College (The Sopranos)

5th episode of the 1st season of The Sopranos

"College"

The Sopranos episode

Meadow Soprano asks Tony if he is in the Mafia

Episode no.| Season 1
Episode 5
Directed by| Allen Coulter
Written by|

* James Manos Jr.
* David Chase

Cinematography by| Alik Sakharov
Production code| 105
Original air date| February 7, 1999 (1999-02-07)
Running time| 56 minutes
Episode chronology
| ← Previous
"Meadowlands"  | Next →
"Pax Soprana"

|

The Sopranos season 1
List of episodes

"College" is the fifth episode of the first season of the HBO television drama series The Sopranos, and originally aired on February 7, 1999. It was written by co-producer James Manos Jr. and series creator and executive producer David Chase. The episode was directed by Allen Coulter. The episode was ranked second on TV Guide's list of "100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time", published in 2009.[1]

## Cast

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* 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 cast

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* Paul Schulze as Father Phil
* Tony Ray Rossi[2] as Fabian "Febby" Petrulio, aka Fred Peters
* Oksana Lada as Irina Peltsin
* Lisa Arning as Peters' Wife
* Ross Gibby as Bartender
* Mark Kamine as Admissions Dean
* Michael Manetta as Gas Station Attendant
* Keith Nobbs as Bowdoin Student
* Luke Reilly as Lon Le Doyene
* Sarah Thompson as Lucinda
* Olivia Brynn Zaro as Peters' Daughter

## Synopsis

[edit]

Tony takes Meadow on a trip to Maine to visit three colleges she is considering. During the drive, Tony is taken aback when she asks if he is "in the Mafia", and denies it. When Meadow is skeptical, he admits that some of his income is from illegal gambling and other activities. Meadow admits that she took methamphetamine to study for her SATs but, when Tony reacts angrily, will not say where she got it. Both seem relieved by this mutual honesty on difficult topics.

At a gas station, Tony thinks he spots Fabian "Febby" Petrulio, a former member of the DiMeo family who entered witness protection after turning state's evidence. Tony contacts Christopher to run the plate number from his car and finds that he now goes by the alias "Fred Peters". Tony resolves to locate and execute Febby while continuing his trip with Meadow. He leaves her with some students she has met and confirms Febby's identity when, in the office of his travel business, he sees a carved bust: creating them was Febby's hobby. Febby feels someone is watching him, and finds the motel where Tony and Meadow are staying. He points a handgun at Tony, who suspects nothing; the presence of two other guests prevents him from taking the shot. The next morning, Tony drops off Meadow for a college interview. He finds Febby at his office and garrotes him. Later, during a drive to another college, Meadow asks Tony about the mud on his shoes and the cut on his hand. But she senses that he is not answering honestly, and asks no further questions.

Carmela with Father Phil Intintola

While Tony and Meadow are away, A.J. is sleeping over at a friend's house. Father Phil Intintola, the Soprano family's priest, visits the house to enjoy Carmela's cooking and wine. Dr. Melfi phones to reschedule Tony's appointment; Carmela, discovering that Tony's therapist is a woman, assumes that he is sleeping with her.

During confession, Carmela tells Father Phil about her fears for her family and for her own soul, and he administers communion. She sips the wine, but he drains the cup, and they fall asleep together on the sofa. Half waking, they are about to kiss, but Father Phil suddenly desists and walks swaying to the bathroom, where he retches. He spends the rest of the night alone. In the morning, Carmela firmly says, "We didn't do anything." Tony and Meadow return that day. Carmela tells Tony that Father Phil stayed the night. She counters his sarcastic comments by telling him that Melfi called.

## Deceased

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* Fabian "Febby" Petrulio: garroted by Tony Soprano while on Tony's college trip with his daughter, Meadow, for being an FBI informant.

## Title reference

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* The title refers to the fact that the entire episode revolves around Tony taking Meadow on a tour of colleges in Maine.
* Throughout the series, "college" is routinely used as slang for incarceration: Fabian "Febby" Petrulio's testimony resulted in the incarceration of several Soprano family associates.
* The title connects this episode to Season 3 Episode 6, "University". Both episodes heavily feature young female characters and their relationships to Tony. In "College," Tony attempts to protect his actual daughter Meadow from the truth about his profession. In "University," Tony refuses to befriend Bada Bing! employee Tracee and fails to protect her from being killed by Ralph Cifaretto.

## Production

[edit]

* Series creator David Chase has stated that when HBO first read the script, they objected to Tony's murder of Febby. Executives said that Chase had done so well in building Tony up as a sympathetic character that they believed if Tony committed such a cold-blooded killing, fans would turn on him and the show would lose its protagonist. Chase said that he believed fans would turn on Tony if the character didn't commit murder because the omission would make him appear weak.[3] Eventually, Chase won the decision and the episode has become a fan favorite.
* Chase named this as his favorite episode because of its self-contained nature.[4]
* Although not credited as a writer on the episode, it was writer and producer Frank Renzulli who hatched the idea that Tony would spot and kill a Mob rat who is in witness protection (Febby Petrulio).[5]
* The college locations and the Maine scenes in "College" were actually filmed in rural New Jersey. The college exteriors are located at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.[6]
* This is the first episode where Father Phil is played by Paul Schulze. He was originally portrayed by Michael Santoro in the pilot.

## Reception

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The episode was rated as the best of the series by publications such as Time magazine and Entertainment Weekly.[7][8] It was ranked second overall on TV Guide's list of "Top 100 Episodes of All Time".[9]

Emily St. James retrospectively wrote that "the genius of the episode is that the storyline blends almost every aspect of the show's world so completely that it feels like a natural thing we're watching, not really a story being told." St. James also praised the cinematography, which included cross-cutting and point-of-view shots, as "very effective at putting us in the headspace of both Febby and Tony as they slowly stalk each other", and lauded the episode as "a strangely funny, incredibly tense meditation on what it means to choose the easy path every single time."[10]

Alan Sepinwall praised Chase's use of "only two stories so he could let them both play out in exhaustive, powerful detail", and wrote that the shot of Tony "staring wistfully up at a group of flying ducks, again standing in for the feelings of family and peace that seem to remain forever beyond his grasp – is ... stunning."[11]

## Other cultural references

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* When Tony asks if Meadow's friends think he is cool because of having seen The Godfather, she replies that most people she knew were bigger fans of Casino and begins discussing Sharon Stone's performance in the film before being cut off.
* The carved bust in Petrulio's office is of Ronald Reagan.
* Father Phil tells Carmela at some point: "If you take everything Jesus has ever said, added up, it only amounts to two hours of talk" to which Carmela replies "I heard the same thing about the Beatles except it was if you add up all their songs it only comes to ten hours".
* Father Phil and Carmela discuss Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ, and specifically Willem Dafoe's performance as Jesus. Father Phil mentions that Robert De Niro was originally supposed to play the part, to which Carmela replies that it would have been a "completely different film".
* Carmela and Father Phil watch The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. In the movie, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, two characters come close to acting on a mutual, yet repressed, attraction, but ultimately decide it is too late for them to do so. Hopkins' character has a profession incompatible with marriage and Thompson's character is married to another man.[12]
* While Tony waits for Meadow to finish her meeting at Bowdoin College, he observes a quotation attributed to Nathaniel Hawthorne displayed in the lobby: "No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true". This quotation appears in The Scarlet Letter.[13] Tony appears to contemplate the quotation for a moment before a student walking by informs him that Hawthorne is Bowdoin's "most famous alumnus".

## Music

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* The song played when Christopher plays pool in the back room of the Bada Bing when Tony calls him the first time is "Eye on You" by Rocket from the Crypt.
* The song played when Tony and Meadow have dinner and discuss how Tony came to be involved in the mob and during the end credits is "Gold Leaves" by Michael Hoppé.
* The song played when Tony leaves Meadow with two girls from Colby College is "Maine Two-Step" by The Basin Brothers.
* The song playing in the bar when Fabian enters to ask whether anyone has been asking about him is "Cadence to Arms", a version of "Scotland the Brave" by the Dropkick Murphys.

## Filming locations

[edit]

In order of first appearance:[14]

* Drew University in Madison, New Jersey
* Orangetown, New York
* Oakland, New Jersey
* Long Island City, Queens
* Reformed Church of Tappan in Tappan, New York
* Rutherford, New Jersey
* North Caldwell, New Jersey

## Awards

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James Manos Jr. and David Chase won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for their work on this episode. Edie Falco received her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination and win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as Carmela in this episode.

## References

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1. ^ TV Guide's Top 100 Episodes of All Time (2009) - IMDb, archived from the original on November 30, 2022, retrieved November 30, 2022
2. ^ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0744336/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t50 Archived April 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine [user-generated source]
3. ^ The Sopranos: The Complete First Season: DVD interview
4. ^ DVD commentary from episode 13 of season 4, Whitecaps
5. ^ "What it was really like to write for 'The Sopranos': Exclusive book excerpt". EW.com. Retrieved January 22, 2025.
6. ^ Martin, Brett (October 30, 2007). "Welcome to New Jersey: A Sense of Place". The Sopranos: The Complete Book. New York: Time. p. 32\. ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4.
7. ^ Time: The Best of the Sopranos
8. ^ Jensen, Jeff. "The Hit Parade - 1. COLLEGE (Season 1)". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on April 30, 2008.
9. ^ "100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time" TV Guide; June 15, 2009; Pages 34-49
10. ^ St. James, Emily (June 16, 2010). "The Sopranos: "Meadowlands"/"College"". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on April 18, 2017. Retrieved April 16, 2017.
11. ^ Sepinwall, Alan (July 1, 2015). "'The Sopranos' Rewind: Season 1, Episode 5: 'College'". Uproxx. Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved April 16, 2017.
12. ^ Ishiguro, Kazuo (1993). The remains of the day. Vintage international (7. pr. ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-73172-6.
13. ^ Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1994). The scarlet letter. Dover thrift editions. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-28048-6.
14. ^ Ugoku. "The Sopranos location guide - Filming locations for". www.sopranos-locations.com. Archived from the original on January 13, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2020.

## External links

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* "College" Archived August 18, 2016, at the Wayback Machine at HBO
* "College" at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

The Sopranos

Episodes|

| Season 1|

* "The Sopranos"
* "46 Long"
* "Denial, Anger, Acceptance"
* "Meadowlands"
* "College"
* "Pax Soprana"
* "Down Neck"
* "The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti"
* "Boca"
* "A Hit Is a Hit"
* "Nobody Knows Anything"
* "Isabella"
* "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano"

|

Season 2|

* "Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist's Office..."
* "Do Not Resuscitate"
* "Toodle-Fucking-Oo"
* "Commendatori"
* "Big Girls Don't Cry"
* "The Happy Wanderer"
* "D-Girl"
* "Full Leather Jacket"
* "From Where to Eternity"
* "Bust Out"
* "House Arrest"
* "The Knight in White Satin Armor"
* "Funhouse"

Season 3|

* "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood"
* "Proshai, Livushka"
* "Fortunate Son"
* "Employee of the Month"
* "Another Toothpick"
* "University"
* "Second Opinion"
* "He Is Risen"
* "The Telltale Moozadell"
* "To Save Us All from Satan's Power"
* "Pine Barrens"
* "Amour Fou"
* "Army of One"

Season 4|

* "For All Debts Public and Private"
* "No Show"
* "Christopher"
* "The Weight"
* "Pie-O-My"
* "Everybody Hurts"
* "Watching Too Much Television"
* "Mergers and Acquisitions"
* "Whoever Did This"
* "The Strong, Silent Type"
* "Calling All Cars"
* "Eloise"
* "Whitecaps"

Season 5|

* "Two Tonys"
* "Rat Pack"
* "Where's Johnny?"
* "All Happy Families..."
* "Irregular Around the Margins"
* "Sentimental Education"
* "In Camelot"
* "Marco Polo"
* "Unidentified Black Males"
* "Cold Cuts"
* "The Test Dream"
* "Long Term Parking"
* "All Due Respect"

Season 6|

| Part I|

* "Members Only"
* "Join the Club"
* "Mayham"
* "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh"
* "Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request..."
* "Live Free or Die"
* "Luxury Lounge"
* "Johnny Cakes"
* "The Ride"
* "Moe n' Joe"
* "Cold Stones"
* "Kaisha"

|

Part II|

* "Soprano Home Movies"
* "Stage 5"
* "Remember When"
* "Chasing It"
* "Walk Like a Man"
* "Kennedy and Heidi"
* "The Second Coming"
* "The Blue Comet"
* "Made in America"

Characters|

* Tony Soprano
* Jennifer Melfi
* Carmela Soprano
* Christopher Moltisanti
* Junior Soprano
* Silvio Dante
* Paulie Gualtieri
* A.J. Soprano
* Meadow Soprano
* Adriana La Cerva
* Bobby Baccalieri
* Janice Soprano
* Livia Soprano

Universe|

* Satriale's Pork Store
* Bada Bing!
* Cleaver

Related|

* Awards and nominations
* Music ("Woke Up This Morning")
* Road to Respect
* Talking Sopranos
* The Many Saints of Newark
* Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos

* Category

* v
* t
* e

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series

1950s|

* Reginald Rose for "Twelve Angry Men" (1955)

1960s|

* Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone (1960)
* Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone (1961)
* Reginald Rose for The Defenders (1962)
* Robert Thom & Reginald Rose for "The Madman" (1963)
* Ernest Kinoy for "Blacklist" / Rod Serling for "It's Mental Work" (1964)
* David Karp for "The 700 Year Old Gang" (1965)
* Millard Lampell for "Eagle in a Cage" (1966)
* Bruce Geller for "Mission: Impossible" (1967)
* Loring Mandel for "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (1968)
* JP Miller for "The People Next Door" (1969)

1970s|

* Richard Levinson & William Link for "My Sweet Charlie" (1970)
* Joel Oliansky for "To Taste of Death But Once" (1971)
* Richard Levinson & William Link for "Death Lends a Hand" (1972)
* John McGreevey for "The Scholar" (1973)
* Joanna Lee for "The Thanksgiving Story" (1974)
* Howard Fast for "Benjamin Franklin: The Ambassador" (1975)
* Sherman Yellen for "John Adams: Lawyer" (1976)
* William Blinn & Ernest Kinoy for "Show #2" (1977)
* Gerald Green for "Holocaust" (1978)
* Michele Gallery for "Dying" (1979)

1980s|

* Seth Freeman for "Cop" (1980)
* Michael Kozoll & Steven Bochco for "Hill Street Station" (1981)
* Steven Bochco & Michael Kozoll & Jeff Lewis & Michael Wagner & Anthony Yerkovich for "Freedom's Last Stand" (1982)
* David Milch for "Trial by Fury" (1983)
* John Ford Noonan, John Masius & Tom Fontana for "The Women" (1984)
* Patricia Green for "Who Said It's Fair, Part 2" (1985)
* Tom Fontana, John Masius & Joe Tinker for "Time Heals, Parts I & II" (1986)
* Steven Bochco & Terry Louise Fisher for "The Venus Butterfly" (1987)
* Paul Haggis & Marshall Herskovitz for "Business as Usual" (1988)
* Joseph Dougherty for "First Day/Last Day" (1989)

1990s|

* David E. Kelley for "Blood, Sweat, and Fears" (1990)
* David E. Kelley for "On the Toad Again" (1991)
* Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider for "Seoul Mates" (1992)
* Tom Fontana for "Three Men and Adena" (1993)
* Ann Biderman for "Steroid Roy" (1994)
* Lance A. Gentile for "Love's Labor Lost" (1995)
* Darin Morgan for "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (1996)
* David Milch, Stephen Gaghan and Michael R. Perry for "Where's Swaldo?" (1997)
* David Milch, Nicholas Wootton and Bill Clark for "Lost Israel: Part II" (1998)
* James Manos Jr. and David Chase for "College" (1999)

2000s|

* Rick Cleveland & Aaron Sorkin for "In Excelsis Deo" (2000)
* Mitchell Burgess & Robin Green for "Employee of the Month" (2001)
* Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran for "12:00 a.m. – 1:00 a.m." (2002)
* Mitchell Burgess & David Chase & Robin Green for "Whitecaps" (2003)
* Terence Winter for "Long Term Parking" (2004)
* David Shore for "Three Stories" (2005)
* Terence Winter for "Members Only" (2006)
* David Chase for "Made in America" (2007)
* Matthew Weiner for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (2008)
* Kater Gordon & Matthew Weiner for "Meditations in an Emergency" (2009)

2010s|

* Erin Levy & Matthew Weiner for "Shut the Door. Have a Seat." (2010)
* Jason Katims for "Always" (2011)
* Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon & Gideon Raff for "Pilot" (Homeland) (2012)
* Henry Bromell for "Q&A" (2013)
* Moira Walley-Beckett for "Ozymandias" (2014)
* David Benioff & D. B. Weiss for "Mother's Mercy" (2015)
* David Benioff & D. B. Weiss for "Battle of the Bastards" (2016)
* Bruce Miller for "Offred" (2017)
* Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg for "START" (2018)
* Jesse Armstrong for "Nobody Is Ever Missing" (2019)

2020s|

* Jesse Armstrong for "This Is Not for Tears" (2020)
* Peter Morgan for "War" (2021)
* Jesse Armstrong for "All the Bells Say" (2022)
* Jesse Armstrong for "Connor's Wedding" (2023)
* Will Smith for "Negotiating with Tigers" (2024)

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