Cue the credits. Cigar smoke. Highlights of the Jersey Turnpike: smokestacks, exit signs, graffiti-covered overpasses. Ah, my old New Jersey home. The pork store. Pizzaland. Excuse me while I set MS Dictionary to ignore the word "fuck" in all its permutations. Okay, here we go. Mighty Big TV has three Jersey girls covering the Sopranos waterfront, so watch this space for recaps by LuluBates and miss parker.
Fade up on Tony "Tony, Why Ya Buggin'?" Soprano in a waiting room, skeptically eyeing a sculpture of a nude that has really aggressive nipples. We cut back and forth between Tony, staring at the nude with his hands folded, and the nude, staring impassively back at Tony with her arms crossed behind her head. A door opens, and Dr. Jennifer "First Ray Liotta And Now This" Melfi smiles, "Mr. Soprano?" Tony snaps out of it, grunts "yeah," and follows her into her lair. Melfi closes the doors behind him; Tony doesn't know where to sit, he's awkward, uncomfortable with all that head-shrinkin' nonsense, blah blah blah fishcakes. Finally, he sort of shrugs himself into a chair and looks around, doing that digging-around-in-his-teeth-with-his-tongue thing that means he's not impressed. Melfi sits down and puts her glasses on. They sit there. Tony looks around. Melfi looks at Tony. Tony says nothing. Melfi says nothing. Finally, Melfi admits defeat in the say-nothing face-off and breaks the silence by saying that Tony's family physician told her that Tony "collapsed -- possibly a panic attack?" Tony holds up a not-so-fast hand as Melfi goes on, "You were unable to breathe?" and Tony interrupts, "They said it was a panic attack, 'cause all the, uh, blood work and the neurological work came back negative. And they sent me here." "You don't agree that you had a panic attack," Melfi says indulgently. Tony sighs heavily; Melfi asks how he's feeling now. "Fine. Back at work," Tony says, fidgeting. Melfi asks what he does. "Waste management consultant," he tells her, and I can't help thinking of the same actress asking Henry Hill what he did in Goodfellas and getting the "I'm in construction" response in the same rehearsed tone. More silence; then Tony bursts out, "Look, it's impossible for me to talk to a psychiatrist." Melfi glides over this with, "Any thoughts at all on why you blacked out?" Tony doesn't know: "Stress, maybe?" "About what?"
Tony rolls his eyes a few times and finally says in voice-over, as we cut to a shot of dawn coming up at his palatial house, "I dunno. The morning of the day I got sick, I'd been thinking, it's good to be in something from the ground floor." Tony's eye; Tony lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. "I came too late for that, I know. But lately I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over." Tony going out for the paper in his bathrobe. Melfi says she thinks many Americans feel that way. Tony says he thinks about his father, who never reached "the heights like" Tony has, but who had it better in many ways -- "he had his people, they had their standards, they had pride. Today, what do we got?" Tony standing in the driveway reading The Star Ledger and shaking his head. My dad does the same thing -- that paper bites -- except my dad gets dressed first.
Melfi asks if Tony had "these feelings of loss more acutely" before he collapsed. Tony clearly thinks that's a stupid question and says he doesn't know. Tony walking with a spring in his step towards the deserted, placid pool, then looking dismayed. Enter a family of ducks from the underbrush, quacking, and Tony smiles all happily and picks up a handful of bread crumbs and offers them to the ducks as he tells Melfi in VO that a pair of ducks landed in his pool a few months ago and stayed for mating season. Tony gets into the pool, still wearing his bathrobe, to swim around with the ducks. Tony needs a hobby. ["I thought the ducks were his hobby!" -- Wing Chun]
Close-up of an unfortunate-looking teenage girl making a "whatever" face out the window at Tony as Tony VOs that his teenage daughter's friend had come to drive his daughter, Meadow "Bratso Rizzo" Soprano, to school. The friend makes a snide comment about Tony and the ducks and walks over to the breakfast bar, and Meadow gripes that the whole yard "smells like duck poo, it's, like, embarrassing." Shut up, Meadow. From the sink, Carmela "Drama" Soprano nags the girls -- ironically, in light of the recent revelation that Jamie Lynn Sigler suffered from anorexia during the first season -- that they have to have something besides cranberry juice for breakfast. The girls roll their eyes at each other. Enter Anthony "New Jersey Fats" Soprano, Jr., a.k.a. "AJ." Carmela croons, "Happy birthday, handsome," and kisses him on the cheek and says disbelievingly, "Thirteen!" Meadow with the zinger: "Yeah, he doesn't act it." "Shut up," AJ sulks, dipping a pastry into an entire pitcher of milk. Meadow's ugly friend asks if the ducks "just made a home in your pool and did it," like, get over it, Ugly Friend. Meadow tells AJ to "get out of here, you're so gross," and AJ makes a face at her. Carmela offers the girls leftover sfogliatelle (yum!), and Meadow sneers, "Ugh, get outta here with that fat." "One bite," Carmela says. "Shut up, Meadow," I say. Ugly Friend sucks up to Carmela by asking how she stays "so skinny"; Carmela wanders over to the window and watches Tony in the pool and says, half to herself, "Him. With those ducks."
Outside, Tony tells the ducks that he can build the ducks a new ramp into the pool if they'd like. ["Heh. Which is more than he'll offer his incapacitated mother in thirteen episodes." -- Wing Chun] ["Oh, he'd offer her one -- one that fed right into a merge lane on the Garden State Parkway. Hey, why am I in brackets here?" -- Sars] Tony, dude -- step back. The ducks swim around and quack. Then one of the baby ducks attempts a water take-off, and Tony gets all excited and yells to the kids to come take a look -- "the babies, they're trying to fly." Inside, Meadow and AJ and UF all roll their eyes before slouching outside to the pool, and Meadow sighs all put-upon, "National Geographic, Dad," and AJ grouses that "you showed us yesterday." They file back inside. Tony continues to enthuse over the ducks even though nobody else cares.
Melfi's office; Tony explains in a whatever tone that Carmela feels Ugly Friend "is a bad influence" on Meadow. Cut again to the kitchen and UF blathering about how "it's so cool" that Meadow can come with UF and her family to Aspen, and how UF saw Skeet Ulrich in Aspen last year, like, get over it again, Ugly, because Skeet Ulrich is so '96, but Meadow is all impressed and "oh my god." Shut up, Meadow. Carmela just stands there stirring something and looking annoyed, and finally she reminds Meadow that they have a deal: she has to keep her grades up and make curfew between now and Christmas or she doesn't get to go. Meadow curls her lip and spits, "I know that," and walks away; UF follows her. Carmela seems used to Meadow's lip and doesn't react, but -- as you may have deduced from the fact that I've told her to shut up like five times already -- I cannot abide Meadow and I'd have smacked her upside the head with that big wooden spoon. ["You, me, my mom, AND your mom. And I would like to add that my Italian great-grandmother, God rest her soul, would have busted Meadow's jaw for less than that. Not that I condone child abuse. But it was a different time -- a time when teenagers knew how and when to SHUT UP." -- Wing Chun] Anyway, Tony comes in and says hello to the girls and wishes AJ a happy birthday, and Carmela nags him about whether he'll be home for AJ's birthday party that night, and when he doesn't answer, she drones, "Bird man, hello?" and he says he'll come home early from work, and Carmela snips, "I'm not talking about work," and walks away, and Tony shoots her a "not this again" look . . .
. . . and then we cut back to Tony saying to Melfi, "Look, this isn't gonna work, I can't talk about my personal life." Read: he doesn't want to admit to her that he has a skanky Russian mistress. But I've gotten ahead of myself. Melfi guides him back to the subject of the day he collapsed. Tony says he drove to work with his nephew, Christopher, that day.
Interior of a luxury sedan. Tony's in the passenger seat; Christopher "Dance, Spider! Dance!" Moltisanti is driving. ["Funny, I would have nicknamed him 'Christopher "The Dreamlife of Sars" Moltisanti.' (Tee hee!)" -- Wing Chun, age four] ["Don't make me come over there." -- Sars] Tony explains in voice-over that Christopher's "learning the business," and that "he's an example of what I was talkin' about before." In the car, Tony asks if Christopher called someone or other about some contract. Christopher didn't -- he got in too late last night, he felt nauseous this morning, excusecakes. "Bear in mind," Tony VO says, "this is a kid who just bought himself a sixty-thousand-dollar Lexus." The car passes a Route 4 ramp; then Christopher spots a guy named Mahaffey and points him out to Tony, who smiles evilly and tells him to back up, and they follow the guy.
Melfi's office; Tony explains that "there was this issue of an outstanding loan," but Melfi stops him and says that, although she doesn't know "where this story is going," she'd like to lay out "some ethical ground rules." Tony nods, so she continues a bit nervously that anything he says in her office falls under the purview of doctor-patient-confidentiality . . . but if, say, she heard about a murder about to take place…not that she thinks he'd tell her anything like that, of course…but if he did, she'd have to notify the authorities…"technically." Tony peers at her. "You said you were in waste management," Melfi reminds him. Tony sort of shrugs. Melfi leads the witness by saying that Dr. Cusamano isn't just Tony's family doctor, "he's also your -door neighbor. See what I'm saying?" Tony stares at her dourly. Melfi says quickly that she doesn't know "what happened with this fellow -- I'm just saying." Heh. Tony tells her condescendingly that nothing happened: "We had coffee."
Cut to Mahaffey dropping his take-out coffee tray as Christopher jumps out of the car and chases after him to the accompaniment of a doo-wop song. He catches up to Mahaffey, but after a short scuffle, Mahaffey -- a bald, suit-wearing type -- gives Christopher this really weird place-kicker-type boot in the goolies and takes off again. Tony groans, "Ah, shit," and climbs into the driver's seat to tail Mahaffey in the car while Christopher kneels on the ground, clutching his jewels. As Mahaffey dashes through a corporate campus of some kind, Tony trails him in the Lexus, nearly running over a couple of pedestrians, and Christopher yells at Tony to wait up as Tony careens over a footpath, grinning like a kid, and finally he winds up running Mahaffey down. He gets out of the car as Mahaffey lies on the grass, whimpering and holding his leg, and goes to stand over Mahaffey and pretends to show concern over Mahaffey's possibly broken leg, and Mahaffey moans about the bone sticking out, and then Tony punches Mahaffey in the groin and yells, "I'll give you a fucking bone, you prick! Where's my fucking money?" and punches Mahaffey in the face a few times, and I've got to give props to the Foley guys, because every time Tony lands one on Mahaffey's face, it sounds like a bag of mashed potatoes getting dropped out of a fifth-floor window.
Melfi's office; a mildly discomfited Melfi smiles, "So, you had coffee," and Tony nods.
Back to Tony punching Mahaffey in the face some more; he stops and looks up at the crowd of bystanders that has gathered, and then he sees Christopher fussing over the headlight of the Lexus and trying to pull a shred of Mahaffey's pantleg out of the fender (heh), so he yells at Christopher to get over here, and Christopher bitches about the damage to the car, but he walks over and gives Mahaffey a couple of kicks in the ribs anyway while Tony repeats, "Where's the fucking money?" and Mahaffey sobs on the ground and bystanders in business suits watch with their hands over their mouths. Tony bitches Mahaffey out for telling people that Tony's "nothing"; Christopher lands a few more kicks on Mahaffey, and then he and Tony walk back to the car. Tony tells Mahaffey to stop crying, pointing to the "US/HMO" sign on the lawn and telling him, "You're covered, you prick."
Tony gets into the car, muttering, "Degenerate fucking gambler." The crowd doesn't seem to faze either of them, which strikes me as odd, until I remember this conversation I overheard once on the sidewalk when I came out of a hole-in-the-wall pasta joint on Mott Street to have a smoke, and I saw this guy getting the crap kicked out of him in the street, and a guy leaning on his car and watching the crap-kicking said to his friend, "Yo, why ain't that getting broken up?" and his friend said, "There's fights you break up, and then there's fights in Little Italy." So there you go. ["Ha! Uh...I mean, that's so wrong." -- Wing Chun]
Exterior shot of Centanni's Meat Market. In voice-over, Melfi prompts Tony to go on, and he says he had a breakfast meeting to consult with a garbage-hauling concern he represents. "Breakfast meeting" -- that's a good one. We enter the conversation in medias res with the boys sitting outside their hangout drinking espressos, and I should say right now that I've never understood exactly how the New Jersey Mafia operates, business-wise. We learned pretty early on growing up that, if some kid said his father "is in paper" or "works with the electricians' union," or we went over to the kid's house and found his dad at home watching old movies in the middle of the day -- well, we knew the deal there, and we didn't ask any more questions. Anyway, according to Big Pussy "Insert Nickname Here" Bonpensiero, a couple of Czechs, the Kolar brothers, have muscled in on one of their garbage routes. Tony doesn't see a problem and tells Pussy just to get the percentage from the Kolars, but Pussy says that's the problem -- the Kolars won't pay the percentage, under orders from their bosses back in Czechoslovakia. "Fuck yourself," as well as "fuck themselves" and "fuck ourselves," followed by a muttered "fuckin' garbage business" from Tony. Paulie "Grecian Formula" Walnuts chuckles. ["I would just like to note here, apropos of nothing in particular, how much I love Paulie. That's all." -- Wing Chun] Christopher pipes up that he'll see what he can do. Tony sarcastically asks if he's "over [his] stomachache" from earlier, but before he can needle Christopher any more, Silvio "Born In The USA" Dante walks up, and the rest of the boys all go "aaaayyy" all Fonzie-style and ask what he's doing there, and he says his wife sent him down for capicoll' and then he asks Tony if he went to school with a guy named Artie Bucco.
Melfi's office again. Tony says, "This situation came up; it involves my uncle," and says he "can't go into details on this one," and Melfi holds up a hand and says with audible relief, "That's -- fine." Tony says he can tell her that his uncle "adds to [his] general stress level."
Back at Centanni's, Silvio tells Tony that word down at the club has it that Tony's Uncle Junior is planning to whack a guy named Pussy Malanga. Tony makes a "so what" face. Silvio goes on to say that Junior's going to do it at "your friend Artie Bucco's restaurant." Tony frowns.
After a shot of the Lexus cruising some rainy streets, we cut to the interior of Vesuvio, Artie's restaurant. Tony and Christopher walk through the dining room greeting various people, and Tony comes up behind an older man and puts his finger at the base of the guy's neck and says, "Don't move." The old guy, Uncle Junior, freezes for a second until Tony says, "Uncle June, how are ya?" Junior "Magoo" Soprano gets up; hugs and handshakes all around. Junior asks about AJ's birthday, and Tony warns him not to get AJ "anything big." Artie "Hey Boo" Bucco comes out of the kitchen and he and Tony greet each other with a big bear hug; Artie's wife Charmaine, clearing plates, sees them hugging and rolls her eyes before going back into the kitchen. Tony and Christopher sit down. Christopher asks if Tony knows what it means for Artie "if one of these old mutts gets wet in here," and Tony unfolds a napkin and says yeah, it'll ruin Artie's business. Christopher advises Tony to sit down with Junior. A waiter pours wine into their glasses as Tony stares wearily over at Junior's table and says in voice-over that "Uncle Junior's my father's brother. Good guy, just -- gettin' old. Cranky." He adds that Junior used to take him to Yankees' games as a kid, and he loved his uncle.
The Lexus pulls up in front of a white frame house as Tony VO continues, "At the same time, when I was young he told my girl cousins I would never be a varsity athlete and frankly, that was a tremendous blow to my self-esteem." Tony knocks on the front door with a boombox under his arm. He has to knock several times before a frail voice asks, "Who's there?" "It's me, Ma," Tony nearly shouts. "Who are you?" the voice wants to know. Oh, Lord. And so it begins. Tony tries to keep his temper, looking up and saying, "Ma, open the door." "Anthony?" quavers the voice. Tony repeats that she should open the door, and finally Livia "Kind Of Blue -- Except For The 'Kind Of' Part" Soprano lets him in. He leans down to kiss her and she shrinks away, and he kind of sniffs around her pink housecoat before making a fanning motion and telling her, "Jeez, Ma, get some air in here." Livia is definitely sporting the nappy dishevelment look of the chronically depressed. ["As I recall, in this scene the housecoat is buttoned wrong, which is a detail they pick up in subsequent episodes; Livia's housecoat is always off by a button, usually near her neck. I just always thought that attention to detail was cool." -- Wing Chun]
Inside, Livia asks him if he locked the door and then starts complaining that someone called her after dark the night before. Tony asks who, and she snorts, "You think I'd answer? It was dark out." Tony points out that he could understand not going out after dark, but he just doesn't get not answering the phone after dark, since one is an auditory "thing" and one is "an eye thing." "Oh, listen to him, he knows everything," Livia sighs, and offers him some eggplant. Tony says he just ate, and pulls the boombox out of the packaging while telling Livia that he just ran into Uncle June. "Oh, that one. You think he ever comes to see his sister-in-law?" Livia gripes. Tony ignores that and asks if Livia remembers Artie Bucco, and Livia says enthusiastically that she sees Artie's mother from time to time, and Artie's mother says Artie calls her every day. Oh, Livia, you poor thing. I wonder why Tony doesn't call you every day? Oh, that's right -- because you can't stop talking about the fact that he doesn't call you every day. Get off of that already.
Anyway, Tony tells her that Uncle Junior's "gonna make a problem for Artie" that could affect Artie's livelihood. Livia doesn't seem to hear him; she looks at the boombox and asks, "For me?" and then says dismissively, "I don't want it," and goes back into the kitchen. Oh, that's nice. Tony reminds her that she loves music and that all her old favorites have come out as CD reissues, and he goes into the kitchen and tries to dance with her, but she immediately protests and pushes him away and stomps back into the dining room, and Tony looks at her with a wounded expression, then snaps that she needs something "to occupy [her] mind" now that his father's dead. "Oh, he was a saint," Livia whimpers. Tony says mildly that he knows that, but he's gone, and he reminds Livia that she meant to travel and do volunteer work, but she hasn't done anything. Livia snarls at him not to tell her how to live her life. Tony just worries about her, he says; she snorts, then tells him not to "start in with that nursing-home business again," and Tony rolls his eyes and yells that it's not a nursing home, it's a retirement community, she can interact with seniors her own age, blah dee blah. Livia is having none of it, saying she's "seen these women," sitting in their wheelchairs and "babbling like idiots," and she tells Tony to eat, and he grimly repeats that he already ate. Then he asks her to talk to Junior about Artie, because Junior respects her opinion, but she says that if Junior has business with Artie, "he knows what he's doing." Tony sets his jaw and asks, "And I don't?" Livia gives him a slightly fearful look, but decides to twist the knife again anyway: "Well -- all I know is, daughters are better at taking care of their mothers than sons." Tony gets up, calls her a "broken record," and heads for the door, saying he expects to see her at AJ's birthday party with her baked ziti. "Only if I'm picked up, and I'm brought back home. I don't drive when they're predicting rain," Livia says haughtily. Tony tells her it's good for her to drive, and he's out the door. "Sure. Run off!" she squalls, closing the door behind him. Nice talking to you too, Miss Merry Sunshine.
Melfi's office. Tony leads into the voice-over of AJ's birthday party by bitching that Carmela invited the priest: "He's always at the house." The Sopranos' backyard; Father Phil says hello to Tony, and Tony kind of blows him off while making himself a sandwich. AJ comes out and grouses that Livia just called; she's not coming, and she started crying on the phone and hung up. Tony says Livia needs "a purpose in life," and Carmela makes a snide remark about how Livia is tougher than Tony thinks, and then AJ pipes up, "So what, no fuckin' ziti now?" and both his parents go, "Hey!" I didn't cut the slimmest figure myself at his age, but if anyone needs fuckin' ziti, it isn't AJ.
Flames coming out of the barbecue. Tony smokes a cigar and beams at the ducks, who have taken over the pool. Opera plays. Duck montage. Tony, chuckling. The baby ducks finally nail the water take-off, take wing, and beat it out of there. Tony's eyes cross, and he clutches his chest and describes the sensation in voice-over as "like ginger ale in my skull." I've had panic attacks before, and -- yeah right, pass the Schweppes. The cigar falls out of Tony's mouth. The cameraman makes panic-attacky swooping motions. Tony drops the can of lighter fluid onto the grill and yard-sales onto the grass. Off-camera, we hear Meadow and AJ bleating and Carmela saying she's coming, and just as the rest of the Sopranos enter the frame, a tower of flame shoots up from the grill. Everyone's clustered around Tony. Carmela warns everyone away from the grill while Meadow says, "Dad! Dad! Dad!" like ten million times. Shut up, Meadow. Silvio comes out with the fire extinguisher, Carmela tells someone to call 911, Tony's out like a light.
Tony, about to get loaded into an MRI. Various shots of Tony, lying corpselike on the gurney. His voice-over tells us that Dr. Cusamano, his family doctor, made him go to the hospital and ran all kinds of tests. The lab tech instructs Tony not to move. Carmela comes in; Tony's happy to see her. She thought he might want some company, but she says so in a martyred tone that, alas, we will come to know very very well as the series progresses. Tony asks after the kids. Carmela says, in the same begrudging tone, that "they're worried about you," and that she told AJ they'd "rain-check his birthday." Another lab tech puts little anti-UV glasses on Tony. Tony asks Carmela if she thinks he has a brain tumor. "We're gonna find out," she says. "What a bedside manner. Very encouraging," he says, smiling. Carmela shrugs. Tony waxes nostalgic about their marriage, Carmela reacts sarcastically, Tony points out that "no marriage is perfect," Carmela says snidely that "yeah, having that goomah on the side helps ['goomah,' at least where I grew up, means 'piece on the side']," and Tony grunts that he's not seeing the girl anymore and then bitches that the priest is always coming over, but Carmela tells him not to "go there" (no, really) and pointedly describes Father Phil as a "spiritual mentor" who is helping her "to be a better Catholic," and she's really spitting nails now as Tony says wryly, "Well, we've all got different needs." Carmela, on the verge of tears, says what's "different between" her and Tony "is that you're going to hell when you die." She regains her composure and smoothes her Jersey-matron frost job back into place. The tech loads Tony into the MRI. Carmela remembers which side her Bulgari is buttered on, so she downshifts from fire-breathing back into silent-martyr gear and holds Tony's hand as he goes in, then waves at him with her French manicure as the door closes. Carmela might want to switch her spiritual-mentor allegiance to a little device called the Hitachi Magic Wand. Just a suggestion. ["Yeah, because those nails would not be conducive to any, shall we say, hands-on attention to that area. Whoops, did I say that out loud?" -- Wing Chun]
Centanni's, nighttime. Tony voice-overs about the garbage-hauling problem, then tells Melfi he won't get into that either. As Tony speaks, we see Christopher dorking out inside the darkened shop, practicing karate kicks as "Mannish Boy" plays in the background. Snerk. Nice blow-dry, Tacky Chan. He hears a car pull up out front and opens the door for Emil Kolar, and after the introductions, Christopher rambles on about Italian sausages and gets two Budweisers out of the cooler. Emil says that his uncle (Emil's, not Christopher's) doesn't know he came, but if they make any progress, he'll have to tell him. Christopher says they have to make progress, to "stop the madness," and spouts a bunch of other clichés that make it sound like they work in cancer research instead of trash pick-up, and mispronounces "Emil" and thinks a Czech "is a type of Polack, right?" "Polack"? People still talk like this? Turns out Kolar went to high school in West Essex. Also turns out Kolar wants to get to the point: "Where's the stuff?" Christopher brings out what he calls "the reason for the visit" -- cocaine, which presumably Christopher et. al. want moved along the garbage routes they control. He has it all cut up in lines on the side of a cleaver, and he invites Kolar to "sample the wares, E-mail." Heh. "'Emil,'" Kolar reminds him. Kolar bends down to take a toot, and Christopher pops him in the back of the head. Kolar's body slumps to the floor, and Christopher shoots him a few more times just in case; with each report of the gun, we see photos of various "our thing" heroes: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Lucky Luciano. Christopher stops shooting and glares at a cold case of pork shoulders. Um, okay.
Melfi's office. Tony says the doctors "kept [him] hanging" about the test results, so he went to play golf with his uncle. Melfi observes that he keeps mentioning his uncle: "What seems to be the problem?"
Cut to Junior and Tony emerging from Vesuvio, Junior asking Tony, "Who do you think you are?" "I'm the person who says how things go, that's who I think I am," Tony tells him, adding that Artie's customers come from the upscale suburbs, so if a hit goes down at Vesuvio, they'll stop coming to the restaurant and Junior's plan will ruin Artie's life. Junior explains that "Vesuvio is where Pussy feels safe. He's been eating here all his life." "Hey," Tony says, making with the finger-pointing, "you kill him someplace else." Junior tells him that Tony might run north Jersey, but he doesn't run his Uncle Junior, and bellows, "How many fuckin' hours did I spend, playing catch with you?" and stomps off in a fit of pique, his white cap at an angry angle. Tony slumps.
Melfi wants to focus "more on your immediate family." Tony responds that his wife and his daughter don't get along so well lately. Yeah, like it's possible to get along with Meadow, period. ["Word. It's a wonder she's even managed to hang on to Ugly Friend." -- Wing Chun]
In front of the TV at the Sopranos', Father Phil raves about laserdiscs. Shut up, Father Phil. Carmela sits down with a bowl of popcorn and says that Tony watches Godfather II all the time. After the obligatory reference to the suckiness of Godfather III, Father Phil asks, "Where does Tony rank Goodfellas?" Before Carmela can answer, she hears a whomping sound from outside. Father Phil wonders about raccoons, but Carmela murmurs, "Somebody's jimmying a window," and Father Phil wonders aloud who would break into the Sopranos' house with all the security lights they have, only to squawk "jeez Louise!" when Carmela pulls a big old automatic rifle out of a closet and clicks off the safety. Carmela storms outside and snarls, "Hold it!" at the intruder. It's Meadow, who tries to float a fib about noticing the window rattling, "do we have any putty" blah blah blah Carmela "don't give me that" blah blah blah Meadow bitches at AJ for locking the window on purpose so she'd get caught (if that's the case, well, go AJ) blah blah blah sneaking-out-cakes. Carmela rips into Meadow for "lying and conniving." Meadow's excuse: "Yeah, I know I'm grounded, but Patrick's swim meet is tomorrow, and he needed me!" Oh, man -- how perfectly, quintessentially high-school. Carmela tells her no, she's not just grounded: "You're not going to Aspen with Hunter Scangarelo [Ugly Friend], that's where you're not going!" She stomps back into the house as Meadow's face begins to arrange itself into its customary sneering pout. Right before we cut away, we hear AJ exult, "Yes!" Bwa!
Back to Tony, saying that that "shit" will "all blow over." Melfi asks whether Tony didn't admit to Dr. Cusamano that he'd been feeling depressed. Tony shoots her a look, looks away at her MD diploma from Tufts, then looks back at her and asks, "What part of the boot you from, hon?" Patiently, she answers him. Evidently, their families come from the same part of Italy; Tony grins that his mother "would have loved it if you and I got together." Melfi smiles politely and doesn't respond for a minute. When she does speak, she tells him gently that anxiety attacks constitute legitimate psychiatric emergencies: "Suppose you were driving and you passed out?" Tony interrupts her with a rant about how everybody goes to counselors and on talk shows to talk about their problems; he wants to know whatever happened to Gary Cooper, "the strong, silent type -- that was an American," Gary Cooper didn't get in touch with his feelings, "he just did what he had to do," on and on, winding up with "dysfunction this and dysfunction that and dysfunction va fa culo [basically, 'up the ass']!" Melfi is taken aback, but confines herself to "you have strong feelings about this." Tony goes on some more about how he "gets" therapy theoretically ("I have a semester and a half of college"), and yeah, he could be happier ("who couldn't?"), but he still doesn't truck with psychotherapy. Melfi, flatly: "Do you feel depressed?" No response. She asks again. Tony, reluctantly: "Since the ducks left. I guess." "The ducks that preceded your losing consciousness. Let's talk about them," Melfi murmurs, pleased to have made a breakthrough. Not so fast -- Tony glares at her, breathing heavily, then gets up and stalks out of the room. Melfi folds her hands behind her head.
Out on a random lot in the Electrical Fields, Big Pussy chides Christopher for whacking Kolar and pissing Tony off, and for not waiting for Pussy, as they haul Kolar's body from a truck towards a huge dumpster, which happens to have "KOLAR" written in giant letters on the side. "Last time I show any fucking initiative," Christopher gasps as they drop the body, and he continues grousing about how Tony is "running down" the garbage business and Christopher killed the guy for nothing, blah blah, and Pussy says Tony isn't running it down, "it's just getting harder in New York." They begin swinging the body in preparation for shot-putting it into the dumpster, but they don't heave it up high enough and it clangs into the side of the dumpster, and Pussy calls the situation "fucked up," because the uncle will find Emil in one of his own dumpsters and know what happened. Christopher's comeback to this: "Lewis Brasi sleeps with the fishes." Snerk. Pussy rolls his eyes and corrects him, "Luca Brasi. Luca," and Christopher snaps, "Whatever," and Pussy patiently points out that "there's differences, Christopher -- between the Luca Brasi situation and this," not the least of which is that "the Luca Brasi situation" is in A MOVIE, but Pussy goes on to say that, if the body gets found, the Kolars will get into their business and the cops will have to look for a murderer, which isn't ideal. Christopher sulkily asks what Pussy would suggest. Pussy suggests that Kolar "disappears . . . they know, but they don't know." They pick up the body and start dragging it back to the truck so that they can take it to Staten Island "and cut 'im up." As they drag, Christopher brings up Tony "collapsing at the birthday" and asks what Pussy would do if Tony were "disabled." Whooomp! The body goes back in the truck as Pussy says, "Why would you even ask that?"
More family fun times with Livia as the Sopranos tour an assisted-living facility. Meadow cold-shouldering Carmela; Livia grouching with her usual complete lack of tact. AJ calls the place "really nice" and encourages his grandmother to give it a chance, but she spots the medical wing and starts freaking out: "This is a nursing home. You're not getting me into a nursing home." Tony and Carmela argue that it isn't really a nursing home, as does the director giving the tour, but Livia is all worked up, and she repeats her line about the women in wheelchairs babbling like idiots. Tony is getting more and more frustrated and stressed out himself, and when Livia starts going off on the "high and mighty" director, Tony's eyes start crossing; right on cue, after a few seconds of hyperventilating by Tony, Livia wails, "People come here to die!" and down Tony goes again, bringing an end table and a flower arrangement with him. "Oh my God!" Livia exclaims, but there's a hint of "oh, what a pleasant surprise" in her voice. The rest of the family springs into motion around Tony.
In Melfi's office, Tony sits, hands covering his face. "So," Melfi prompts, "you've come back for help. Don't look at that as a defeat," although from the expression on his now-uncovered face, he clearly does. Banter about depression vs. the Depression. Melfi encourages him to talk about his mother. Tony makes a where-would-I-begin face and grumbles, "Now that my father's dead, he's a saint. When he was alive [pushing fingers out from under chin in 'fuck you' gesture] -- nothin'." Tony frowns in disgust before saying that his father "was tough; he ran his own crew," but Livia wore his father down "to a little nub," a "squeaking little gerbil." Still, he frowns. "Quite a formidable maternal presence," Melfi observes. Tony stares at her before admitting that he's not "getting much satisfaction from" work either. She asks why. "Well, because of RICO." "Is he your brother?" Bah-dum-bum. Jennifer Melfi, ladies and gents. Don't forget to tip your waitress. Tony corrects her; he means the RICO statute, and he goes on to complain about electronic surveillance and "various other strategies" the government uses to put the squeeze on him. She asks if he has "any qualms" about how he makes a living. He says he does: "I find I have to be the sad clown." Only if you wear those shiny sweatsuits your boys like so much, T. Tony mourns the passing of omertà, saying that everyone turns government witness nowadays: "I feel exhausted just talking about it." Melfi uses this as an excuse to segue into a discussion of medication: "Well, with today's pharmacology, no one needs to suffer." "Here we go," Tony says glumly. "Here comes the Prozac."
Jump cut to the strip joint, where Hesh "Robert Du -- Who?" Rabkin is explaining to Christopher that Mahaffey doesn't have the money. They play a little game of "whaddya mean he doesn't have the money"/"I mean he doesn't have the money, is what I mean," with Christopher expressing disbelief that running the guy over with the Lexus didn't do the trick, and Hesh shrugs, "He's bled dry." As it were. Tony comes back to the table. Hesh says he heard Junior wants to whack Pussy Bonpensiero. "Pussy Malanga," Tony corrects him. "Oh, Little Pussy," Hesh says. Tony asks if he thinks Junior would fuck with Big Pussy, "my Pussy?" Um. No, nobody thinks that. Silvio materializes and chastises their waitress for charging the boys for the drinks, and she apologizes in a helium voice and clicks away on her six-inch heels. Hesh tells Tony that Junior resents Tony's being the boss, that he resented Tony's father before that for getting made before he did, that he can't deal with Tony telling him what to do. "Hesh, I love the man," Tony says firmly, but Hesh says, "The man is driven in toto by his insecurities." "I feel bad I was the messenger," Silvio says with a sigh, and shakes his head and walks off. Shut up, Silvio. Hesh suggests that Tony get Artie out of town for a few weeks; Artie will close the restaurant and Junior will have to grease Little Pussy somewhere else. Tony grins at this solution and says fondly, "You old fucking Jew -- no wonder my old man kept you around so long." Not to practice political correctness, presumably. Hesh smiles, then asks what they can do about the Mahaffey situation. Tony thinks for a moment, then tells him, "Mahaffey has a new business partner -- you." They'll set up a phantom-claim insurance scam; Mahaffey can either go along with it, pay the two hundred and fifty grand to Hesh (which he can't), "or it's a rainy night in Lyndhurst" (i.e. they kill him). "Could be major," Hesh says. "Could be as big as garbage," Tony says, sipping his drink. Christopher gets offended: "Hey, garbage is our bread and butter." "Was," Tony says. He doesn't tell Christopher to shut up, but somebody should.
Carmela's in the pantry, dumping a roll of bills out of a false-bottomed can of Campbell's. Upstairs, Meadow is on her bed, sulking. Carmela knocks and comes into Meadow's room, dressed in a lavender suit with a purse over her shoulder. "So, Mead." "I'm not going," Meadow brats. Carmela tries to sell it: "Every year, on this date, since you were itty-bitty, Mom and Meadow get all dolled up, drive into New York, Plaza Hotel, for tea under Eloise's portrait." Meadow says she has too much homework. "Meadow, it's our little tradition," Carmela pleads. "We always have so much fun!" Meadow sees her chance to stick it to Carmela: "To tell you the truth? I've thought it was dumb since I was eight. I just go because you like it." She rolls off the bed, past Carmela, and gets up. Carmela sucks her teeth. Okay, see, I thought that about a couple of things my mother liked to do with me, but I didn't say anything. Why? Because I didn't want my face handed back to me on a plate, that's why. Although, in her defense, the tea-with-Eloise thing does sound kind of twee. Carmela sucks her teeth and says she thought they'd keep doing it long after Meadow got married and had girls of her own. Meadow, now seated at her computer, clicks her mouse and sneers without looking up that "hopefully I won't be living anywhere around here by then." Carmela is stung, and tells Meadow that she can't just lie and cheat and break rules she doesn't like. Meadow rolls her eyes and makes a "fuck you" face. Carmela demands, "Do you have something you wanna say to me?" Meadow shouts that Carmela has no idea what it means to go skiing in Aspen: "Do you think that's gonna happen every year? Like lame tea and scones at the Plaza Hotel?" Okay, half of suburban New Jersey goes to Aspen every year, so whatever, Meadow. And shut up. Carmela bites her lip in defeat and makes to leave: "Goodbye." Meadow narrows her eyes: "Close my door, please." What a bitch. I was a little snot at sixteen, but if I'd talked to my mother like that, I'd be hanging out with Luca Brasi right now, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. ["Hi, I'm a married grown-up and I still couldn't get away with that shit." -- Wing Chun]
Vesuvio. Tony pays a call on Artie to convince him to go out of town. He tells Artie a shaggy-dog story about comped cruise tickets, which he got as a thank-you gift for his work with the union but can't use. Artie doesn't buy it, exactly, but he chooses to believe Tony and take the tickets, and frankly, if Artie ignores phrases like "union delegate" in this context, he deserves what he gets.
Melfi comes out to greet Tony, but he hasn't shown up for his appointment. Melfi looks confused.
Cut to Charmaine Bucco bitching Artie out: "You cannot accept a gift like that from Tony Soprano." Artie says he needs a vacation or he'll "go postal." Charmaine, bussing tables, squeals, "Awthuh, I don't even wanna tawk about it anymoah, please!" I've seen this actress on Law & Order a bunch of times, and she has just about the ugliest Brooklyn accent in show business; she makes Edith Bunker look like an elocution teacher. Anyway, she starts waking up their kids so they can all head home, and Artie takes her by the shoulders and tells her she needs a break too, but Charmaine won't hear it, saying that "it's bad enough" the wiseguys come in and "patronize the place," and Artie interrupts to say, "But we're not connected!" "Riiiight," Charmaine blares, "because we just turned down those tickets!" Artie tries to sell her Tony's story about the comps, adding that "Tony is a labor leader," and Charmaine laughs almost as hard as I did at the concept that "dentists are sending the don of New Jersey first-class on a Norwegian steamship. C'mon, Arthur. Somebody donated their kneecaps for those tickets." Artie hangs his head as Charmaine stomps out of the frame.
Cut to an ice-cream truck parked beside a river. Hesh, Big Pussy, and Mahaffey walk along -- well, Mahaffey crutches, and the other two walk -- as Hesh and Pussy explain the insurance scam to Mahaffey. Mahaffey doesn't like the idea at all, and doesn't see how he won't get caught. Hesh points out that Mahaffey doesn't really have a choice. Mahaffey complains that he's depressed, and says he's on Zoloft, which supposedly will help with his gambling problem too. The three go onto a footbridge over a falls, and Pussy remarks on the irony of Mahaffey going on the medication now, after his gambling debt has already earned him a broken hip. "I'm trying not to be cynical," Mahaffey says. Hesh lectures him about the debt, and Mahaffey apologizes for not paying and says he never meant "to denigrate Tony Soprano." Hesh invites Mahaffey to take a walk on the rocks. Mahaffey says he can't, not with the crutches. Hesh says pointedly that he often goes out there to think, and that he and Pussy will help Mahaffey to walk. Pussy tosses a wrapper off the bridge, and Mahaffey watches it fall far, far below to the water. Mahaffey looks over to see the only witness, the ice-cream truck, peeling out. Then he catches his snap and stammers that he'll go along with the insurance deal.
Out on a golf course, Tony pops a Prozac while he waits to tee off. He hasn't gotten it down the hatch yet when Paulie startles him by yelling, "Dick's lookin' for ya!"
In a parking lot, Dick pulls up in a Benz convertible and tells Tony and Paulie that the Kolar brothers withdrew their bid for the routes. Tony and Paulie smile all "what a coincidence," and Dick says that Artie Bucco's looking for Tony.
Tony finds Artie beside a giant pile of plastic recyclables, wearing a Cosby shirt and pacing. Artie, still reeling from a vigorous henpecking, tries to give the tickets back to Tony, but Tony won't take them back, repeating that Artie's too stressed: "You gotta leave town." "I'm sorry," Artie says, handing Tony the tickets.
A sniffy restaurant. Melfi stands with a glass of wine while her date whines at the hostess to get them seated; the hostess tells him he'll have to wait and basically blows him off, but he turns around and tells Melfi, "I tore her a new one." Whatever, Little Big Man. Melfi smiles placatingly and suggests they go elsewhere so they can eat, and her date begins to object, but Melfi sees Tony come in with a blonde chippy on his arm, and she abruptly turns away from her date and buries her nose in her Valpolicella to keep Tony from spotting her. It doesn't work; he pauses when he sees Melfi, and the chippy says in a thick Russian accent, "Switty pie, I'm hongry," but Tony ignores her and gets Melfi's attention. Awkwardness. Tony tells her in code that the Prozac is really working. Melfi smiles tightly. Tony moves away, and Melfi's date is all "do you know who that was" about Tony, and he makes a bunch of snide comments, and Melfi tells him to shut the fuck up. Heh. Then the hostess comes up to them -- it's actually Adriana, Christopher's girlfriend, but we don't "meet" her yet -- and tells Little Big Man that they're setting up his table right now, clearly on the say-so of Tony. "Whoa," Little Big Man says, impressed. Stow it, Little Big Man.
A docked boat, cleverly named "The Stugots." "Stugots" means "dick," like "I didn't get stugots out of that deal," although I more often heard it used as a synonym for "asshole," like "good thing you drank the last beer, ehhhhh stugots!" And nobody ever mutters the word "stugots," either. It's always a guy leaning out his car window and flipping the bird to someone who cut him off and bellowing, "Ever heard of a turn signal, ya STUGAAAAAAHTS!" Anyway. Tony's blonde chippy is prancing around in nothing but a sailor's hat and asking about Melfi, and Tony lies and says that Melfi's his decorator and yells at TBC from off-screen that she'd better not touch the hat because it belonged to JFK. TBC runs up on the deck, and Tony follows her, and she says she knows "there is something more intimate between" him and Melfi, and he says no, they "just talk." Then Tony and TBC and JFK's hat have a three-way on the deck.
A restaurant, probably not the same one as before. Carmela and Tony walk in, Carmela wearing that pinched look she gets, but the maître d' kisses her hand and she brightens up a bit. At the table, Tony swirls his wine and observes, "Y'know, sometimes, life is good." "Life is often good," Carmela says flatly, not looking at him. Then she comments that he's perked up a bit in the last couple of days; he mulls this over, evidently trying to decide whether to tell her about the Prozac, and tells her that there's something he's "gotta confess." She moves her wineglass over and braces herself. "What are you doing?" She says she's getting her wine "in position to throw in your damn face" -- she thinks he's going to admit to still sleeping with the girlfriend. After some more snarling, he says, "I'm on Prozac," and tells her about seeing a therapist, and Carmela says "oh my god" a bunch of times and tells him how great and wonderful and gutsy she thinks it is while Tony stares at her in disbelief and tells her to "take it easy."
Carmela continues to babble about how thrilled this makes her, but she can't resist adding that "psychology doesn't address the soul, that's something else, but this, this is a start, this is something, okay, I'll shut up now, I'll shut up now." Yeah, you do that. Tony tells her in a threatening tone that she's the only one who knows, and he's only telling her because she's his wife, and she's the only person he's totally honest with. "Oh, please," Carmela snorts, but Tony repeats that he's serious; anyone finds out and he'll get killed. The waiter arrives and they settle down momentarily, but when he leaves, Carmela says she didn't know Tony was so unhappy. "I don't know," Tony sighs, and says that between his mother -- Carmela interrupts to ask if Tony "told him about" his father. Tony doesn't know who she's talking about, but when it becomes clear that Carmela thinks his therapist is a man, Tony doesn't correct her; he also lies and says that he told Melfi about his father. "But your mother is the one," Carmela says emphatically, staring at Tony with her eyes all bright as though she's gratified to learn that he's as miserable as she is. Tony says that lately he feels like his life is out of balance. "Existence on this earth is a puzzle," Carmela says. "My own daughter hates me." "She doesn't hate you, Carm," Tony laughs. "We were best friends!" "Mothers and their daughters -- she'll come back to ya," Tony says. Carmela frowns.
Meadow is having a snack at the breakfast bar. The phone rings; it's Christopher, in bed, bitching at Meadow while a random brunette fondles his hair. Go, Christopher. "Blow me," Meadow grumbles. Carmela comes in the back door and sing-songs, "I brought you my primavera, your favorite," but Meadow completely ignores her and walks past her to hand Tony the phone, blaring, "Dad!" Shut up, Meadow. Tony takes the phone, and Christopher relates to Tony that a "friend" of theirs just got back into town; we cut to Christopher's apartment, where he's watching a news report saying that Pussy Malanga just returned from Florida. Tony tells Christopher not to worry, "I've got a way to put it right to bed."
At a volleyball game, Meadow serves; in the stands, Tony and Silvio alternately cheer and discuss a situation. Silvio: "So, ah, when do you need this by?" "Right away." More clapping as the game progresses. "I think I can get a party like that together," Silvio says. You know, I watched a lot of Springsteen videos in my day, and I never thought Stevie Van Zandt would wind up looking so much like Jerry Orbach. Anyway, then we have a bit of non-comic non-relief in which Tony and Silvio insult the ref.
After the game, Meadow comes out with her gym bag to find Tony waiting for her. She asks, "Mom didn't come?" "She didn't think you wanted her to," Tony says, and they say goodbye to the Dantes; Tony compliments the team on the game they just played, but Meadow isn't listening, and she whines about how unfair it is "what Mom is doing" and accuses Carmela of getting overly melodramatic about it. Tony, to his credit, doesn't listen to Meadow; he's distracted by the church on the campus of Meadow's school, and he wanders inside.
Inside the church, Meadow continues bellyaching: "I mean, my Aspen trip -- what is she thinking?" That she wants you to shut up, maybe? Because that's what's going through my mind. Tony keeps tuning her out. They sit down in a pew, Meadow sighing huffily. Tony confides that "it's been years since I've been here," but Meadow is waist-deep in Lake Herself: "Dad, please talk to her, please -- this is so stupid! Why are we sitting here?" Tony sighs and tells her Carmela thinks she could be a top student, and he agrees; Meadow whinges, "What do you guys want, perfection?" When Tony, gazing at the stained-glass windows, doesn't answer, Pouty Poutinelli demands, "What are you looking at?" Tony tells her in a hushed voice that her great-grandfather Frank and Frank's brother built the church. "Big whoop," Meadow says. Yeah, I'll big-whoop you over the head with that gym bag, Meadow -- shut UP! Christ! Tony, undeterred, repeats that they came over from Italy and "built this place." "Yeah, right -- two guys," Meadow says, softening a little, and Tony says no, they had a crew of laborers, and "they didn't design it, but they knew how to build it." Hey, I think I get it. A shot of an altar tableau as Tony says that now you can't even find a guy to re-grout the bathroom the right way. Meadow looks around, taking it in -- silently, thank god.
Silvio, walking in a suspicious bow-legged way down the street past Vesuvio. Moments later, a neighboring store blows up and car alarms start going off.
Cut to Melfi's office and Tony saying he feels good; he doesn't know that he'll need to come back. Melfi asks if it's true that he's thinking more clearly and that his wife says he seems better; he nods happily. She bursts his bubble by saying that it's not because of the medication -- Prozac takes longer than that to build up in the blood and wouldn't have started to work yet. "What is it, then?" "Coming here, talking," she says. "Hope comes in many forms." "Who's got time for that?" he asks. She smiles a you've-fallen-into-my-trap smile and asks, "What is it you want to say to me?" Tony says he had a dream the night before, in which his bellybutton was a Phillips-head screw, and he unscrewed it and his penis fell off, so he picked up his penis and started running around looking for the guy who used to work on his Lincoln so the guy could put it back on, but a bird swooped down and grabbed the penis and flew off with it. Melfi wants to know what kind of bird. "I dunno -- seagull or something." "A water bird?" She's trying to get back to the ducks; he's not happy about that suggestion. He looks like he might cry. She asks what about the ducks meant so much to him. He says that "it was just a trip" having wild creatures come to his pool to have their babies; he's even closer to tears now, although he's smiling. She nods slightly; Tony says tearily that he "was sad to see 'em go." A pause. "Aw, Jesus, fuck, now he's gonna cry." Tony starts bawling and cursing himself for doing so. Melfi passes him a box of Kleenex and points out that the ducks "became a family." Tony says she's right, that's the link: he's afraid he's going to lose his family, like he lost the ducks, and that fear is always with him. "What are you so afraid's going to happen?" "I dunno." I don't think they mean the same "family," do you?
A greasy spatula presses sausages onto the grill. The boys all stand around smoking and drinking and exchanging knowing looks while Artie mourns the loss of his restaurant aloud ("Fucking faulty stove!"), and Tony tells Artie just to collect the insurance and move on, and Paulie tells Artie to remind himself that it "could have been worse." "How could it have been worse?" Artie wants to know, which prompts an outburst from Christopher: "Suppose people stopped coming to the restaurant, you ever think of that?" The boys stare at him. "I don't know, I don't know what the fuck," he snaps, and stalks off, probably back to left field from whence he came. Artie shoots Tony a "the hell?" look, and Tony says, "He's right, you know, there's no insurance for that." Artie keeps bemoaning the late Vesuvio. Tony tells him that hope helps, and that hope comes in many forms, and the boys all agree with him, but Artie starts weeping into a barbecue apron. Tony comforts him, telling him he'll always help him out.
Christopher, his hair slicked back so that he looks like Heckle (and/or Jeckle), sulks on the porch. Tony tells the others to let Artie cook to make him feel better, and he goes to see what's up with Christopher. He sits down beside Christopher and tells him that torching the restaurant was "the best solution," but Christopher continues to smolder; Tony snaps, "All right, enough of this shit -- what's wrong with you?" Christopher snarks that he'd have liked some acknowledgement for taking care of the Kolar thing. Tony says he's right: "I have no defense." He says his own father never complimented him, either. Christopher goes on to say that his cousin Gregory's girlfriend is a D-girl in Hollywood (we'll meet her, too, eventually), and she told him he could "sell [his] life story, make millions," but he didn't do that: "I stuck it out with you." Tony has heard enough; he leaps up and grabs Christopher by the shirtfront and bitches him out. Christopher doesn't back down: "She said I could maybe even play myself." Tony has to laugh at this; he lets go of Christopher's shirt and basically tells him to forget that crap and focus, and he straightens Christopher's collar. They go back to the party.
Livia, in a car. She thanks Junior for picking her up: "At least somebody cares about me." "These kids today," Junior agrees bitterly. Livia says that Tony thinks that once he's got her "locked up in a nursing home," she'll die faster, and then he won't have to drive her anywhere. Junior nods sanctimoniously. On and on and ON they go in this vein -- Tony's father was a saint, Tony would show more respect for Livia if his father were alive, Tony's interfering in Junior's business and pissing off New York, the new generation has no respect for the older ones, long hair, "fags in the military," blah blah blah blah BLAH -- long story short, they both hate Tony right now. Junior says that others have complained about Tony's leadership and asked him to step in. He adds, "Something may have to be done, Livia, about Tony. I dunno." Livia just stares out the window and stews in her own juices.
When they arrive, Livia immediately makes a disparaging remark about Tony's decision to cook with mesquite. Tony tells Carmela in a tone of fake cheer that his mother's here, so Carmela yells, "Let's eat," and the party drifts inside. We hear Ugly Friend telling Meadow that "I'm not gonna eat, are you?" and the camera pans around to show the quiet pool as a folk singer croons, "God help/The beast in me."