The Sopranos’ "College": The Most Important Episode in TV History

By Carlos Alfonso Chaves Pietri

IMDB. (1999). The Sopranos [TV series episode "College" photos]. Directed by Allen Coulter. Retrieved August 3, 2025, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705236/mediaindex/

The Sopranos is one of, if not the most highly acclaimed, dramas in TV History. Episodes like “Long-Term Parking” and “Pine Barrens,” among other episodes of such quality, are dotted throughout the Sopranos’ six seasons and have all left their indelible mark on audiences and pop culture. But the episode “College” is remarkable in a different sense. It may not be the zenith of the Sopranos’ writing genius, nor the epic culmination of a riveting season; instead, “College” single-handedly marks a before and after for the medium of TV dramas within the series that kicked off the Second Golden Age of TV.

For the uninitiated, The Sopranos centers itself around the titular Tony Soprano, a depressive mafia boss who struggles with balancing the mafioso half of his life with his civilian facade. With this balance comes another key facet, Tony’s need to keep his criminal life totally separate and hidden from his domestic life. Unfortunately for Tony, each conflict, be it criminal escalation or family drama, inevitably spills into his other life, making both a living hell for Tony. 

Tony & Co. Before College

To understand College in its entirety, the audience must experience the prior episodes and the foundation they laid down. Since this is only the fifth episode of The Sopranos, there isn’t much to keep track of. The series kicks off with Tony passing out at his son's birthday party and being assigned Dr. Jennifer Melfi as his therapist. Within these first four episodes, audiences see who causes these stresses for Tony and his depression. He laments the current state of the world and lives in fear that his family will be harmed by any sort of mob-related conflicts due to the inherent occupational hazards. His family doesn’t make life easy. At home he lives with his estranged wife Carmela, junior-year daughter Meadow Soprano, and his errant son AJ Soprano. His only other family members include his abusive mother and his insecure Uncle Junior. Uncle Jun’ acts as a sort of bridge between Anthony Soprano’s civilian life and his mobster life. But this bridge isn’t a harmonious one, as Junior Soprano actively competes with Tony for control over the greater DiMeo crime family. The rest of his mob life includes his crew, comprised of Silvio “Sil” Dante, Paulie “Walnuts” Gaultieri, Salvatore “Pussy” Bompinsero, and his protégé Chrissy Moltisanti. 

The series never actively portrays any of the mobsters in a positive light, rather a sympathetic one. With Tony, the series uses the first four episodes to explore his psyche. The audience sees him in his most honest form. You see him break down, you see him manage his unstable family, you see him expose his hopes and fears, and the series does its damnedest to make you root for Tony to get better. When he starts taking medication and going to therapy, his wife is overjoyed at the prospect of Tony’s mood improving. The show actively rewards Tony for trying to change. And the show keeps audiences rooting for Tony because the show limits itself on showing the violence that Tony Soprano is capable of. As such, the audience is led, in large part due to James Gandolfini’s generational acting, to root for Tony. College takes this concept of a sympathetic Tony Soprano and completely flips it on its head.

The other major pillars of College are Carmela and Meadow Soprano. At this stage of the show Meadow is the simpler of the two characters, as she’s just a 17-year-old looking to make it out of high school at the top of her class. Namely, she does know that her father is related to the mob in some way, though she doesn’t know the total extent of his involvement. As for Carm, she is a devout mob wife. She tolerates Tony’s cheating and menagerie of mistresses as it’s just part of the accepted mob culture. But what really is clawing away at her is that she is a devout Catholic, but she actively benefits her husband’s lifestyle. She isn’t some innocent bystander, Carm is fully aware of her husband’s occupation and what it entails. But still she fears for her husband’s eternal soul, and her own place in God’s eyes.

Episode Synopsis

The episode opens up on Tony and his daughter in Maine on a college tour trip. After going to Bates College, Tony and Meadow get in their car, and in comes the famous "Are You In the Mafia?" scene. This is the first of three widely recognized moments in College, and not only is it the most tame of the bunch, it’s deceptively subversive. Most series’ where the main character maintains a double life, they usually keep up the charade for a few seasons, if not the entire series. Not the Sopranos. In the first of many subversions, both within the episode and along the rest of the series, Meadow actively questions her father’s lifestyle within the first minutes of the first episodes of the show.

Back to the episode, as Tony panics and gives her the age-old excuse that he’s only in waste management, but seeing as he can’t really get out of it, he does admit that some of his money comes from illegal gambling, which is true. Obviously, he doesn’t tell her about the marginally more illegal activities that his crew commits, but the more important aspect here is the seemingly major breakthrough in Tony and Meadow’s relationship. Shortly after sharing more truths in a genuinely heartwarming scene, Tony would spot a wrong from his past that he believes must make right; Febby Petrulio. But this isn’t only plotline that College has to actively juggle.

IMDb. (n.d.). *College (Season 1, Episode 5) [TV episode]. In IMDb. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705236/

Back in Jersey, a storm thunders across the state as a downpour keeps everyone inside. Carm is sick with the flu, and much to her pleasure, gets a surprise visit from Father Phil Intintola. Since AJ is at a friend’s place, Intintola and Carm relax over wine and cheese, but as they’re making food, she receives a call from a flu-ridden Dr. Jennifer Melfi that she’s gonna have to postpone Tony’s next appointment as she’s sick. Up to this point, Tony has lied about Dr. Melfi’s sex to Carm, and she confides in him that she doesn’t know why Tony feels a need to lie all the time. (It is at this point of the story the episode starts bouncing between Maine and Jersey, the current focus will be on the Intintola/Carmela plotline.) Eventually, Carmela and Phil talk about how God can redeem even the worst people, a concept that Carm struggles to wrap her head around. The sexual tension between Carmela and Phil rises as the pair watch the film Remains of the Day, a movie in which two characters share a mutual and repressed attraction but never act on it because Anthony Hopkins’ character has a line of work which isn’t compatible with marriage and Emma Thompson’s character is already married. This cuts Carmela deeply on an emotional level and she asks Phil to turn off the movie. Phil offers to have Carm give a confession, and she gives a deeply emotional and heartbreaking confession over how she chooses to tolerate evil in exchange for a life of impeccable luxury, and how guilty she feels over decades of turning the other cheek with Tony. She ultimately fears that God will smite Tony for his sins. The episode follows this confession with a quick shot to Febby loading his gun implying that reckoning may come sooner rather than later. Father Phil gives communion, and in an intensely sensual and suggestive scene, Phil almost gives into the temptation of kissing Carm but instead just throws up. This entire plot thread is perfected thanks to Edie Falco’s incredible performance of guilt, shame, and anger, to the point where she won her first of 3 Emmys for her role in the Sopranos. More importantly there’s a window into her regrets and her fears over her and Tony’s eternal soul. 

At last the story returns to the Maine plotline, where the episode turns back the clock due to the jumpiness of the episode to when Tony spots who he thinks is Fabian "Febby" Petrulio. A once made guy who ratted on Tony’s crew some 10 years prior to the episode. The first half of Tony’s hunt was to actually confirm whether or not Febby was Febby. Using Christopher to cross-check license plates, addresses, etc. But when Tony stumbles upon his Febby's House, he alerts the family dog and by extension, Febby. Thanks to Tony’s blunder, what was once a game of cat and mouse has inadvertently turned into a game of cat and cat, both trying to get the jump on one another. Tony seemingly wins, as he finds Febby's workplace, and grins, finding his supposed “Rat”. But Febby isn’t sedentary, and he tracks Tony to his and Meadow's motel and almost kills them, but chooses not to for fear of the witnesses. He stays in his car and elects to stay in his car for the night, waiting for Tony and Meadow. Once day breaks, Tony seemingly drives off to the next college, letting Febby rest.

IMDb. (n.d.). College (Season 1, Episode 5) [TV episode]. In IMDb. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705236/

Tony got the ultimate jump on Febby. But instead of making it quick, Tony chastises him. Taking his time to strangle him, reminding him of the wrongs he committed, and the reckoning he will face. After a brutal sequence of Febby struggling to regain his breath, he falls limp, and Tony finally lets up. As he lets go of his victim, he stares up at the sky, and sees how a family of ducks has flown away from his murder. 

Tony comes back to pick up Meadow from Bowdoin College, but before he picks her up, he sits down and reads a quote from Hawthorne: “NO MAN CAN WEAR ONE FACE AND WEAR ANOTHER TO THE MULTITUDE WITHOUT FINALLY GETTING BEWILDERED AS TO WHICH MAY BE TRUE.” Contemplating it, he picks up Meadow from Bowdoin College, and she notices both Tony’d mudded shoes and the cuts on his hands made by the wire Tony used to choke out Febby. She asks him the inevitable “what happened”. Tony obviously has to lie to Mead about how he got those cuts, but she easily sees through this, and their newfound honesty has turned to dust.

Impact 

College’s reputation precedes itself. At the 1999 Emmys, Carmela’s actress, Edie Falco, won her first of four Emmys thanks to her performance in this episode, and alongside Edie Falco, Director David Chase and Writer James Manos Jr. won the Emmy for best writing for College. Like any good early-season episode, College expands the themes previously established by the Sopranos and continues to add to the themes and expand them further, namely with Carm’s relationship to both Father Phil and God. Part of College’s brilliance comes from its relatively self-contained nature. College isn’t the ultimate culmination of a season’s worth of conflict. As an episode, it works as a perfect microcosm of Tony Soprano’s struggle, his push-and-pull with the truth and how it impacts him, how he genuinely tries to change, but every time he does it feels like watching Sisyphus. One step forward, two steps back. But these are just the hallmarks of an excellent TV show. The Sopranos didn’t invent incredible character work, philosophical themes in TV, or brilliant acting, so what makes College so revolutionary?

The Murder of Febby is the single-most important scene in a TV Drama in the past 30 years, bar none. But its importance, both to the series and the medium, actively play into each other. This scene, and this episode, are the story-telling equivalent of getting cold water thrown at the audience over the true nature of Tony Soprano. Up to this point, Tony was portrayed in a sympathetic light, showing his demons and his miserable existence under the facade of opulence. Febby’s murder forcibly reminds the audience that Tony is a reprehensible monster. Over the course of Tony trying to confirm that the man at the gas station was in fact Febby, he enjoys the thrill of the hunt, smiling when he finds Febby’s workspace and saying “Hello, Rat.” in an almost giddy tone. When he attacks Febby, he takes his time to chastise and dehumanize him. Now Febby wasn’t a saint, far from it. He peddled meth for the mob, flipped, and continued to peddle meth. But Tony doesn’t kill him for righteous reasons or because he had to. Tony actively chooses to go far out of his way to kill Febby and takes great pleasure and self-satisfaction in doing so. Furthermore, Febby isn’t mentioned ever again in the series, this was a murder that Tony committed purely for the thrill of the hunt and exacting mob vengeance. 

In today’s TV landscape, Tony killing a guy 5 episodes in might be seen as tame, but back in 1999 this was absolutely not the case. Villains had a right and were always allowed to be heinous in their villainy, but in TV, the protagonist couldn’t be vile. Tony was the first character of his kind, such an abhorrent character being the focal point of a TV Show was unheard of back in 1999. As per the Sopranos’ Creator David Chase, when HBO executives reviewed the season’s storyline, they objected to Tony’s murder of Febby. Stating that they thought that audiences would turn on Tony should he commit such a cold-blooded act, Chase won the dispute, stating that audiences would turn on Tony if he let a rat go. 

This decision brought in a new age of TV drama, as the roaring praise for College and the first season of the Sopranos allowed other showrunners and storytellers to allow their protagonists to be morally compromised from the get-go. The second Golden Age of television is marked by the sheer volume of its anti-heroes. Characters like Breaking Bad’s Walter White, Game of Thrones’ Jaime Lannister, The Wire’s Omar Little, among a menagerie of others enraptured audiences through the silver screen, but if it weren’t for the Sopranos and College, they wouldn’t have graced audiences with their stories.

Sources:

https://sopranos.fandom.com/wiki/College

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705236/?ref_=ttep_ep_5

https://www.televisionacademy.com/awards/nominees-winners/1999/outstanding-comedy-series