about Johnny Boy

now i know Johnny boy took the same road in life as Tony did but was it ever really clear who he worked for?
i mean from the looks of things he was either a solider or a captain but i think he was a captain.
i don't think the Bosses ever exactly went collecting by themselves,they just sent their people which is why i think Johnny worked for somebody.


any thoughts on this 1?

By the eighties both Johnny Boy and Junior were captains in the DiMeo Family, though perhaps not during the flashback segments.

hmm...
so Johnny was still a soldier during the flashbacks?

In the Sopranos Universe Tony was born around 1960. Those flashbacks took place in the late sixties or so. I think that Johnny Boy was still more or less a working stiff during Tony's early childhood. He and Junior were very active on the street. So that means associate or soldier. I don't have the expanded Sopranos book at hand right now to look it up, though...

well yeah...
i mean the show had alot of lose ends which i would've loved to know about ,i guess this was 1 of them

It'd make sense if there were some inconsistencies and self-contradicting inaccuracies in the show, especially with regard to flashbacks. As the series developed, it became a lot more focused - as a result of having spent time with these characters - with present day matters. The 'Sopranos' become more real and fleshed out, and the NY-NJ rift becomes central to the narrative. As a result, a few of the expository or explanatory histories and backgrounds given by the writers early on aren't explored further, or are otherwise dropped.

The most obvious case is that the Soprano family is actually the DiMeo family; we never see DiMeo because he's been serving a life sentence for however many years. But given Tony's relationship with Junior even after the latter is incarcerated, and given the type of power - however little - Johnny Sack still has whilst in jail, it's strange that nobody ever mentions this DiMeo guy or goes to visit him. It's probably best to just overlook and forgive these little fleshing-out matters in the early episodes. Especially when the later ones are so rich without them.

Couple of observations about Johnny Boy:-

Hesh Rabkin comments in Season 1 that Johnny Boy, despite being younger than Junior, was a made man first.

Tony makes the point to Melfi that Tony, at barely 40, is 10 times more successful than Junior who 'still lives in some shitty house in Bellevue.' Though Johnny Boy never attained the success that Tony achieved, I always felt there was an implication that Johnny Boy's crew was:

a. involved in more profitable rackets than Junior's which Tony inherited to a certain extent and

b. Had top earners like Big Pussy and Paulie while Junior's crews always had their share of goons.

Additionally, Johnny Boy would have benefitted from the sage, if unofficial advice of Hesh Rabkin throughout his tenure. As I recall, Johnny Boy was said to be close to De Meo -- hence his ascendancy to made guy before Junior.

Moreover, as Capo de la Cosa Nostra sensibly points out it's unwise to look too hard for consistencies.

These are all great observations and questions. There are still a lot of subjects and sketchy history that could be expounded upon with another weekly series about The Sopranos. A "prequel" series that focuses on DiMeo, Junior, Johnny, Olivia, Hesh, Paulie, Big Pussy, Feech, Dickie Moltisanti, and all the old timers in the 60's, 70's & 80's. In the actual series, many references were made to the old times and often shown in flashback scenes. I have stated before that many diehard Sopranos fans would love to see a prequel series even showing a younger Tony, Jackie, Tony B., Richie, Janice, Carmella, Rosie, Ralphie, etc...IMHO, this would be another major hit for HBO.

I always figured that Johnny Boy was a popular soldier (early on, when we see him and Junior collecting and enforcing their own debts and shit) under an unspecified (i think) capo, though he later becomes a capo. He's supposed to have been a favourite of the "Old Man", later imprisoned boss Ercoli DeMeo.