The shocking revelations of The Many Saints of Newark only reinforced what fans have long suspected—that The Sopranos is a story of generational trauma, where cycles of violence and betrayal are inescapable.
HBO’s The Sopranos is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time, shaping the landscape of modern TV storytelling. With the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark, fans received a fresh yet familarly tragic perspective on the beloved crime drama, once again.
However, for Michael Imperioli, who portrayed Christopher Moltisanti, the experience of revisiting his iconic character brought an unsettling revelation about Christopher’s fate. It was related to his father, Dickie Moltisanti, who died in the way any fan of the show would edxpect.
Michael Imperioli realized his character was doomed from the start, due to The Many Saints of Newark
In The Many Saints of Newark, Imperioli reprised his role as Christopher, not in a traditional sense, but as the film’s eerie narrator from beyond the grave. The film explored the life of Christopher’s father, Dickie Moltisanti (played by Alessandro Nivola), whose death had long been a mystery in The Sopranos.
While fans speculated for years about Dickie’s murder, the prequel revealed the shocking truth: it was not an act of mob revenge but a personal grudge held by Junior Soprano (Corey Stoll).
For Imperioli, this revelation cast Christopher’s tragic arc in an even darker light. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor admitted that learning about Junior’s role in Dickie’s death made him view Christopher as “doomed from birth.”
It shows how f-cked up the Sopranos are. It made me think that Christopher was doomed from the start, from birth. It is almost like it is imprinted in his genetics.
Moltisanti spent a major part of The Sopranos struggling to stay loyal to Tony Soprano. He was told by Tony that his father had been killed off by a cop, bringing to light how like his father, Christopher was always living a life which was going to end at the hands of the mob boss.
The Many Saints of Newark also proved that Tony was only following his predecessor
In The Sopranos, Junior Soprano was never seen as the evil mob boss that Tony often proved himself to be. While he was a criminal capable of extremes, Junior was often seen as stubborn, old-fashioned, and somewhat insecure about his position.
However, for Michael Imperioli, the sequel movie brought forth similar intersections between the characters of Tony and Junior, and that of Christopher and his father:
Dickie is a mobster and criminal, you can’t deny that—but he seems like a good guy. I imagined him before the movie as more like Christopher, more hot-headed, but he wasn’t. He was a more composed character, which made me think that a lot of Christopher’s defects and addictive-compulsive nature actually came from not having a father.
The Many Saints of Newark probed that The Sopranos is a story of generational trauma, where cycles of violence and betrayal are inescapable. Christopher Moltisanti, despite his best efforts, was bound to follow the same path of destruction that defined his family’s legacy.
