In HBO’s classic mob drama The Sopranos, we follow New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano
and his attempt to survive the treacherous world of the mafia,
the long arm of the law, and the headache-inducing world of family life.
By the time we get to the 6th and final season, the show feels a lot more grim
than the early days. Horrific events have taken place, people close to Tony
have lost their lives, and this thing of ours seems to be coming to a violent end.
The New York Lupertazzi family, once run with longevity by the pragmatic and business-orientated
Carmine Lupertazzi, had gone through several bosses after internal beefs and rivalries,
until finally, after the deaths of Carmine, Johnny Sack, Doc Santoro, Rusty Millio,
Angelo Garepe and Gerry “the hairdo”, the title of ball lands at the feet of Phil Leotardo,
which is bad news for Tony Soprano. Phil doesn’t have the best of history with the Sopranos,
and he isn’t the easiest person to get along with at the best of times. Stubborn, emotional,
bitter and constantly feeling the need to remind everyone how many years he did in prison, Phil is
hardly boss material, and the fact that his kid brother Billy was murdered in an unsanctioned
hit by Tony’s cousin, that animal Blundetto, in addition to numerous other grievances,
makes him spiteful towards Tony Soprano and his glorified crew.
When Phil has Vito, one of Tony’s highest earners, executed, Tony responds by blowing
up one of his businesses and though Phil is pushed to kill Tony in retaliation by Butch DeConcini,
his underboss, Phil refuses, instead settling for one of the higher-ups of the Sopranos crew.
However, the plot is short lived, as Phil suffers a heart attack,
and whilst recovering in prison, Tony pays him a visit, and the two share an intimate,
moving and reflective moment which reduces Phil to tears, and mend the spite between the two men.
Unfortunately though, more issues bleed their way into the two crews’ business,
with Phil rejecting Tony’s offer of a compromise on an asbestos removal project,
Tony viciously beating one of Phil’s men after he made improper remarks to his daughter.
Things spiral out of control, Phil brings up old grudges and refuses to meet with
Tony for a peace meeting, and eventually he launches a war against the DiMeo family,
instructing his underlings to decapitate New Jersey and do business with what’s left.
Hits are ordered on Tony, Silvio and Bobby Baccala, with Bobby being murdered and
Silvio shot until he is left in a coma which he s unlikely to wake up from.
In the series’ final episode, “Made in America”, a sit down is arranged between Tony and Paulie,
representing the DiMeos, and Butch and Albie Cianfalone, representing the Lupertazzis.
Butch expresses his dissatisfaction with Phil’s leadership and agrees to a ceasefire.
He does not reveal Phil’s location, but agrees not to get in the way,
and eventually, Phil is shot and killed at a gas station in front of his wife and grandchildren,
and his head is crushed by his own SUV for good measure.
The war is over, and presumably, Butch takes Phil’s seat as boss of the family.
But a question does arise here – why did Butch turn on Phil so suddenly?
Butch was Phil’s underboss, and after tensions with New Jersey it was he who pushed to have
Tony killed, with the hot headed Phil actually initially refusing. Butch played a massive part
in the rise of Phil Leotardo, being part of the Do Santoro hit, for example. He reassures Phil
during one of his hesitant periods, saying that he is a man and that counts for a lot these days.
Butch clearly has personal distain for Tony as suggested by their encounter at the hospital -
after all, during the beating of Coco, Tony did point a gun at Butch and threaten him, a kind of
action which mobsters do not forget. When killing Tony is regarded as out of the question, Butch
implores Phil to at least pick someone to whack. He’s by far the most adamant of Phil’s crew to
push for aggressive action against the Sopranos, and yet, after just one short scene where it’s
suggested over a wiretap that Butch thinks things have gone too far, he gives up Phil and
allows him to be killed, after pushing for the very same war that Phil launched. What gives?
So let’s take a look at some of the possibilities. Before we continue,
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Of course, one such reason for Butch betraying Phil so quickly might be simply because the
writers needed a reason to wrap up the storyline so they could end the show. It might be as simple
as that. I always felt that Butch’s sudden 180 was very abrupt, but when rewatching The Sopranos,
you often find that, surprisingly, some of your favourite plot threads are actually over
in 2 or 4 episodes, some even started and wrapped up in the same episode, so it’s not unlikely that
the writers sat in a room, thinking up ways the war with New York could be ended, and they decided
on Butch turning on Phil. But it still doesn’t quite explain why Butch did this – especially
given his distain for Tony and him being such a cheerleader for a war with Jersey.
There’s a good lesson in Butch’s change for all of us. It’s very easy to, say, sit in front of
a keyboard and criticise a sportsman, a politician or whatever, it’s very easy to push for a movement
of some kind, but when you’re actually out there, when you’re battling in the trenches, things
get uncomfortable and all of a sudden you’re missing the smell of your coffee and want to go
back to your keyboard. Clearly, after all of his rhetoric, it seemed life in a mob war was not all
it was cracked up to be for Butch, and he wanted it to end so life could get comfortable again.
At the sit down with the Sopranos in the final episode, Butch cites his reasons for
turning on Phil by saying “it’s gone too far. Phil…I dunno, he’s changed.”
So there’s two elements here – the war, and Phil’s personality, the two being intrinsically linked.
The whole reason why this war started was because of Phil’s fragile ego, and his tendency to hold
a grudge over petty matters. Though many things happened in the past, and I go over Phil’s side
of the story in a video of mine called ‘The Case for Phil Leotardo”, which you can check out on the
channel, but ultimately there was no real concrete clear reason for this war to have started, except
that Phil didn’t like Tony, New Jersey, and he bought up matters that were already bought to bed.
In other words, La Cosa Nostra is all about business, but Phil made it personal,
and while he was hiding away in phone booths and such, the likes of Butch were fighting his
battles, his petty battles, risking their lives. When a war is happening, people aren’t earning,
they aren’t making money, which is the whole point of this thing of ours in the first place.
As I mentioned in my Phil Leotardo analysis video, Phil had notions of honour and omerta
that were outdated and were not followed by the younger generation, guys like Butch and Tony
who just wanted to make money. At their core, though they came off as very similar initially,
Phil and Butch held different philosophies when it came to the mob, and as time wore on
and the war took its toll, Butch saw that Phil was not the man to lead this family.
One of the most important scenes for Butchie is one that occurs before the final sit-down,
with Butch speaking with Phil on the phone regarding New York’s failure to kill Tony.
Phil is angry and dismissive of his underboss. Butchie is clearly frustrated, cold,
and irritated – he’s a disgruntled employee, Phil doesn’t even trust him enough to speak in person,
and the frustration is linked to a wider theme of The Sopranos, which is that the mob is declined.
Take note of the announcer on the tour bus during this scene– she says “famous little Italy,
it once covered over 40 square blocks but has now been reduced to one row…”
and her voice trails off. It perfectly describes where the mob is right now, reduced to a shadow
of its former self. Butch walks through Little Italy, and unbeknownst to him,
ends up in Chinatown, lost and confused, a perfect description of his journey throughout this war.
Listening to Phil has led him astray, and he needs to get back on the tracks.
Regarding Phil changing, there are little hints throughout the show that you can pick up that
Butch’s estimation of Phil, as a man, just fuckin’ plummeted. Ironic, right? One such example is when
Phil says “there’s no scraps in my scrapbook” – Butch looks at the consigliere bemused,
like he’s thinking “what the fuck is this guy on about?”. And then there’s the sitdown between
New York and Jersey where Tony talks to Phil about their moment in the hospital. Tony makes
a point to speak privately, but Phil refuses and then Tony talks in front of everyone about their
scene in the hospital. Take note that there’s a close up of Butch looking very intrigued,
similar to Phil’s shocked expression when Johnny Sack burst out crying at his daughter’s wedding.
Perhaps Butch was re-examining his estimation of Phil in this moment,
wondering if perhaps he isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. This kind of war would
never have been started under Carmine sr, or even Johnny Sack, as emotional as he could be.
Even the Chinatown scene, Phil brings up the possibility of making peace, and berates Butch for
thinking about it, saying “then wajya say it for?” and Butchie has to remind him that he didn’t,
Phil did. Phil sounds like a guy who’s lost the plot. He’s also ordered a war
and the run for cover, leaving Butch out in the cold – literally. That’s not the same Phil
that carried out numerous hits singlehandedly, who performed Lorraine Cuzzo’s mock execution,
who killed Angelo Garepe, who was there to witness the murder of Vito face to face. Phil
has changed. Tony, on the other hand, went to the mattresses with his crew, or at the very least,
with them being trusted enough to know where he was, and even then, his crew was losing
respect for him, for things like not visiting Sil in the hospital. Imagine how much respect
they’d lose for him if he left them to fight his war while he ran off to who knows where?
And also, it’s important to note that Butch in the Chinatown scene wants the war to be over,
will take peace if need be, and Phil has made it clear that he won’t go along with this,
so Butchie knows if he wants to make all this end, he has to cut Phil loose.
Also worth of note is that Albie is shown to be against going to war,
and with Phil going into hiding, you’d imagine that Butch spend a lot of time with Albie,
who may have, off screen, influenced him and got him to change his war-mongering attitude.
There’s two other theories I wanted to discuss. The first is, that maybe, who knows,
Butch didn’t want for Phil to die, but actually agreed to the sit down in the final episode
to let Tony’s guard down so that he could be found easier and killed. I don’t think there’s too much
strength with this theory, but it does have to be said, the death of Phil, in front of family, could
not have gone down well with New York, and they would be expected to take some kind of revenge.
This brings me to the other theory, that Butchie was playing the long game, drumming up drama and
wanting for Phil to go to war so that Phil dies, and then as revenge, Butch has Tony whacked at the
diner in the final scene of the show as revenge and in order to keep up New York’s appearances,
and he goes onto get what he secretly wanted - the position as boss of his family. Maybe he
reached out to the likes of Paulie and Pasty, and both the New York and New Jersey underlings
thought it best for the two heads to be taken out. After all, this was Tony and Phil’s war.
But that is a theory that deserves a dissection of its own, and thus, is a video for another day. For
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