Barbara- The Missing Soprano

The Sopranos is focused around the titular Soprano family. Both the Soprano crime family of New Jersey, and the actual Soprano family and their extended relatives. These characters make up the bulk of the cast, and the drama and conflicts in their lives serve as the basis of the show.

However one character that often gets forgotten in this list is Barbara, the youngest Soprano sibling. Unlike her older brother and sister, Barbara isn’t featured prominently in the show.  She has no storylines dedicated to her, and we actually get to learn very little about her character. Which leads many people to wonder what the point of even including her is?

However she is actually involved in a number of important plot points of the series, even in just small ways. And beyond that, Barbara also has a very significant role in the overall themes of the show. So let’s take a look and explore the missing Soprano.

Barbara is the youngest child of Johnny Boy and Livia, born about 6 years after Tony. Her first appearance is in a flashback as a child in “Down Neck”. We don’t learn anything about her in the first season, other than the fact that she left New Jersey when she was young, just like Janice.

“Both your sisters left Jersey so young you’d think were contracts out on them.”

Carmela

The only other thing we learn about her childhood, is that Janice once recorded her and Tony fighting and used the tape to blackmail him into doing her chores. This event lingered with Tony throughout the years, causing resentment and leading him to put her down whenever he could.

Her first appearance as an adult is in the season 2 premier “Guy Walks Into A Psychiatrist’s Office”. We learn that she lives in Brewster New York with her husband and kids, about an hour away from New Jersey. She warns Janice not to get involved with their mother and to let Tony handle it.

She appears briefly at the beginning on “Funhouse” when they are trying to figure out what to do with Livia after Janice leaves for Seattle. She says that her husband will not allow Livia to live with them, and Tony reassures her that she has her own life separate from their toxic mother.

She appears again in the Season 3 episode “Proshai Livuska” during the funeral for their mother. She goes along with the idea even though Livia did not want any kind of service. Her husband Tom later agrees with Hugh’s rant against Livia.

Her next appearance isn’t until the Season 5 episode “Where’s Johnny?”, where she inadvertently causes a meme and damns the comment section of every single Sopranos video on Youtube.

“Do we still get those season tickets big brother?”

“All I know is, he never had the makings of a varsity athlete.”

“Ah son of a bitch!”

Barbara, Junior, & Tony

It should also be noted that the actress was recast between Season 3 and now. The original Barbara was Nicole Burdette in Season 2 and 3, who was replaced by Danielle Di Vecchio in Season 5 and 6. I haven’t been able to find any reason why online, but it’s been speculated that it might have been due to scheduling.

Her next major appearance isn’t until the Season 6 opening “Members Only”, where she is shown taking care of Junior. She has to leave when her husband is injured at work, and this is what inadvertently causes Tony to be shot.

She makes appearances in the hospital visiting Tony with the rest of their family, and appears a few times at funerals and other family events throughout the season, but that’s it.

Overall, Barbara appears in 14 out of 86 total episodes, and in many of those she is only seen briefly or in the background. Which begs the question, why even include her in the show if they weren’t going to do anything with her? Did the writers have plans for her character that just never panned out? 

However I actually think that the fact that we never really see Barbara is the whole point of her character. Throughout the series, we see the damage that being part of the Soprano family causes the characters. Tony, who followed in his father’s footsteps, ending up taking on the responsibility of dealing with their mother. The psychological damage this did to him is the whole reason he needs to be in therapy from the very first episode.

And beyond just Livia, we see how being connected with the other Soprano family, the criminal one, damages all of the characters. Christopher ends up a junkie, Eugene comits suicide, and how many countless friends and relatives are murdered as a result of the mob? Even other family members not directly connected to the mafia like AJ and Meadow suffer from their father’s involvement.

However, Barbara doesn’t suffer from any of this. Unlike her brother, she escaped the cycle by establishing her own life away from their family. She has by all appearances a happy and stable marriage, good kids, and none of the problems Tony has from dealing with their toxic mother.

However it’s important to contrast her leaving with Janice’s. Because like Barbara, Janice also left their family. However, in her case she ran away. Not only in the fact that she moved to the West Coast, but also in the fact that she tried to throw away her name and literally create a new identity for herself.

“Janice, ma. My name is Janice. You named me.”

“That’s something else of mine you threw away.”

Janice & Livia

However we see that running away like this doesn’t work. Janice is eventually brought back to their world by her need for money, and she ends up being ruined by her relationship to the mafia just like the rest of her family. In fact by the end she is almost exactly like Livia.

“I’m a good mother. I put ma and all her warped shit behind me… not that I get any thanks for it.”

Janice

Barbara however didn’t try running completely away. We see that she is still involved with her family. She appears at major holidays, and whenever the family needs her assistance she is there to lend a hand. And she is able to reap certain benign benefits from this, like the Jets tickets or the boost when Tom’s father dies.

However she is just far enough away in Brewster that she can still have a relationship with the family at a distance, but not be sucked into the madness of their world. Maybe due to the fact that she was the youngest, she was able to recognize how damaging their family is, and made the choice to get away from it as best she could.

And to me this is commentary on how to deal with the problems of family. If you give in and let it rule you like Tony, you’ll be miserable. And if you try to run away and deny it completely like Janice, it will eventually creep its way back into your life. Only by recognizing its effect on you and making a choice to not let it bring you down, can you live your own life.