Church bells. Fade up on the back of Tony's head; he's standing outside, smoking a cigar, and the camera circles to show him on the steps of an college-y looking building. Meadow comes out holding a manila envelope, and when Tony asks her how it went, she starts reeling off stats about the male-female student ratio, the music program, and the year-abroad programs in China and India, at which point Tony interrupts, "You're just applying here -- already you're leavin'?" "It's just an option, Dad, junior year," she says impatiently. Tony asks what she'd study in India, "how not to get diarrhea?" which makes me laugh, and then makes me hungry for Indian food. Mmmm, lamb tikka masala. Meadow doesn't dignify this, saying instead that they don't require SATs "but mine'll help, 'cause they're high," so I guessed they renamed the SATs the Scholastic Attitude Test, and then she says that "socially, I don't know," and apparently one girl relayed the received wisdom around campus that "Bates is the world's most expensive form of contraception." "Hey, what kind of talk is that?" Tony snaps, and as Meadow starts to roll her eyes, he asks, "You mean the girls at the other colleges we been to, they just put out?" Speaking of nice talk. Jeez. Meadow groans, "Oh my God," and keeps walking. Tony frowns. "Pretty, huh?" Meadow says, trying to change the subject. "Yeah," Tony sighs. "Two to go. Colby up." Meadow, obviously leading the witness, asks Tony why he never finished college, and Tony says he had "that semester and a half at Seton Hall" (quick aside here: in my day, Seton Hall guys had a reputation for dating younger girls. Much younger. Like, fourteen-years-old younger. Gross. Anyhow, back to the show), and adds that Meadow's grandparents "didn't stress college. They were workin'-class people." Meadow wonders why they "were anti-education," but Tony puts an arm around Meadow's shoulders and says that they weren't, exactly: "I can't lay it all off on them; I got into a little trouble as a kid." Meadow jokes that yeah, she heard, and Tony smiles, "You did?" and Meadow smiles back, "Uh huh."
In the car, Tony drives and Meadow stares out the window; a twee advertisement for a local seafood restaurant plays on the radio. Meadow tries to find another station, then switches the radio off and, after much eye-flicking and lip-biting, she asks Tony straight out, "Are you in the Mafia?" Tony, stunned, stares at her in disbelief: "Am I in the what?" Meadow rolls her eyes: "Whatever you want to call it -- 'organized crime.'" Tony looks like he might start laughing: "That's total crap -- who told you that?" Meadow points out that she's "lived in the house all [her] life," and she's seen the police come with warrants and Tony going out at three in the morning. Tony says so what, and hasn't she also seen Dr. Cusamano go out at three in the morning on a call? Meadow blocks that: "Did the Cusamano kids ever find fifty thousand dollars in krugerrands and a .45 automatic while they were hunting for Easter eggs?" Ouch. Advantage: Meadow.
Tony snaps that he's in the waste-management business, so "everyone assumes you're mobbed up. It's a stereotype, and it's offensive! And you're the last person I would want to perpetuate it." "Fine," Meadow shrugs coldly, looking out the window again. Tony shoots a nervous glance at her before grunting, "There is no Mafia." Meadow turns back to him. Tony checks to see if she's buying it; Meadow, fixing him with a level but almost indulgent stare, isn't. Tony rolls his eyes and tries not to smile and tells her, "All right, look. Mead, you're a grown woman. Almost. Some of my money...comes from illegal gambling and, and whatnot." Meadow does the "tell me something I don't know" eye-roll and tries not to laugh at her father. Tony asks, "How does that make you feel?" Heh. Meadow shrugs and says mildly that "at least you don't keep denying it like Mom." She adds that "kids in school think it's actually kinda neat." Tony asks dryly if that's because they've seen The Godfather, and Meadow says they like Casino better -- "Sharon Stone, seventies clothes, pills" -- but Tony interrupts, "I'm not askin' about those bums, I'm askin' about you." Meadow thinks for a moment, then confesses that sometimes she wishes that Tony "were like other dads," but advertising executives and lawyers -- she rolls her eyes yet again and snorts, "So many dads are fulla shit." "And I'm not," Tony mutters sarcastically. Meadow tells him sweetly, "You finally told the truth about this," and Tony smiles ruefully, and she smiles back. Tony can't let it go, though, trying to convince her that "part of my income comes from legitimate businesses," but Meadow cuts him off: "Look, Dad -- please, okay? Don't start mealy-mouthing." She turns the radio back on.
At a payphone, Tony says into the receiver, "How's my sweetheart?" Oh goody -- looks like Muscovite mistress fun times ahead. On the other end of the line, Irina Bimbetova paces back and forth on the cordless, wearing a falling-off filmy shirt over a too-small black bra, and bitches that her cousin Svetlana (otherwise known, Tony inadvertently informs us, as "the amputee") only came to the States a couple of months ago and she's already getting married. Tony snarls, "Hey, you knew the deal -- I got two kids, high-school age," and they've already talked about this. "Yes, and a wife whenever you want. What do I have in my life?" Irina wails. "Boy, am I glad I called," Tony grumbles. "Fuck you, then. Hang up!" Tony changes the subject to the whirlpool jets he had installed in her bathroom, and she grumps, "Don't throw up in my face things you buy me, okay?" and tells some story about Svetlana's prosthetic leg falling off in a Gap store and her fiancé carrying her out "like knight in white satin armor." Tony makes a "whuh?" face and says, "I gotta go, my daughter's coming," and hangs up. Irina hurls the cordless down and pouts. "Jesus," Tony mutters, putting in another quarter and peering out of the phone booth at Meadow getting hit on by a guy in a blue button-down before saying into the phone, "Yeah, how you feeling?" Cut to a stuffy-headed Carmela in bed under an assortment of afghans: "Better actually, the fever just broke. I miss you two -- how's [sic] the interviews going?" "Good, real good," Tony says absently, staring now at a black SUV at the gas pump. Carmela asks if Meadow liked Bates, "'cause anything to get her off of this Berkeley kick." Tony doesn't answer, mumbling to himself, "What the fuck?" as the owner of the SUV gets out of the car. "Tony?" Carmela prompts, and Tony says he'll call her back from the motel and hangs up, and Carmela makes an "uch" noise and hangs up too.
Tony leaves the phone booth and heads towards his car, glancing at the SUV owner but trying not to get caught looking; the SUV owner looks over at Tony. In the shot, we see the SUV peeling out in a big hurry. Tony yells to Meadow to get in the car, and he squeals out of his parking space and screeches up to where she's standing and opens the door for her: "C'mon, get in!" "Okay, okay, what's the rush?" she bitches, and Tony steps on the gas and peels out of the station in a cloud of dust. shot: the Town Car accelerating quickly down the road after the SUV. "What's going on?" Meadow whines. Tony lies that he thinks he saw an old friend, and Meadow asks if he knew the guy at the gas station, and Tony says maybe, uh, probably not, blah dee blah, and Meadow wails, "Then what?" Tony, stuck behind several other cars on the two-lane road, whips out into the other lane to pass; Meadow yells at him to slow down; Tony nearly gets into a head-on collision; oncoming cars honk and yell at him; Meadow yells, "What's with you?" and Tony blathers, "It's all right"; Meadow demands to know what's going on; Tony smiles that he's "just foolin' around," and they come to a traffic T. To follow the SUV, Tony has to turn right, but Meadow is screeching at him, "Colby, turn left! It's to the left, left!" so loudly that the little bone in my ear shatters into a million nanoscopic pieces. Tony turns right anyway. Meadow flops about in her seat, and Tony says jokingly that he messed up "because you're yelling at me so much." Meadow fumes until she sees a sign reading "Colby College 9," so turning right gets them to Colby anyway, which mollifies her somewhat. The SUV is in front of them now. Meadow points out the motel. Then she points it out again, louder this time; Tony purses his lips and pulls a hard right into the parking lot, letting the SUV go. "Did you know that guy?" she asks Tony quietly. "Nah, it wasn't him," Tony lies as they come to a stop.
Christopher, playing pool at Bada Bing. He flubs a shot when the phone rings, and when he picks up, it's Tony: "Take down this number and call me back." "Now?" Christopher objects. "It's pouring down." Tony ignores him and reads off the number.
At the house, AJ comes into Carmela's room with breakfast on a tray. Carmela says, in mangled Franglish, that room service has arrived, adding, "Thank you, kind sir." Shut up, Carmela. AJ sits in a chair as Carmela rolls a hard-boiled egg around the plate with her fork and looks sick. "You said poached eggs," AJ grouses. "You're not going to eat them now, after all that work." See what they did there? "I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach," Carmela lies, and AJ sighs as she moves the tray aside. Carmela suggests that he go over to Jason's house, an idea AJ greets with visible relief, and he takes off, saying he'll "be back in like an hour." Carmela sighs and looks lonely.
Christopher drives through the pouring rain to a phone booth and calls Tony back, cursing the whole time. Tony picks up: "Hey. I'm not sure, but I think I just saw Fabian Petrulio." "Refresh my memory," an already-drenched Christopher says, and Tony reminds him that Petrulio flipped about ten years ago when he got pinched for selling heroin. Apparently, Petrulio ratted out a lot of people, including a bunch from Tony's "outfit," and Tony's father was sick at the time and "never recovered when he heard the news." "Up in Maine? What the fuck?" Christopher asks, and Tony says Petrulio went into the witness protection program but got booted, so now he goes to colleges and gives lectures on the subject of "what a big bad Mafioso he was." Also, Petrulio and Jackie Aprile used to know each other; they did time together, and Petrulio made a bust of Frank Sinatra for Jackie that Jackie kept in his rec room. Christopher recalls the bust and comments that Petrulio could have used a little help with the lips. This is what we recappers like to call Overly Picaresque Wealth Of Detail Used To Pad A Show's Running Time. Anyway, Tony tells Christopher to run Petrulio's plates, and he gets off the phone in a hurry because Meadow is looming. Christopher, sopping wet, splashes back to his car. Meadow asks suspiciously, "What's wrong with the phone in your room?" Tony says nothing; he "was takin' a walk" and thought he'd call Christopher. "Everything okay?" she asks, and he tells her that "they got a leak in the roof" and teasingly asks if that's okay with her, and they go into the motel, joking around.
The house. Doorbell. Carmela, swaddled in an afghan, brays, "Who is it?" God, she really does have a grating voice. Lightning flashes outside, and a lurking figure answers, "Father Phil." "Just a second," Carmela says in a friendlier tone, and she dashes into the bathroom off the foyer to let her hair down and fluff it up a bit, and then she changes into a clean Lanz of Salzburg...robe...muumuu thing...and hurries to the front door and lets Father Phil in. Oh, boy. Banter: how wet he's gotten, he hopes he's not "barging in," the clothing drive (it seems that the Moschino pedal-pusher suit Carmela donated sold right away -- um, a pedal-pusher suit? Does it get tackier than that? Because I don't see how. And since when does a priest even know what "pedal pusher" means?), "Jean Cusamano said you were ill," she's better now, blah dee blah. Carmela takes his jacket, and Father Phil, who's standing juuuuust a little too close to her, says he has a confession to make: "I -- I have a jones for your baked ziti." Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days? "Oh, sure, any time," says a flattered Carmela, and offers to reheat him some, and Father Phil says too-enthusiastically that "it's so much better that way" because the mozzarella gets "all nice and chewy," and Carmela says she likes that too. "Yeah," breathes Father Phil. Okay, Father Phil? Take a BIG step back and think about baseball. Because -- ew. Carmela says she's having a little Fernet to settle her system, and would Father Phil like something? He'll have a little wine, "if it's open," and asks over the clatter of Foreshadowing helping itself to a glass of grappa how Tony and Meadow's trip is going. "I should know?" Carmela gripes. "He doesn't have time to talk to me for two lousy minutes." "Oh jeez," Father Phil says under his breath. Yeah, no kidding.
At a restaurant, Tony folds his hands and smiles tenderly at Meadow. Meadow, who has her hair up in chopsticks with curly tendrils around her face, blushes and asks what he's staring at. "It's an exciting time," Tony says, and Meadow smiles self-deprecatingly as Tony continues, "I can't tell you how proud I am a you -- a real student at Casa Soprano. And she looks like one a the models right out of Italian Vogue." Meadow makes a big show of mock-complaining, "Italian, Italian, Italian," adding sweetly, "Thank you." You know, I don't hate Meadow so much in this episode either...and it's a pretty Meadow-intensive episode. Meadow wags a finger at him: "You're definitely up to something." "Oof," Tony says, "how'd you get so cynical?" Meadow grins, then glances over at a group of students laughing and drinking at the bar, and the grin melts away. Tony asks if what they talked about before is sitting okay with her, and she shrugs, "It's not like I wasn't ninety percent sure already." "What about your brother? Does he know?" Meadow looks deliberately blank: "I think so." Tony tells her that, at one time, "the Italian people didn't have a lotta options." "Oh, you mean like Mario Cuomo?" Meadow asks. ["Bada burn!" -- Wing Chun] Tony glares at her; she apologizes. Tony goes on to say, kind of defensively, that he puts food on the table, and his father and his uncle "were in it," and maybe he should have thought for himself more and rebelled; maybe "being a rebel in [his] family would have been selling patio furniture on Route 22." For those of you not fortunate enough to have driven on Route 22 in New Jersey, it's basically the world's longest strip mall, and it functions the same way as the background in an animated cartoon does -- you pass a Red Lobster, and a diner, and a bookstore, and a Pathmark, and an Army-Navy shop, and a consignment shop, and a car dealership, and a Red Roof Inn, and then you cross the border into a different town and here comes another Red Lobster and another diner and another bookstore (or a music store) and another Pathmark, and it repeats over and over again until you hit Newark. And I defy you to try to turn around on Route 22. If any single road in the Garden State bears out the stereotype of Jersey drivers, it's Route 22, so let this serve as a public service announcement for those of you not from New Jersey, because Route 22 might seem like a handy shortcut, but Route 22 will send you raving into the desert, my friends.
Did I have something resembling a point here? Oh, right -- selling patio furniture on Route 22 = anonymous schleppy existence. So Meadow asks if anything interested Tony in college, and he shakes his head and admits that he "barely got in," and Meadow says all gleefully scandalized, "Really?" and they joke around a little bit, and then Meadow says she has something to tell him. Tony stares at her dully and, thinking she's pregnant, asks, "You're not...?" "No, Jesus!" Meadow snaps, then confesses reluctantly that she and "some friends" did "some speed" -- in fact, they did "kind of a lot of it for awhile" -- and that, what with homework and SATs and "the general pressure of life," they needed something to keep going. Oh, whatever, Meadow. Try a can of Jolt and some Pixy Stix like a normal person. God, I sound like an old woman.
Anyway, Tony tells her that "that crap'll kill you," and Meadow says defensively, "I know," and Tony says he ought to slap the shit out of her (amen) and asks where she got it, and she grumbles, "If I thought this was gonna be a lecture I never would have told you." Tony, exasperated: "Take a reality check -- what do you think I'm gonna say? Where did you get it?" "No way I'm telling you, not after this reaction," she snots. "Why did you tell me?" Tony wants to know. "You were honest with me today," she says. Tony looks shocked and shakes his head; Meadow assures him that "I won't be doing it again, it got too scary," and Tony muses that "this is right under my nose." So to speak. "You'd think you'd know," he adds. Meadow makes a small moue at his naïveté: "No, Dad. You won't." Tony takes her hand and says he's glad she told him, "in spite of everything"; she says she is too: "I'm glad we have that kinda relationship." Aw.
Father Phil puts another log (heh) on the fire (heh) and sits down on the couch with Carmela; there's a bottle of wine and a half-full glass on the table. Carmela mopes that Tony hates building fires, beautiful fireplace, same three logs in it for ages, blah blah blah martyr-cakes. Father Phil jokes, "Fear of fire, good deterrent to keep outta hell," and Carmela sighs, "Maybe there is hope for him." Give it up, girl. Father Phil hands her a book, saying that the chapter on Buddhism "is spectacular," but he doesn't want Carmela "going over to those zany Zennies," and Father Phil really needs to cool it with the Hip 'N' With-It Religious Dude business. "Fat chance," Carmela says; she could never just sit on the floor and think about nothing. Then she thanks him with a big crush-o-rama smile. Father Phil blathers on about Islam getting a bad rap in popular culture, adding that the Chianti "is beyond reproach." Carmela smiles the crushy smile again.
Tony checks his watch. Behind him, Meadow comes back to the table with two other girls in tow and introduces them as Colby students. "Why don't you hang out with them?" Tony suggests eagerly. "Dad," Meadow says in the patented teenage-girl don't-embarrass-me tone. Tony points out that they could tell her about the school and show her around. Meadow looks like she might faint from shame and mutters that they'll have to excuse him, but one of them says that "that'd be cool," so Tony turns her loose after warning her not to drink and telling the other girls to "see that she sticks to Cokes," and then he makes his escape. The other girls watch him go. Meadow shrugs and follows them to the bar.
The Jersey payphone, ringing. A soggy Christopher rushes into the frame from the left and picks up. Tony: "What do you got?" Christopher bitches about the rain; Tony tells him to go try out for the Yankees if he doesn't like his current job. Christopher lets that pass and reads Tony the info from a dripping piece of paper: Frederick Peters, address, phone, he lives off of Route 201. "Frederick Peters...Fabian Petrulio...good match, huh?" Tony muses. Christopher says he doesn't know, he guesses so, and asks what Tony's going to do. Tony doesn't know; he's got Meadow to deal with. He waves a finger at Meadow. Meadow pretends not to know him. Christopher offers to fly up, and Tony tells him he's a good kid, but he'll get Paulie and Silvio to deal with it. Naturally, Christopher gets bent out of shape -- how come they can do it but he can't, wah wah wah, and Tony tells him, "Don't be so sensitive. They had a friend Jimmy die in prison on account of this scumbag." Christopher says he'll let them know, but Tony says not so fast, he has to ID the guy first, and when Christopher says he thought Tony knew it was Petrulio, Tony says he hasn't seen him in twelve years and he has to make sure. He'll call Christopher back at midnight.
Soprano kitchen. More wine-drinking. Father Phil tosses something in a bowl and asks, "You think I'm a schnorrer, don't you?" "A who?" Carmela asks, puttering around the kitchen and taking things out of the fridge and the oven. Father Phil explains that it's Yiddish for a person who shows up just in time for "free grub." Carmela waves her hand dismissively: "Eh, you're here a lot. And you're a man, you like to eat." Whatever. Carmela can't get over Father Phil "with that Yiddish," and he says he grew up in a mixed Jewish-Italian neighborhood in Yonkers: "A heady brew." Please shut up, Father Phil. "What does that mean, 'heady'?" Carmela asks. All those Oprah books she reads and she doesn't know what "heady" means? Father Phil explains, with hand-gesturing brio. As I try to telegraph a message to Carmela to put the wine away already before someone gets hurt, the phone rings, and a woman's voice asks for Tony. "Who can I say is calling?" Carmela snaps; in the background, Father Phil admires a jar of Cajun stuffed olives. "This is Dr. Melfi," and we see Melfi sitting on her bed, red-nosed. "His nurse?" sneers Carmela. "No -- ah, is this Mrs. Soprano?" Melfi asks, looking puzzled. Carmela, in a tone that could freeze salt water: "That's right. And you're, again?" "Jennifer Melfi -- Doctor Melfi?" she prompts, thinking Carmela knows who she is. "Jennifer. Lovely name," Carmela says, and coldly adds that Tony's not at home. Melfi asks her to tell Tony that she needs to reschedule Monday's appointment because she's come down with the flu, and Carmela asks if Tony has her number; when Melfi tries to give it to her again just in case, Carmela grunts, "I lost my pencil. Up his ass. I'll tell him you called," and hangs up. Melfi holds the receiver away from her all "what the hell?"
As Father Phil eyes her warily and snacks on antipasto, Carmela slumps sadly against the breakfast bar: "Why does he have to lie?" She wonders why Tony didn't just tell her his therapist is a woman. Father Phil comes over with two full wine glasses and proposes that maybe Tony did tell her and she just didn't hear him clearly. "Oh, please," she snorts, continuing in a tearful voice, "Why wouldn't he tell me his therapist is a woman unless he's screwing her?" "Carmela, please," Father Phil groans, echoing my thoughts. Carmela's on about it, how she thought he was changing, how she thought therapy would help fix "the freak show in his head," and Father Phil's trying to tell her that she's probably wrong "about them," that therapy's a start, "a good start," but she's right, "it doesn't fix the soul," like, both of you, GIVE IT UP. Tony. Is. A MOBSTER. Learn it, live it, love it. God. Anyway, Carmela whines at Father Phil to talk to Tony, but Father Phil doesn't think Tony would listen, and Father Phil also thinks that Tony "must be a very unhappy man," which causes Carmela to squeal, "He's unhappy?! Sleep is my number one -- ah, shit." She turns away from Father Phil, clutching her wine glass, and mutters, "Why go into it?" Father Phil pats her shoulder.
Tony lurks on Petrulio's property. Petrulio and a blonde in the hot tub, giggling. A little girl wanders out on the deck and wants the blonde to put him to bed, and the blonde clambers out naked, and Petrulio hisses that he thought the kid had gone to sleep, and the blonde hisses back that yeah, well, she woke up, and she calls out that "Daddy's gonna come too, sweetie, we'll both put you to bed." "Hurry, Daddy," the kid baby-voices. "Yeah, yeah," Petrulio grumbles. They go inside. A dog starts barking; Tony takes off, and Petrulio comes out on the deck to look around but doesn't see anything, and he runs out into the yard and sees Tony's retreating taillights.
"Mmm, spicy." Oh, Father Phil, you naughty, naughty boy. Carmela blathers on about how she can't picture Jesus looking like Willem Dafoe, and Father Phil asks her to pass the cheese and tells her through a mouthful of food -- seriously, he has not stopped eating since he took his coat off -- that "originally, Bobby D was supposed to have that role." Okay, it really bugs me when people refer to celebrities by little nicknames that way, saying "Nic Cage" this and "Bob Downey Jr." that and "Dick Dreyfuss" the other thing; it's so Smurfy, and presumptuous besides. Anyway, Carmela expresses disbelief, and then Father Phil goes into an incredibly dorky imitation of DeNiro in Taxi Driver -- "You talkin' to me, Pilate," that sort of thing -- and Carmela mock-smacks him for blaspheming. Father Phil says that everything Jesus ever said only amounts to two hours of speaking total, and Carmela says she heard the same thing about the Beatles, except their songs totaled up only equal ten hours. Thanks for sharing, Carm. Father Phil mentions Jesus' deeds, and Carm acknowledges that she doesn't understand a lot of the things Jesus said, "like 'the sun rises on the just and the unjust alike'? Why?" Gee -- who could she possibly mean?
Father Phil starts to say something, but Carmela sputters, "But that whores will go to heaven before a lotta the righteous?" "Uh huh," Father Phil says, sipping his wine, and Carmela bleats, "But that's not right! Let's face it, Father, we've got some major contradictions here!" "It's about love," Father Phil tells her, "think about it like that." Carmela asks what that means, and he says that hopefully, someday, we can accept and forgive "those who are different -- change through love." No, it doesn't make any sense to me either. Carmela plays with her hair and stares into space. Father Phil looks at her. Then she snaps out of it and looks back at him, and he makes "I should get going" noises, and she makes "where ya goin', you just got here" noises, and he starts to make an excuse, but she says it's pouring rain and she knows he loves the DVD player, and she just got Remains Of The Day, and Father Phil strokes his chin and thinks it over as she smiles, "See? Do I know you?" Father Phil: "Anything with Emma Thompson -- I'm there." Shut UP, Father Phil. Carmela teases him: "I didn't know you looked." He compares looking at a beautiful woman to looking at a sunset or a Douglas fir, "or any of God's handiwork," and he gazes at Carmela longingly, and after a long and awkward moment, she takes the dishes out of his hands and heads to the kitchen.
Church bells again. Tony on the sidewalk with a cigar. A police car rolls past; he eyes it. Then he realizes that the bell is tolling midnight, and he jogs to the Town Car.
A garage. The guy on duty greets Petrulio and asks him if he's giving away any cheese this year. Who in the what now? Anyway, Petrulio -- whom the guy knows as "Fred" -- wants to know if anyone has come down to the garage looking for him or asking any questions about him, and when the guy asks if there's a problem, "Fred" lies that no, some guy hit him on the lake while boating and wants to pin the blame on him. The guy offers to call "Fred" if anyone turns up, and "Fred" hustles out to his car and puts a folded paper over the gun-with-silencer on the front seat.
Tony pulls up to the motel payphone and looks through the phone book, stopping on an ad for Peter's Hardware on Marzulli Street.
Cut to the bar, where we see Meadow in the background, chugging something. In the foreground, Petrulio walks in and looks around.
Back at the payphone, Tony finds an ad in the phone book that reads, "PETERS' TRAVEL...ASK FOR FRED." He drops the phone book and leaves.
In the bar, the bartender tells Petrulio, "No one was asking for you, Fred." Petrulio starts to walk away, then pauses in thought.
Tony walks through a fog lit by his headlights up to the front door of Peters' Travel and peers inside. The office isn't anything much: computer, Italy poster, wood paneling. He walks over to a window and looks through, and something inside gives him pause -- a fake-bronze bust of Ronald Reagan. I guess the chit-chat about the Sinatra bust had a point after all, because this confirms for Tony that he's found the right guy; the camera pans down to show the collagened-looking lips on the Reagan bust, and Tony grins.
At the motel, the lights go out in the office; Petrulio steps into the frame in profile, and we see a maid entering one of the rooms. Petrulio sneaks over to her cart and snags her clipboard, and he sees the Sopranos' names on the room chart. His face freezes.
Remains Of The Day. Anthony Hopkins tells Emma Thompson to leave him alone, and she wants him to show her his book, she's invading his privacy, blah blah blah we-get-it-cakes. On the couch, Father Phil (whose clerical collar is all hanging out of his shirt) and Carmela have broken out the white wine, and they sit beside each other, enraptured by the movie. Emma Thompson slowly wrenches the book out of a transfixed Anthony Hopkins's hands, and as the music on the soundtrack gets more intense, Carmela blurts out tearfully, "Oh, Father, turn it off, I can't handle it." He asks what's wrong, and she wails that she's a terrible person and begins sobbing. He tells her she's "a wonderful woman," but she cries that it's "been building in her" and she needs to get it out, and she blubbers. Father Phil: "Carmela, if I can help -- please." "How?" she asks, turning to face him. He fixes her with The Look. Ew. He manages to save the situation by asking how long she's gone without confessing; when she stammers in response, he says softly, "If you like, I can do this with you." Ew. Sorry, but Father Phil looks exactly like this arrogant, annoying homunculus I used to work with, and his blatant crush on Carmela really squicks me out for that reason. "You, you mean right here, Father, now?" Carmela stutters, and Father Phil suaves that "the whole world is God's house; he hears and sees everything." Yeah, including the fact that you have gotten drunk in a married parishioner's house and started having impure thoughts about her. Father Phil nods, then turns his back and takes out his mini-vestment and puts it on, and Carmela goes into confession mode and says it's four weeks since her last confession, but stops herself to admit that that's a lie: "I haven't truly confessed in -- twenty years." "Go on," he prompts her, and after a silence, she does: "I have forsaken...what is right...for what is easy." Shot of Father Phil looking vaguely nauseated. Carmela, crying again: "Allowing what I know is evil in my house...allowing my children, oh my God, my sweet children, to be a part of it, because I wanted things for them -- wanted a better life, good schools, I wanted this house, wanted money in my hands, money to buy anything I ever wanted. [sobs] I'm so ashamed." Father Phil listens, brow furrowed; it doesn't seem like any of this comes as a surprise to him. Carmela goes on to say that she thinks her husband "has committed horrible acts," and she says that Father Phil "know[s] all about him," and she's "the same, I've said nothing, I've done nothing about it -- I've got a bad feeling that it's just a matter of time before God compensates me with outrage for my sins."
In the front seat of his car, Petrulio loads the gun. Tony's Town Car pulls in at the motel, and he gets out; Petrulio gets out also. The shot is Tony hauling an extremely drunk Meadow out of the front seat. She moans weakly, and Tony says, "Whoa -- tequila breath." Bwa! Meadow moans that she's "sorry, Dad," and Tony says it's okay, but she shouldn't throw up on her dress or he'll have to tell Carmela everything. Aw. Petrulio, following them, freezes as we hear Meadow say that some guy gave her tequila shooters and everything is spinning, and she asks if Tony's mad, and he says, "A little bit," and then a middle-aged couple materializes in front of another motel room, bickering over who has the keys, and Petrulio stands with the gun raised but doesn't fire, and his eyes flick back and forth between the Sopranos and the couple, and Tony lets Meadow into her room and slams the door, and Petrulio puts the gun down and walks away.
Cut to Father Phil telling Carmela, who's slumped over on a pillow, that she "must truly repent, genuinely and honestly, and in the future you must renounce all these actions, and then God will absolve you." "I don't know, Father -- I'll try," Carmela weeps, "but I still love him -- I still believe he can be a good man." Father Phil tells her that, if she helps Tony change into a better man, she will have done good in God's eyes. Carmela ponders this. Father Phil thinks she should take communion. "Yeah," she sighs.
Tony kisses a passed-out Meadow goodnight.
A close-up of Father Phil's portable communion briefcase. Carmela asks why he has it with him; he says had to say a mass for someone in intensive care earlier that evening. They exchange a smile. He busts out the body of Christ, and there's an extreme close-up of Carmela's tongue accepting the wafer with the fire roaring away in the background -- you could see individual taste buds, for real. Then he holds up the cup of wine and lowers it to her lips; ditto with the extreme close-up. After she's sipped from it, he chugs the rest of the chalice and then blesses her. Then he kneels down beside her, and they hug for rather a long time. Then they start having sex. Just kidding. They don't really start having sex...YET. Heh. Just kidding again.
Meadow sits up in bed, looking like she's about to blow chunks: "Dad?"
Tony's outside on the phone; Christopher's telling him that he's booked a flight to Boston the day at four o'clock. "Don't come," Tony tells him, but Christopher blows that off and says he'll make sure Tony and Meadow have left the state before "anything happens"; Tony warns him, "This is my thing." Christopher goes into his per-usual overly romanticized blather about soldiers and duty, and Tony tells him again not to come, that he'll deal with it himself. Christopher says that killing a rat would put him "a cunt-hair away from being made." Very evocative, Christopher. And disgusting. Tony repeats the order for Christopher to stay in Jersey, saying that Petrulio might have recognized him and "could lam at any time," and just then he spots Meadow staggering out of her room and tells Christopher again, "Stay put, end of discussion," and he hangs up. Meadow asks why he's using the payphone again, and he lies that the walls "are like paper, I didn't want to wake you up," and Meadow tells him not to lie to her, and he herds her back inside as she says that lying down made her throw up.
Casa Soprano. Father Phil and Carmela sit on the floor; she's asleep with her head on his shoulder, and he has an arm around her, stroking her hair. The phone starts ringing, and Carmela comes to and clambers over Father Phil to answer it. It's AJ; he wants to sleep over at Jason's, and Carmela says okay. She looks like she's got a nasty taste in her mouth as she hitches back over to Father Phil and sits right beside him again; he puts his arm around her again, and she tells him that AJ's sleeping over. "I see," he says, giving her The Look again. Their faces get almost imperceptibly closer. Carmela makes pre-kiss small talk -- you know the kind I mean, the meaningless chatter that goes on right before someone finally moves in for the kill -- about the Pucillos. Their faces getting closer still. Then Father Phil groans and puts a hand to his forehead: "Oh." "What?" Carmela says, and Father Phil staggers to his feet and says, "I...oh...I," and makes that about-to-barf blowfish motion with his cheeks, and Carmela asks him if he's all right, and the camera follows him all slanted to the side to indicate drunkenness, and he covers his face with his hands and bounces off of a couple of walls, and the bathroom door slams, and Carmela stands at the door and says, "Father Phil? Are you all right?" Pause. Close-up of the door. Father Phil with the perfect comic timing: "[HOOOAAARRRF!]" Closed captioning: "[Vomiting.]" Heh. Carmela goes back into the living room and rubs her forehead.
Tony, having a think on his bed. The phone rings. It's Carmela, but she hangs up. Tony stares at the dead line and hangs the phone back up and stares at the ceiling some more. Carmela rubs her forehead some more. We see time, uh, lapsing as Carmela sits at the breakfast bar and lightning flashes outside. Looks like Father Phil curled up with Mr. Ty-D-Bowl for the night.
A grainy, jumpy video shot of Meadow emerging dazed from the motel room and shielding her eyes from the brightness. Tony strokes her hair, and she slaps him away. He hugs her and asks, "Wanna stop and get a beer?" Tee hee! That's something my own dad would say, God love him. Tony puts the bags into the trunk; Petrulio watches through binoculars. The Sopranos pull out, and Petrulio watches them go and rubs his eyes.
Tony pulls up to the admissions building at Colby and tells Meadow to knock 'em dead; he'll pick her up in a bit. "Aren't you coming in?" she whines. Tony lies that he left his watch at the motel. Meadow doesn't believe him, but she gets out without saying anything. He reminds her to get a copy of the student paper. As soon as she's out of the car, he guns it out of there. She stares after the car all "whatever" and goes inside.
morning. Carmela, in a shiny flowered silk robe, reads the paper at the breakfast bar, and she does a lot of throat-clearing and paper-rustling clearly intended to wake Father Phil up. It works; in the background, we see him sit up gingerly and roll his head from side to side. He hobbles towards the bathroom, then stops, gives Carmela a long look, and hobbles into the kitchen instead, hands in his pockets. She doesn't look up, saying impassively, "You should have some coffee." "Last night," he begins. "Yeah?" she says. He hopes they didn't do anything out of line. "There's nothing to apologize about," she says in the same flat tone, still not looking up. Holy awkwardness, Batman. "Right," he says, not convinced. "That's right," she repeats. He says he should get dressed and out of there, and she mentions in agreement that AJ will get home soon, and Father Phil worries that he left the car out in the driveway all night "in plain sight," and Carmela repeats with an edge in her voice that they didn't do anything wrong: "Is there a commandment against eating ziti?" She tells him to go ahead and shower and get dressed, and reminds him not to "forget your sacrament kit, whatever," all in the same affectless tone. AJ's voice sings out, "I'm home." Father Phil looks terrified. Carmela shifts her weight uncomfortably as they both listen to AJ run up the stairs. After a pause, Father Phil says huskily, "Carmela..." Finally, she turns to look at him. "I don't know where to begin." Carmela stares at him expectantly. "It's not that I don't...have desire for you in my heart." Carmela groans, "Madon', Father, please," but Father Phil continues, "Last night was one of the most difficult tests from God ever for me." "What're you talking about, we're friends," Carmela says, shrugging. Father Phil eyes her, unable to decide -- as am I -- whether she's in denial, or punishing him, or what she's playing at, and asks, "What's that look about?" Carmela, synthetically: "What, I look some way?" Then she relents and sort of laughs through her nose and says she "was just thinking about when we watched Casablanca last week," and Father Phil sees his opening and says all breathily, "That new print is great, huh?" and she nods and asks if he remembers the part where Bogey delivers the "of all the gin joints in the world, why'd you have to pick mine" line, and he nods, and she says, out of all the priests in the world, "why'd I have to get the one who's straight?" Ouch. "Carmela," a stung Father Phil says, but she says, tears choking her voice, "C'mon, it's a joke." She smiles bravely at him. He starts to make a "whatever" face but ends up smiling back, and he chucks her on the chin -- no, really -- and goes to get dressed. Carmela puts her chin in her hands and smiles ruefully.
Cut to Petrulio saying, "I would have done him myself last night, but some people came along." He describes Tony's car to his henchpeople, a strung-out-looking couple, and tells them they can find Tony on the Colby campus, and while Mrs. Strung-Out fidgets, Mr. SO wants to know where on the campus, and Petrulio yells, basically, the admissions office, duh. He tells them to follow Tony about an hour out of town, pull up alongside the car, and shoot him. No way, Mr. SO says; Petrulio tells him to do it or "you'll never get another bag off me." Mrs. SO puffs nervously on her cigarette. "No. No no no. Fuck that, fuck that," Mr. SO says, and he gets up to leave. Petrulio threatens to tell the cops that the SOs burned down the Historical House, and Mrs. SO screeches, "Fuck you!" and flips Petrulio off. Petrulio yells at them some more, but they take off.
Cut to Petrulio on the phone, asking for Dougie, and then getting a whiff of something in the air, quietly hanging up, and getting out the gun and cocking it. He slowly rises from his chair and pads over to the door, gun raised, and eases the front door of the office open and skulks down the steps and looks around the side of the building. Nothing. He peeks behind a nearby building and into the bushes. Nothing. He hears a noise out in the yard and whips around. Nothing. He goes over to investigate anyway, but he doesn't see anything behind the building either except a deer grazing, and when he stops to admire it, Tony materializes behind him and starts garroting him with what looks like a jumper cable: "Good morning, rat." Petrulio struggles and asks who Tony is and what he wants, and he says they can work something out, and he calls Tony "Teddy," and Tony threatens him and calls him a bunch of names. Petrulio tells Tony he could have killed him last night, but he didn't, because of Meadow; he had an attack of conscience, and he told himself that it's just a coincidence that Tony's in town, blah dee blah. Clearly, he wants Tony to have mercy on him in return, but Tony won't have it, and he starts to strangle Petrulio even harder, nearly lifting him off the ground: "Jimmy says hello from hell, you fuck." A shot of Petrulio's feet flailing to the gun in the dust. Tony gets Petrulio down on the ground to finish the job; a length of the wire in the jumper cable has started to cut Tony's hands. With great effort, he finally succeeds in strangling Petrulio. After checking for a pulse, he looks around for a minute, then gets to his feet and examines his cut hand. Petrulio's phone rings in the background, and as Tony walks to the edge of the property, he sees a flock of geese flying overhead in V formation. The camera pans overhead to show Tony looking up at them.
Meadow waits on the front steps. The Town Car pulls up, and she grouses, "Where have you been?" Tony tells a shaggy-dog story about trying to find the watch at the motel and at the restaurant. Meadow doesn't believe him, but he bumbles ahead: "You ready? We're gonna be late for Bowdoin." On the road, Meadow reaches over to tune the radio, notices the mud on Tony's loafer, and asks, "Dad, what's up with that?" He claims that he tried the back door of the restaurant, and "there were puddles." She stares at him skeptically. "It was dumb, I know," he chuckles. She doesn't smile back. A second later, Tony reaches up to rub his eye, and Meadow spots the cut on his hand and exclaims, "Your hand is bleeding! Dad, where did you go -- you saw that man, didn't you?" He blames the cut on a screen door and says disingenuously, "What man?" Meadow starts in on him, but he interrupts to ask all testily what she thinks happened. She doesn't know -- he got in a fight, maybe. "You don't know," he grumps. "You're makin' a big deal a this and you don't know." Meadow reminds him that she saw him on the payphone again at one in the morning, and he objects, "Excuse me, Miss Cuervo Anejo, but you can't be trusted to remember what happened last night, because you were seein' pink elephants!" A good point, but not necessarily relevant here.
Meadow looks at Tony sadly, like she might cry, and he says more gently, "I warned you not to drink." Meadow sulks for a moment, then says, "Dad -- you're being honest with me, right?" Tony snaps that pretty soon she's going to start hurting his feelings. "We have that kind of relationship, you said," Meadow reminds him, and Tony nods, "That's right. We do or we don't. Takes two to tango." Meadow realizes that he wants her to give up her source for the speed. "Dad," she says in that don't-make-me tone, and he says, "What?" and looks at her, waiting. She closes her eyes, then rolls them and pouts, "Nothing." She leans her head on the headrest and stares out the window. After a minute, she tells him without looking at him, "I love you." "I love you too," he says. She turns to look at him as he drives. "Where's my paper?" he asks her. "I forgot." "She forgot," Tony says wryly.
Cut to the two of them sitting alone in a marble hall. An admissions officer comes out and invites Meadow in, and Tony smiles benevolently as the admissions wonk asks Meadow, "Shall we talk about your future?" Ugh. Damn, I hated those interviews. Anyway, left alone, Tony studies a sign above a doorway; it's a Hawthorne quotation which reads, "No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." A skillet whizzes past my ear. A student walks past Tony, sees him eyeing the sign, and says, "He's our most famous alumnus," which makes me laugh because I remember reading the admissions booklet for Bowdoin and remarking aloud that Hawthorne had gone there, and my dad said something to the effect of "big whoop," and I informed him all loftily that Hawthorne had ensured himself a place in the American pantheon with The Scarlet Letter, and my dad said, "Please. It's one letter. He didn't even get to 'B,'" and L'il Pretentious Sars tried not to laugh, but failed. Tony stares at the quotation some more.
Soprano Manor. The Suburban pulls up in front of the house, and Carmela greets Tony and Meadow in the kitchen with, "Oh, here they are, the two Ivy Leaguers," and she hugs Meadow and offers her something to eat, but Meadow takes a pass and goes to call Hunter. Tony busses Carmela on the cheek. Carmela gripes, "Jeez, she spared me no boring detail," and Meadow hears her from upstairs and drones, "I'll be back," and Tony stands to the fridge and rubs his eyes. Carmela's surprised he's so beat, and she rambles on about the gorgeousness of New England, and he comments that she still sounds nasal but looks better, and asks if there's any cold pasta. "There was some ziti, but it all got eaten," she tells him, studying the counter. "The whole tray? From last Sunday?" Tony asks in disbelief, then realizes, "Monsignor Jughead was here." Carmela says coldly, "If you're referring to Father Intintola, yes he was." After a moment, she gets in another dig: "He spent the night here." Tony grunts. "Okay," Carmela says, and reaches for a section of the newspaper, but Tony finally catches his snap and asks, "The priest spent the night here? What happened?" "Nothing," Carmela shrugs. "Where was Anthony?" Tony wants to know. "He was, uh, sleepin' over at Jason's," Carmela says, tossing her bangs out of her face. Oh, man -- buy a vibrator already, Carmela, for chrissake.
Tony reviews: "The priest spent the night here...nothing happened...and you're telling me this because..." Carmela says matter-of-factly that Tony might hear something and take it the wrong way: "His car was out front all night." Yeah, you wish he'd take it the wrong way, honey. ["I think she is the one who wants to take it the wrong way. If you know what I mean. And I think you do." -- Wing Chun] Tony calls it "too fucked up" to think about any further and asks what the two of them did for twelve hours, "play 'Name That Pope'?" Heh. Carmela says in a self-righteous tone that Father Phil gave her communion. "Oh, I'll bet he gave you communion," Tony cracks. "Excuse me?" Carmela snaps.
Then my copy of this episode cuts to a shot of a bear roaring, so I don't know what happens for sure, but I believe that Carmela tells Tony that his psychiatrist called, and lets him know that she now knows that Melfi is a woman. Until time...