The Most Unnecessary Storylines in The Sopranos

The Most Unnecessary Storylines in The Sopranos



The Sopranos is widely considered one of the greatest shows ever made and the storylines in it are near perfect. With a writing team that consisted of Terrence Winter, Matthew Weiner, and David Chase himself, it’s easy to see why the quality is so high. Back in 2013, the Writers Guild of America also named it the best-written show of all time, a confirmation that mob tale is as flawless as TV offerings get.

However, even the greatest minds make missteps from time to time, and in the HBO show, this was evident in some of the storylines. Such plots either didn’t lead anywhere, were too controversial, or added no value to the larger narratives. Fans thus have no option but to forever live with these subplots, but in an alternate world, The Sopranos would have been a lot cooler without them.

Carmela’s Short-Lived Affair with Vic Musso
Towards the end of Season 2, Carmela was introduced to the painter, Vic Musso, by a friend, who just so happened to be Davy Scatino’s wife. Though Davy and Tony had been friends for a long time, Tony had become fed up with him because of his failure to pay his debts, so he had resorted to bankrupting the man’s store in order to recover his money. It was, therefore, an interesting dynamic. One that became even more complicated when Carmela and Vic decided to kiss each other.

The two had only just met and there hadn’t been any chemistry between them. Moreover, Carmela’s marriage was kinda stable at that point. It wasn’t until she learned about Tony’s affair in Season 5 that animosity really grew between them. Besides that, Carmela didn't have a wandering eye like Tony, so having her randomly kiss a man felt odd. Worse still, the affair was never properly developed. Vic simply chose to not continue seeing her.

The DiMeo Crime Family’s Feud with Native Indians
Despite their status as criminals, most members of New Jersey’s DiMeo crime family were likable because they were more reasonable and charming compared to those of New York’s Lupertazzi crime family. Painting them as racist individuals that were uncomfortable with the activities of another minority group was thus unnecessary.

The rather insensitive storyline played out in Season 4’s ‘Christopher,” which is now regarded as the worst episode in the show. In it, Toby’s men attempted to stop Native Americans from protesting against Columbus Day, terming their actions pointless. For Native Americans, the protests meant a lot since Christopher Columbus kickstarted the events that would lead to them losing their land centuries ago. The mobsters had no reason to intervene since the march wasn’t interrupting any of their businesses, but they still did.

Tony Soprano’s Gambling Addiction
In the second half of Season 6, Tony suddenly became a degenerate gambler. He even had trouble repaying a $200,000 bridge loan owed to his friend, Hesh, because he had lost all his money. When asked about it, he became vulgar and almost turned violent. This contradicted the principles Tony had set for himself throughout the series. He generally hated irresponsible punters like Davey and Detective Vin Makazian, so it didn’t make sense for him to become one of them.

In the world of mobsters, gambling isn’t necessarily bad, and many of the greatest gangster movies feature storylines involving the hobby. Still, making Tony to suddenly appear financially injudicious when he had been portrayed as a disciplined boss all along felt odd Besides that, audiences never got to know how he overcame this addiction or if he did. The storyline was simply dropped in favor of the feud with the DiMeo crime family.

The Introduction of Tony’s sister, Barbara
Barbara Soprano was first seen as a toddler via a flashback sequence in Season 1. She would go on to appear infrequently as an adult for the remainder of the series. Ordinarily, she was only spotted at a few family functions such as weddings and funerals. The Soprano sibling appeared again later in the series to help take of Junior after his dementia had gotten worse.


While it was great for audiences to know that Tony had another sister, the show failed by never offering any explanation as to why Barbara was distant from her siblings yet all other mob relatives and friends were so close to each other. She missed out on multiple family dinners too, the kind that even hated relatives like Carmela’s mother, Mary, would show up for. Given the manner in which the writers ignored her, the series would have been better if she hadn’t been introduced in the first place.

Hesh’s Feud with Massive Genius
Apart from being a loan shark, Tony’s long-term associate, Hesh was the founder of F-Note Records, which had signed many Black artists. That’s how he found himself in a feud with Massive Genius. The now-independent rapper made demands for Hesh to give a songwriter all his royalties, but Hesh refused. After much back-and-forth, Massive decided to sue him, but fans never got to know the outcome of the lawsuit.

For the remainder of the series, Hesh would be portrayed as more of a Shylock than a music lover while Massive Genius vanished. For that reason, the whole subplot revolving around royalties never benefited the series. Genius was also shown to have a large street crew, so it was a bit strange that he chose to go the legal route rather than opt to intimidate Hesh, a move that would have been more in line with the show’s violent nature. Alternatively, he could have attempted to strike a deal with Tony.

The FBI’s Attempt to Bug Tony’s House
In many movies about real-life gangsters, the FBI normally gets a breakthrough after setting up wiretaps or turning insiders into informants. Interestingly, in The Sopranos, the feds did the latter task really well but struggled while attempting to do the former. After listening to Tony’s phone calls for months and not getting anything meaningful, they resorted to bugging his house but botched the whole process. After several failed attempts, they managed to put the recording device on a lamp, only for Tony’s daughter, Meadow, to unknowingly take it away.

The storyline made the FBI agents look incompetent, yet they were normally good. They had successfully managed to turn influential mobsters into turncoats and were always in the know about what Tony’s rivals from New York’s Lupertazzi crime family were planning. Why they placed a listening device on a movable lamp, of all places, is a mystery. Consequently, Tony never got captured throughout his time in the series.

Noah’s Relationship with Meadow
Rather than inspire viewers to form their own meaningful relationships, Meadow’s time with Noah made everyone uncomfortable. As soon as she brought him over to the house, Tony began attempting to break them apart by being racially insensitive. In his mind, it was wrong for his daughter to date a Black man and when Meadow confronted him about it, he maintained his stance.

Tony Soprano was an antihero, so such actions were expected from him, but of all the bad things he did, this was the one that made him detestable. In addition to that, Noah wasn’t a great character either. He was mean to Meadow and when it came to breaking up, he blamed everything on her, claiming that she was too negative about everything. It’s clear that he wasn’t the ideal man and if the relationship arc was really necessary, Tony ought to have criticized him from an attribute perspective rather than a racial one.

Tony’s Fight with Bobby
For the remainder of the series, Tony would continue to annoy and impress fans in equal measure. During one family retreat, he chose to make a lame joke about his sister, Janice, who just so happened to be Bobby’s wife at the time. This resulted in Bobby pouncing on him and eventually defeating him in a bloody duel. The problem was that it all didn’t look believable at all.

Bobby had always been presented as the nicest mobster in the DiMeo crime family. He had never fought with anyone or killed someone. Making him attack his boss and brother-in-law (of all people), because of a shady burn, felt like an out-of-character move. Tony, on the other hand, was a man who had once successfully fought off two assassins by himself. Letting him lose a fight with an experienced family member made him look both weak and unfair. As revenge, he ordered Bobby to kill someone, something that made the good-hearted mobster very uncomfortable

Furio’s Crush on Carmela
Furio’s short-lived crush on Carmela was presumably a way to write him off the show, but it was all executed very poorly. At some point, Furio was so in love with her that he contemplated pushing Tony into a helicopter’s blades to kill him. Surprisingly, neither he nor Carmela ever made a proper move. And when she confessed to Tony that she loved Furio (in order to spite him), the henchman bolted off to Italy and was never seen again.

Since it accomplished nothing, the plot ought to have been left on the writer’s table. Better yet, if Furio really had to be written off the show, he ought to have been granted a proper full-blown affair with Carmela before getting killed for betraying the boss. Sadly, all the two ever did was stare at each and do nothing, and in the process, they gave some of the worst TV couples a run for their money.

The Introduction of Dr. Elliot Kupferberg’s Daughter
Later in the series, Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, was introduced as Dr. Melfi’s therapist. He would end up being the man to break her great patient-doctor relationship with Tony after consistently painting him as an evil man. His arc was truly necessary, but there was no point in introducing his daughter, Saskia.

Saskia was only included to set up one minor incident in the show. Since she was also a student at Columbia University like Meadow, Dr. Elliot Kupferberg and Tony ended up clashing over a parking spot after visiting their respective doctors. Additionally, she was described as a lesbian (perhaps to help with the show’s inclusivity aspect), and that was it. Fans never got to know much about her as a person and whether she liked her mean-spirited father.