Mob Experts on The Sopranos, Week 5

Jerry Capeci is author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia and Jerry Capeci's Gang Land: Fifteen Years of Covering the Mafia. His weekly column about organized crime, "Gang Land," appears in the New York Sun and at www.ganglandnews.com. Jeffrey Goldberg is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He covered organized crime for New York magazine and the New York Times Magazine. He is at work on a book about the Middle East. Gerald Shargel has represented many high-profile clients, including John Gotti. He is a practitioner in residence at Brooklyn Law School, where he also teaches. Dana Stevens, aka Liz Penn, is a Slate TV critic. She lives in New York and also writes on film and culture for the High Sign.

Who are these people?

Last year, each new episode of The Sopranos was analyzed by a group of shrinks; this year, each week two mob experts will discuss the lives and squabbles of America's favorite gangsters. Today our experts are joined by Gerald Shargel, an attorney who has represented many high-profile clients, including John Gotti.

Jerry S., Jeff. Here we go.

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Good morning, Jeff, and a special welcome to Gerald Shargel.

I'll let Jerry S. (Gerald), who often disagrees with my assessment of criminal prosecutions, speak for himself, but for Sopranos devotees unfamiliar with Jerry Shargel's bona fides, he is one of the most sought-after criminal defense lawyers in New York. Suffice to say that as an attorney whose clients have included John Gotti and other reputed members of organized crime, he brings a special perspective to our discussion.

I wonder what Jerry thought about the car scene in which the FBI agent asked Adriana for permission to place a bug in her club as part of the FBI's continuing investigation into Tony Soprano. It didn't strike me as something that FBI agents could do legally, let alone want to do: alert an informer that the FBI was going to be listening in to her every conversation.

Once again, there were a lot of plot twists and turns—maybe even too many—as we learned that Tony has cancer, Adriana has irritable bowel syndrome, and that Chris, her loving, hard-working fiance has an impacted wisdom tooth that his Mafia boss Uncle Tony was very close to curing permanently with two bullets behind the ear.

Seems to me that if Tony were thinking straight—for me, the most surprising Week 5 revelation was that Tony Soprano is a coke-snorting Generation X gangster—he would have already had his nephew/cousin disposed of by one of his underlings and buried somewhere. That way Tony wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of Chris falling off the wagon again and emptying his gun into Tony instead of his SUV. Besides, he if got Chris out of the way, the route to Adriana would be easier to navigate.

I'll leave Jeff—or you, Jerry—to discuss Carmela's decision to help Tony resolve, at least temporarily, the major crime family crisis that developed over Chris' near-execution by showing up for dinner with Tony, Chris, and Adriana at Artie's restaurant. I was happy that Tony finally got to see Dr. Melfi, professionally at least, before he cracked up completely.

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