Season 3 (2001)¶
At a glance¶
- Episodes
- 13
- Aired
- March 4 – May 20, 2001
- Avg. viewers
- 8.87 million
- Metacritic
- 97
- Note
- Episodes 1–2 aired back to back on premiere night
- Difficulty
- Contains "University," the most-walked-out-on episode of the run
The season that had to solve an unsolvable problem — its antagonist's actress had died — and became a better show doing it.
Episodes¶
| # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood | Allen Coulter | David Chase | Mar 4, 2001 |
| 28 | Proshai, Livushka | Tim Van Patten | David Chase | Mar 4, 2001 |
| 29 | Fortunate Son | Henry J. Bronchtein | Todd A. Kessler | Mar 11, 2001 |
| 30 | Employee of the Month | John Patterson | Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess | Mar 18, 2001 |
| 31 | Another Toothpick | Jack Bender | Terence Winter | Mar 25, 2001 |
| 32 | University | Allen Coulter | Story: David Chase, Terence Winter, Todd A. Kessler, Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess · Teleplay: Terence Winter & Salvatore J. Stabile | Apr 1, 2001 |
| 33 | Second Opinion | Tim Van Patten | Lawrence Konner | Apr 8, 2001 |
| 34 | He Is Risen | Allen Coulter | Robin Green, Mitchell Burgess & Todd A. Kessler | Apr 15, 2001 |
| 35 | The Telltale Moozadell | Dan Attias | Michael Imperioli | Apr 22, 2001 |
| 36 | …To Save Us All from Satan's Power | Jack Bender | Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess | Apr 29, 2001 |
| 37 | Pine Barrens | Steve Buscemi | Story: Tim Van Patten & Terence Winter · Teleplay: Terence Winter | May 6, 2001 |
| 38 | Amour Fou | Tim Van Patten | Story: David Chase · Teleplay: Frank Renzulli | May 13, 2001 |
| 39 | Army of One | John Patterson | David Chase & Lawrence Konner | May 20, 2001 |
Where an episode carries separate story and teleplay credits, both are listed.
Losing Livia¶
Nancy Marchand died on June 18, 2000, of lung cancer, before season three was shot. She had been the show's engine — the antagonist Chase built the whole premise around, modeled on his own mother.
The season opens by writing her out. "Proshai, Livushka" kills Livia off-screen and spends the episode on the wake, where nobody can produce a true or kind sentence about her, and Tony's grief comes out as rage at everyone who tries to be nice about it. Janice attempts to organize a memorial. It goes badly. It's very funny and it's genuinely upsetting.
There is one brief scene using digitally composited footage of Marchand from earlier material, which was controversial at the time and is visibly imperfect. The show never tried it again.
Losing Livia changed the series. She had been an external antagonist who explained Tony. Without her, the show has to locate the problem inside him — and every season after this is worse for Tony precisely because there's nobody left to blame.
Ralph, and "University"¶
Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) arrives as the season's real antagonist: a huge earner, a Gladiator obsessive, funny, and genuinely psychopathic in a way the show's other criminals aren't.
"University" (S3E32) cuts between Meadow's college life and Ralph's relationship with Tracee, a young dancer at the Bada Bing, and ends with Ralph beating her to death in the parking lot. It is the hardest episode in the series to watch, and it was deliberately built that way — the show had spent two and a half seasons letting the audience enjoy the Bing as set dressing, and this is the bill.
Tony's reaction is the point. He hits Ralph — a serious breach, striking a made man — not because a woman is dead, but because it happened at his place of business.
"Pine Barrens"¶
Directed by Steve Buscemi — his first for the show, three seasons before he was cast in it. Teleplay by Terence Winter, from a story by Tim Van Patten and Terence Winter.
Paulie and Christopher go to collect from a Russian, Valery. Paulie provokes him, they think they've killed him, and they drive him out to the Pine Barrens to bury him. He is not dead. He is, per Paulie's telephone game of a briefing, possibly a former commando who killed sixteen Czechoslovakians, or possibly an interior decorator. He hits Paulie with a shovel and disappears into the woods.
Paulie and Christopher spend the night lost in the snow, eating frozen ketchup packets, losing a shoe, and turning on each other. It is the funniest hour the show ever produced.
Valery is never seen again. Winter's stated reason: not everything gets answered in life. Chase eventually gave a version of events — Boy Scouts found him, his boss Slava recovered him, he went back to Russia — and explained he only did so because so many people got so pissy about it.
Three Emmy nominations; WGA Award for Outstanding Episodic Drama, 2002. The Ringer placed it 5th on its 100 Best Episodes of the Century.
Also notable¶
"Employee of the Month" (S3E30) — Melfi is raped in a parking garage, her attacker walks on a procedural technicality, and she has to decide whether to tell Tony, who would certainly do something about it. Lorraine Bracco's best work in the series. Her answer, in the last seconds, is a single word.
"Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood" (S3E27) — the season premiere, structured as a procedural from the FBI's side, following a surveillance operation with almost no Soprano dialogue. A formal experiment the show would return to.
"Amour Fou" (S3E38) — Gloria Trillo, Tony's mistress and the clearest demonstration that he is drawn to his mother's temperament.
"Army of One" (S3E39) — Jackie Aprile Jr.'s death and A.J.'s panic attack at the funeral, which lands the season's actual thesis: it's hereditary.
Reception¶
Metacritic 97; Rotten Tomatoes 100%. Second consecutive Peabody Award. The show's cultural peak was arguably right here — season three ran in spring 2001 to an audience that had spent two years catching up on DVD.