The Sopranos (TV Series) No Show (2002) User Reviews

The FBI looks bad in this one

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 30 April 2022]

The FBI has previously set up Adriana with an agent who is posing as a potential friend. She worms herself into Adriana's life, listens to her secrets, and gets enough on Adriana that the FBI taskforce can get her between a rock and a hard place - either go to jail for drugs or rat on Tony. That confrontation happens in this episode.

They know they don't have someone here who is an active participant in anything Tony Soprano does. She is just the girlfriend of one of Tony's made men. If Adriana calls their bluff and she is prosecuted she probably won't live to go to jail because she'll be killed on the outside chance that she could turn. And if she turns evidence for them she is also likely to be killed if found out. The FBI knows what has likely happened to the other people that they turned, Big Pussy in particular. The FBI doesn't care. They just want their case and if Adriana dies it is just collateral damage to them. Their attitude is very much as "This is not personal, only business" as the mob they fight.

Sure, she knew what Christopher did for a living, and sure she partook of some of the spoils of having a mobbed up fiance, but she didn't do anything that would justify a violent death for herself versus dying of natural causes in old age, which is the likely fate of Tony's wife Carmela.

How exactly Adriana's story plays out over the next season is one of the most painful things to watch in this show.

I was trying to say something positive because she's your friend

[snoozejonc · 9/10 · 23 August 2022]

Meadow's relationship with her parents is strained and Christopher is promoted.

This is a very strong episode with excellent character interaction.

The Sopranos portrays family dynamics brilliantly and the scenes of conflict between Meadow and Tony and Carmela are plausibly written with great allusions to Tony's criminality and Carmela's complicity. It follows the season 3 finale with great continuity. Jamie-Lynn Sigler gives one of her best performances as she lives and breathes what the character is going through. Her facial expressions are priceless as always. James Gandolfini and Edie Falco are fantastic as ever.

Christopher and Adriana have great scenes with some strong humour and also foreboding about what lies ahead for Adriana. These include some wonderfully awkward moments with Christopher blundering through various situations. Michael Imperioli and Drea de Matteo are both excellent.

Certain aspects of the plot move along quietly and intriguingly, particularly relating to characters that Tony deals with in his professional life. It's the random moments that become important as ever, with a certain joke in this episode starting an arc that spirals as the season goes on.

The scene involving a newly introduced therapist is ironically funny in the context of the episode's plot, but the portrayal of specific advice given to a patient does feel quite implausible.

Meadow's "therapist" was more of a cheerleading life coach. A total joke

[Neptune165 · 7/10 · 14 July 2022]

This episode sets the tone for the rest of the series. The Ralph joke about Ginny Sac's ass produced the beginning of the end of the Jersey family. Patsy was a punk, and Christopher was a moron. Tony knew this but tried to give him every chance because of the family connection, which actually was through Carmella, not Tony. Puhleeeeez, Adriana was NOT an innocent victim, she was complicit in everything. She played with matches and wound up burning up. Adrianna was hardly the naive innocent. You forget the scene (I don't know which episode) where she says that if she'd discovered Christopher cheating on her, she would have killed him. She also knew exactly what he was into and had no moral objections to sharing in his ill-gotten gains.

"Well, listen to Mr. Mob Boss!"

[MaxBorg89 · 10/10 · 5 May 2008]

As with the previous episode, No Show keeps handling the joined plot threads of Christopher and Adraian's situation, and does so to shocking effect, providing the show's single most disgusting scene.

Said scene occurs when Ade discovers her friend Danielle is actually an FBI agent and is left with little choice: either she cooperates, or she will go to jail for over two decades for possession and distribution. Without revealing too much, let's just say her reaction is... visceral. Similar feelings, though less extreme in their expression, are kindled among Tony's men when he gives Chris a no-show job that Patsy Parisi (Dan Grimaldi) was after and which Silvio feels is too much to grant to smaller player like Chrissy. However, that is the least of Tony's problems, as he must face the possibility of Meadow dropping out of college because of what happened to Jackie Jr. two episodes ago and has a heated discussion with her when she openly criticizes his job.

That last section of the teleplay gives the boss's private life new dramatic strength, the T/Meadow conflict achieving the kind of poignancy you seldom see in an ordinary TV show. It is also equally unlikely to witness something as gross as Adriana's encounter with the feds, and credit is due to the makers of the episode for making such a scene fit seamlessly with the rest of the story.

Okay, so the drama is strong, but where's the humor? Well, it is connected with the tragic side of the series, or at least it will be in upcoming shows. I mean, you can't really get away with publicly insulting an associate's wife at an official dinner, can you?

No Show (#4.2)

[ComedyFan2010 · 9/10 · 13 March 2014]

Chris moves up in the family. At the same time he has suspicious about the new friend of Adriana. Only they aren't very close to reality. He first thinks she is a dyke and then makes a pass on her but as Adriana sees it blames it on Danielle. So Adriana doesn't want to be friends anymore. In order to save 5 months of work the FBI goes the other way arresting Adriana where she finds out her friend was an FBI agent and she now has a choice of going to jail for drugs or be an informant.

I really thought the storyline of the FBI agent friend would take longer but I can't blame the show for bring it out so fast as they did it perfectly. I loved the scene with Adriana finding out who her friend was. Very emotional and her puking was unexpected and very gross. Look forward to see how she handles it all, I just hope she won't face the same fate as Pussy.

Margetis Review - The Sopranos, Episode 41 "No Show"

[MichaelMargetis · 11 February 2006]

Immensely better than last week's season opener, this episode achieves excellence not by having people whacked, but by having more exciting things happen. The episode's big shocker, Adriana is now working with the F.B.I. as an informant, since she was caught with blow. When they tell her she has a choice of being an informant or spending twenty years in prison, she projectile vomits all over the F.B.I. agents! It was gross! Also Chris gets elected to Acting Capo of Paulie's crew since he is away at jail, and Patsy is furious. Patsy and him brawl non-stop, which ends up in a construction working getting his head bashed in with a pipe. Silvio also disobeys a direct order from Tony for the first time, and Tony warns him never to let it happen again. Also, the episode features a great fight between Tony and Meadow when she tells Tony she's blowing off her sophomore year at college, to screw around in Barcelona (advice from her therapist played by Linda Lavin). Tony is furious, and tells her "You're not going and that the end of that!". She then smartly replies, "Well, listen to Mr. Mob Boss." Tony infuriated and hurt stares her down and says aggressively "What did you f*cking say to me!!!!?" She starts crying and leaves the house and tells her parents she's 20 and she can do what she wants. What a selfish bitch, if you ask me. All in all, I thought it was a extraordinary episode. Written by David Chase and Terence Winter, Directed by John Patterson. My Rating: 9/10.

Everything's in transition

[ctomvelu-1 · 7/10 · 9 September 2008]

Meadow rebels over growing suspicions about her dad's role in the death of Jackie Jr. She mixes it up big-time with Daddy. Adriana takes one on the chin when her best friend reveals herself to be an FBI agent. Adriana's strong reaction in a meeting with the anti-mob task force is shockingly depicted (watch the damned episode yourself). Tony gives Chris a plum assignment, which sits well with no one except Tony. And Ralphie makes a derogatory comment about Ginny Sack's big rump -- just one of hundreds the boys have thrown out over the course of many episodes -- that will come back to haunt everyone. The episode belongs to the women.

Unlikely events happening as depicted and EAT your food properly man.

[davidhiggins-89756 · 4/10 · 25 February 2021]

**Does contain spoilers**. How likely is it that a Mob Boss is going to allow the girl friend of his nephew to willy nilly bring a new friend of hers around to his private house?. Not very likely unless he was thick. For starters he would employ someone to be out front vetting all those who would approach anywhere near the house.

There would be a sturdy SECURITY gate at the bottom of his drive. Just what would stop half a dozen gang banger's rolling up with AK 47's and shooting up the place!. SO TOTALLY PREPOSTEROUS. As it not even having CCTV installed around his house. It would have prevented any FBI planting of bugs in the basement for starters.

It is just so unlikely the undercover FBI woman would be allowed in to the Soprano's home. Mind you there being such a BIG GAP in the ill fitting front doors!!, ever noticed?. Not so good a carpentry fit for these STUDIO SET doors, anyone could shimmy on through them without even having to open the doors.

DIDN'T the producer DAVID CHASE even notice this?. No great attention to detail with him then, too busy revelling in all the adulation going his way in those days. About a full inch gap at the bottom and also in the middle. Very drafty at the Sopranos house then!. The front door anyway would itself be a ONE piece security door NOT those flimsy looking two half door plywood things. That could be kicked in, in an instance.

As for other parts of the episode, as if Moltisanti would have allowed his girl friend to get a pesky little dog. GET RID of it he'd have said, NO WAY would he have had that dog in his place.

Then we had the as usual STABBING of his food by Tony S, in this case with his bowl of ice cream, just eat the food man. He just sits there stabbing and churning away with his fork or spoon for ages not even eating the stuff, just mouthing off.

How did he ever get so overweight?, the energy expended in him stabbing & churning away at his food would have been more than what he ever consumed. A dreadful way of eating his food, totally unrealistic, was he not hungry then! after all, didn't look it did it. Makes me spew seeing Tony S eat, more than Adriana did in that episode.

A lot of things in this Sopranos series should have been tightened up on, make it more believable, more realistic. But then the storylines would not have been viable much at all. No FBI bugs getting planted, no Tony S getting gunned down in the street, because he'd have has a body guard with him at all times.

What a USELESS Mob Boss he was anyway, from start to finish. Didn't he inform his crew to always look out for anyone they knew or anyone the people close to them knew. Because they would be the ones likely to be targeted to gain evidence of their criminality

So for those reasons and many others this episode is worth no more than 4 stars, though the entire series is worth more. This episode was very unlikely, sheer fiction, loosely based on reality. Unrealistic. What would David Chase know about it anyway. Many of the fans in denial about the faults of this series. There are thoroughly so many of them though.

How about a running commentary of all episodes by a genuine high ranked Organised Crime member. It'd be interesting to hear. Those with the copyright wouldn't want to allow such a thing. It would highlight the multiple failings in each episode and of the entire series. Not a bad series over all, highly popular & entertaining but it could have been tightened up in places.