College (The Sopranos)
"College" | |
---|---|
The Sopranos episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 5 |
Directed by | Allen Coulter |
Written by | James Manos Jr. David Chase |
Cinematography by | Alik Sakharov |
Production code | 105 |
Original air date | February 7, 1999 |
Running time | 56 minutes |
"College" is the fifth episode of the first season of the
Cast
- James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
- Dr. Jennifer Melfi
- Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano
- Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti
- Dominic Chianese as Corrado Soprano Jr. *
- Pussy Bonpensiero*
- Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante *
- Tony Sirico as Paulie Gualtieri *
- Anthony Soprano Jr.
- Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano
- Nancy Marchand as Livia Soprano *
* = credit only
Guest cast
- Paul Schulze as Father Phil
- Tony Ray Rossi[2] as Fabian "Febby" Petrulio, aka Fred Peters
- Oksana Lada as Irina Peltsin
- Lisa Arning as Peters' Wife
- Ross Gibby as Bartender
- Mark Kamine as Admissions Dean
- Michael Manetta as Gas Station Attendant
- Keith Nobbs as Bowdoin Student
- Luke Reilly as Lon Le Doyene
- Sarah Thompson as Lucinda
- Olivia Brynn Zaro as Peters' Daughter
Synopsis
but, when Tony reacts angrily, will not say where she got it. Both seem relieved by this mutual honesty on difficult topics.At a gas station, Tony thinks he spots Fabian "Febby" Petrulio, a former member of the
While Tony and Meadow are away,
During confession, Carmela tells Father Phil about her fears for her family and for her own soul, and he administers communion. She sips the wine, but he drains the cup, and they fall asleep together on the sofa. Half waking, they are about to kiss, but Father Phil suddenly desists and walks swaying to the bathroom, where he retches. He spends the rest of the night alone. In the morning, Carmela firmly says, "We didn't do anything." Tony and Meadow return that day. Carmela tells Tony that Father Phil stayed the night. She counters his sarcastic comments by telling him that Melfi called.
Deceased
- Fabian "Febby" Petrulio: garroted by Tony Soprano while on Tony's college trip with his daughter, Meadow, for being an FBI informant.
Title reference
- The title refers to the fact that the entire episode revolves around Tony taking Meadow on a tour of colleges in Maine.
- Throughout the series, "college" is routinely used as slang for incarceration: Fabian "Febby" Petrulio's testimony resulted in the incarceration of several Soprano family associates.
- The title connects this episode to Season 3 Episode 6, "University". Both episodes heavily feature young female characters and their relationships to Tony. In "College," Tony attempts to protect his actual daughter Meadow from the truth about his profession. In "University," Tony refuses to befriend Bada Bing! employee Tracee and fails to protect her from being killed by Ralph Cifaretto.
Production
- Series creator David Chase has stated that when HBO first read the script, they objected to Tony's murder of Febby. Executives said that Chase had done so well in building Tony up as a sympathetic character that they believed if Tony committed such a cold-blooded killing, fans would turn on him and the show would lose its protagonist. Chase said that he believed fans would turn on Tony if the character didn't commit murder because the omission would make him appear weak.[3] Eventually, Chase won the decision and the episode has become a fan favorite.
- Chase named this as his favorite episode because of its self-contained nature.[4]
- The college locations and the Maine scenes in "College" were actually filmed in rural New Jersey. The college exteriors are located at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.[5]
- This is the first episode where pilot.
Reception
The episode was rated as the best of the series by publications such as Time magazine and Entertainment Weekly.[6][7] It was ranked second overall on TV Guide's list of "Top 100 Episodes of All Time".[8]
Emily St. James retrospectively wrote that "the genius of the episode is that the storyline blends almost every aspect of the show's world so completely that it feels like a natural thing we're watching, not really a story being told." St. James also praised the cinematography, which included cross-cutting and point-of-view shots, as "very effective at putting us in the headspace of both Febby and Tony as they slowly stalk each other", and lauded the episode as "a strangely funny, incredibly tense meditation on what it means to choose the easy path every single time."[9]
Alan Sepinwall praised Chase's use of "only two stories so he could let them both play out in exhaustive, powerful detail", and wrote that the shot of Tony "staring wistfully up at a group of flying ducks, again standing in for the feelings of family and peace that seem to remain forever beyond his grasp – is ... stunning."[10]
Other cultural references
- When Tony asks if Meadow's friends think he is cool because of having seen Casino and begins discussing Sharon Stone's performance in the film before being cut off.
- The carved bust in Petrulio's office is of Ronald Reagan.
- Father Phil tells Carmela at some point: "If you take everything Jesus has ever said, added up, it only amounts to two hours of talk" to which Carmela replies "I heard the same thing about the Beatles except it was if you add up all their songs it only comes to ten hours".
- Father Phil and Carmela discuss Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ, and specifically Willem Dafoe's performance as Jesus). Father Phil mentions that Robert De Niro was originally supposed to play the part, to which Carmela replies that it would have been a "completely different film".
- Carmela and Father Phil watch The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. In the movie, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, two characters come close to acting on a mutual, yet repressed, attraction, but ultimately decide it is too late for them to do so. Hopkins' character has a profession incompatible with marriage and Thompson's character is married to another man.[11]
- While Tony waits for Meadow to finish her meeting at Bowdoin College, he observes a quotation attributed to Nathaniel Hawthorne displayed in the lobby: "No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true". This quotation appears in The Scarlet Letter.[12] Tony appears to contemplate the quotation for a moment before a student walking by informs him that Hawthorne is Bowdoin's "most famous alumnus".
Music
- The song played when Christopher plays pool in the back room of the Bada Bing when Tony calls him the first time is "Eye on You" by Rocket from the Crypt.
- The song played when Tony and Meadow have dinner and discuss how Tony came to be involved in the mob and during the end credits is "Gold Leaves" by Michael Hoppé.
- The song played when Tony leaves Meadow with two girls from Colby College is "Maine Two-Step" by The Basin Brothers.
- The song playing in the bar when Fabian enters to ask whether anyone has been asking about him is "Cadence to Arms", a version of "Scotland the Brave" by the Dropkick Murphys.
Filming locations
In order of first appearance:[13]
- Drew University in Madison, New Jersey
- Orangetown, New York
- Oakland, New Jersey
- Long Island City, Queens
- Tappan, New York
- Reformed Church of Tappan in Tappan, New York
- Rutherford, New Jersey
- Orangeburg, New York
- North Caldwell, New Jersey
Awards
References
- ^ TV Guide's Top 100 Episodes of All Time (2009) - IMDb, archived from the original on November 30, 2022, retrieved November 30, 2022
- user-generated source]
- ^ The Sopranos: The Complete First Season: DVD interview
- ^ DVD commentary from episode 13 of season 4, Whitecaps
- ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4.
- ^ Time: The Best of the Sopranos
- ^ Jensen, Jeff. "The Hit Parade - 1. COLLEGE (Season 1)". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on April 30, 2008.
- ^ "100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time" TV Guide; June 15, 2009; Pages 34-49
- ^ St. James, Emily (June 16, 2010). "The Sopranos: "Meadowlands"/"College"". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on April 18, 2017. Retrieved April 16, 2017.
- ^ Sepinwall, Alan (July 1, 2015). "'The Sopranos' Rewind: Season 1, Episode 5: 'College'". Uproxx. Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved April 16, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-679-73172-6.
- ISBN 978-0-486-28048-6.
- ^ Ugoku. "The Sopranos location guide - Filming locations for". www.sopranos-locations.com. Archived from the original on January 13, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
External links
- "College" Archived August 18, 2016, at the Wayback Machine at HBO
- "College" at IMDb