Janice may not have been a full-fledged mafia member, but her actions during her time on the show showed she wasn’t much better.
Even though Janice Soprano wasn’t necessarily the worst character on The Sopranos, she showed through her actions that she was still a pretty despicable person through and through. A con artist who was always looking for an easy buck and the easy way out, Janice was willing to go the lowest of lows to get what she wanted, even if it came at the expense of someone’s life. Now granted, not everything she did on the show was outright bad. Unlike Livia, she definitely showed to some degree that she cared about her family. However, Janice looked out for number one and never strayed away from that.
Played expertly by Aida Turturro, Janice Soprano showed that one doesn’t have to be a hardened gangster to be an outright horrible person all around. While she isn’t considered to be one of the Sopranos characters who contributed to Tony’s downfall, her addition to the show undoubtedly factored into it. Her actions throughout the show also are another example of why The Sopranos’ biggest success can’t be repeated.
10. Flip-Flopping On Meadow’s Punishment
In Janice’s very first appearance, she initially tells Tony and Carmela to go easy on Meadow after finding her drunk at a party. “For every 20 wrongs a child does, ignore 19,” is among The Sopranos’ best Janice quotes. However, her hypocrisy shows itself when she immediately changes her tune upon discovering that Meadow held a party at Livia’s house, where Janice was staying, where she and her friends trashed the place. She not only demanded that Meadow receive a much harsher punishment but questioned Tony’s and Carmela’s parenting methods in the process.
Janice was far from her worst here, but it was a character-establishing moment. Janice first tried to come off like a down-to-earth aunt who understood the youth. But once she realized Meadow’s actions affected her directly, she easily switched sides and did not hold back when lashing out. Her inclusion played a role in The Sopranos avoiding the sophomore slump.
9. Forcing Tony To Pay Her $3,000 To Tell Him Ralph Cifaretto’s Secrets
Anytime the opportunity presented itself, Janice Soprano always went for the easy money. Such was the case when Tony approached her asking if Ralph Cifaretto’s masochistic fetishes that his former mistress alleged were true. As Ralph’s former flame, Janice knew they were, but turned Tony’s inquisition into a negotiation. She would only confirm as such if he paid the right price for the information. While Janice wasn’t necessarily despicable in this instance, turning a simple question into a cash grab was very much in character for her.
8. Pursuing Ralph Cifaretto While He Was Dating Rosalie Aprile
Janice was always attracted to mafiosos, whether they were taken or not. Ralph was dating the widowed Rosalie Aprile, who had lost her husband Jackie Aprile to stomach cancer years earlier. Yet it did not phase Janice one bit as she threw herself at him the first chance she got. Eventually, Janice wised up and dumped Ralph, but not a good look to pursue another man dating a woman who had lost as much as Rosalie had at the time. It would look even worse knowing Jackie Jr.’s fate.
7. Attacking Another Parent At A Soccer Game
Janice deserves props for trying to be a mother figure to her stepchildren. However, she very clearly wasn’t good at it. As she cheered on her stepdaughter during her soccer game, her temper flared up to the point where she attacked another parent. The assault made headlines, which brought unwanted attention to herself and the Dimeo family. While Janice’s heart was in the right place, it was not one of her brightest moves to do that, knowing her association with organized crime and how law enforcement would exploit any chance they could to take down the mafia.
6. Abandoning Tony To Deal With Their Mother
This was the most understandable of all the bad things Janice ever did. Livia Soprano was extremely hard to live with because she would find every chance she could to make everyone else miserable. As the oldest one in the family, Janice was the one who would stand up to Livia. However, leaving home the first chance she got forced Tony to fend for himself against their mother. Knowing Tony’s mental health issues, being alone with Livia clearly did some damage, which is why Tony admitted that he’s never forgiven Janice for abandoning him like that.
5. Showing Her Racism During An Anger Management Session
Janice was not the most hardcore racist on The Sopranos, but she definitely had her biases. While talking during an anger management session, it appeared initially that Janice genuinely understood the black community’s oppression as she claimed to have marched during the Civil Rights movement in her youth. She then completely flipped that on its head when she followed that up by complaining about black people driving their SUVs while blasting rap music. When a black woman who was also at the session chirped back at her, she responded with, “If the shoe fits.” During her rant, Janice claimed that she was aware of the bigotry in her family’s heritage and tried to distance herself from it, but clearly, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
4. Abandoning Her First-Born Child
This was something that had been done off-screen, but it was something that delves further into Janice as a character. She originally got married young and had a son, Harpo, with her ex-husband. When she got divorced, she tried to gain custody but was denied, thus hinting that Janice may have done something to convince the courts she was not a good mother. Worse yet, she doesn’t mention Harpo, who the show confirmed was a troubled child and homeless. Perhaps Janice abandoned all hope when she was denied custody, but never so much as mentioning him indicates how bad she was as a mom. Tony later provokes her about it in one of The Sopranos’ funniest scenes, but it demonstrates how much Harpo’s life still bothers.
3. Stealing Her Mother’s Maid’s Wooden Leg
Janice’s greed would get the best of her. Among the more noticeable times in which she paid for her actions (no pun intended) was when she stole Svetlana’s wooden leg in retaliation for Livia giving her maid her old records, which Janice saw as a potential goldmine. Janice was then assaulted by the Russian mafia for her stubbornness in giving back the leg, which caused quite some trouble for Tony because he had to choose between starting a war with them for attacking her or risk looking weak. Even if Janice didn’t understand the full magnitude of her actions beforehand, her greed almost started a war that could have led to many lives being lost.
2. Using Bobby Bacalieri’s Children To Move Into Their Lives
In season 4, Janice develops feelings for Bobby Bacalieri when she sees how much he truly loved his deceased wife after her tragic passing, so much so that she wanted to be his next wife. How she got there is legitimately disturbing. After AJ pranked Bobby’s kids using a Ouija board, Janice took to the internet to convince them that Satan was watching them, scaring them half to death. The worst part is that her scheme works. Bobby calls Janice to help make his children feel safer, ultimately leading to Bobby and Janice’s marriage. In all fairness, Janice earnestly tried to be a good stepmom to Bobby’s kids, but that doesn’t excuse terrifying them to replace his dead wife and their dead mom.
1. Convincing Richie Aprile To Kill Tony
Because she wanted money and safety, Janice initially wanted nothing more than to be married to a Don of the family. Seeing what Tony and Carmela had, she saw Richie as her meal ticket. Pairing up two of The Sopranos’ most unlikable characters was sure to wreak some havoc regardless of how in love they were with one another. Since she wanted to be married to the head of the family, she successfully manipulated Richie into deciding to kill her own brother.
Had the hit become successful, Janice murdering Tony by proxy would have made for one of the greatest betrayals in The Sopranos. Of course, that didn’t happen because Janice killed Richie before he could kill Tony. While it served as one of the most shocking moments on The Sopranos, it was far from the worst thing Janice did, which speaks volumes for how detestable both she and Richie were.
