The least-liked episode of The Sopranos, as voted by IMDb users, is “Christopher,” an unfortunately clumsy episode about Columbus Day from an otherwise great show. That’s not the episode creator David Chase regrets the most, though; neither is “Calling All Cars,” “Mergers and Acquisitions,” “Pie-o-My,” or “Watching Too Much Television,” all of which rank in IMDb’s bottom-five.
When asked by the New York Times if there’s any episode of the HBO series he could do over, Chase replied, “The show when they went to Italy. That really wasn’t our element. We really didn’t know what we were talking about, so I didn’t like it as much.” He also gave a fantastic answer about the much-maligned “Christopher”: “I don’t regret it, because I had so much vitriol piled up inside me that I didn’t care whether people liked it or not. I know everybody hates it. [Laughs].” Chase’s joy in making so many people angry brings me joy.
This Thursday, January 10, is the 20th anniversary of The Sopranos premiere, and while Chase doesn’t like getting nostalgic (“It’s a cheap thing”), he especially doesn’t like fielding questions about the series finale. “I’ve got to say I’m just bored with it,” he said about the whole “is Tony dead” debate. “I also feel like, Jesus, there were 86 episodes and you’re fixated on that Can’t we talk about something else” He’s right: let’s talk about Ginny Sack’s mole.