistent with the traits of a 2nd born child.

Adler’s idea of psychological birth order is also important to consider here. He believed that there were sometimes forces at work that forced children to deviate from traditional birth order roles, and in this context, it is interesting to consider this in relationship to their Italian heritage. Meadow, in fact, tells A.J., “We’re Italian, you’ll always be more important,” when he voices the idea that she is the favorite. Although this is historically probably true in a lot of Italian families, Meadow certainly becomes the torch-bearer for the Soprano family as the series progresses.

Gender Role Preparation perceived through Gender Guiding Lines and Role Models

Meadow’s development as a woman is fascinating to consider in the context of what she has gleaned from watching Carmella make her way in the world. The idea behind this concept is a child either accepts or rejects the gender guiding lines, and in Meadow’s case, it is clear that she has done a bit of both.

Meadow is often highly critical of Carmella’s life choices and makes several remarks throughout the course of the show demonstrating this idea. An example comes in the fifth season when Carmella is considering a divorce, and Meadow asks her if she has ever contemplated a life that wasn’t dependent on some man.  Carmella’s response that, “you have options, I have a lawyer” illustrates an important difference between the two women, and this theme is developed throughout the later seasons.

And yet we are left to wonder at the end of the series if Meadow is actually the independent woman she has always been presented to be, as she forgoes medical school because it is “too hard.” Although she is still contemplating law school at the end of the series, she is also now engaged to a man from her world, and we may perhaps wonder how much her life will really deviate from Carmella’s as the years continue to pass.

Range of Social Interest perceived through Other Particularities

Unlike almost all of the other characters in the Soprano’s universe, Meadow at times shows and acts with real interest towards people who are not as fortunate as she is. Although others on the show give to charity, Meadow actually demonstrates a serious interest in others through her work as a volunteer at the South Bronx Law center. Tony questions her social interest at every turn, saying things like “My little bleeding heart,” and “these indigenous (a hilarious malapropism) types have plenty of money for crack and gambling.”

In the end, it would have been interesting to see if Meadow’s social interest remains intact throughout her lifespan. Her drift towards the law and white-collar crime seem to indicate a path towards comfort as opposed to sacrifice, and we may guess that she will in fact follow a path not dissimilar to Carmella’s as time progresses. She has shown a penchant for disagreeing with her father to his face, and then openly repeating his words when she is challenged by others. Will she have the strength to defy her family’s core beliefs and behaviors as time progresses?

This would be difficult to imagine.