Believe it or not, The Sopranos made its debut on HBO 20 years ago today, on January 10th, 1999. While the network had found success with scripted dramas like Oz and Sex and the City, The Sopranos cemented HBO's reputation as a haven for quality programming and top-notch storytelling, paving the way for more great HBO fare like The Wire, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under, and for networks like FX and AMC to make similar transformations. Without Tony Soprano (played by the late and truly great James Gandolfini), the television landscape might be a very different, and less interesting, place.

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In honor of the show's anniversary, we've picked our favorite moments from its six (or is that six-and-a-half?) seasons. Some are funny, some are morbid, but all made for compelling TV.

20. Tony the Re-Gifter

19. Carmela's Breakdown

18. Evidently Chickentown

17. Le Morte d’Christopher

16. Goodbye Uncle Junior

15. The Chinese Prince Matchabelli

14. "Big Pussy" Gets Whacked

13. Vito Accidentally Comes Out

12. Janice - A True Soprano

11. Christopher's Intervention

"The Happy Wanderer" (Season 2)It can't be easy growing up as the child of a mafia manager. Dad is constantly spoiling you with expensive gifts, all while expecting you not to ask where those gifts came from. Meadow got a very uncomfortable reminder of the true nature of her father's work in this episode, which chronicles the sad downfall of Robert Patrick's compulsive gambler character David Scatino.Over the course of "The Happy Wanderer," we see David lose his family and his business after getting into debt. That culminates when Tony claims David's son's Nissan Pathfinder as partial repayment, only to turn around and re-gift it to Meadow -- who is also friends with David! Why he thought she wouldn't notice the suspicious circumstances behind her new car is beyond us. But it's one of several key moments in the series where Meadow is forced to acknowledge that her father is not a good man."Join the Club" (Season 6)Season 6 started off on an unexpectedly shocking note, with a befuddled Uncle Junior shooting his own nephew at the end of the season premiere. "Join the Club" explores the aftermath, with Tony's family keeping vigil even as a comatose Tony himself navigates a strange sort of Purgatory.This episode remains fairly divisive among Sopranos fans, as "dream episodes" often tend to be. But one thing we can all agree on is that Edie Falco delivers some of her strongest acting work in the entire series as Carmela encounters her comatose husband for the first time and completely breaks down. However toxic their relationship might have become over the course of the series, never was her lingering love for Tony more apparent."Stage 5" (Season 6)As The Sopranos entered the back half of its last season, a lot of elements that were setting up the final battle between Tony and Phil Leotardo began to click into place. That’s particularly true of the eventful and sad episode “Stage 5,” which sees Tony and Christopher's up and down relationship takes a severe turn for the worse when Tony sees his nephew's slasher film Cleaver and comes to believe that the hateful title character is based on him. Meanwhile, Johnny Sack succumbs to cancer in prison, and Phil once again gives into his frustration and rage over the death of his brother.And that’s where this moment comes into play, as Phil sits with his lieutenant Butch and bemoans the state of things and the perceived mistreatment of himself and his family, including the changing of his family name from Leonardo way back when at Ellis Island. “Leotardo -- that’s my f#@king legacy!” he says. As the intense “Evidently Chickentown” plays on the soundtrack, the camera pans across the photos of Phil’s dead friends that hang above the bar, his mind finally set on one thing and one thing only: revenge. The scene then cuts to Tony and Christopher embracing at the baptism of Christopher’s daughter, both fully aware of the unspoken animosity between them."Kennedy and Heidi" (Season 6)The Sopranos was good at shocking us with death scenes and bursts of violence, but there was perhaps no other death that was more surprising than this one, as main character and former heir apparent to Tony, Christopher, finally bought it. And not just that, but he died by Tony’s own hand.After flipping their SUV because of Christopher’s drug-addled driving, Tony emerges relatively unscathed. But Christopher is badly injured, with his raspy attempts to breathe clearly indicating as much. Tony flips open his phone to call 911 and gets as far as “91” before her makes his decision, covering his nephew’s mouth and nose and suffocating him. Is it a mercy kill, because Tony knows Christopher can never escape the lure of drugs and the damage it does? Or is it simply another case of Tony seeing five steps ahead and making the most business savvy move he can? Surely it’s the latter, and as Chrissy stares at his uncle, he drowns in his own blood as it fills his lungs. And really, is Tony any different than the teenage girls of the title, who were on the other end of the near-collision and decided to not go back to help Tony and Christopher because they were on their learner’s permit after dark? Self-interest is all-encompassing on The Sopranos."Made in America" (Season 6)In the end, Uncle Junior wound up perhaps worse off than the many mob associates who he had outlived and outsmarted. Lost in his own mind and doomed to live out his final days in a state facility, Junior finds himself face to face with his nephew Tony one last time in one of the saddest scenes in the entire series.This takes place in the much-anticipated series finale, where a lot of other business also needed to be dealt with, but series creator David Chase (who also wrote and directed the finale) is careful to give this all-important relationship its due. As Tony, still angry at his uncle for shooting him earlier in the season, comes to realize that Junior is not really Junior anymore, his rage turns to tears. "You and my dad -- you two ran North Jersey," Tony says. “We did?” responds Junior. “Well, that’s nice.”"Rat Pack" (Season 5)If The Sopranos had a designated comic relief character, it was Paulie Walnuts. Paulie fancied himself a suave ladies man and all-around competent capo, but his cluelessness tended to get the better of him throughout the series. In this episode, Paulie took Tony's advice and began reading (or listening to) Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Hoping to impress his friends, Paulie waxed on about the genius of "Sun Tizzou," a man he praised as "The Chinese Prince Matchabelli," until the more worldly Silvio Dante finally set him straight.But the best moment in Paulie's brief flirtation with culture came when he listened to Sun Tizzou in his car, knowingly absorbing the lesson "He will win, when he knows when to fight, and when not to fight" and nodding knowingly. No sooner did he absorb this bit of wisdom than Paulie launched out of his car, delivering a savage beating to a group of gardeners who owed him money. Lesson learned?"Funhouse" (Season 2)The Sopranos capped off its second season with the death of a major character. We all knew Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero's days were numbered once he flipped and became an FBI informant, but that didn't make the actual moment any less tragic.The kicker in this scene comes when Big Pussy finishes reminiscing about his Puerto Rican lover, only for Tony to turn cold and ask, "Did she even exist?" It's a quiet reminder that, for Tony, the true injury is less having his secrets spoiled to the FBI, but being betrayed by a close friend. It's in this moment that Big Pussy truly realizes what's coming. He'll never see dry land again."Unidentified Black Males" (Season 5)The mafioso culture seen in The Sopranos is all about machismo - proving to everyone else in the family that you're tough, worthy of respect, and a red-blooded male of the highest order. It's not a culture that welcomes homosexuality. So it was a bit of a shock when Meadow's then-boyfriend Finn accidentally caught Vito Spatafore performing oral sex on a male security guard at the construction site they both "worked" at.It was a twist that initially resulted in a humorous subplot as Finn wasn't sure whether Vito was looking to whack him for seeing too much or trying to seduce him. Finn's solution was to get engaged to Meadow. But eventually Vito's story took a dark turn when he was exposed to the rest of the crew and forced to go into hiding. His tragic, brutal death later in the series would cause a serious rift between the Soprano and Lupertazzi families."The Knight in White Satin Armor" (Season 2)For much of her early appearances, Tony's sister Janice made a grand show of distancing herself from the family business. She was a bohemian free spirit who traveled the world and dabbled in all sorts of crazy jobs before returning to Jersey to pester her brother. But that facade quickly faded away when she started dating her old high school boyfriend (and Tony's rival) Richie Aprile. Suddenly, Janice reverted to the stereotypical mafia housewife.But Richie learned the hard way that Soprano blood runs deep. After calmly punching Janice in the face during an argument, he returned to his meal, only to have a dumbstruck Janice come back in the room and shoot him dead. So after weeks of exacerbating the rivalry between Tony and Richie, Janice immediately put it to rest. Funny how things work out."The Strong, Silent Type" (Season 4)If every junkie hits bottom eventually, then Christopher Moltisanti's came when he accidentally killed fiance Adriana's dog while sitting on it in the midst of a heroin high. This finally forced the rest of the family to sit Christopher down for an intervention. And true to form for The Sopranos, that intervention resulted in Christopher getting beaten up and sent to the hospital.The key moment, however, came when Tony again confronted his nephew in the hospital room. Tony suddenly morphs from caring uncle to vengeful mob boss, telling Christopher in no uncertain terms that he's only still alive because he's family. In more ways than one, this scene is haunting because of how we know their relationship eventually plays out.