Whoever Did This (S04E09)
Airdate: November 10th 2002
Written by: Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess
Directed by: Tim Van Patten
Running Time: 54 minutes
The Sopranos distinguished itself from television’s formulaic constraints by refusing to reserve its narrative grenades for season finales. In a medium often governed by predictable climaxes, the series revelled in detonating shocks mid-arc, forcing audiences to relinquish their complacency. Whoever Did This epitomises this ethos, delivering a seismic character exit that feels both inevitable and astonishing. The abrupt demise of Ralph Cifaretto—a figure audiences reviled yet morbidly cherished—epitomises the show’s genius for blending moral reckoning with visceral unpredictability. Here, the writers weaponise viewer expectations, proving that in David Chase’s New Jersey, no character, however protected by plot armour or profit margins, is safe.
Ralph Cifaretto (played by Joe Pantoliano) was a study in repugnant charisma: a volatile, misogynistic capo whose survival in the mob hierarchy hinged on his uncanny ability to generate revenue. His transgressions—from bludgeoning a stripper to torching a stable—were tolerated under the Family’s warped code, where fiscal pragmatism trumped morality. Yet Whoever Did This engineers his downfall not through external vengeance, but via a personal feud with Tony Soprano (played by James Gandolfini). Ralph’s fate, when it arrives, feels less like cosmic justice than the chaotic culmination of his own hubris, a reminder that in The Sopranos, even monsters meet ends as arbitrary as their sins.
The episode opens with Ralph’s latest act of cruelty: a prank call to Paulie’s ailing mother, a moment that underscores his gleeful malice. Yet the narrative swiftly pivots to faux-redemption when Ralph’s son, Justin, is struck by a stray arrow, leaving him comatose. The incident, framed as divine retribution, briefly humanises Ralph—he weeps in church, seeks solace from Tony, and even entertains paternal guilt. But The Sopranos subverts the trope of moral awakening; Ralph’s vulnerability is a feint, a fleeting crack in his psychopathy. The stable fire that kills Tony’s racehorse Pie-O-My reignites his true nature, exposing redemption as a transient fantasy in this nihilistic universe.
Tony’s attachment to Pie-O-My—a symbol of fragile tenderness in his brutish world—collides with Ralph’s nihilism when the horse perishes in a fire. Suspecting insurance fraud, Tony confronts Ralph, their dialogue escalating into a primal brawl that culminates in Ralph’s grotesque demise (a slash to the femoral artery, then strangulation with a phone cord). The murder, messy and inelegant, underscores Tony’s duality: a man capable of paternal care and animalistic rage. The subsequent corpse disposal—a darkly comic sequence with Christopher (played by Michael Imperioli)—reveals Chris’s heroin addiction, layering the episode with impending tragedy. Here, violence begets vulnerability, as Tony’s pragmatism (“We’ll say he went into witness protection”) masks existential dread.
Parallel to Ralph’s downfall, legal woes of Uncle Junior (played by Dominic Chianese) take a farcical turn. After a courthouse tumble, his legal team exploits the accident to feign dementia, hoping to derail his trial. Junior’s exaggerated confusion blurs the line between performance and reality. The final shot of him staring blankly into space leaves his mental state ambiguous, a hallmark of the show’s refusal to offer narrative hand-holding.
Writers Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess orchestrate a masterclass in tonal whiplash. The episode begins as a dark sitcom (Ralph’s prank, Junior’s slapstick fall), morphs into Greek tragedy (Justin’s accident), escalates to horror (the stable fire), and concludes with Coen Brothers-esque absurdity (body disposal in a snowstorm). The shifts, though jarring, cohere through the series’ signature existential absurdity. The climactic scene—Tony and Chris dismembering Ralph in a bathtub—echoes Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, blending grisly humour with existential futility.
Joe Pantoliano’s Emmy-winning portrayal of Ralph remains a career zenith. He navigates the character’s grotesque contradictions—a sadist who quotes Gladiator, a doting father who mocks bereavement—with unnerving fluidity. Pantoliano layers Ralph with pathos in his hospital scenes, only to strip it away in his defiant sneer at Tony. His performance ensures Ralph’s death feels less like catharsis than a void, a man erased mid-sentence.
James Gandolfini and Michael Imperioli anchor the episode’s grimmest moments. Gandolfini, reportedly fuelled by whiskey during filming, embodies Tony’s fractured psyche—grief over Pie-O-My, rage at Ralph, and numb detachment during the cover-up. Imperioli, gaunt and twitchy, telegraphs Christopher’s descent into addiction, his hands trembling as he chainsaws through bone. Their chemistry—volatile yet symbiotic—elevates the disposal scene from macabre farce to tragicomic opera.
The episode’s enduring intrigue lies in its unanswered questions. Did Ralph intentionally torch the stable? David Chase’s 2001 hint (“He did it”) clashes with the text’s ambiguity. The lack of resolution is quintessential Sopranos—a refusal to moralise or mollify. By leaving motives murky, the show implicates viewers in its moral quagmire, demanding they confront their own complicity in seeking tidy narratives.
Rarely does The Sopranos grant audiences catharsis. Yet when Tony glimpses a photo of Tracee—the pregnant stripper Ralph brutalised in Season 3—the episode tacitly endorses his murder as karmic retribution. Ralph dies as Tracee did: beaten, throttled, and discarded. It’s a rare nod to poetic justice in a series that often denied it, a fleeting satisfaction that lingers like ash in the mouth.
Whoever Did This stands as a microcosm of The Sopranos’ narrative audacity. It merges gallows humour, Shakespearan tragedy, and existential noir, all while deconstructing the myth of the “redeemable” gangster. Pantoliano’s Ralph exits not with a bang, but a whimper—a fitting end for a man whose life was as meaningless as his death. In its unflinching gaze at amorality, the episode remains a testament to television’s capacity to unsettle, provoke, and haunt.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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