The Sopranos is a crime drama which follows the life of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano and his
relationship with his children, is wife, rival mob families and his own crew. One of the most
fascinating relationships in the series is Tony and his connection with Christopher Moltisanti,
the deuteragonist of the series and Tony’s nephew. Well, technically, he isn’t exactly his nephew,
but Christopher is deeply loved by Tony and is essentially his protegee,
with Tony grooming the younger mobster, moulding him to become the next boss after Tony’s reign.
Christopher is fascinated by Tony, he revers him, honours him, he loves him like a brother-in-law,
he looks up to him as a son would do to a father, not least because Christopher’s own dad died when
he was young. Tony states that his relationship to Christopher is similar to Tony’s own relationship
with Dickie Moltisanti, Christopher’s father, who was a mentor to Tony, and by the time I
release this video, The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel movie to The Sopranos, is now out, and
has surely revealed some further interesting aspects to the dynamic between Tony and Dickie.
Anyway, Christopher is something of a disappointment to Tony. He constantly
fails when tested or when opportunities arise for him to prove himself. He’s a constant source
of irritation for Tony as many of his immature and unwise antics causes trouble for the family,
such as when he talks out of turn in a meeting with New York crime boss Johnny Sack, causing Sack
to become infuriated, after Tony specifically told him to watch his mouth at the meeting.
Christopher gives Tony’s daughter Meadow speed in season 1 behind Tony’s back, he shoots up Tony’s
car and drunkenly enters The Bing brandishing a gun after he suspects Tony of sleeping with
his girlfriend, his loyalty to mob life is questioned when he decides to pursue a career
in acting or screenwriting, and he constantly disobeys Tony’s orders and advice. The list of
stupid, irresponsible, and inappropriate acts on Christopher’s CV are endless, and even still the
higher he is on drugs the higher he he rises up and up in rank, obviously due to the nepotism show
to him by Tony, which does not go unnoticed by other mobsters, and causes dysentery in the ranks.
There is no grater trait of Christopher that undermines him and his relationship with Tony
than his drug and alcohol addiction. Like his father before him, Chrissy succumbs to
the temptation of the drink and is constantly using and abusing drugs such as speed and even
heroin. At one point, Christopher is given an intervention – at which the likes of Silvio,
Paulie, and Benny Fazio the criminal mastermind are present – and he is even is forced to go
into rehab after his addictions spirals out of control. By the way, did anyone
notice the foreshadowing with Tony saying at the intervention “I oughta suffocate you”. We all know
that the other guys in Tony’s crew would not be given a trip to rehab and an intervention if they
had similar issues – it’d be a quick bullet to the back of the head. But Christopher does
eventually gain control over his desires, the jokes and off-colour remarks from the other
mobsters at his expense notwithstanding, and albeit with the occasional slip here and there.
Christopher also proves his loyalty to Tony by telling his boss that
Adriana has been speaking to the feds after she confesses to him.
Rather than go into witness protection and live the life of a shnuck,
he gives her up, allows her to be murdered, and continues his life as Tony’s would-be successor.
However, even though eventually he is promoted to the position of capo, Christopher never receives
the respect he has so desired throughout the show’s run – when Tony Blundetto, Tony Soprano’s
cousin, returns from prison, Christopher gets jealous at the two’s relationship, which often
involves them poking fun at him for his addictions and abstaining from alcohol. Even after Tony B is
long gone, Christopher and Tony Soprano never quite have the relationship they once did,
what with Chrissy’s constant fuck-ups, and instead it is Bobby Bacala, Tony’s new brother-in-law,
who becomes close to Tony, both professionally and personally, at the expense of Christopher.
Christopher married Kelli Lombardo after learning that she is pregnant with his child,
and they eventually have a daughter. We never really learn much about this woman,
most Sopranos fans probably don’t even remember her name, but that’s the point – Christopher and
Adriana genuinely did love each other, they had a long lasting and deep relationship,
and this new woman is essentially Christopher going through the motions
and playing his part by getting married to your average Italian American woman.
Christopher is resentful to Tony, not least because of the whole Adriana affair, with him
considering himself to have undergone a tremendous sacrifice for Tony, but in spite of this,
the two continue to drift apart, and Christopher unloads some of his frustrations with J T Dolan,
a screenwriter and Christopher’s acquaintance from rehab, who Christopher then murders in cold blood.
Later, in the episode Kennedy and Heidi, Christopher drives Tony back from a meeting with
the Shah of Iran, jamming away to the soundtrack from The Departed, specifically Comfortably Numb,
which is an apt choice as it deals with the lifelessness feeling of being on drugs,
and as Tony suspects, Christopher is under the influence while driving and this leads to them
crashing off the road, with Christopher being seriously injured. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt,
whereas Tony was, and he coughs up bloods, and pleads with Tony to help him because he won’t be
able to pass a drugs test, revealing to Tony that after everything that has happened, after all that
was done for Christopher and all that the duo have gone through together, Christopher was once again
on drugs. The show makes a point to highlight the baby seat in the back car with a branch through
it, a branch which just as easily could have impaled Christopher’s daughter instead, and after
initially dialling 911, Tony instead suffocates Chris, by pinching his natural canopy of a nose
until he dies. It is not clear whether Christopher would have survived had Tony not done this, but it
is later mentioned in the show that “the doctors said he could have made it, but he didn’t.”
Nobody ever finds out that Tony was the one who killed Christopher,
it’s something known only by the man himself, with Christopher being added
to the list of close associates who Tony has killed, along with Tony B and Pussy.
So why exactly did Tony kill Christopher? The reasons are pretty obvious, and I’ll get to them,
but in this video I wanted to analysis things a bit further,
to go a bit deeper into the relationship between Christopher and Tony and come to a comprehensive
conclusion as to why killing Christopher was an essential part of Tony’s grown,
one that sealed his transformation into the man he became, a transformation which
you could argue started with his killing of his close friend Pussy, many seasons ago.
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So when Tony looks over to the baby seat, and then makes the decision to kill Christopher,
he’s come to the realisation of something that he probably always knew in the back of his head
and something that many fans of the show, myself included, thought about Chris – the man is a stone
cold liability. He’s messed up so many times, from small things like coming late to meetings to
colossal once such as his drug addiction. Chrissy being addicted to drugs and selling them means
he could land a hefty prison sentence, which could persuade him to turn rat and co-operate
with the feds, giving up Tony, with whom is relationship is already fractured as it is.
Tony knows this, he’s known if for a long time. Junior even told him years ago that
when a dog gets rabies you put it down. His advice, the advice of a man whom he
respects and seeks wisdom from, is to kill Christopher, and yet for whatever notion,
probably because of his love for the man, Tony ignores this advice.
Truth be told, Christopher probably should have been killed all the way back in season one;
the only reason he lasted as long as he did, as we all know, is because he’s Tony’s nephew.
But here, the penny drops. Christopher’s addiction has been going on for so long and has come so far
that now it has even endangered his life, Tony Soprano, boss of New Jersey. Chrissy almost made
AJ and Meadow fatherless, Carmela without a husband, and after nearly killing his own boss
because he can’t control his addictions he has the cheek to say to Tony he needs to help him et out
of there because he’s going to lose his licence? Maybe that would have worked with season 1 Tony,
but by season 6 Tony has become a monster, he has fully embraced his narracism and his selfish and
sociopathic tendencies. He is, to all extents and purposes, the main villain of the show, unjustly
killing those who he despises, like Ralph, or those who threaten his power, like Junior’s capos.
There’s a level of hypocrisy and irony with Chrissy’s relapses – because Tony is in part
responsible for this. He laughs along with the rest of the crew when Paulie jokes about
Christopher’s daughter working at the Bing, he alienates Tony when he remains neutral
after Paulie target’s Christopher’s father in law’s business, and when you grill Chrissy for
his drunkenness and drug addiction, but the chastise him and joke about his abstinence,
what’s the poor guy supposed to do? What do you want, you can’t have it both ways?
Tony’s decision to kill Christopher, it can be argued, was also for Christopher’s own good.
He’s a liability to himself as much as anyone, and wat if one day Chris’s issues cause the death of
his wife and kid? Or he ends up doing decades in the can? He has to be killed, for his own sake.
At least, that probably what Tony tells himself to make himself feel better about the situation,
and if you’ve come away from the scene thinking that Tony killed
Christopher out of some righteous reasoning about Christopher being his own worst enemy,
you’ve missed a significant development of Tony’s character over the course of the season – and that
is that by the time season 6 rolls around, he only cares about himself. Sure, there is love
for his children and Carmela, but that’s where the line is drawn and everyone else is simply a tool,
a puppet for Tony’s own machinations, much like any random whore at the Bing.
Tony kills Chris because it’s convenient for him for Chris not to be around anymore,
and he justifies it to himself with the baby seat. All of Chris’ problems and sacrifices,
they meant nothing to Tony in the end, and he seized on this opportunity and
got rid of a big stone in his shoe. Tony only cares about himself, and so all of that stuff
about it Christopher killing essentially killing himself is just Tony covering his sin, it’s the
way he justifies what he did. When he phone’s Carmela, he immediately tells her that Chris
wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, he mentions the baby seat about four times during Christopher’s wake
for no reason, he makes fun of Chrissy’s mother while she mourns him, people are consoling Tony
everywhere and he seems mildly annoyed and bored by it all. Even Paulie was genuinely
distraught at Christopher’s death, and yet Tony has become such a sociopath that he is numb,
even slyly implying to others that maybe it’s a good thing that Chrissy isn’t around anymore.
He even suggests to Carmela that she’s relieved that Christopher is dead, much to her disgust,
and this is clear projection on Tony’s part, and the entire crux of the issue – Tony is happy that
Christopher has died, and no-one else shares this sentiment. The people that Tony thought
might also be happy, like Paulie, are beside themselves with grief,
showing you just how far Tony has gone off the deep end that a sociopathic murderer like
Paulie comes off as a warmer human being. At one point during the funeral Tony laments that he
can’t take this, and is bemused to find Carmine Jr patting him, telling him we’re here for you,
clearly misunderstanding what Tony meant. The only time Tony comes clean is when he tells Dr Melfi in
a dream that he’s relieved, unloading everything, saying “you know what, this is bullshit.
I haven’t been able to tell anybody this. I’m fucking relieved. A weak fucking snivelling lying
drug addict – the biggest blunder of my career is now gone”, and he comes close to essentially
saying the same thing to Melfi in real life. It’s worth mentioning that he ceases to refer to
Christoper as his nephew or say that he was like a son, instead telling Melfi in the dream that
Christopher was a “friend”, in inverted commas. He talks as if Chris was just another associate,
not that he was a son-like figure, who Tony bought into the mob and taught him his ways.
Things come full circle with the murder of Christopher – the killing of what is
essentially his own son, his own kin, the original sin perhaps, propels Tony into into becoming what
he was always going to end up as, a fully fledged narcissist who wants to be perceived as the
victim – in other words, his mother, the woman he so despised and wanted to be nothing like.
This is hinted at throughout the show, there’s even entire lines of dialogue
that Tony shares with Livia, such as when he says to AJ, “Oh, poor you!”
There was a time where killing someone close to him, Pussy, emotionally destroyed Tony, but not
anymore, not with what he’s become. Now, he’s so delighted he even goes on to fuck Christopher’s
ex-girlfriend and take drugs, ironically the same thing he criticised Chriss for doing.
There is also heavy emphasis on the theme of fathers and sons, with Dickie being a father
figure to Tony and Tony of course being one to Chris. Christopher puts music from The Departed
on, and this is a film about a crime boss played by Jack Nicolson who wants a son but is unable
to have one, and he instead has Matt Damon’s character who is essentially a protegee and
surrogate son. I talk more about the father and son themes of The Departed in a video of mine
called “Was Colin gay?”, but the irony of that film is that Jack is killed by is would-be son.
Sticking with the father son theme, Tony’s mind wander’s to Uncle Junior during the car ride,
who was also a father figure to Tony, playing catch with him during his youth,
and yet he also tried to put out a hit on Tony, and later actually shot him, almost killing him.
Tony is an intelligent man, and perhaps on some level he felt guilty about Christopher’s
situation, knowing he created it, and after looking at the babyseat knowing
that Christopher will go onto pass his dysfunctional onto his progeny.
Tony’s worst fear is passing off his toxic nature and psychological issues to his children,
but he’s already done this, just not to his blood child. Tony is Frankenstein in this case,
and Christopher is his monster, and on a subconscious level he knows it is his duty
to duty to put an end to the misery of his monster, himself, and other around them.
Not the most mainstream of interpretations, I know, but one I think is just as legitimate.
So why do you think that Tony, after all that the duo had went through, decided to kill Christopher?
Let me know in the comments below, subscribe to the channel, and thanks for watching.