Tony Blundetto

Anthony "Tony" Blundetto, played by Steve Buscemi, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series The Sopranos. He is Tony Soprano's cousin who is released from prison at the beginning of the show's fifth season. Upon release, Tony Blundetto begins to pursue a straight, non-criminal life. However, he is eventually overpowered by the challenges of civilian life and turns back to crime, dragging the DiMeo Crime Family into the Lupertazzi Crime Family's power struggle.

For his work in season 5, Buscemi received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

Character overview

Anthony "Tony" Blundetto is introduced in the second episode of season 5, "Rat Pack". He is a cousin of Tony Soprano and Christopher Moltisanti. To distinguish between them, they were called "Tony Uncle Johnny" (Soprano) and "Tony Uncle Al" (Blundetto) when they were kids, after their fathers' first names. Blundetto, Soprano, and Moltisanti all grew up and played on a farm owned by their uncle, Pat Blundetto. Growing up, both Tonys were very close and Blundetto told Moltisanti that he loved Soprano like a brother. The two Tonys would often bully Moltisanti. Blundetto is the father of Kelli Blundetto, who is Meadow's contemporary and is said to have run away from home, and identical twin boys Justin and Jason Blundetto, whom he fathered by having Tony Soprano smuggle his semen out of prison nine years before, while still incarcerated. In the episode "Unidentified Black Males", it is also revealed that he has a genius level I.Q. of 158. He sports a large number of crude prison tattoos, on his forearms, biceps, chest, back, and legs.

In 1986, Blundetto was arrested, tried, and incarcerated for almost 17 years for the armed hijacking of a truck. Soprano was supposed to go along with his cousin the night of the hijacking but was not able to make it due to a severe panic attack during which he passed out and injured his head, which was caused by an argument with his mother. Although Blundetto doesn't know that's the reason Soprano never showed, Soprano tells Blundetto he was mugged by a group of black men the night of the hijacking, and was knocked unconscious. Soprano strongly believes Blundetto holds some ill-will towards him because Blundetto was busted, went to prison, his wife divorced him, and his daughter ran away, while Soprano prospered, became boss of the family, and was able to send his daughter to an Ivy League university. Blundetto denies this ill will, but Tony still harbors enormous guilt.

In the Spring of 2004, Blundetto is released from Federal Correctional Complex, Allenwood, along with a string of other well-known mobsters, which the media labels "The Class of '04." These other mobsters include former high-ranking caporegime Michele "Feech" La Manna, Lupertazzi crime family caporegime Phil Leotardo, and former Lupertazzi family consigliere Angelo Garepe, who returns and decides to stay semi-retired. After Blundetto's parole, he decides not to return to a life of crime and has the incentive to stay straight and clean. Instead, he initially decides to go into massage therapy. Tony is seemingly disappointed that Blundetto has decided to pursue a legitimate career after he declines Tony's offer to get back started working with the DiMeo crime family with a stolen airbag scheme Soprano had lined up for him but respects his cousin's decision regardless. Soprano gets his cousin a job working for a laundry company owned by a Korean man named Kim. Kim doesn't trust Blundetto at all and shows his overt racial prejudice against him since he is a white ex-con. When Kim, however, finds out about Blundetto's aspiration to become a professional massage therapist, he begins to take a liking to him and even says he will go in on the business with him 50/50. With the help of Gwen, a girlfriend he met via the Internet while in prison, Blundetto passes his "New Jersey State Massage Licensing Board" exam and is hopeful to open his own massage/spa facility. Kim sets up Blundetto with an empty storefront he owns in West Caldwell to establish the massage parlor/spa. In the episode "Sentimental Education", Blundetto comes across $12,000 in the street, thrown out of a car window by a paranoid drug dealer who believed he was being tailed by the police, and everything appears to be going his way. He manages to start fixing the storefront up, but then goes on a self-destructive tear, staying out nights and blowing much of the remainder of the money on gambling and expensive clothes, to seemingly "keep up" with the modestly wealthy members of Tony's crew, and Tony himself. After fighting on the phone with Gwen, he takes his anger and frustration out in a beating he gives Kim, ostensibly because he has been doing all of the work, and he'd finally had enough. Blundetto then meets Tony Soprano, at Nuovo Vesuvio for a meal. After hinting that he has messed up his business with Kim, Blundetto asks if he still needs someone to cover the airbag scheme, Soprano tells Blundetto "it's hard doing business with strangers" (meaning Kim). At this, Blundetto then begins working with Tony's crew.

Little Carmine's crew simultaneously begins courting Blundetto through his old prison buddy, Angelo Garepe. In an earlier season episode "Where's Johnny?", Phil Leotardo had performed a mock execution on a female loan shark Lorraine Calluzzo for siding with Little Carmine during the Lupertazzi power struggle between Carmine and Johnny Sack. When Lorraine fails to give her money to Sack upfront, Phil gets his younger brother, Billy, and crew-member "Joey Peeps" to shoot Lorraine along with her boyfriend and partner in her shylock business, Jason Evanina, after breaking into her Brooklyn home. In retaliation, Little Carmine loyalists, Rusty Millio and Angelo Garepe offer a contract to Blundetto to murder Joey Peeps ("Marco Polo") in retaliation. Although he is reluctant at first, he later accepts the contract after he decided that he isn't moving up fast enough in Soprano's crew. Blundetto shoots Joey, and a prostitute he was seeing, inside his car. but the vehicle still in drive, rolls over his foot. Blundetto limps away from the scene and leaves quickly in his car. In "Unidentified Black Males", Soprano discovers Blundetto has a limp. Blundetto lies and says he was jumped by gang members in Newark, while making collections. Soprano learns from Johnny Sack, while playing golf, that a witness got a look at the man who killed Joey Peeps and that the witness said he was limping away from the scene. Soprano instantly puts the puzzle together and has a panic attack on the first tee and collapses. He later confronts Blundetto who calmly pleads his innocence. Although Soprano knows the truth, he tells Sack that Blundetto did not kill Peeps; he knows there would be dire consequences if the truth were known.

In "The Test Dream", Phil and Billy Leotardo shoot Angelo savagely, in the trunk of Phil's car, in revenge for Peeps' death. This drives Blundetto into a rage, and he tracks down the Leotardo brothers one night on a New York street, he wounds Phil and kills Billy. By the end of season 5, Tony Soprano is under heavy pressure to deliver his cousin to Johnny Sack (who has taken over his crime family after Little Carmine's abdication), explicitly so he can be tortured to death by Phil Leotardo. With his entire crime family now targeted in revenge, Tony Soprano confronts his capos (especially an increasingly vocal Carlo Gervasi), telling them he is giving Blundetto the protection he would give to any of them. But after much prevarication, Soprano realizes that he has to make a painful choice. He uses a contact at a phone company to track down Blundetto at their Uncle Pat Blundetto's former farm. Blundetto is coming back from grocery shopping and is ambushed by Soprano who kills him with a 12-gauge shotgun on the porch of the farmhouse. He then tells Johnny Sack where Blundetto is. When Phil arrives later to avenge his brother's death, he finds Blundetto's body lying on a pile of wood on the front porch and is furious to be deprived of his vengeance. Tony Soprano then tells Christopher Moltisanti to bury his cousin Tony secretly, and in one piece, off the premises. Tony and Johnny reach an accord over Blundetto's demise (which does not come close to satisfying Phil) but Johnny is arrested by the FBI soon afterwards, meaning Tony may have been able to either save his cousin or leave him alone to face off against Phil if he hadn't already killed him.

When Soprano is shot and falls into a coma the following season, his dreams include an encounter with Blundetto. In the dream, occurring in the season 6 episode 3 "Mayham", his cousin (named in the credits merely as "Man") is stuck as a doorman in purgatory, urging Soprano to let go of his life as a mobster and spend the rest of eternity with his dead loved ones. Specifically, Soprano arrives outside an Inn where a fancy dinner party is being held. He wants to go in and is invited inside by Blundetto, but is told that he will have to leave his briefcase outside. Soprano is reluctant to let go of the briefcase, since he says his "whole life is in there." The implication is that he is on the verge of crossing over into the afterlife and must leave the briefcase, symbolizing his mortal life, behind. The presence of Blundetto, a man he murdered, and his dead mother inside the Inn, adds further credence to this idea.

Episode appearances

• Appears in the following episodes: "Two Tonys", "Rat Pack", "Where's Johnny?", "All Happy Families...", "Irregular Around the Margins", "Sentimental Education", "In Camelot", "Marco Polo", "Unidentified Black Males", "Cold Cuts", "The Test Dream", "Long Term Parking", "All Due Respect", "Mayham" (as a mysterious Tony B. lookalike in Tony Soprano's coma dream).

Known murders committed by Blundetto

• Joseph "Joey Peeps" Peparelli: Contracted by Rusty Millio and Angelo Garepe in retaliation for Lorraine Calluzzo's murder (2004, "Marco Polo")
• Heather: A high-class prostitute shot by Blundetto alongside Joey (2004, "Marco Polo")
• Billy Leotardo: Shot by Blundetto in retaliation for the murder of long time friend Angelo Garepe (2004, "The Test Dream")

External links

• HBO Profile: Tony Blundetto