The Sopranos: All The Captains Were Rats

In the mafia, made guys swear the oath of omerta. It’s a code of silence, a promise to never reveal information about the organization to law enforcement or outsiders. To break this code is to be labeled a rat, and it means certain death if you’re ever found out. It’s one of the most important parts of La Cosa Nostra, and is a staple of mafia fiction.

However in the Sopranos, we see the code being broken all the time. It’s one of the primary fears in the organization, that someone you trust will become a rat to save themselves and take you down. As time has gone on, being an informant has become more and more common. Where once everyone upheld the code of silence, now it’s considered a rarity if someone actually follows the oath and does their time quietly.

This rise of informants is part of the overall theme of the decline of the mafia. Whether the informants are the cause of the decline, or if the decline meant that more people became rats because they could get away with it is up for debate. But as a Sopranos fan it’s interesting to take a look and see just how many traitors the organization had, and examine what led to this situation.

Now the reason people become informants is obvious. They are in legal trouble, and informing is the only way they can save themselves from prison time. This is what happened to Big Pussy Bonpensiero. After getting pinched for dealing heroin, he’s forced to rat on his best friends to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison. And though it breaks their heart, when they find out they are forced to kill him for treason.

However Pussy flipping wasn’t just due to his legal circumstances. The FBI was also able to pray on his animosity towards Tony for treating him like an underling, despite their supposed friendship, which is a trend we would see repeated with other informants as well.

Adriana is an entirely different story. After losing Pussy, the FBI target Adriana as a potential weak point in the organization. They send an undercover agent to befriend her, hoping to find information about Christopher. When their friendship later breaks down, the FBI bring her in and strong-arm her into cooperating. They even threaten to tell Tony that Adriana brought a fed into his house, which would almost certainly gotten her and Christopher killed.

Adriana’s cooperation with the FBI is a controversial topic in the community. There are people who say that Adriana knew what she was involved in and deserved her fate. I’m well known at this point as an Adriana simp, but I do still believe that she did what she did out of concern for Christopher and a desire to save him. Was it naive? Absolutely, but it was more than can be said for most of these other rats.

There are a handful of other informants throughout the series. Febby Petrulio was the rat that Tony found in Maine when taking Meadow to visit colleges. He was said to have flipped after being caught dealing heroin, just like Pussy.

In Season 6 it’s revealed that Eugene Pontecorvo was an informant. We aren’t given a reason why he flipped, however we do know that his son was a drug addict. Given what later happens with Carlo, it’s possible that he flipped in order to save his son from some charges. Either way though the pressure of being forced to inform as well as not being able to move to Florida with his family pushes him to hang himself.

There are a few other cases. Jimmy Petrille was Johnny Sack’s consiglieri, but later informed on him and is the reason why he ended up behind bars. Jack Masserone was the owner of a construction company that had many dealings with mob, including the Esplanade. He would later become an informant and was killed by Tony. In both of these cases we don’t know the specific circumstances, but we can assume it was to avoid prosecution themselves.

However the most interesting case of rats are the capos of the DiMeo family. In the first season, the three capos besides Tony and Junior are Ray Curto, Jimmy Altieri, and Larry Barese. And all three of these captains would end up becoming informants.

Ray Curto is confirmed to be an informant in the fourth season. He not only wears a wire to many important meetings, but seems almost eager to work with the FBI. I’m not sure if this was caused by something personal that turned him against the family, but it’s just funny to think that he died before anyone ever found out that he was not a standup guy at all.

Larry Barese is an interesting case. He’s arrested at the end of Season 1 along with Junior, and he spends the rest of the show under house arrest awaiting trial. However, possibly because he was caught violating his house arrest, he ends up providing the FBI with information. Specifically he tells them about Willie Overall, a bookie that Tony and Paulie killed in the 80’s.

In the end, it’s revealed that he actually lied and said that Jackie Aprile, now dead, was the one that killed Willie. And while you might say that lying to the FBI isn’t being a rat, I still think it counts. He gave them information about a murder they didn’t know about. Sure it worked out this time, I still think cooperating with the feds in any way would be considered a violation of their oath. After all, remember how Phil reacts when Johnny Sac admits to being in the mafia.

Now Jimmy Altieri is a debated case. In the first season, Vin Makezian tells Tony that Pussy has flipped after getting arrested. However Tony later comes to believe that Vin made a mistake and that Jimmy was the rat. He then has Christopher and Silvio take him out.

However the fact that Pussy was later confirmed to be a rat has made some fans doubt whether Jimmy was a rat or not. However I still think he was, as his suspicious behavior at Tony’s house and his statements right before he was killed suggests to me that he was a rat. Plus it would fit with the pattern we’ve already established.

Now those were the three capos at the beginning of the series. After Jimmy Altieri is killed, Carlo Gervasi takes over as captain of his crew. And just like the rest of them, he too ends up becoming an informant. In the final episode, it’s revealed that he agreed to cooperate with the Feds in order to protect his son Jason from drug charges.

While this was the primary cause, I also don’t think it hurt that his relationship with Tony was strained after the Vito situation. Not only did Carlo support Phil killing Vito despite the fact that he was a made guy, he failed to bring in as much money for Tony as Vito did, leading him to say some very hurtful things to him.

The way Tony treated his underlings was a problem, as it led to resentment and might have contributed to their willingness to betray him. We saw it with Pussy. We saw it with Carlo. And we would see it with another captain: Paulie.

Now Paulie never became an informant for the feds. In fact it was part of actor Tony Sirico’s contract that he never become a rat, something that was important to him as he was involved with organized crime in real life when he was younger. However Paulie did end up ratting on Tony. Not to the feds, but to Johnny Sack.

In Season 3, Johnny Sack moves to New Jersey in an attempt to influence the Soprano family for his own interests. He identifies Paulie as a weak point, as he is feeling marginalized from Tony due to Ralph’s high earnings. Paulie ends up revealing information about Tony’s scams to Johnny, who demands a cut for the Lupertazzi family. This nearly brings the two families to blows over the issue, and it’s entirely Paulie’s fault.

And it’s not just a matter of Paulie being a loud mouth. He actively suggests to Johnny Sack that if New York kills Tony, he’s willing to accept it if he is the next boss. While he might never have been an informant for the FBI, I would say that counts as being a rat, as Tony was willing to kill him over the issue, on a boat no less just like Pussy.

Now that covers all the known informants, but it does leave us with one interesting scenario. Some people think Christopher became an informant sometime before his death in Season 6. They cite the scene where he kills JT and says that if he wanted to, he could flip and bring down the entire Sopranos organization.

The fact that he brings up Sammy the Bull living in Witness protections means that he’s thought about taking a deal, perhaps one that has already been offered to him. We do know that he was already feeling isolated from Tony and the others due to his sobriety, which is just like Big Pussy. He even brings up Arizona, which is where Puss wanted to go.

There’s also the fact that he is wearing a baseball cap in the meeting with Phil right before he dies. Jack Masserone was also uncharacteristically wearing a baseball cap when he met with Tony, and it’s presumed that was where he hid the wire. For what it’s worth though, we have seen Chris wearing a baseball cap before all the way in the pilot, so it’s not impossible that he would wear one for no special reason.

However there is another piece of evidence. When Chris dies, they hang a picture of him up at Satriales. And the cat that they bring there ends up staring at the picture. Now I’ve talked before about how some people think this cat is a reincarnation of Adriana, but another potential meaning might be that Christopher was a rat. Afterall Tony says that is the reason why the cat is interested in him.

I’m honestly torn about this theory. My first instinct was that if he didn’t see it on the show, then it probably didn’t happen. Afterall we saw even minor characters like Ray and Eugene meeting with the FBI, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t show Christopher. However when you put the evidence together with the pattern of the other captains being informants, it does start to feel believable. Afterall Chris was promoted to Captain seemingly out of nowhere, and one of the reasons might have been to fit this pattern.

The overall point of the pattern in my opinion was to establish the unreliability of the mafia. Despite their claims about loyalty and brotherhood, even the captains, the supposed best guys in the organization, were willing to turn on each other to save themselves. Some of this was due to the overall decay of mafia values in the modern age. And another was probably how loyalty was rewarded in the organization. Just look at what happened to Feech La Manna afterall. If an organization is not going to be loyal to its members, then why would those members ever be loyal to their oath.

But even if the members of the DiMeo crew weren’t loyal, I want to thank all of you for being loyal to the channel. Thank you for continuing to watch my videos all these years, and stay tuned for more Sopranos content, coming soon!