The Cut Episodes of The Sopranos

The Sopranos aired from 1999 to 2007. During the show’s 6 seasons, 86 episodes of the series were produced. The series covered a variety of subjects, including murders, sex, gambling, and even political manipulation. However it didn't cover everything. There were a handful of episode ideas that never made it to production.

Over the years, we’ve been able to glean pieces of these lost episodes from interviews with the writers. The most complete of these is the interview Terence Winter did on the 18th episode of the Talking Sopranos podcast. I’ll be using clips of that episode in this video.

Now most of these are just snippets or ideas for an episode, and as such we are missing a lot of context. I’m going to do my best to fill in the gaps and hypothesize about what the episodes would have been about, but just know that these are educated guesses. Also I’m not only going to be spoiling Sopranos, but also some related stuff from Boardwalk Empire and Breaking Bad, so be warned.

The first cut episode is one that I’m calling “The Fifth Floor”. As Terence describes, it would have been about Tony, still in the hospital after being shot, trying to get into an exclusive floor of the hospital. In the US, VIP areas for celebrities and important people are a real thing, and the episode would have revolved around Tony trying to get into the floor of the hospital.

Now we’ve seen elements of exclusivity in the episode Luxury Lounge when Christopher tries to get into the VIP area with Sir Ben Kingsley. He reacts very jealously when denied access, and I imagine that Tony would react similarly when he learned about the VIP floor of the hospital. I imagine the episode would have been like “A Hit is a Hit”, when Tony tries to get into the golfing club but is denied. Given how easily angered he was at that point from his injuries, I imagine he would have stewed for a while before threatening his way into the floor, just like we saw him do with the paramedic.

This episode would have also probably had some moments for Carmela. She would obviously be concerned about Tony’s recovery, and want the best for him. It would have also been a chance to explore her elitism, as we know Carmela likes to have the best things in life, and would probably want access to the floor for vanity reasons.

This is one of the rare examples of scripts that were actually written and completed before being cut. Now Winter says that the episode was cut because they didn’t need another hospital episode after spending two episodes there already. And while that’s probably true, there might have been another reason for the cut. This episode was written by Robin Green and Mitch Burgess. As I’ve talked about already in my Writer’s Room video, they were having problems with David Chase at this point, and shortly after this David would fire them from the show. It’s been speculated that David cut their episode in particular because of the animosity between them, though if that was a factor at all it was probably towards the bottom of the list.

The next episode is one that I’m going to call “Danielle”, simply because it would have revolved around the home life of the FBI agent Deborah Ciccerone. At the end of the 3rd season, she went undercover as a woman named Danielle and befriended Adriana in an attempt to gain information on Tony and Christopher. When her relationship with Adriana came to an end over jealousy, the FBI brought Adriana in and coerced her into becoming an informant.

The cut episode would have been about Deborah’s homelife. We do know that she has a young baby at home and a husband, so presumably we would have gotten to see more of her interactions with them. Her husband on the show was played by Will Arnette, and one of the sad parts of not getting this episode meant that we never got to see Will steal the spotlight as a little too believable FBI agent.

Terence also mentioned that she might have had an affair with Tony. We do know that he was interested in her, even bringing her up in season 5 long after her friendship with Adriana had ended. Whether this relationship was consensual or something she was forced to do to maintain her cover we will never know, and I also am not sure if this plot point even existed or if Terence is misremembering. He says that Matt Weiner wrote the episode, but Matt joined the show in the 5th season, and by that point Deborah was no longer undercover. Again we will never know the details of this unproduced episode, but it is interesting to imagine.

The next is one that I’m calling “Blue Bell Boy”, for reasons I will explain in a bit. In the proposed story, Tony would catch a young kid who broke into his house while he was alone there. After catching the kid, Tony would be left with a decision about that to do with him. In the end, he would decide to kill him.

Structurally the episode reminds me of the third episode of Breaking Bad where Walt has to decide what to do with Crazy 8. Just like that episode, I imagine Tony would have bonded a little with the captured kid, maybe even seeing a little of himself in him. However in the end Tony would choose the dark path, killing the kid in order to keep him quiet.

I called this episode “Blue Bell Boy” because Terence Winter would later reuse this idea in his own show Boardwalk Empire. In the Season 3 episode called “Blue Bell Boy”, the main character Nucky Thompson finds a thief who has stolen from him but ends up trapped with the kid in a house. They end up talking and bonding a bit, and you think he’s going to take him under his wing, only for Nucky to shoot the kid at the last moment. This episode was obviously inspired by this cut episode from the Sopranos, and it’s cool to see that it gained new life on another show.

The next two episodes are only little snippets of ideas and we have no context for the episode as a whole, so I’m just going to cover them briefly. One idea was about a crazy homeless guy outside of Satriale’s who was obsessed with The Rolling Stones. Now David Chase was obsessed with the Stones and rock and roll in general. He included a lot of references to the band in the show, such as Janice’s boob tattoo and Ralphie saying lines from “Sympathy for the Devil”. The Stones are also featured prominently in his feature film Not Fade Away. I have no idea why the Satriale’s sign was so significant to this guy, but if it’s another Rolling Stone’s reference feel free to let me know in the comments.

Another episode idea was about a rat who got out of prison but no one cared enough to do anything about it. This episode was obviously meant to touch on the decline of Mafia standards that we see throughout the show. I can understand though why this idea was cut, as it’s not really strong enough to base an entire episode on, when the show already had so many other examples of this theme to cover.

However I saved the best for last. The final cut episode we’re going to cover is what happened to the Russian in Pine Barrens.

That’s right, we were originally going to get an answer as to what happened to the Russian Valery. Pine Barrens is without a doubt the most popular episode of the series, and the mystery of what happened to the Russian is one of the most commonly debated topics about the series. Fans hoped that we would get a resolution and hopefully see the Russian again, and it turns out that Terence Winter originally wanted to bring the character back. However David refused, as he believed the idea was just pandering to the audience.

Now David’s attitude to the situation has led some people to think that he just hates the audience and wants to deny them what they want to see. And to a certain extent, I think that’s true. However he explained in another interview that it’s just his style, as he likes films that don’t just give you every answer.

And ultimately that is what makes The Sopranos such a powerful show. You don’t always get the resolutions you want. Nobody wants great characters to be killed off, but ultimately that is what makes for great drama and storytelling. And David’s restraint on just pandering to the audience is what elevates the Sopranos beyond the usual television schlock.

I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Let me know which episode you would have liked to see the most, and stay tuned for more content coming soon!