Was Little Carmine Secretly a Genius?

It's no secret that many of the characters on the Sopranos are not exactly at the top of their class. Characters like Georgie, AJ, and Paulie could have drowned in 3 inches of water. But of all the Ivy Leaguers on the show, the dumbest of them all has to be Little Carmine. Despite being the son of a boss, Little Carmine is not a respected guy. His accomplishments are mediocre, his social awareness is hysterical, and his defining characteristic is his constant malapropisms.

But is there more to this character than meets the eye? Something hidden we might have missed on first glance? Let's take a look at the hair apparent, Mr. brainless the second, Little Carmine Lupertazzi.

Carmine Lupertazzi Jr, known as Little Carmine, is the son of Carmine Sr, the boss of the Lupertazzi crime family that bears his name. Despite being a capo in the family, Little Carmine is removed from New York affairs and lives in Miami, where he owns disco clubs, fixes wet t-shirt contests, and uh let's say manages a tasteful art company.

He is first introduced season 4 episode Calling All Cars, when Tony goes down to Florida and asks him to help resolve the HUD dispute with his father. Though Little Carmine agrees to try and convince his father to be reasonable, when Carmine Sr begins showing more praise for Tony than him, Little Carmine intentionally fans the flames of the conflict out of jealousy.

The next time we see Little Carmine is in the fifth season when his father dies from a stroke. Though initially on good terms with Johnny Sack, a conflict emerges between the two as they both vie for the title of Boss. Johnny is supported by the newly released Shah of Iran, while Little Carmine is backed by his father's former consigliere Angelo Garepe and respected capo Rusty Milio. However Rusty is only using Little Carmine as a puppet to try and run the family through.

The conflict gets bloody when Johnny wacks Loraine Calluzzo, a bookie who supports Little Carmine. As a side note, Little Carmine had a sexual relationship with her despite being second cousins, which is a little gross.

In retaliation, Little Carmine has Johnny's favorite associate Joey Peeps killed. Tony's cousin Tony Blundetto does the hit, which drags New Jersey into the conflict.

However when Johnny has Angelo killed, Little Carmine decides to back down and acknowledges Johnny as the new boss of the Lupertazzi family.

Johnny doesn't get to enjoy the title for long though, as he is soon indicted on racketeering charges. While he is in jail and Phil serves as acting boss, Little Carmine chooses to avoid mob politics and instead partners with Christopher to fund his Cleaver movie. The movie ends up being a success and another picture he can add to his subspecies.

After Johnny dies in prison from lung cancer, the title of boss is again up for grabs. When it appears that Doc Santoro will emerge as the winner, Tony meets with Little Carmine and asks him to take charge instead. However Little Carmine declines, realizing that being boss won't bring him or his family any happiness.

Phil eventually emerges as the new boss of the family, and his resentment of Tony brings the two sides to the brink of a war. Little Carmine tries to broker a peace between the two, but he mucks it up and a war is started.

Though devastating for New Jersey crew, the war drives a wedge between Phil and his right hand man Butchie. In the series finale, Tony is able to negotiate a peace with Little Carmine's help that ends in Phil's death. He also gives AJ a job at his movie production company that keeps him from enlisting in the military.

Like I mentioned, Little Carmine's defining characteristic is his low intelligence. He's viewed as an idiot by fellow mobsters. Much of this is due to his malapropisms, where he uses a big word to sound smart but ends up misusing the word to comedic effect.

However if we look deeper than the surface, we can see that Carmine is smarter than people give him credit for. For one thing, he is one of the few people empathetic enough to be considerate of Christopher's alcoholism. He also frequently sought out to mediate conflicts, and in the end he does manage to help broker a peace between New York and New Jersey. Even HBO's website lists him as someone who shouldn't be overlooked.

But the strongest case for his intelligence is the fact that he was able to walk away from the game. Throughout the series, we see how much pain the crown has caused Tony. With all the conflict he has to deal with and the fact that he is now the prime target for the FBI, Tony becomes increasingly angry and depressed with each season. Unlike Tony, Little Carmine is able to realize that the power just isn't worth it. Even their meeting at the golf course shows how different they are. When the scene opens Tony is gambling, both literally with his fortune and figuratively with his life by being boss. He's so stressed and miserable he orders something unhealthy to bring a little joy to his life. However Little Carmine is eating healthy and being active by playing golf. It's great foreshadowing to who is going to live longer.

The dream he has about his father also shows some surprising great insight from the character. The paper crown his father wears represents how meaningless the title of boss really is, and the empty melifulous box symbolizes that despite the outward benefits, he would have had nothing even if he got the title.

In the end, Little Carmine ends up as one of the few happy characters on the show, able to enjoy his life with his loving wife and kids with no fear of ending up dead or in prison. That's enough for anyone to call him a genius.

But his intelligence might go even deeper than that. What if Little Carmine didn't actually give up on being boss? What if instead, he was manipulating events to turn out exactly how he planned them, and in the end, he's the one secretly controlling both New York and New Jersey?

The theory goes that Little Carmine was intentionally creating conflict between Phil and Tony. In the Meeting of Minds, he brings up Phil's brother right as they are about to agree to a peace deal, which sends Phil into a rage and blows up the deal. This is usually viewed as another screw up, but what if he intentionally did to set Phil and Tony on a course for war?

We know that he is capable of manipulating emotions on purpose. When he meets with his father and Johnny on the golf course, he intentionally inflames his father against Tony. Now the reason he does it in this case is because he was simply jealous of his father praising Tony, but even still it's established that he is capable of emotional manipulation.

Now the question is, why would he want to create a war between Phil and Tony? What would he have to gain, especially since he had the chance to become boss but turned it down? Well maybe he learned from his fight with Johnny Sack that having the title of boss was dangerous, and instead he decided to run things from the shadows. After all, that's what his mentor Rusty did with him.

But if he was following Rusty, he would need a puppet to manipulate. Phil is obviously not going to be it since he supported Johnny, which is why he had to be eliminated, hence the war. The war also had the benefit of separating Butchie from Phil, and Butchie is the most likely candidate to take over after Phil's death. He would make a great puppet to rule the family through. During the final meeting, Butchie looks at Little Carmine before agreeing to Tony's terms, which perhaps shows that he takes orders from him.

However there is a lot of contradictory evidence as well. If we wanted a war with New York and New Jersey, why did he try and mediate again after Tony attacked Coco? You could say he is trying to appear neutral, but that sounds more like mental gymnastics to make the theory fit. Also how do we explain when he acts stupid even when he is not engaged in Mob business?

So as fun as this theory is, it's unlikely that Little Carmine is secretly a 5d chess master playing with people's lives. No the more realistic answer is that Little Carmine is what he appears: a pawn that realized that the only way to win the game is not to play.

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