Down Neck

"Down Neck" is the seventh episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos. It was written by Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, and directed by Lorraine Senna Ferrara. This episode, the only one in the entire series directed by a woman, aired on February 21, 1999.[1]

"Down Neck"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 7
Directed byLorraine Senna Ferrara
Written byRobin Green
Mitchell Burgess
Cinematography byAlik Sakharov
Production code107
Original air dateFebruary 21, 1999
Running time51 minutes
Guest appearance(s)

see below

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

Also guest starring

  • Paul Albe as Contractor
  • Shirl Bernheim as Pearl
  • Madeline Blue as Janice
  • Bobby Boriello as Young Tony
  • Scott Owen Cumberbatch as Rideland Kid #2
  • Anthony Fusco as Father Hagy
  • Rob Grippa as Byron Barber
  • Jason Hauser as Rideland Cop
  • Michael B. Jordan as Rideland Kid
  • Greg Perrelli as Jared
  • Nick Raio as Wiseguy
  • Tim Realbuto as Jimmy
  • Steve Santosusso as Guy
  • Tim Williams as Mr. Meskimmin

Synopsis

A.J. and his friends steal sacramental wine and turn up drunk at gym class. Tony and Carmela are called in to A.J.'s Catholic school, where the psychologist tells them that A.J. may have ADD. A.J. is tested and determined to be borderline ADD. Tony scornfully rejects this and says A.J. is behaving like a normal 13-year-old. Carmela supports his opinion and he walks out.

This incident prompts Tony to discuss incidents from his own childhood with Dr. Melfi: His mother once threatened to stick a fork in his eye if he did not stop bothering her. He saw his father beat someone up – "You could tell he knew what he was doing." Later, the same man offered Johnny Boy a chance to move to Reno, an escape from his gangster life; his mother said she would rather smother her children than take them to Nevada. He saw his father being arrested and felt proud to be his son. This occurred at the time of the 1967 Newark riots.

A.J. overhears his parents talking about Tony's psychiatrist and innocently tells his grandmother, who assumes that Tony is discussing her with the psychiatrist. She is poised to pass on this information to Junior but Tony happens to walk in before she can do so.

First appearances

  • Johnny Soprano: Tony's deceased father who appears in flashbacks to his childhood. He was the long-time capo of the original Soprano crew (which later became known as the Gualtieri crew) until his death from emphysema in 1986.
  • Janice Soprano: Tony's older sister who appears as a child in flashbacks.
  • Barbara Soprano: Tony's younger sister who appears as an infant in flashbacks.

Title reference

  • "Down Neck" refers to the Ironbound section of Newark, New Jersey where Tony grew up.
  • Tony pretends he is going to squirt whipped cream down the back of A.J.'s T-shirt.

Cultural references

References to past episodes

  • When Carmela mentions Meadow's suspicions on Tony's true occupation, flashbacks from "College" appear briefly which includes Meadow asking him if he's in the Mafia and Tony killing Febby.

Music

Filming locations

Listed in order of first appearance:[2]

Reception

Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club retrospectively praised "Down Neck" as "an unusually focused episode. It rarely deviates from its central thesis about fathers and mothers and their sons." She considered the flashbacks to be "nicely constructed and handily paralleled with Tony's fears that his kids will find out what he does for a living."[3] Alan Sepinwall praised Gandolfini's acting and also stated, in reference to the scene where AJ tells Livia of Tony's therapy sessions, that the episode's two plots "make a great comic combination because AJ is so oblivious [...] that he not only doesn't realize what he's telling Livia, but is invulnerable to her usual emotional manipulations. Once Livia decides that Tony goes to a psychiatrist to complain about her, she starts up the waterworks and loud self-pity, and AJ couldn't possibly be less interested in, or even aware of, this display. It's priceless."[4]

See also

  • Host desecration, with regard to A.J.'s theft and misuse of the sacramental wine
  • Michael B. Jordan, this future star appears here in one of his earliest roles playing one of the Rideland kids who chases young Tony Soprano.
  • Tim Williams, this future TV pitchman for the Trivago hotel website also appears here in one of his earliest roles as Mr. Meskimmin
  • Lorraine Senna Ferrara, who directed this episode, is the only woman to have ever directed one of the "Sopranos" 86 episodes.[1]

References

  1. Wallace, Marc. "The Sopranos (TV Series) Down Neck (1999) Trivia". IMDB.com, Inc. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
  2. Ugoku. "The Sopranos location guide - Filming locations for". www.sopranos-locations.com. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
  3. VanDerWerff, Emily (June 23, 2010). "The Sopranos: "Pax Soprana"/"Down Neck"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved April 17, 2017.
  4. Sepinwall, Alan (July 15, 2015). "'The Sopranos' Rewind: Season 1, Episode 7: 'Down Neck'". Uproxx. Retrieved April 17, 2017.
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