"The Sopranos"
Big Girls Don't Cry (2000)

Director:

Timothy Van Patten

Writers:

David Chase (creator) and
Terence Winter (teleplay)

TV Series:

"The Sopranos" (1999)

Original Air Date:

13 February 2000 (Season 2, Episode 5)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Paulie and Silvio get promoted, Furio gets welcomed, Pussy gets pushed aside, and Chris gets frustrated with his Hollywood aspirations.

Plot Keywords:

Kneecapping | Gangster | Shot In The Knee | Extramarital Affair | Gay Character

Cast

James Gandolfini	...	Tony Soprano
Lorraine Bracco	...	Dr. Jennifer Melfi
Edie Falco	...	Carmela Soprano
Michael Imperioli	...	Christopher Moltisanti
Dominic Chianese	...	Corrado 'Junior' Soprano
Vincent Pastore	...	Salvatore 'Big Pussy' Bonpensiero
Steve Van Zandt	...	Silvio Dante (as Steven Van Zandt)
Tony Sirico	...	Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri
Robert Iler	...	Anthony 'A.J.' Soprano, Jr.
Jamie-Lynn Sigler	...	Meadow Soprano (credit only)
Drea de Matteo	...	Adriana La Cerva
David Proval	...	Richie Aprile
Aida Turturro	...	Janice Soprano
Nancy Marchand	...	Livia Soprano
Jerry Adler	...	Herman 'Hesh' Rabkin

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Lou Costello Plaza, Paterson, New Jersey, USA

Company:

Brad Grey Television

Trivia:

When Artie serves Tony and his men a dish with fennel sauce, Paulie jokingly asks if he can get AIDS from eating it. The Italian word for fennel, "finocchio", is frequently used as an insult to indicate homosexuals, hence the joke.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Christopher is getting out of his black Mercedes to enter the massage parlor, the reflection of a crew member and his camera is clearly visible when the door swings open.

Movie Connections:

References "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" (1952)

Soundtrack:

Rock The Boat

Christopher without a cause

Big Girls Don't Cry is the first of two Chris-centric episodes in Season Two, and much like the superb The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti, they focus wholeheartedly on his career frustrations.

This time, his writer's block is so serious Adriana decides to surprise him with a special birthday present: an acting class for struggling screenwriters, where people like Chris get to understand a little more about the characters they are supposed to create. However, things deteriorate when Chrissy is asked to recreate a scene from Rebel Without a Cause and goes so Method the experience awakens bad memories. Pussy has a bad day too, getting pushed aside while Paulie and Silvio are promoted so that the activities of new crew member Furio Giunta (Federico Castelluccio), whom Tony met in Naples, can be supervised more effectively.

Furio gets to play a pivotal role in the episode, as his methods are compared to Christopher's: the latter, all obsessed with style and a Goodfellas-like approach to things, fails to get a difficult customer to pay the required amount of money at the start of the show; Furio, on the other hand, has been brought up in a more matter-of-fact fashion and proves it by beating up said customer and knee-capping the guy - while cursing in Italian! In less than two minutes, Castelluccio has achieved what other cast members did in an entire episode: he has ensured his character won't fade away in the audience's memory.