Every 'The Sopranos' Season 5 Episode, Ranked

Image via HBO Published Sep 5, 2026, 9:40 AM EDT Jeremy has more than 2800 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows. His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings). When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account. He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas. Sign in to your Collider account Technically, The Sopranos is a crime/drama series, yet that’s underselling it to just call it that and leave things there. It’s one of the funniest shows of all time, even without being a sitcom or comedy in the traditional sense, and then beyond being about the mob, it’s also excellent as a family drama and maybe something of a psychological drama, the latter genre being supported by the fact that therapy plays such a huge role throughout the show’s six seasons. Tony’s the protagonist, and he has to balance being a mobster, father, and a patient all at once. That’s the show. And then all the side characters obviously have their own stuff going on, too. It’s a largely flawless show, give or take an episode here and there that misses the mark, with its penultimate season being quite strong overall. Said season’s the focus here, with all episodes from the fifth season of The Sopranos ranked, starting with the fairly good (if a bit flawed) and ending with some all-time great hours of television. 13 "In Camelot" (Episode 7) Image via HBO Steve Buscemi was in season 5 of The Sopranos as Tony’s out-of-nowhere cousin, Tony Blundetto, and he also worked on the show as a director, helming “Pine Barrens…” which, yes, is a good deal better – and more iconic – than “In Camelot,” which Buscemi also helmed. He directed this one during the season where he did the most in front of the camera, and it’s, uh, not quite as well-liked as “Pine Barrens,” to say the least. Junior’s storyline in this episode fares a bit better than Tony’s, as it’s effective dark comedy to see him trying to get to every single funeral he can, as a way to escape house arrest. Much of “In Camelot” concerns Tony confronting certain truths about his father when he meets one of his old mistresses, who does end up being at the center of one of the show’s most uncomfortable scenes. Junior’s storyline in this episode fares a bit better than Tony’s, as it’s effective dark comedy to see him trying to get to every single funeral he can, as a way to escape house arrest. And some of the conflict between Tony and Phil – consistent throughout the final two seasons – here is good, with them getting into a brief (and kind of amusing) car chase of sorts. You have to appreciate the highlights when you can. 12 "Sentimental Education" (Episode 6) Image via HBO Speaking of Steve Buscemi, he has quite a lot to do here, in “Sentimental Education.” The fifth season does a little bit of time-killing with its sixth episode, since it feels like it explores some fairly familiar things. A.J. is having problems at school, like in so many other episodes from earlier seasons, and Tony B is being slowly disillusioned with his life out of prison, and outside the criminal world. As such, he spends this episode gradually inching back toward the kind of lifestyle that’ll ultimately put him in hot water once more. It’s an episode followed by “In Camelot,” which is a bit of a slump for season 5, but the back half of the season’s incredibly strong, and there are some slightly better episodes in the first half of the season, too. Nothing about “Sentimental Education” is terrible, at least. It’s fine, but just spins the wheels a bit, so to speak. 11 "Rat Pack" (Episode 2) Image via HBO “Rat Pack” gets its name because there’s a particular focus here on various informants, or “rats.” Adriana is the central one, as she’s continually put under massive stress by the FBI (which started before season 5), while another, Jack Massarone, ironically gives Tony a painting of the Rat Pack during this episode. Jack ends up dead, like so many other informants, while another, Ray Curto, does live to inform another day (and is one of the only informants in the show, actually, who doesn’t have a confirmed death). And then “Rat Pack” is also significant for having Tony B and Phil Leotardo make their first proper appearances, after they were said to be released from prison – and photos were seen of them – in the first episode of season 5, “Two Tonys.” 10 "All Happy Families" (Episode 4) Image via HBO Frankie Valli, of The Four Seasons fame, shows up for the first time in “All Happy Families,” but not as himself. He plays Rusty Millio, who’s not too much more than a minor character, but the inclusion of Frankie Valli at all is kind of funny and contradictory, given episodes of The Sopranos have been named after songs by The Four Seasons. It’s a bit like how Bruce Springsteen sometimes gets referenced, even though a member of the E Street Band, Steven Van Zandt, regularly appears as Silvio. Speaking of guest stars, David Strathairn appears for the first time here, as a guidance counselor for A.J., with whom Carmela has a brief affair of sorts. Alongside the introductions, “All Happy Families…” also feels like a transitional episode by tidying up some of the clutter introduced in the earlier episodes of season 5. Sorry, Lorraine and Jason, but you were two characters too many, of all those introduced when various people get released from prison early in the season. After “All Happy Families,” their presence is not really missed, and neither is Feech’s, honestly, who’s not killed off here, but he is sent back to prison and never seen in the show again. 9 "Unidentified Black Males" (Episode 9) Image via HBO There’s certainly narrative progress made in season 5’s eighth episode, mostly between Tony and Carmela, which suggests they're going to get back together eventually, but some minor conflict does flare up again in “Unidentified Black Males” (which is the ninth episode). It works, for the most part, because the road to them splitting up was rocky, rather realistically done, and not linear, and so it’s logical that them getting those feelings back is also an odd and all-over-the-place sort of emotional journey. The mob drama in this episode more concerns the fallout of some of the chaos and murders from earlier in season 5, as partly seen in the previously-mentioned “All Happy Families,” and that proves to be more compelling than some of that chaos and death was in the moment. There’s also an engaging way that “Unidentified Black Males” delves into some of Tony’s past without falling back too hard on flashbacks, which The Sopranos had done to slightly mixed results a few times earlier in its run. 8 "Two Tonys" (Episode 1) Image via HBO It has to be stressed that “Whitecaps,” as a finale for season 4, is phenomenal. It’s phenomenal enough that any exploration of the fallout was destined to be compelling, so that’s what you get with “Two Tonys,” obviously, since it kicks off season 5. But it does go a bit beyond just serving as an aftermath to Tony and Carmela calling things off, because season 5 is crowded with new characters, and this season opener has restraint in not introducing them all straight away. As mentioned before, you only see photos of Tony B and Phil Leotardo, while some other supporting characters do appear in the flesh (like Feech, though he’s not really important for very long), but in the end, “Two Tonys” works best when it’s focused on Tony and Carmela. The family drama here is well and truly as compelling as all the mob-related drama usually is, and for better or worse, it’s also quite hard to forget how uncomfortably desperate Tony is for connection here, in terms of what he’s willing to tell Dr. Melfi. When Tony is talking about skin, you best believe yours will be crawling. 7 "Cold Cuts" (Episode 10) Image via HBO There’s a scene in season 3’s “Proshai, Livushka” that stands out because of technical limitations, and then two seasons later, in “Cold Cuts,” there’s another almost just as confounding creative choice made with a scene transition. It’s a tiny part of the episode, but it is hard to process and understand. And saying a part of The Sopranos is hard to understand is dramatic, when you consider all the bizarre dream sequences, but you do kind of feel them, or at least feel like maybe you could understand them, or that they're bizarre in intentional ways. That’s not really the case with the infamous “Cold Cuts” scene transition. Other than that, this episode’s really good. Nothing amazing by the standards of the show, but with the show’s high standards, a comparatively mid-tier episode of The Sopranos is still going to be excellent overall. Christopher and Adriana have some good scenes here, the rocky road to recovery for Tony and Carmela’s marriage is still compelling, and then the conflict between Tony and Janice also stands out. 6 "Where's Johnny?" (Episode 3) Image via HBO An equally appropriate title for “Where’s Johnny?” could be called “Where’s Carmela?,” because it’s the only episode of The Sopranos that Edie Falco is completely absent from. It’s this episode that makes the show one where only a single character appears in every episode. There are other actors beyond James Gandolfini credited with appearing in all the episodes, sure, but some of those are “credit only,” like for Falco in this one episode. “Good old” Feech has a bit to do in this episode, as do all the other (perhaps too many) characters released from jail at the start of season 5. Junior’s role in this episode makes for the most compelling part of “Where’s Johnny,” though, as his dementia’s worsening considerably at this point in the series. It’s sad to see him hollowed out in this way, even with him not being a great guy… more great “sympathy for the devil” stuff, in line with so many other episodes of the show. The “Don't you love me?” scene between Tony and Junior is particularly memorable, with Gandolfini and Dominic Chianese both knocking it out of the park. No, actually, they go above and beyond their usual standards, which is saying a lot, when they're always delivering phenomenal performances and all. 5 "Marco Polo" (Episode 8) Image via HBO The best way to summarize “Marco Polo” is that it’s the episode where the split between Tony and Carmela starts to show signs of mending, with a peace of sorts being made there, but then on the other (crime-related) side of the show, things escalate and the threat of conflict increases. There is a lot of positive progress being made on one front, and then some troubling things happening on the show’s other main front. That war threatening to break out happens because Tony B whacks someone affiliated with Phil, and it is part of an ongoing conflict throughout season 5 that is a bit convoluted, but it was a bad move on Tony B’s part, to put it mildly. Things are extra chaotic for the rest of the season, with all of that escalating, so “Marco Polo” makes for compelling drama on that front. Then, at the same time, the scenes with Tony and Carmela starting to reconcile (even if it takes a few more episodes for further progress to be made) are also great. 4 "Irregular Around the Margins" (Episode 5) Image via HBO Putting “Irregular Around the Margins” this far from the top might irk some people. Still, make no mistake: “Irregular Around the Margins” is great. It is in the upper echelon of episodes of The Sopranos, but this might well be the greatest show ever being talked about, and so if this episode is, in the eyes of one person, a little less great than some of the greatest hours… sorry. The acting here is justifiably praised, as Drea de Matteo (Adriana) and Michael Imperioli (Christopher) both won Emmys specifically for this episode. “Irregular Around the Margins” asks a lot of them, since most of the episode revolves around gossip about Tony and Adriana possibly having an affair spiraling out of control, with almost disastrous consequences. It sort of does for Adriana and Christopher what season 4’s “Whitecaps” did for Carmela and Tony, but even then, it doesn’t go as far, and it’s not quite as well-written or acted.