A recent story in the Times Magazine proclaimed that “every young person in America” is watching “The Sopranos,” and there might be something to it. Since the advent of the pandemic, my social-media feeds have been full of commentary from people newly discovering the gabagool-scented world of Tony and the gang.

Perhaps it has to do with the show’s portrait of American decay, as the piece’s author, Willy Staley, theorized, or perhaps it has to do with the fact that there are eighty-six episodes and we’ve all had a lot of time to kill. Whatever it is, a lamentably low number of the “Sopranos” memes clogging up the Internet feature Carmela Soprano, the show’s manicured, maneuvering matriarch.