if i hadn’t taken christopher’s death so hard (on the sopranos
but christopher moltisanti was absolutely, by far, my favorite sopranos family member. i came close to shedding tears with him when we lost ade, but as he gasped his last unceremonious breath at tony’s hand, i actually cried. and not for nothin’ but simultaneously, tony died to me too.
yes, yes, i know it’s only a tv show and yes i can make a distinction between a character on a tv show dying and “real problems” (like losing your best friend for example). but that doesn’t make it not suck!
we were so invested in christopher. ironically, we haaaaated christopher for most if not all of season one. but he kinda grows on you - like a fungus. but seriously, i think it’s because we watched him grow up and “earn his button,” as they say. and in the last few weeks we saw that he really HAD grown up. he really loved his daughter, he was really fighting his addiction, and he replanted the tree in his front yard, which we had assumed was symbolic. we assumed it meant he was going to continue to grow. we thought we were done with his story arc, and as it turns out we were. something bad happening to christopher did seem unavoidable earlier in this season, and arrested or dead are pretty much the only options, but the way he went out was particularly emotionally painful. and it was the nail in the coffin of any humanity tony ever had, and of any compassion we ever felt for tony, aka olivia junior.
and in the end, tony has become his mother and a.j. has become his father, and i will not be watching this episode again.
three more to go, but the joy has gone.
