Sopranos Al Forno: Still Cookin’ #1

Christopher, Screenwriting and The Hero's Journey

There’s a constant pattern that keeps recurring in my life that goes something like this: multiple people recommend a TV show to me – for years – and every time they do (insisting “no, you especially will really like it!”), I respond nonchalantly, “Oh yeah, sure, it’s on my list.”

Usually, it’s the intimidation that holds me back, knowing the vast catalog of episodes I have to catch up on now that the show is well past its original air date. But also, I reallyyyyy hate it when people tell me what to do.

Alas, years and decades will pass until I finally reach a point where it hits me that I can no longer avoid starting said TV show. It’s too ingrained into the cultural fabric and general discourse for me to continue going about my days only knowing little clips and snippets. And also, maybe I get tired of saying “Oh yeah, sure, it’s on my list” – which I did for twenty-six whole years with The Sopranos.

To be fair, I’m not sure I would’ve enjoyed or appreciated the series when it started, as I was a young tween girl obsessed with the crushing melodrama that was my own life (see: completely made-up scenarios due to having absolutely zero life experience). But as of this past weekend, I am officially a Sopranos Head (or Testa¹) – and I’m only on Episode 9.

The thing is, I knew I’d like this show all along, but I mistakenly thought it’d be too heavy to binge watch (even though I loved Breaking Bad and Succession is one of my “comfort shows”????) or that it would take too long to get through (when I watched 20+ episodes of Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules in a week or less during COVID????)

I had also just finished re-binging White Lotus seasons 1 and 2, and when that perfect final episode of Season 2 ended, I decided I was not ready to part ways with Italian/Italian-American related television content or Michael Imperioli.

^^ me adding one extra sentence on a story I’ve been writing for 2 years

Fittingly enough, Christopher “Chrissy” Moltisanti (played by a young Imperioli) is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. It’s absolutely incredible to me that this young aspiring – and practically illiterate – mobster also has a passion for screenwriting.

In the eighth episode of Season One (“The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti”), Christopher types away on his little laptop into a late-90s era screenwriting program. The misspellings are hilarious and the slow chipping away into a story one sentence of dialogue at a time is all too real to a fellow writer watching.

Christopher is frustrated early on in the series: he sees bigger things for himself and is impatiently waiting for his moment to come (also too real.) He wants to be a “capo” and he wants to be in the papers whenever they write about mob crimes and he wants to be a famous screenwriter out in Hollywood, maybe even a writer/actor/director combination Auteur at that. In many ways, Christopher might be one of the best examples of a Generalist on TV. Or at least, aspiring Generalist…

In a dark moment of frustration and impatience on wanting to make a name for himself, Christopher talks to his (older and more experienced) colleague Paulie about what he’s been learning from all the storytelling books he’s been reading (once again, amazing – considering he cannnot spell). Then, there’s this beautifully apt moment where he summarizes Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey:

“Like everybody starts out somewheres, and they do something, something gets done to them and it changes their life. That's called an ‘arc.’ Where's my arc?”

Emphasizing this, he begs again, “Where’s my arc, Paulie?!”

The trend of the late 90s in Hollywood, as laid out to us by Christopher, is mob stories. Every studio wanted mafia content and he had real-life, hands-on experience that he could give them – a temptation he can’t help but entertain despite how bad it would be for his aspiring mobster career, not to mention how it would likely implicate all of his colleagues and bosses.

This made me think: what’s the trend now? What do studios want more than ever? And if you’ve been paying attention, you know the answer:

IP.

It breaks my heart (hypothetically, in a completely fictional world) to think of young Christopher trying to make it as a screenwriter in today’s Hollywood: a Tinseltown falling apart and all but entirely moving overseas, a business where it’s harder and harder to find a studio or production company who will take a chance on a budding, new screenwriter without familial connections to the industry.

But that’s for another blog post (and I’ve already touched on it here).

Even though I already know what Christopher’s arc is (you can’t avoid all spoilers for two decades…), I relate to his restless desires, his eager and perpetually unfed hunger for success, recognition and notoriety. The boy sure as hell can’t spell, but he sure can cut to the emotion and heart of a scene – and that is, perhaps, all a true screenwriter really needs.

Author’s Note: This *is* the start of a recurring series – one woman boldly navigating The Sopranos 26 years later. Watch this space…

1. So sorry to all Italians worldwide. (I did study Italian for three years but that’s no excuse.)