Members Only: The genius of The Sopranos' most shocking episode

In 2006, The Sopranos' season six opener gave viewers two of the most startling scenes in television history. Twenty years on, here's why it's time to reconsider Members Only.

At the very end of Members Only – the first episode of The Sopranos' sixth season – viewers are left wondering whether its protagonist, mob boss Tony Soprano, (James Gandolfini) is dead.

Warning: This article contains descriptions of violence, strong language and mentions of suicide.

Tony has been shot by his dementia-suffering Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese), who mistakes him for a former Mafia rival. Mortally wounded, Tony struggles to dial 911, then loses consciousness as the screen cuts to black.

Just before the episode's shocking climax comes the prolonged suicide of Eugene Pontecorvo (Robert Funaro), a peripheral character who takes his own life after learning there is no chance he can quit the mob.

Members Only is remembered primarily for these sudden bursts of violence. But the episode has more artistic ingenuity and significance than it might seem. In the 2019 book The Sopranos Sessions, critics Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall credit it for breaking from The Sopranos' traditional, "slow-build" approach, "by jam-packing two hours of plot into 60 minutes and capping the episode with one of its most startling violent acts".

When fans and critics consider The Sopranos' best episodes of all time, it's the comedy of Pine Barrens (s3:11), the performances in Whitecaps (s4:13) and a particularly heartbreaking death in Long Term Parking (s5:12) that most often get namechecked. But Members Only deserves a place alongside them. It encompasses all of the creative qualities and thematic depth that made the series, in the words of critics, "revolutionary", "Shakespearean", and "the most influential television drama ever".

The episode probes many of the show's overarching concerns: materialism (Tony buys his wife Carmela [Edie Falco] a car as an apology), gluttony (Tony can't stop eating sushi), greed (Tony steals sunglasses just because he can), and existential dread (Eugene ultimately feels so suffocated by his responsibilities he takes his own life). It follows the series' trend for picking pitch-perfect montage music, includes hilarious banter between characters – "'Startin' to grow mushrooms out my ass' … 'There's an image'" – and is punctuated by sharp moments of characterisation that encourage viewers to be intrigued and repulsed by its ensemble.

Tony's shooting is arguably the ultimate example of how The Sopranos' consistently surprised viewers with violence. It follows Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) murdering Tracee (Ariel Kiley) in University (s3:6) and Janice Soprano (Aida Turturro) shooting Richie Aprile (David Proval) in The Knight In White Satin Armor (s2:12). "Years of watching more conventional movies and television makes you think you know where the next threat to one of the characters is coming from," Seitz tells the BBC. "But on The Sopranos you don't. That's what makes Uncle Junior shooting Tony so stunning."

If viewers had predicted that Tony would one day be shot, no one "expected it to happen in the first episode of the season" and "by a frail, senile old man," Sepinwall wrote in the Star-Ledger the day after the episode aired. Before Members Only, television shows would save such dramatic plots for season-ending cliffhangers, especially those where it looked like a character might........

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