Reviews & Ratings for
"The Sopranos" College (1999)

12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
"One thing about us wiseguys, the hustle never ends.", 24 February 2008

Author: Max_cinefilo89 from Italy

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

College is arguably the best episode of The Sopranos' first season, and certainly among the ten best of the entire series. Marking a departure from the show's traditional story structure, it ends up being more fundamental in defining Tony's personality than a lifetime of therapy sessions with Dr. Melfi.

Why is this episode a departure? Simply because only a small part of it takes place in New Jersey - most of the show sees Tony travel to Maine with Meadow so that she can check out colleges. On the way, she openly confronts him about his activities, an event that upsets the depressed gangster considerably. It doesn't take long before he gets his energy back, though: while his daughter visits a school, he sees a man he believes to be Fabian "Febby" Petrulio, a former mafioso who entered the Witness Protection Program after becoming an informant. Since this guy put several valuable men in prison, Tony decides to seek long awaited revenge. His wife Carmela, on the other hand, sets out to find (spiritual) comfort in the arms of Father Phil (Paul Schulze) after discovering Dr. Melfi is a woman.

College is a great piece of television because it sets the tone for things to come: the seeds of the crisis between Tony and Carmela, a fundamental part of the show's later seasons, are planted here (and Edie Falco uses her limited amount of scenes admirably), and the fat mobster's relationship with his kids, already in a rough spot after the events of the previous episode, gets to new, unsettling levels. But it's the protagonist's visceral, brutal attitude with "rats" that truly initiates one of the serial's most shocking trends: they might even be his best friends, it doesn't matter - Tony Soprano never forgives snitches.

Ironically, HBO bosses initially objected to the idea of Tony murdering people in cold blood, claiming it would make him unlikable to audiences. David Chase argued that these characters have their own code of ethics, which requires extreme methods at times. His point is evident in James Gandolfini's expression when the payoff arrives: there's no pleasure in his eyes, just the family's honor being vindicated in a brief, violent scene that reminds of Scorsese in his prime. Maybe that's why one of Empire magazine's splendid definitions of the show was "the finest gangster epic never to star Robert de Niro". Then again, why bother? Gandolfini is just as mesmerizing.

5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
One Of The Very Best, 17 June 2007

Author: SupermanDude90 from Ireland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

College is without a doubt one of the best sopranos episodes in it's 6 series run.

It's always great to see characters out of there comfort zone, and here we see tony roaming the country with Meadow checking out college's, while Carmela is at home having a sleep over with Father Phil Intintola, which results in some hilarious scenes of sexual desperation from Carmela and Father Phil.

*Spoiler* The end of this episode has by far one of the great Tony moments, and it shows just how heartless he can be. While at a bar with meadow,Tony spots a snitch who betrayed the The DiMeo family years back. Tony hunts him down and shows no mercy by strangling him to death with a wire, a very gripping scene.

9/10

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Murder Inc., 12 July 2008

Author: ctomvelu-1 from United States

While Tony is driving Meadow to college interviews, he spots an old snitch who has been in hiding under a new name. Meadow is waking up to what her father does for a living, and Tony has to work around her suspicions as he hunts down the rat, with a little help from Christopher. Back on the home front, Carmela sort of seduces her priest, who ends up spending the night at her house. She also takes a call from Dr. Melfi. Dr. Jennifer Melfi. As in, a woman shrink. Something Tony has carefully avoided telling Carm. The final scene between Tony and Carmela is priceless. A brilliant episode. We go from Tony-as-doting-father waiting patiently while Meadow is being interviewed to Tony-the-murderous maniac choking the life out of an adversary.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
"It takes two to Tango", 11 September 2010

Author: edantheman from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Being the most critically-acclaimed of the show's run, I approach my review with caution but realise it is an episode of firsts. This is the first episode in which the Scorsesian theme of Roman Catholic redemption was tapped upon, the first time we witnessed Tony's pure and unhinged hatred of snitches but also the first time we saw how much his daughter mattered to him. The episode also presents an oddity in terms of 'The Sopranos' format, as it's order in the season is essentially irrelevant: it contains no allusions to key events in the story arcs of the first season, before it's presentation.

The A story follows Tony and his daughter's tour of New England's historic colleges in search of a suitable one for Meadow, while Tony finds a 'rat' who now busies himself making cheese (Chaaase!) and volunteering as a fireman in some rural Maine town. Meanwhile, the B story concerns a flu-ridden Carmela's search for spiritual cleansing when Father Phil the 'schmora' pays a visit on a stormy night. Up to this point we know they share a friendship from the Pilot episode, but not much more.

Both Carmela and Melfi seem to be down with the flu in this episode. However, Carmela seems to overcome the virus after truly confessing her sins for the first time in twenty years. "I have forsaken what is right... for what is easy", she tells Father Phil Intintola, before taking a supposedly challenging wafer and wine (Chase's cynicism towards religion apparent as ever). "Allowing evil into my home {because, for my children} I wanted a better life, better schools, this house, money in my hand..." she says as guilt creeps into Father Phil's eyes, knowing that he too has enjoyed the Ziti, the DVD players and the posh Chianti Tony's blood money pays for. By the end of the episode, all the adult characters have came down with some sort of sickness due to Tony's toxicity -be it Melfi with her unintentional complicity, Carmela usurping Tony's wealth for her extravagant lifestyle, or Father Intintola with his penchant for Emma Thompson on DVD.

In fact, the only adult who seems healthy and isn't Tony throughout, is the Rat who left the crew to live an honest life. "One thing about us wiseguys, the hustle never ends", Tony whispers into his ear as he garrotes him with the most intense hatred we've seen of him (unless you watched them back-to-front) so far. And because of this constant hustle, the ducks (his family) will only grow more and more distant as Tony sees. At Bowdoin College, Tony reads a Nathaniel Hawthorne quote while waiting for Meadow: "No man... can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one may be true." An interesting lesson in the 'college of life'.

5 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
I liked it for a different reason..., 30 April 2008

Author: ntvnyr30 from Staten Island, NY

I know all the critics cite this episode as being one of the best of all "The Sopranos" episodes. I guess I'm a contrarian, but the reason why I like this episode is the portrayal of Father Phil. Modern-day Hollywood tends to show people of faith and clergymen as wild-eyed nuts and naturally the leftist, areligious protagonists are the good guys. People may agree with the previous statement but may have been offended by Father Phil's lust for Carmela. In my opinion, I think this is actually a positive portrayal of a modern-day priest in this sexually suggestive society. Father Phil's discipline wins out in the end, but does admit his desires for Carmela. In the hands of a less competent creator who was trying to make a statement against organized religion, Father Phil would have slept with Carmela. Just remember, the bloodiest regimes in history were not religious ones, but rather areligious, Marxist governments which killed hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

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