Most unnecessary whacking?

What was the most unnecessary whacking the soprano family or the lupertazzi family orchestrated? I would have to go with Ralph ciffareto, Sure he was an asshole and probably killed the horse but he was still a great money maker

Phil Parisi. Didn't really do anything wrong and Patsy could've flipped or killed Tony because of it.

Well philly was going around bad mouthing tony while tony was trying to cement his position as boss, so i can understand that one. I agree with hisenberg that the dumbest one was ralphie, taking out your top earning capo over horse was ridiculous.

Wasn't there a guy who sold drugs to a friend or relative of Uncle Junior's tailor,and after the kid overdosed,Junior had Mikey Palmice kill the dealer on a bridge.Junior took a big risk for no good reason. It's not as if the guy did anything to the Soprano Family or Junior personally. Potentially,if Junior was linked to the hit,he would have gone away forever.

It kind of reminds me of the totally ridiculous hit on Arnold Shuster that cost Albert Anastasia his Boss spot,and ultimately his life.

Ya your talking rusty irish when micheal palmice threw him off a bridge.
Mikey tells him before does "im gonna do ya favor, when i throw you over if you can fly i wont shoot you down."

Yup,that's the one. Great sense of humor Mikey had.

Another uncessary killing by palmice and junior was donnie, the guy that was setting up the hit on tony, all the guy says is(about tony)"even the guys own mother wants him whacked." Then junior says to mikey,"i dont like it, next thing you know he'll be making jokes about me." Then miley shoots him in the head. Sounds like junior was just being insecure, very unnessary.

Dominic "Fat Dom" Gamiello, stabbed by Carlo Gervasi while Silvio held him down in retaliation for Vito Spatafore's murder.

How about Jimmy Altieri? He was killed because they thought he had flipped. Later they find out they confused him with Big Pussy, who was flipped at same time.

Jimmy did flip. True,they did confuse him with Pussy,but he was also a rat in his own right. Remember the conversation in Tony's basement where he was trying to get Tony to talk about some illegal activity?. It was obvious that he had flipped and was wearing a wire,so he would have been hit at some point anyway.

Adriana. Killing a woman was disgusting especially since she wanst involved in thier crimes

Disgusting yes,but necessary. Adriana was a rat and Tony had no way of assessing the damage she had already inflicted. Once Christopher told Tony she flipped, Tony knew that she could have really hurt the Family as a government witness.She had to go.

J.T. Nolan

he was annoying so i can see why any number of mobsters, civilians, cats, dogs, taxi drivers, police, aliens or anybody else would want to kill him, but as far as a mob hit goes it seemed pointless for chris to just turn up at his place drunk and kill him as soon as he unleashed the word "mafia" as if that automatically makes him a potential rat or something.

Ralphie CiFaretto's hit was by far the most unnecessary and moronic in the show. While Ralphie did appear to be guilty of killing Pie-O-My, he did deny it and Tony instead took upon himself to discredit him even though Ralphie was his best earner and was beginning to get his act together. I think that's why Tony had the dream about Ralphie having the caterpillar turning to a butterfly on Ralphie's head, because subconsciously he knew Ralphie was changing and he denied Ralphie that opportunity.

Jimmy Bones, the Elvis impersonator who Pussy bumps into in the party store.

Wasn't he an associate or an old friend of pussy's and he saw Pussy and the cop talking together in the store. Pussy was worried about getting caught so did what he had to do..

It was just a matter of who was going to whack Ralph, he was living on borrowed time. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did.

Gigi probably would have plotted his demise if he didn't die.
Paulie would have eventually obtained proof that Ralphie pranked his mother.
Johnny Sack might have taken matters in his own hands after Carmine Sr passed away.
He might have been a closet bi-sexual based on his sexual tendencies.
He was disrespectful to Tony. I believe the horse was the straw that broke the camel's back, after all of the problems that he caused.

Vito took over the construction site and became the top earner. So, it wasn't as if Ralphie couldn't have been replaced.

Jackie jr getting whacked was obvioulsy gonna happen because of the robbery at shootout but couldnt Tony have shipped him out of town for good before having him popped in a housing project or was it over the top what jackie did. Ralph had the final say on jackies killing correct, didnt tony put it in ralph's hands?

jackie jr robbed a card game ran by a made guy (pontecorvo), he and his buddies shot a made guy (furio) and shot at a third made guy(chris). he had to go. tony didn't really give the final say to ralphie, he was just screwing with him. tony knew jackie had to go, ralph knew jackie had to go, so tony as way to put the screws to ralph and make him feel guilty leading jackie down that path and not schooling him enough gave some nonsense about ralph makes the choice even though they both know there is only one choice to make.

Yeah but he's clearly a thicko who couldn't put two and two together if he was given a calculator.

Regarding Jackie, Jr....this was when it must suck to be in the mob.

Tony has to order the hit of a very close friend's son- Jackie Sr probably asked Tony to keep an eye on his son and watch over him. Or...Ralph has to order the hit of his girlfriend's son. Rosie was barely over grieving for her late husband.

What made it less gut wrenching for the viewers is that Jackie Jr was such a jerk in the show.

Plus he was cheating on Meadow so deserved to die just for this..

I think this is a good point. For us the viewers, Jackie Jr. was a douchebag so he got what was coming, but from a person's standpoint it must have been a super hard decision, although certainly warranted with everything he did. I think if he had JUST robbed the card game and not killed Sunshine, shot at Chris, shot Furio etc. he might have gotten a pass (and probably the shit kicked out of him by Tony) but really that guy would have caused issues sooner or later. If he wasn't whacked then, I could see him ending up like Sean and Matt and trying to curry favor with somebody else or even turn informant out of petty revenge.

Hell could you have imagined Jackie Jr. as a made guy? He probably would have flipped the second he was alone with the police.

that stripper that ralphie beat to death in the back parking lot of the bada bing.


completely unnecessary and caused a lot of headaches.


as for ralph, he had to go sooner or later. as a boss, so what if he is a top earner. how long do you let him sit there and basically do what he wants, screw everybody else over, and just be plain disrespectful and piss off nearly everybody he comes across.

ah, yes! i hadn't thought of that one. imo that was indeed the most unnecessary killing on the show

I believe Tracee's murder was important to the development of other characters in the series. I know the events below are not news to anyone, I'm just making a summary to show how Tracee's murder escalated into multiple storylines....and eventually Ralph's own murder.

Tracee was pregnant with Ralph's kid, and he wasn't going to marry her, imo. Was he going to pay child support to an unfit mother for 18 years- I doubt it. Plus, she had her child taken away from her due to burning him with cigarettes- so she also had a mean streak. As a viewer, I was anticipating something bad to happen to Tracee- which finally did. Sure, it was sad watching a young, pregnant mother get beat to death, but that was how Chase let us know the extent of Ralph being a sick, violent sociopath.

Her murder caused Tony to put his hands on Ralph in front of others, for disrespecting the Bing. This led to Ralph turning down a drink with Tony in front of everyone. At this point, Tony considers whacking Ralph, but his earning capability is a deterrent.

The Tracee murder carries over to Thanksgiving. Tony comes up with a fake alibi so he can disinvite Rosalie and Ralph. Ralph meets with Johnny Sack and stupidly says that Tony is "not leaving him with many options". So, now Tracee's murder has escalated to Ralphie kicking around the idea of whacking Tony, and vice versa. Ralph said "first of all, she was a whore", implying that a stripper's life wasn't worth much- showing us how demented Ralph was in the head.

Meanwhile, there is a cold war going on between Tony and Meadow, stemming from dad's racist view towards Noah. After realizing the similarity in age between Meadow and Tracee, Tony realizes how fragile life is and apologizes and makes up with Meadow.

Before Ralph died, the karma gods seemingly responded to Tracee's murder when his son was shot by an arrow. And Tony didn't simply kill Ralph over a horse. He killed Ralph over the events leading up to it. Ralph's whacking led to the anger of some captains towards Tony for clipping a capo, or towards the Lupertazzi's if one believed Tony's alibi.

was the kid even ralph's? Remember janice (and later melfi) tell tony that ralph can't have normal sex, he has to do that wierd shit and never technically has sex.

I always figured this meant that the kid wasn't ralph's and he was pissed that she was sleeping with someone else and trying to pawn the guy's kid off on him.

i think it could have gone either way because on one hand what you said above is true and he also says at one point that it wasn't his kid. but on the other hand there's that scene where him and a cop are spit roasting tracey therefore proving that he is somewhat capable of getting a boner and bangin away

I always hated Ralph. Was that a wig he wore on the show? I bet the producers were going to use him as the fag but vito begged for the part because he's one in real life. Janice is disgusting imagine her naked, what a fat pig,

yeah I think what..janice was banging him in the ass with a dildo or something? that does make sense now that you mention it.

I mean its not like he was going to support it anyways. in the pre-cursor convo to the beating he was telling her about getting a house together and supporting the kid and getting her hopes up then he comes back with "what are you fuckin stupid?"


Really, if it wasn't tracee it eventually would have been something else. I had the impression from the start that tony just straight up didn't like ralphie to begin with. he could have just been looking for an excuse.

The boy had to be Ralph's. There's no way he would have paid child support and helped raise the kid otherwise.

And yes, that was a wig. Silvio wore one, too- a bad one.

This is for TheIsland. You're welcome. NSFW-Janice

Not an unnecessary whacking, probably long over due in a way, but I hated the way they killed chris. I thought the car crash thing was really stupid. It also seemed lazy to have adrianna and chris get into car accidents with tony.

I always felt that chris the series version of watching a guy rise through the ranks. Different guys represented mob guys at different points in their career. You had tony the boss, junior the old timer, paulie and silvio the veterans and chris the young guy who goes through the mob life cycle in the show from associate to de facto underboss at one point. I thought he should have gotten killed off in a more traditional way than he did. The car crash-smothering just seemed stupid.

I agree, i always get annoyed at Chris's death..

yeah i'm in agreement here too, chris's death is a sore spot for me every time i watch through the series and instead of getting better it actually gets a bit worse each time. i might skip that episode on future watches because it really gets on my nerves

Tony was a sociopath and like sociopaths he was fond of animals that were obedient. Ralph was his top earner and let a lot of his antics slide, but killing Tonys pet was the breaking point. His death was redundant, but not seeing something happen to Ralphie in that episode would've been boring for the viewers.

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! JANICE!!!

Was Chris supposed to kill the kolar kid in the pilot? They're having issues with the czech garbage men stealing stops on one of their routes and tony gives chris permission to take care of it after chrs asks but after he does it pussy and later tony make comments as though chris went overboard and wasn't supposed to kill him

my understanding was that the meeting wasn't even supposed to take place at all and nobody knew about it besides chris and kolar.

chris (without authorisation) invited kolar to the meeting with the intention of killing him (the gun was already planted there) thinking he'd get some sort of praise or reward.

obviously tony didn't think the fued was at the point of violence yet but instead thought there was still talking to be done. or at the very least wanted to have the violence controlled by himself rather than chris just taking it upon himself to commit a murder (of presumably the kolar family member with the least juice, since he was young and was clearly under the direction of his uncles).

Rusty Milio.

I mean insted, Phil should whack Carmine ''Brainless The Second'' Lupertazzi Jr., Milio was too cool to whack

milio was the driving force behind carmine's campaign and like they said he'd just find another puppet to control and use to stage another power grab.

imo while milio was indeed pretty cool he most definately had to get clipped

I think rusty was about sending a message because it happened after carmine and johnny had reached a truce. They reached a truce at the end of season 5 and rusty got whacked after johnny's daughter's wedding in season 6.

It was johnny sending a message that he knew rusty was behind carmin'e move and he wasn't going to stand for that kind of mischief in his family. Also because rusty made a move once through carmine he had proved to be a threat to the thrown as long as he was alive.

Probably the Ukranian, who the Italians mistook for Phil, and his daughter haha

yeah, but Milio was a smart man, and was probably a good earner for the family, Phil should've take Milio to his side, plus, he would be stronger against The Soprano Crew while he also had Milio calmed down and on his side, Jeez i'm a fuckin' genius ain't I ?

What about the russian in the Pine Barrens episode? (If he was killed.)

Also, people seem to forget about the annoying way Ralphie said the word whore.(hoo-er) He deserved to be killed just for that.
And don't forget about how he ratted on Neo and Morpheus. He got Apac killed.

"And yes, that was a wig. Silvio wore one, too- a bad one."

Tony's wig was pretty awful too.

I don't think Gigi Cestone should have gone out on the crapper. Reality would be that some of these guys could have been locked up rather than killed of.

Ya i agree, that was a pretty shitty way to kill off a good character

Most unnecessary killing---Tracee.
Most unnecessary whacking----Adriana,without a doubt.What information of value did Adriana actually have ? When Tony asks Christopher if she told them about Ralphie,he acts almost as if she was there,helping with the dismemberment.It's clear when the Feds ask her about Ralphie,shortly after he disappeared,she's genuinely clueless to his whereabouts,as she is to the truth about her uncle Richie and Big Pussy.There has long been an ironclad rule in Cosa Nostra----the men don't involve any woman in their lives in their activities,nor do they divulge anything but peripheral details,at best with regard to ANY Cosa Nostra business.While there have been a few violators of this rule,they are far and few in-between,as this is definitely a "whackable" offense.This rule is in place to protect the women from the very thing that happened to Adriana,as well as(as ALWAYS),the organization itself.Imagine if the women were more involved,how many times they would've been targeted by investigators.The reason why they aren't---in real life----is because it's well known that they won't get anything of value out of them.

As unrealistic as that whole storyline was----no worse example than SAC Cubitoso screaming at Adriana :"you've been giving us s__t...I want you wired up"---SERIOUSLY ??? What were any of the guys they were targeting gonna say to,or even AROUND Adriana ???? ---at least the FBI was shown as being just as scummy and ruthless as any of the Mob guys on their best day,when it came to getting what they wanted.I loved it in the beginning,when Adriana hurled all over them !!!!

Sorry about the rant,and back to my original point----killing Adriana was a ridiculous over-reaction and totally uncalled for.She couldn't of hurt anyone in the organization on her best day.If the Feds would've tried to make a case on her information,they would've been laughed right out of any court !!!!

Lorraine Calluzzo, it was a internal war within the Lupertazzi family, but still. At least Phil, Billy, and joey peeps all are killed during the course of the show.

Ralph was changing, people were beginning to like him, both the mobster's and their wives. People felt for him when his son died and after that he was never the same prick Ralph. This was alluded to during Tony's dream in which Ralph is in the front seat with the catepillar on his head. The catepillar turns into a butterfly, is the saying, and Ralph was blossoming into something other than what he'd been in the past. David Chase also said this after the show ended.


In that sense, I don't think he was living on borrowed time, he made his mistakes in past and people acknowledged and moved past it. Once he started becoming likable his relationships with other guys in the family began to change. His soldiers became super loyal to him because of this as well.


Adriana getting bumped off wasn't "unnecessary" at all. She knew too much, she was privy to a lot of information regarding the criminal workings and hierarchy of the family. She brought an agent into Tony's home and immediate presence, she brought her to dinners, and other gatherings, which as we know from real life occurrences is punishable by death in itself. She also implicated them in a murder when they brought her in the office and asked her about a guy who disappeared and she told them she'd last seen this person with Tony, Chris & Co. and when she went to go snoop around, they had him tied down or something. At the end of the day, she was an informant, woman or not, she knew the rules and she broke them, she was a risk to a lot of people and she had to go.

Danny Greene...caused the entire downfall of a mafia dynasty in Midwest powerhouse in Cleveland.

Jimmy Altieri.

He was a rat

yeah i don't understand that either, he was a rat and he got killed, that's about as necessary as it gets lol

Haha I know. I think some people think that since the rat was Big Puss, Jimmy Altieri was innocent. But really both of them were rats.

Respectfully disagree that Ralph didn't deserve to go. And there are two points from your post to correct. First, Ralphie was not well-liked, neither by the wiseguys or their women. Granted he was treated more sympathetically after his son's accident, but that was it. And there did seem to be some change in him after the accident, but not everyone was buying it. The second correction is that Ralph's son did not die - he was in a coma from the bow & arrow accident.

Did Ralph need to die when he Tony killed him? No. But with Ralph, it was a long accumulation of things that could easily justify him getting whacked: 1) the Ginny Sack insult, 2) killing Tracey in the Bing parking lot, 3) hitting the bouncer with a chain in front of the entire Soprano crew, 4) his overall general demeanor towards others, and 5) his inability to keep Jackie Jr. out of trouble. Ralph was a complete prick to Rosalie, Janice, and every other woman he was with. In "No Show," he even said that part of the reason for dating Janice was to get a better relationship with Tony.

Ralph's "who cares" attitude about Pie-0-Mie's death was the last straw with Tony. Paulie, Sil, Christopher, and many others viewed Ralph as a loose cannon and untrustworthy. Contrast their feelings about Ralph against the strong feelings about Big Pussy. I think an argument could be made that Ralph was only kept alive for as long as he was due to his money making skills. All his other b.s. was overlooked because he was a good earner.

I thought it was strange when the waiter was clipped (by Paulie and Chris) after complaining about being stiffed on his tip after serving a large table.

Generally speaking, don't wise guys tip well? Or was it realistic to leave a minuscule tip, like Chris did?

The stripper that Ralph beat to death was certainly the most unnecessary killing...and guys, it was a series, nothing more than make believe. Email David Chase to ask him the why questions...is the series worth analyzing when we will NEVER get answers?

The whole point of Chris being cheap with the tip was his rebelling against Paulie. At various points in the episode, Paulie was relishing sticking Chris with the bill with expensive orders. Chris's anger wasn't with the waiter, but with Paulie. Then the waiter made the mistake of confronting Chris about the ridiculously small tip, which was right after Chris got into it with Paulie about forking over $1,000 for dinner. The waiter was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.