Christopher Moltisanti

• 1. Introduction

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  Christopher Moltisanti, played by Michael Imperioli on the HBO series The Sopranos, speaks the closing line of the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark. From somewhere beyond death, his voice says that Tony Soprano is "the guy he went to hell for." It is a startling thing to say about a mentor. Who was Christopher before the loyalty turned bitter? What did Tony Soprano ask of him, and what did he give in return? And why did the man who raised him up decide, in the end, that he could not be kept?

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• 2. Family Lines

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  Tony Soprano calls Christopher his nephew, but the blood tie behind the word is more tangled. Christopher is actually a first cousin once removed of Tony's wife Carmela. Her father Hugh and Christopher's paternal grandmother Lena were brother and sister. That also makes Christopher a second cousin to Carmela's children.

  Christopher was born in 1969 to Richard "Dickie" Moltisanti, a soldier in the DiMeo crime family, and Joanne Blundetto. The episode "Cold Cuts" places his childhood in the Rochelle Park section of Paramus, New Jersey, beside the Westfield Garden State Plaza. Talking with his cousin Tony Blundetto, he describes himself as an urban youth. Blundetto does not agree.

  Dickie died while Christopher was still very young. A hitman sent by Junior Soprano killed him, but Junior hid his part, and the murder was blamed on a mobster named Jilly Ruffalo. Tony stepped into the gap and became a father figure to the boy.

  Tony and Christopher already knew each other before Tony met Carmela, because both of their fathers were involved in the Mafia. Each is also a cousin of Tony Blundetto, though through unrelated sides of the family. Christopher's girlfriend Adriana La Cerva believes the two men are distantly related through Christopher's mother. In his private life, Christopher is a fan of the television show Cops, and he once shared a home with Brendan Filone, a friend who was later murdered.

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• 3. Climbing the Ladder

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  In the first season, Christopher is Tony's driver and enforcer, and he is hungry to rise. He "makes his bones" by killing Emil Kolar over a fight about the Triborough Towers garbage routes. Christopher first wants to leave the body in a Kolar Bros. dumpster as a warning. Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero talks him into hiding it elsewhere, since that would bring less heat. The killing haunts Christopher's dreams, and he has to dig up the corpse and move it twice.

  A $15,000 payment to Junior Soprano was the price of Christopher's next mistake. He and Brendan Filone had hijacked Comley trucks that Junior protected, and both were ordered to pay and stop. Later, while high on methamphetamine, they planned another heist. Christopher backed out at the last minute out of loyalty to Tony. Brendan went ahead with two others, and the driver was accidentally killed.

  Junior, furious that his authority had been ignored, staged a mock execution of Christopher in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Mikey Palmice shot Brendan in the eye. Christopher later avenged his friend when he and Paulie ambushed Mikey in the woods, as part of Tony's revenge against Junior.

  In the second season, Matthew Bevilaqua and Sean Gismonte worked under Christopher on the family's pump and dump scam. They decided to murder him to win favor with Richie Aprile. They shot him outside a diner, but he killed Gismonte while Bevilaqua ran. Christopher woke from a coma without his spleen. He had been clinically dead for about a minute. He told the crew that he had seen hell or purgatory, and that Brendan and Mikey had warned him that three o'clock would matter in their future.

  During his initiation in the third season, in the episode "Fortunate Son," Christopher notices a raven on the windowsill and takes it as a bad omen. As the newest made man, he inherits a betting shop from his capo, Paulie Gualtieri, and owes him minimum weekly dues. When payments come late, Paulie humiliates him. After the Pine Barrens incident, the two agree to bury the hatchet. Christopher also opens the Crazy Horse Nightclub in Long Branch, with Furio as a partner and Adriana as the front operator.

  A botched robbery of a card game run by Eugene Pontecorvo exposed his jealousy. Jackie Aprile Jr. and his friends tried the heist, and Christopher and acting capo Albert Barese shot back, killing Dino Zerilli as he fled. Christopher saw Jackie Jr. as a rival for Tony's favor and wanted him dead. Tony refused. Christopher called Tony a hypocrite for not enforcing the rules that protect made men, and Tony was enraged.

  In the fourth season, Christopher became acting capo of Paulie's crew while Paulie sat in prison on a gun charge. His reward included a no-show job at the Esplanade construction site. Patsy Parisi, who had seniority, resented the promotion, and the two came to blows over Patsy's theft from the site. Silvio Dante was quietly driving Patsy, because he was jealous too. By the sixth season, Christopher is a captain, and Tony tells him he will lead the family into the 21st century.

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• 4. Keeper of Secrets

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  When Richie Aprile was shot by Janice Soprano for hitting her, Tony called Christopher and Furio Giunta to deal with the body. They used the bandsaw and processing room at Satriale's to dismember it. Christopher became the man Tony called for the worst jobs.

  The disposal of Ralph Cifaretto was darker still. Ralph had been beaten and choked to death by Tony. Christopher removed the head and hands with a cleaver and placed them in a bowling bag. During that job Tony realized that Christopher was high on heroin. They hid the body anyway.

  Barry Haydu, a retired detective lieutenant, shows how Tony used Christopher's grief. Tony protected himself from prosecution by making Christopher the main contact in criminal dealings. He then bound his protégé closer by telling him that Haydu had murdered Dickie. At Haydu's home, the man denied knowing Dickie. Then he cried out, "Look, whoever told you I had anything to do with his death is lying!" Christopher had not yet mentioned a death. Haydu's last words were "I'm sorry!"

  Carmine Lupertazzi, the New York boss, was the target of a planned hit. Tony handed the job to Christopher after his rehabilitation. Christopher hired Credenzo Curtis and Stanley Johnson, two drug dealers he knew from his heroin days. When Tony called the hit off and wanted no trace, Christopher had Benny Fazio and Peter "Bissell" LaRosa shoot the pair dead in their car while he watched. Fazio and LaRosa took back the money, which the two men believed was payment for a real job.

  In the sixth season, Christopher organized a hit on Rusty Millio by using hitmen from Naples. He relied on Corky Caporale, who spoke Italian, to pass along instructions and weapons.

  This closeness left Christopher holding knowledge almost no one else had. Besides Tony, he alone knew which bodies lay buried at "Uncle Pat" Blundetto's farm and what really happened to Ralph. With Furio, he knew that Janice killed Richie. He also knew of Tony's murder of Fabian Petrulio, the aborted Lupertazzi plan, and Silvio's killing of Adriana.

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• 5. Adriana

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  Adriana La Cerva was Christopher's long-term girlfriend, later his fiancée, and their relationship was tumultuous and abusive. Shortly before he was shot at the diner, a fight sent her to live with her mother. When he recovered, he won her back by proposing, against her mother's advice. They never married.

  Christopher indulged Adriana's hopes for a music career. He let her produce a demo and later gave her a club to run. Yet the violence in the relationship continued, and Tony organized an intervention after Christopher physically abused her.

  In the fifth season, a car accident involving Tony and Adriana started a rumor that she had performed a sex act on Tony. Christopher heard it on his way back from North Carolina, where he had gone to pick up cigarettes. He got drunk, started a fight with Vito, and pulled a gun on Tony at the Bada Bing. Tony was ready to kill him. Their cousin Tony Blundetto stepped in and saved Christopher's life.

  Tony B. then arranged a meeting with the doctor who had treated the two passengers. The doctor explained that both had been upright with their seat belts fastened. Christopher made peace with Vito and Tony.

  Then Christopher learned that Adriana had reluctantly been giving information to the FBI. She wanted him to join her in the Witness Protection Program. He refused and went to Tony instead, valuing loyalty over love. Tony sent Silvio Dante to meet her, with the excuse of driving her to the hospital to visit Christopher. Silvio killed her in the woods.

  Christopher had a hand in the cover story. He emptied a suitcase of her clothes and belongings, then parked her car in the long-term lot at an airport to suggest she had fled. After her death he relapsed into heroin and wept to Tony in grief. Years later, as a captain, he still showed unresolved feelings about his murdered fiancée.

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• 6. Addiction and Doubt

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  Christopher's substance abuse runs through the entire series and spends much of his time in AA meetings and rehabilitation centers. It also complicates his place in the Mafia. When he tries to stay sober, other members ostracize him, and he spends less time at the family's regular haunts. Tony reads that absence as a warning sign.

  Tony's fear is specific. He wants Christopher to succeed, but he doubts his nephew's loyalty and his fitness to be a successor. He worries that Christopher's immaturity and drug problems make him a ripe target to turn state's evidence.

  The fourth season shows how fast things can slide. After Christopher's temporary promotion, his drug use spiraled. A Puerto Rican gang carjacked him while he was trying to buy heroin. When Tony organized an intervention, it ended badly. Christopher had accidentally killed Adriana's dog by sitting on it while high. Tony's own racehorse had died in a fire set by Ralph, so the news enraged him. He insisted on rehab and assigned Patsy to guard Christopher.

  A program called Eleuthera was where Christopher recovered, and when he came out Tony trusted him again with the Lupertazzi job. But relapse never stayed away for long. When Christopher delivered Corky Caporale's final payment, which included more heroin, he watched his friend inject and could not resist.

  In the sixth season, Christopher's AA sponsor was James "Murmur" Zancone. Murmur and Benny Fazio were also taking credit card numbers from local businesses and selling them to associates named Ahmed and Muhammad. Christopher wondered whether these buyers had links to terrorism. Numbers taken from Nuovo Vesuvio led to a violent dispute between Benny and Tony's friend Artie Bucco. Tony blamed Christopher's trip to Los Angeles for the delay in settling it.

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• 7. Cleaver and the Crash

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  Cleaver, the film Christopher made, was premiered at a private screening for Soprano associates. He hoped to find national distribution, and the movie was a modest success. Hollywood had become his way of drifting from the business. He grew irritated with his partner J.T. Dolan, who refused to hear details of the murders Christopher had witnessed.

  Kelli Lombardo, his new girlfriend after Adriana, became his wife when he learned she was pregnant. His belated bachelor party was held at Nuovo Vesuvio, where "Larry Boy" Barese made a toast to his future. They had a daughter, Caitlyn. Christopher's interest in his wife soon faded.

  A road trip to Pennsylvania with Tony, just before the Feast of St. Elzear, offered a rare moment of closeness. On the way home they spotted bikers robbing a strip mall and took part of the haul. A firefight followed, and Christopher shot one of the bikers as Tony drove away. Later they got drunk on stolen wine, and Christopher recalled telling Tony of Adriana's treachery. Both spoke of love and loyalty. When they tried to repeat the evening sober, it fell flat and ended in silence.

  The second half of the final season shows the bond cooling. Tony began grooming Bobby Bacala for the position Christopher once held. Christopher stayed away from alcohol and the Bada Bing, but he resented Tony over Adriana's death. After another clash with Paulie, he relapsed into drinking and left the crew in anger.

  He ended up at J.T. Dolan's house, looking for someone to talk to. Dolan reminded him that he was in the Mafia, exclaiming, "Chris, you're in the Mafia!" and would not let him talk through his problems that night. Christopher shot him in the head and left.

  Tony and Christopher were driving back from a meeting with Phil Leotardo and the New York crew when Christopher, impaired by drugs and alcohol, crashed his Cadillac Escalade. Tony climbed out. Christopher was badly hurt and coughing blood. He begged for help, mumbling that he would fail a drug test and might lose his license.

  Tony noticed a tree branch that had impaled a car seat where Christopher's daughter could have been sitting. He pinched Christopher's nostrils shut, and Christopher choked to death on his own blood.

  In the rest of the episode, Tony shows the proper decorum for a family in mourning, though he can barely hide his relief. He calls Christopher a "drag" on his emotions and "a weak, lying drug addict." In a dream, he admits to Dr. Melfi that he murdered Christopher, along with Tony Blundetto and Big Pussy. In the final episodes, Christopher's picture hangs in the pork store in his honor. Paulie is disturbed that the resident cat spends its days staring at it.

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• 8. Imperioli's Christopher

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  Michael Imperioli almost did not believe he had the part. After his audition, he thought series creator David Chase had been unimpressed, and he was surprised when an offer came.

  The writers wove his earlier career into the character. In the episode "46 Long," Christopher and Brendan Filone meet a lookalike of Martin Scorsese outside a club. Christopher yells, "Marty! Kundun! I liked it!" Imperioli had played a minor role named Spider in Scorsese's gangster film Goodfellas.

  That role echoes through other scenes. In the first season, Christopher shoots a bakery clerk in the foot over a perceived lack of respect, a nod to Spider being shot in the foot for the same reason. When the clerk screams, Christopher answers, "It happens!" In the second-season episode "Big Girls Don't Cry," Adriana tells him, "I like you as an actor." He replies, "Joe Pesci or so," and does an impression, since Pesci's character killed Spider in Goodfellas.

  The response to both the character and Imperioli's performance has been enthusiastic. In 2004 he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and he was nominated for it four other times. He also received two Golden Globe nominations, in 2002 and 2004. TV Guide ranked Christopher number 13 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Characters."

  Imperioli returns in The Many Saints of Newark, though he is never seen on screen. He serves as the film's narrator, speaking from the afterlife. His Christopher bitterly mentions his death at Tony's hands and Tony's failure to financially support his family afterward.

  One scene in that film dates back to Christopher's infancy. At a party welcoming back Tony's father, "Johnny Boy" Soprano, the baby Christopher cries when he sees Tony. Tony is confused, and a woman at the table explains that "some babies, when they come into the world, know all kinds of things from the other side."

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