The Sopranos - The Complete Fourth Season - The Complete Fourth Season

Crime, Drama

James Gandolfini	Tony Soprano
Edie Falco	Carmela Soprano
Michael Imperioli	Christopher Moltisanti
Tony Sirico	Paulie Gualtieri
Steve van Zandt	Silvio Dante
Lorraine Bracco	Dr. Jennifer Melfi
Jamie-Lynn Sigler	Meadow Soprano
Robert Iler	Anthony Soprano, Jr.
Steven Van Zandt	Silvio Dante
Aida Turturro	Janice Soprano
Jamie-Lynn DiScala	Meadow Soprano
Dominic Chianese	Corrado 'Junior' Soprano
Drea De Matteo	Adriana La Cerva

Director	Dominic Chianese; Allen Coulter Tim Van Patten; David Chase; Daniel Attias; Allen Coulter; Jack Bender
Producer	David Chase; Henry Bronchtein; Martin Bruestle; Brad Grey
Writer	David Chase; Daniel Attias; Chase,David

Carmela to Tony: "Everything comes to an end." True enough, Mrs. Sope, but on The Sopranos, the end comes sooner for some than others. Though for some the widely debated fourth season contained too much yakking instead of whacking, and an emphasis on domestic family over business Family, what critic James Agee once said of the Marx Brothers applies to The Sopranos: "The worst thing they might ever make would be better worth seeing than most other things I can think of." And in most respects, The Sopranos remains television's gold standard. The fourth season garnered 13 Emmy nominations, and subsequent best actor and actress wins for James Gandolfini and Edie Falco as Tony and Carmela, whose estrangement provides the season with its most powerful drama, as well as a win for Joe Pantoliano's psychopath Ralph. The season finale, "Whitecaps," was a long-time-coming episode, in which Carmela at last stands up to "toxic" Tony, and "Whoever Did This" was the season's--and one of the series'--most shocking episodes.

Other narrative threads include Christopher's (Emmy nominee Michael Imperioli) descent into heroin addiction, Uncle Junior's (Dominic Chianese) trial, an unrequited and potentially fatal attraction between Carmela and Tony's driver Furio, and a rude joke about Johnny Sack's wife that has potentially fatal implications. Other indelible moments include Christopher's girlfriend Adriana's projectile reaction to discovering that her new best friend is an undercover FBI agent in the episode "No Show," Janice giving Ralph a shove out of their relationship in "Christopher," and the classic "Quasimodo/Nostradamus" exchange in the season-opener, which garnered HBO's highest ratings to date. Freed from the understandably high expectations for the fourth season, heightened by the 16-month hiatus, these episodes can be better appreciated on their own considerable merits. They are pivotal chapters in television's most novel saga. --Donald Liebenson