The Sopranos follows New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano ask he looks to balance his family
life with his gangster lifestyle. One of Tony’s friends and business associates is Johnny Sack,
the suave and cool underboss of the New York Lupertazzi crime family, a much larger and more
powerful family than that of Jersey’s glorified crew. The boss of the Lupertazzi’s is the old
school Carmine Sr, and though he and Johnny have a professional business relationship with each
other, often Johnny will help out Tony in negotiations between New York and Jersey,
given their friendship and history together. However, relationships and the balance of power
threaten to fall out of sync when in season 4 Ralph Cifaretto makes a joke about Johnny’s wife
Ginny in front of The Sopranos crew. Now Ginny may have been a hoofer back in the day,
but in current times, well, let’s just say two guys could shine her shoes and still
never meet. A bitter Paulie ends up leaking the joke to Johnny Sack, who goes ballistic,
demanding Carmine sanction a hit on Ralph in an excellent scene which I’ve done an entire
analysis on, which you can check out, and as he’s refused he settles for p-ssing on one of
Ralph’s guys and sending him to the hospital. Johnny comes very close to killing Ralph,
and he is almost whacked by Carmine Sr for all the hullabaloo, but it just goes to show how much
Johnny loves his wife and how he will not allow anyone to desecrate her honour. In one scene,
Tony is furious at Ralph for making the joke and berates him, but interestingly, in one of the many
examples of hypocrisy The Sopranos shows us, in the previous season, the guys at the Bing, like
Silvio, Paulie, Tony and Gigi are all shown to be taking cracks at Ginny. And while they’re making
weight remarks, who else walks in but Johnny Sack, asking who everyone is talking about, with Tony
just about managing to salvage the situation and the conversation moving on to different things.
It was a close shave, and season 4 shows us just have sensitive Johnny is about his wife’s weight,
knowing her struggles with the fasting and the deal-a-meal cards, so a question arises – what if
Johnny Sack walked into the Bing just a couple of seconds earlier, or stood by the door and listened
to the guys take turns roasting Ginny? What would happen if he head everything, how would he react?
We’ve seen what he did when just one person made a lame joke in front of friends of ours,
we saw how far he was willing to go, so what would happen if he actually heard the things these guys,
Tony included, were saying about his wife? Well, before we discuss, let me propose a theory.
What if he DID here what the guys said? It wasn’t as if they were making an effort
to keep their voices down – maybe John heard the jokes, and was furious, but he judged the
situation accordingly and knew that realistically nothing could be done in this situation. He did
look awfully aggressive and suspicious when he walked in, with the sideways glance saying
“*uck who?”. Perhaps he thought that to save face, seeing as though nothing could really be done,
it was better for his image to pretend he didn’t hear anything, rather than show that he heard,
and then being unable to do anything because he’s outnumbered and there’s no-way Carmine
would accept if he barged in and said “I want you to sanction a hit on the entire Jersey crew.”
Maybe he told himself he misheard, and when he was given the answer he needed to hear from Tony,
he pushed the paranoia to the back of his mind, but it remained there, waiting like patience on a
monument, and when Paulie tells him about Ralph’s joke he gets heavy and takes out all of his anger
and frustration by narrowing down and directing his fury towards Ralph, with him being used as a
scapegoat for the entire Jersey crew. His reaction to Ralph’s joke, and the subsequent warpath he
went on, seemed so over the top, that perhaps he was overcompensating for the fact that this was
actually revenge for everyone making jokes about Ginny, and by killing Ralph it would be a message
to the entire Jersey crew to shut up about his wife, or in his words “no more weight remarks.”
It's reminiscent of a similar scene when there are rumors going around about Tony and Adrianna,
and Christopher walks in on Vito, Eugene, Hesh and Patsy shooting the shit. Though he
didn’t hear what they were talking about, he knew what they were talking about and unlike
John cannot keep is cool and throws food at Vito, which has to be resolved. Likewise,
if John lashed out against the Sopranos he may be reprimanded for it at a later date. But this
is a bit of a different situation, because Tony and Adriana were already the talk of the town,
so it would have already been on Chris’ mind and he would have been insecure about it already.
Is it likely that John heard the jokes? Probably not, because given his temperament, you’d think he
would have gone ballistic and would be unable to keep his composure as good as he did – his
reaction to the Ralph joke shows this. He was way too calm to have just swallowed the fact
that these bums were all laughing at his wife, it would be impossible for him to contain his anger,
it would be like playing hide and seek with Ginny, simply impossible.
Maybe he didn’t know for sure, but the way he acts, you wouldn’t be crazy for thinking he had
an inclination, and a 24/7 paranoia that people talk about his wife, or maybe he was just too
focused on the esplanade project which he came to talk about to register who the guys would have
been talking about, and it just didn’t click with him that they were taking the p-ss out of Ginny.
If he had heard the jokes, you can see him going apesh*t and just start yelling and shouting at the
crew at the top of his voice, labelling them degenerates for having the audacity to stoop
to such levels as to collectively roast an innocent woman, the wife of an underboss no less.
Perhaps he would even start beating the sh*t out of the person closest to him, which in this case
was Gigi, who incidentally made the last joke. Tony would pull John off Gigi, desperately trying
to calm his friend down, trying to come up with some excuse on how the fellas were just making
small talk and one thing led to another. John would stare down Tony, glaring at the friend who
has betrayed him. I mean, even in a raving frenzy, he wouldn’t be able to take on everyone in the
room, so after lashing out he would probably just walk out, Tony repeatedly calling out “John. John,
listen…” and then grimacing, turning to face the room which has gone deadly quiet. If John was
armed – who knows, maybe he would have pulled out his piece and gone John Rambo on everyone,
which would no doubt ended with John being buried on a hill overlooking a little river, with
pine cones all around. In other words, if John went crazy on the spot there’s a good chance he
would have gotten the Fat Dom treatment and ended up as tomorrow’s special at Satriale’s, after all,
by the time a fistfight or a shootout occurred, it would be better for Tony and
the Sopranos for Johnny to just disappear. For Tony it’d be sad when they go young like that,
given their friendship, but he would see the benefit of John not being around to start a war.
This could incur the wrath of Carmine Sr, who might start a war of his own if he caught
wind that just like the Hindenburg Johnny Sack disappeared in Jersey, but ever the pragmatist, in
the interest of business, he could look the other way, or might just not know what happened to Sack.
Perhaps John doesn’t get violent, but he says his piece and immediately goes back
to New York and asks Carmine to nuke Jersey from orbit, or at least for business between the two
families to end with extreme prejudice. Carmine would of course refuse – I mean,
come on, take out an entire f*cking family? – and he would instead offer sanctions,
a bit like how events played out anyway. John would not accept, and go on a vendetta against
each individual, which would of course end up with him in a body back, whether it be via Tony
trying to protect himself and his earners, or from Carmine who would want the drama to end.
Maybe John would become hysterical, but would know he can’t have everyone in Jersey taken out,
so doesn’t even tell Carmine to save his own face, but essentially advises to squeeze Jersey hard on
every subsequent deal, poisoning Carmine against Tony in Johnny’s special snake-like way, playing
the long game and ending his special relationship with Tony. And of course, when he becomes boss,
if his feelings haven’t subsided, he could really do damage to the Sopranos. Either that,
or he tells Carmine the truth and pushes for war, regardless of the millions of dollars at stake.
If things did get back to Carmine and John wouldn’t accept an apology,
heavy fines, and perhaps a piece of Tony’s company, John’s bitterness would not be good
for business all round and Carmine and Tony might together decide that it might be better for John
not to be around anymore, with no one wanting to go to the mattresses over some fat jokes.
Perhaps, right then and there as John walks out furiously, Tony would see the repercussions
if the jokes got back to New York, and he makes an executive decision and ensures John
doesn’t leave the Bing alive. It also depends on just how much
John would have heard. If he only heard the last joke, he may berate the man,
throw a few punches his way and storm out furiously, and then have Gigi whacked over
the joke. Tony would probably accept it privately in order to maintain his relationship with John.
So what do you think would have happened had Johnny Sack heard the jokes the guys were making?
Let me know in the comments below, subscribe to the channel, and thanks for watching.