Image via Warner Bros.
In the 14 years since its finale, the legacy of The Sopranos continues to loom large in popular culture. The David Chase-scripted series is the godfather of many “Peak TV” series including shows like Breaking Bad or Mad Men and its impact continues to be felt to this day. The series’ influence will only grow in the wake of The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel film that primarily explores the early days of Tony Soprano (lovingly played by late James Gandolfini’s son, Michael) and his relationship with his “Uncle” Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola).
With Many Saints now playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max, we decided to dig into some of the lingering questions posited by the events of the film. It should go without warning here that we’ll be addressing events of both The Many Saints of Newark and The Sopranos, so here’s your requisite SPOILER ALERT. To quote my man khal, if you haven’t watched the original HBO series, you’re just playing yourself. So grab yourself a gun and join us as we dive deep.
Dualing Brothers
Of all the surprises of Many Saints, the best involves the elder Moltisanti brothers. After dispatching with his father, Hollywood Dick (Ray Liotta), Dickie visits his uncle in jail to pass along word of Dick’s demise. As Salvatore “Sal” Moltisanti enters the picture, audiences are treated to one of the film’s biggest surprises: Uncle Sal is also played by Liotta, making the Moltisantis twins.
There’s been some speculation online about the choice to cast Liotta twice and how those jail scenes between Dickie and Sal play in the film’s larger context. Sal seems to have an acute understanding that Dickie’s stories around the death of both Dick and Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi) have some holes in them. Additionally, the scenes serve a function not dissimilar to the ones Tony has with Doctor Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), allowing Dickie to have a space where he can talk about his feelings. In their final exchange with Sal, Dickie weighs the morality of his soul, talking about how he’s now coaching beep baseball and how that may or may not counterbalance more of his heinous acts. As Dickie daydreams, he’s given a hero’s welcome, one which lives up to the “Many Saints” translation of his Italian last name. Although, when the dream is over, Sal seems to have disappeared.
Is Sal just in Dickie’s head? Probably not. The scenes don’t carry any of the dream-like qualities of the beep baseball scene. But The Sopranos isn’t a stranger to depicting more mystical attributes, so there’s some precedent towards this possibility. Plus, the idea of Dickie’s consciousness manifesting his father as a foil makes for one hell of a thematic touch in a movie already obsessed with family. We’ll lean towards Sal and Dickie’s chats being real—with a potential caveat.
Junior Mafia
The Sopranos was always interested in zigging where its audience anticipated it to zag. Whenever viewers thought they’d figured out the show, creator David Chase threw something else in the way to keep everyone on their toes. In this grand tradition, it shouldn’t have surprised watchers of Many Saints that Dickie’s fate would unfold in a rather unconventional matter, as he’s taken out not by his rival Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.) but by Corrado “Junior” Soprano (Corey Stoll). As we see in the series, Junior has a bit of a jealous streak about him, so he wouldn’t take kindly to feeling disrespected by Dickie.
The revelation around Dickie’s ultimate fate doesn’t square with the legend Tony tells Christopher in the series. As a quick reminder, Christopher kills Barry Haydu, a newly retired cop, after Tony reveals Haydu was the one who killed Dickie. As the legend goes, Dickie gouged out an eye of Jilly Ruffalo, a man who was in prison with Dickie and murdered Dickie’s cellmate. Years later, Jilly supposedly contracted Haydu to execute the hit on Dickie. Even as Tony tells the tale, there’s lingering doubt over the authenticity of all. Many Saints complicates this further, as perhaps Junior spun this tale in an attempt to keep Tony on a leash, and then Tony relayed it to Christopher.
Interestingly enough, in a piece about the movie, Alan Sepinwall revealed that David Chase and co-writer Lawrence Konner scripted a deleted scene wherein Junior calls Jilly Ruffalo (played by Ed Marinaro) and asks him to handle the problem. Maybe Tony’s portrait of the events is accurate after all—or at least some of it was. There’s still plenty of uncertainly around the ultimate demise of one of The Sopranos’ most mythic figures.
We’ve heard that dead men tell no tales, but The Many Saints of Newark’s opening disagrees. In an incredibly striking sequence, director Alan Taylor pans his camera over a tombstone-littered graveyard, a cacophony of voices emerge, reclaiming their respective narratives over the circumstances of their death, reminiscent of George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo. It’s at this moment Sopranos fans hear a familiar voice—Michael Imperioli’s Christopher Moltisanti.
There’s a popular tweet going around right now joking that Many Saints is a screenplay written by Christopher. While that’s a clever nod to the character’s uh, serviceable attempt at a movie, it also makes for a broader comment on the film itself: maybe everything isn’t as it seems. The Sopranos is a series filled with unreliable narrators and how those people present the past. Hell, at the beginning of the series, Tony laments about feeling like he came in at the end. As Many Saints proves, the past isn’t as glittery as Tony remembers. Trusting Christopher as the be-all-end-all, truthful orator of the movie’s events isn’t wise—and not just because he believes Neil Young gave a speech on the moon.
This isn’t a way to justify the movie’s shortcomings but rather a note to consider when exploring its portrayal of certain characters. Everyone is a liar in the world of The Sopranos, and remembering this as you turn over what is accurate or not is a helpful thought to keep in mind throughout all of Many Saints.