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]

Starring[]

• James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
• Lorraine Bracco as Dr. Jennifer Melfi
• Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano
• Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti
• Dominic Chianese as Corrado Soprano, Jr.
• Vincent Pastore as Pussy Bonpensiero
• Steven Van Zandt as Silvio Dante
• Tony Sirico as Paulie Gualtieri *
• Robert Iler as Anthony Soprano, Jr.
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano
• Nancy Marchand as Livia Soprano

* = credit only

Guest starring[]

• Joseph Siravo as Johnny Boy Soprano
• Laila Robbins as Young Livia Soprano
• Rocco Sisto as Young Junior Soprano
• David Beach as Dr. Peter Galani

Also guest starring[]

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[]

• While being tested for ADD, A.J. mentions the animated series South Park. He specifically mentions the first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe."
• Dr. Melfi slightly misquotes George Santayana's words: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
• With Melfi, Tony mentions the murderers Leopold and Loeb.

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[]

• The song played on the television during Tony's flashback to 1967 was a live performance of "I've Been Lonely Too Long" by The Rascals on The Ed Sullivan Show. During the scene, Tony's mother implies her husband was arrested because he's Italian. "They're always picking on Italians," she says. The irony in the scene is, three of the four members of the Rascals—Dino Danelli, Felix Cavaliere, and Eddie Brigati—were Italian Americans.
• The song played while Tony takes his Prozac and remembers his childhood is "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. It is also played when he makes ice-cream sundaes with A.J. and into the end credits.
• The song played when young Tony misses the bus and sees Johnny and Junior beating up a man is "Don't Bring Me Down" by The Animals.
• The song played when young Tony plays catch with Junior while Janice leaves with Johnny for the carnival is "Carrie Anne" by The Hollies.
• The song played when young Tony hides in the trunk of Johnny's car and follows him and Janice to the carnival is "Mystic Eyes" by Them.
• The song played when young Tony sees Junior, Johnny and friends arrested at the carnival is "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II.

Filming locations[]

Listed in order of first appearance:^[2]

• Long Island City, Queens
• Newark, New Jersey
• West Caldwell, New Jersey
• Satin Dolls in Lodi, New Jersey
• West Orange, New Jersey
• Below the Pulaski Skyway in Jersey City, New Jersey
• Staten Island

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[]

External links[]

• "Jules, Janick. "The Pear in History, Literature, Popular Culture and Art."
• "The Killers in a Nutshell"

External links[]

• "Down Neck" at HBO
• "Down Neck" at IMDb