HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
TV series ''
The Sopranos
''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based American Mafia, Italian-American mobster, portraying h ...
''. She is the
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
of
Mafia
"Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...
boss
Tony Soprano
Anthony John Soprano is a fictional character and the antihero protagonist in the HBO television drama series ''The Sopranos'' (1999–2007), portrayed by James Gandolfini. Soprano is a member of the American Mafia, Italian-American Mafia and, ...
. She is portrayed by
Lorraine Bracco
Lorraine Bracco (born October 2, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinct husky voice and Brooklyn accent, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, four Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Award ...
.
Character description
Melfi is an Italian-American, with her father's family hailing from
Caserta
Caserta () is the capital of the province of Caserta in the Campania region of Italy. It is an important agricultural, commercial, and industrial ''comune'' and city. Caserta is located on the edge of the Campanian plain at the foot of the Camp ...
. She is a graduate of
Bard College
Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...
and
Tufts University School of Medicine
The Tufts University School of Medicine is the medical school of Tufts University, a Private university, private research university in Massachusetts. It was established in 1893 and is located on the university's health sciences campus in downto ...
"Pilot" (Episode 1.01) and has an upscale lifestyle, living in a three-bedroom condominium in
Essex Fells, New Jersey
Essex Fells is a borough in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 2,113,Meadowlands").
At the start of the series,
Tony Soprano
Anthony John Soprano is a fictional character and the antihero protagonist in the HBO television drama series ''The Sopranos'' (1999–2007), portrayed by James Gandolfini. Soprano is a member of the American Mafia, Italian-American Mafia and, ...
, a local mobster, was referred to Melfi, a psychiatrist, after having a panic attack. He tells her he is a waste management consultant, but Melfi knows he is a mob boss. Throughout season 1, during the power struggle between Tony and Uncle Junior over who will be boss, Junior informs Mikey "Grab Bag" Palmice that Tony is seeing a psychiatrist. This makes Junior, Mikey, and all other members of Junior's crew who were informed extremely angry and paranoid, for they fear Melfi could be potentially used as a witness to testify in court against the activities of the
DiMeo Crime Family
The Soprano family (originally the DiMeo family) is a fictional Italian-American crime family featured in the HBO series ''The Sopranos'' and the prequel film '' The Many Saints of Newark''. Based in New Jersey, the family consists of an administ ...
.
In the season 1 penultimate episode "
Isabella
Isabella may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Isabella (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
* Isabella (surname), including a list of people
Places
United States
* Isabella, Alabama, an unincorpor ...
", two hit men are sent by Junior and Mikey Palmice in an attempt to assassinate Tony for supposedly giving information to Melfi. The hit fails. One assailant is inadvertently killed by the other while trying to shoot Tony in his driver's seat from the passenger side after Tony grabs the first assassin's gun. Tony throws the other hit man off onto the road, not killing, but injuring him. Tony laughs ecstatically but has taken his eyes off the road long enough to crash his SUV into a parked car, knocking him unconscious.
Tony later informs Melfi that his enemies are aware of their therapy sessions, and she must go into hiding to avoid getting killed until everything blows over. To save his own life and Melfi's, Junior's top lieutenants Mikey Palmice and Chucky Signore are killed, the latter by Tony himself. Junior is only saved by being arrested by the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
on racketeering charges. In the season 2 premiere episode " Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist's Office...", Melfi is shown doing business and living in a small roadside motel in
Wayne, New Jersey
Wayne is a Township (New Jersey), township in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. Home to William Paterson University and located less than from Midtown Manhattan, the township is a bedroom suburb of New York ...
, telling her patients her office is being remodeled. After the last troublesome member of Junior's crew, Philly "Spoons" Parisi, is murdered, Tony informs Melfi that "it's over" and that she can go back to her normal life.
In the season 3 episode " Employee of the Month", Melfi is walking alone through the parking garage to her car when she is attacked by a man. He grabs her from behind and after she attempts to escape and cries out for help, proceeds to drag her to the stairway of her building, where he violently
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
s her. He leaves her lying helpless in the stairway, crying. At the hospital, she is visited by her ex-husband, Richard, who is relieved to find she is alright. Although her rapist is arrested, he is subsequently released because of the
chain of custody
Chain of custody (CoC), in legal contexts, is the chronological documentation or paper trail that records the sequence of custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of materials, including physical or electronic evidence. Of particular ...
is lost by the police.
This infuriates Melfi, in shock that he was released. She comments to her psychiatrist and colleague Elliot Kupferberg, "I could have that asshole squashed like a bug," meaning that she could easily have her rapist killed by telling Tony that she was raped. She also inadvertently reveals to Kupferberg that the patient she is treating is Tony Soprano. More shock comes when Melfi is in the fast-food restaurant where the rapist works. She sees his smiling picture on the wall as Employee of the Month (hence the episode title).
Melfi herself feels a crazed desire for revenge and knows that a word to Tony Soprano would obtain it, but, like her ex-husband, she will obey the social contract. Later, Dr. Melfi has a dream. She buys a soda from a vending machine; when she reaches into the machine to get it, her hand is trapped inside. A
Rottweiler
The Rottweiler (, ) is a breed of domestic dog, regarded as medium-to-large or large. The dogs were known in German as , meaning Rottweil butchers' dogs, because their main use was to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered mea ...
appears and terrifies her. Then the rapist advances toward her. The dog turns and mauls the rapist, who cries in agony. With Kupferberg, she understands the meaning: the dog is Tony Soprano taking revenge on her behalf.
She tells Tony and others she has been in a car accident. When he sees her, Tony is shocked and concerned by her injuries. He tells her he is now ready to see a behaviorist. She says, "No," and starts crying. He goes to her, lays his hands gently on her, and asks what is the matter. She composes herself and asks him to return to his seat. He goes back, but asks, "What? You wanna say something?" After a tense pause, she says, "No."
Melfi sees Dr. Kupferberg on a regular basis. In " The Second Coming", he tells her that a recent study has shown that
talk therapy
Talk may refer to:
Communication
* Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people
* Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people
* Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct
...
may only help a
sociopath
Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been u ...
become more sociopathic. Elliot has commented that treating Tony Soprano gives her a "vicarious thrill". Melfi tells Elliott she used to find Tony attractive at first, but no longer. She does not mention that shortly before this session, she had an erotic dream about herself and Tony.
Melfi attends a dinner party with Elliot and other colleagues, but the conversation turns to the recent study claiming sociopaths take advantage of
talk therapy
Talk may refer to:
Communication
* Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people
* Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people
* Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct
...
. Kupferberg angers and shocks her by revealing to all present that Tony Soprano is her patient. However, she reads the study at home and is convinced of its findings. At his next session Tony is relaxed, while her responses become sarcastic and aggressive. When she says she intends to cease treating him, he is taken aback and hurt: "We're making progress! It's been seven years!" She says, "You don't give a shit about commitments, about what I do." She waits for him to go, then closes the door on him.
Character origins
David Chase
David Henry Chase (born August 22, 1945) is an American filmmaker. He wrote and produced the HBO drama ''The Sopranos'' which aired for six seasons between 1999 and 2007. Chase has also produced and written for such shows as ''The Rockford Files ...
modeled the character of Jennifer Melfi after his own psychiatrist. Bracco played the wife of a mobster in ''
Goodfellas
''Goodfellas'' (stylized ''GoodFellas'') is a 1990 American biographical crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of the 1985 nonfiction book '' Wis ...
'' (1990) and she was originally asked to play the role of
Carmela Soprano
Carmela Soprano (''née'' DeAngelis), played by Edie Falco, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series ''The Sopranos''. She is married to Mafia boss Tony Soprano. A young Carmela, portrayed by Lauren DiMario, appears in the 2021 prequel fil ...
. She took the role of Jennifer Melfi instead because she wanted to try something different and felt that the part of the highly educated Dr. Melfi would be more of a challenge for her.