Plot Details
Livia Soprano, the family matriarch, seemingly derives little pleasure from life other than making the people around her miserable, especially her three children, Tony, Barbara and Janice. On her son's wedding day, she tells her new daughter-in-law Carmela that Tony would eventually get bored with her. Years later (in season one of the show proper), she goes so far as to try to manipulate her brother-in-law, Junior, into putting out a hit on her own son after he tries to put her in a nursing home by mentioning that Tony is seeing a psychiatrist. She later tells Junior that Tony looks exactly like her cousin Cakey after he had a lobotomy, saying that his mother said it was better Cakey have died than go on living like that. It is later discovered that the FBI had bugged Green Grove (Livia's nursing home), and the recordings of Livia conspiring with Junior were played to Tony. While she was in hospital, she received a visit from Artie Bucco. She then tells him that Tony burned down his restaurant, presumably in another attempt to have Tony killed. Tony's plot for revenge is foiled when Livia suffers a stroke (said to be induced by repressed rage) and is taken into a hospital. However, while Tony originally attempts to suffocate her with a pillow, he then quickly changes tactic when he hears his mother had suffered a stroke. He then publicly threatens to kill her, informing her that he had heard her conspiring with Junior, thanks to the FBI tapes, saying, "I'm gonna have a nice, long, happy life, which is more than I can say for you". However, Tony sees Livia smirking at him, and, when Tony points this out, he has to be restrained by the hospital staff. When she gets out, Tony settles for acting as if she were already dead, attempting to end all contact and financial support. Tony's hostility toward Livia never diminishes, although he seems to be more accommodating of her toward the end of the second season after arriving at her house to visit Janice.
In the second episode of the third season, "Proshai, Livushka", Tony is seen to be significantly more tolerant of Livia, although this is possibly due to his enforced responsibility of her thanks to Janice's departure at the end of the previous season. His brief meeting with her in the same episode ends with the pair arguing before Tony storms out of the house.
Based on her conversations with Tony, Dr. Melfi speculates that Livia might suffer from some form of borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. Additionally, Tony tells Adriana (in "Irregular Around the Margins") that Livia suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome all her life.
After the second season, a storyline was planned where Livia would be called to testify against her son in court, giving evidence on stolen airline tickets she had received from him, but Marchand died in 2000 before it could be filmed. Existing footage and computer-generated imagery was used to create a final scene between Tony and Livia in the episode "Proshai, Livushka" in Season Three before the character too passed on. In the same episode, Artie experiences a brief flashback of a meeting with Livia, showing footage of a scene from a first season episode. Livia nevertheless appeared as a young woman in several flashbacks after then, as well as being frequently referenced, with Tony still far from resolving his feelings towards her.
Janice, during a conversation with Carmela calls into question whether or not her mother loves them, and that in therapy her therapist explained to her that she does indeed love them, but does not know how to express it.
During the sixth season episode "Mayham," when Tony is comatose from a gunshot wound, he has a vivid dream that some have construed as being a rendition of purgatory. The dream ends with Tony being beckoned into a house by his dead cousin Tony Blundetto; a woman who looks similar to Livia can briefly be seen in the doorway of the house. Tony then hears a child's voice calling "Daddy, don't go, come back." He then awakens to see his daughter Meadow and wife Carmela standing over him.
Read more about this topic: Livia Soprano
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or details:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Anyone can see that to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the knee in the kitchen, with constant calls to cooking and other details of housework to punctuate the paragraphs, was a more difficult achievement than to write it at leisure in a quiet room.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)