Throughout the six-season duration of “The Sopranos,” there are many deaths that tug at the heartstrings of viewers, including Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) and Bobby Baccalieri (Steve Schirripa). However, the whacking of Christopher’s fiancé Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo) might just be the saddest.
As the niece of acting boss Jackie Aprile (Michael Rispoli), who passes away early in the series from cancer, and his older brother Richie (David Proval), who gets shot by his fiancé Janice Soprano (Aida Turturro), Adriana is no stranger to the world of organized crime. Therefore, when the FBI threatens to blackmail her if she doesn’t leak information, she knows her life could be in danger.
Adriana, desperate to get out of her predicament, chooses to confide in Christopher, who doesn’t take so kindly to his fiancé sharing DiMeo family secrets with the feds. He and Tony (James Gandolfini) concoct a deceptive plan to get Adriana in the car with Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt) under the pretense that he’s taking her to the hospital to see Christopher, who she’s made to believe attempted suicide. When Silvio stops the car in the middle of the woods and Adriana realizes what’s happening, she quickly crawls from the vehicle, but isn’t fast enough. The scene ends with the sound of gunshots echoing through the trees.
Ultimately, Adriana was a good person blinded by her love of Christopher, and she didn’t deserve such a gruesome death. In fact, some fans of “The Sopranos” believe that in the end, she got her revenge.
The cat in the finale could be Adriana’s ghost
In the series finale of “The Sopranos,” Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri (Tony Sirico) is freaked out by an orange tabby cat who takes up residence in the office of the Bada Bing! club. It’s transfixed on a photo of Christopher, who was previously killed by Tony for crashing his car while high. “Look at him staring at that dead kid. Gives me the f****** creeps,” Paulie says. Tony counters, “Leave him, he’s a good boy.”
A number of fans believe the cat is actually the spirit of Adriana, who returns to traumatize the men behind her murder. Given Adriana’s deep affection for “Chris-ta-fuh,” not to mention her vast wardrobe of animal prints, this theory is extremely plausible. On Reddit, u/postrockonacid said, “If it’s not the literal ghost of Adriana, then it certainly still represents her in some way. Throughout the series, Adriana is always linked with cats: wearing clothes with cat motifs, going ‘meow’ in that scene in ‘A Hit is a Hit,’ she even looks a bit catlike.”
Others theorized that Adriana’s spirit also wants Tony and the crew to regret Christopher’s death. Though he was abusive at times and sold her out to Tony, she truly loved him and always stood by him as he battled addiction and inner demons. Another user in the Reddit thread said, “Christopher was an innocent kid Tony took and groomed to be a murderer. With an alcoholic mother who didn’t give a s*** about him and a dead father, Tony could do with him what he wanted.”
