Fade up on Vin Makazian chilling in a lumberyard with the newspaper. Tony's Suburban pulls up alongside. They go for a walk and Makazian fills Tony in on Melfi's activities: "girl stuff," dry cleaning, food shopping (she goes to the "fancy schmancy" Italian deli). Makazian goes on to complain that he doesn't know what he's supposed to look for. Tony, predictably, grunts that it's "none of your fucking business" and Makazian is on "need-to-know" status. He adds that he should beat Makazian down for what he did to Melfi's date the month before. Makazian shouts that he thought Melfi "was some goomah of" Tony's, so he threw a scare into the guy: "What's the big deal?" Tony, wearing a black-and-tan shirt that looks like seventies-vintage rec room wallpaper, lets that pass, then asks if the guy comes around anymore. Makazian scoffs that he doesn't and calls the guy a coward. Tony asks if he's got anything else; Makazian says that the night before, Melfi got off at nine and went to bed early. "That's it?" "That's it." Tony stuffs some cash in Makazian's pocket and tells him to "buy yourself an iron."
Melfi comes through the double doors to her waiting area: "Ready?" Inside, Tony rustles in a paper bag and sets a coffee cup in front of Melfi; he's either sucking up to or crushing on her. Melfi taps her hands on her knees uncomfortably, then asks, "Sohow was your college trip with your daughter?" Tony jokingly describes his life as "like an episode of Provolonesomething." Heh. "What's going on?" Tony, futzing with his coffee, explains that all he and Carmela do is fight, and adds with a dismissive snort that "she's jealous a you." Melfi lowers her eyes before asking, "Is that something you feel, or has there been discussion with Carmela?" Tony says that Carmela didn't know Melfi was a woman. Melfi wonders why Tony hadn't told Carmela that before; Tony, missing the point, says that he didn't tell Carmela, that Melfi "spilled the beans" when she called to change their appointment. Melfi changes tacks, asking why Tony chose to come to a female doctor in the first place. That's an excellent question, actually. Tony smirks that Carmela "asked the same friggin' questionand I sometimes wonder myself." "And?" Tony says that, as he explained to Carmela, Dr. Cusamano gave him a choice between "two Jewish guys and a paisan' like me, so I picked the paisan'." Melfi changes tacks again, asking Tony, "What's the one thing -- your mother, your wife, your daughter -- have in common?" "They all break my balls," Tony cracks, and Melfi has to chuckle. Tony knows what she means, though: "They're all Italian, so what?" I can think of about a dozen answers I would have given before "Italian," starting with "passive-aggressive," but whatever ["and I would have led with 'whiny' or perhaps 'fashion-impaired'" -- Wing Chun] -- Melfi suggests that maybe by "coming clean with" her, Tony is "dialoguing" with the other women in his life. Tony doesn't think much of this theory and turns the tables, asking Melfi why she has him as a patient and pointing out in a rather fond tone that a lot of people "would go a hundred miles out of their way not to have eye contact with" him, "but you -- you didn't flinch." Melfi smiles tightly and looks away. Does that count as a flinch? I think it does.
Overhead shot of a poker game; "My Girl" plays in the background. I hate that song. I know you'll all sleep better at night knowing that. [Cough.] Anyway, a short, balding guy goes to the door, checks the peephole, and lets in Mikey Palmice and two of his guys. Short Balding Guy says they came just in time, he's about to make coffee, and he asks after Junior. Mikey jumps on SBG, knocks him down, kicks him in the ribs a few times, and tells him as he lies writhing on the floor, "That's how Junior is, Sammy." Mikey has that fugly International Male beige cabled sweater on again. Man, I can't wait till he gets killed off so I don't have to look at that eyesore anymore, not to mention the thinning-hair-non-disguising blow-dry he's got going on. Sammy gasps that he's with Little Jimmy Altieri, and Mikey, all out of breath from waving his dick around, asks if Sammy's paying Jimmy Altieri "for this game." "No," Sammy wheezes. "Are you paying someone for this game? Huh?" Mikey wants to know, punctuating the question with another boot to Sammy's ribs. Mikey announces to the room at large that "the party's over -- Junior Soprano is the new boss, and he ain't respectin' old arrangements."
Junior at the tailor's, standing ramrod straight on the measuring block in a new shirt and jacket and a giant pair of old-man's boxers. The tailor tells Junior he's lucky; he stayed slim, so he can buy suits "right off the rack." Yeah, and how. Junior smiles that he wanted something special: "The boys are having a little time for me." Mikey, leafing through a magazine, asks if Junior's wearing a suit to the dinner; Junior snorts that "these guys today, they wanna be buried in a jogging outfit." Oh, God -- amen to that. I think that's what I like best about The Sopranos; they acknowledge these little things, these bits of received wisdom about the Mob. Anyway, Junior asks after the tailor's oldest son Ralphie; the tailor sighs that Ralphie lost his oldest son. "What do you mean, 'lost'?" Junior asks. Dead, the tailor says, getting upset: "Just -- just a fuckin' kid, a baby!" "Whoa whoa whoa, what're we talkin' about here -- you lost your grandson?" Junior asks, stepping down from the measuring block. The tailor rants angrily about these "fucking animals, these drug dealers," and Junior remembers that "that little kid used to run around here breakin' balls," and the tailor weeps, "Domenicmy namesake." Junior turns to Mikey and asks if he knew about this; Mikey shakes his head. Junior gets back up onto the block and asks rhetorically, "What'd I say about this fuckin' poison," and says how he reads in the paper all the time about kids overdosing, but the tailor interrupts to say that Domenic didn't overdose, "he killed himself -- fourteen years old." "Jesus!" grunts Junior. Mikey stands up: "Was this at Paterson Falls?" The tailor nods. "Holy shit, that was your grandson?" Mikey asks. "What?" Junior wants to know. Mikey tells the story: "The kid, he took one a thosedesigner drugs, right? Goes to the falls, takes a header right off the fence. They said the, the current whirled so much that his head was bashed on the rocks for days before he even came up." A born diplomat, that Mikey. Kee-rist. ["Is it wrong that my first thought was, 'How does a fourteen-year-old afford designer drugs?'" -- Wing Chun] Junior agrees with me and grimaces, holding up a hand to shut Mikey up: "Shhht!" The tailor laments that meanwhile, "this piece a shit, he gets to walk the streets and sell more a this stuff to young kids." Junior gets that furious beetle-browed look on his face: "Oh, really? What's this motherless fuck's name?"
Cut Of Great Irony to Livia gazing fondly at Junior, who sips from a china cup and scowls, "Even the coffee's old in here." Heh. Livia shrugs that what can you do, "eventually they find you with a broken hip." Junior bitches some more about getting Livia some decent coffee, but she's moved on: "What are you wearing? Ya smell like a French puttan' [whore]." "It's Canoe. Johnny wore Canoe." An elderly man makes his way past them with a wheeled walker: "Mornin', Livia." "Oh, morning," she says semi-brightly. "Morning," the man says to Junior. "New arrival?" "Go 'head, keep movin', fella," Junior grunts, insulted. After the man has made himself scarce, Livia tells Junior quietly that she's happy for him; she knows how long he waited for the job: "Just don't let certain people take advantage of your good nature, like they did to Johnny." "What certain people -- nobody got over on Johnny!" Junior snaps, then smiles complacently, "Nobody's gonna get over on me," and he gets up to go. Livia asks after Hesh. Junior asks, what about him. Livia snorts, "Who ever heard of Jew riding horses?" Huh? Junior shrugs that Hesh owns a horse farm; Livia does the hand wave, and Junior points out that "he's Tony's friend, not mine. Whaddya got against him, anyway?" "Who, me? Nothing," Livia says disingenuously, adding that Johnny liked Hesh, and Tony "thinks every word that comes out of his mouth -- is pure gold." Junior squints at her suspiciously: "Are you telling me that, since I'm the new boss, I should tax Hesh?" Livia looks purposefully blank, of course; Junior grins gleefully. "Boy, Anthony really musta gotten under your collar -- admit it. You're lookin' to crack his coglioni for puttin' you in here." Livia says mildly that she doesn't know what he's talking about. "Yeah. And I'm playin' shortstop for the Mets," Junior says, giving Livia a look I can only describe as admiring.
Over at the Bimbetova Bungalow, Tony lies on his back in bed; Irina Bimbetova dashes out of the bathroom wearing only black panties and pounces on him. "Watch the balls," he warns her. Boy, he really has a way with the pillow talk. Not. Irina starts kissing her way down Tony's ample stomach, and he blisses out for a moment, but then his head snaps up. "What is the matter?" Irina asks. "Tony's cannoli doesn't want to stand up?" Yecch. He pulls her up, laughing unconvincingly that his cannoli is "tired." Irina baby-voices that she could help, and he says he knows, "justmaybe" and he trails off. She kisses his nipple. "So how's your job?" he asks, and she gives him a "whatever" look and asks since when does he care about her job, and he sputters, "Can't I be nice?" but she's kissing her way down again. "All right," he shrugs, stares at the ceiling for a moment while chewing his lip, then rolls out from under her and snaps, "You don't wanna talk about your job? Fine," and he hurls a wad of cash at her: "Call somebody who gives a fuck." Oh, that's nice. I mean, Irina bugs, but really. She brushes the money off the bed, saying that she's not a whore and he can "stick the money up [his] ass," and she doesn't know what's wrong with him but he shouldn't take it out on her. "There's nothin' wrong with me!" he interrupts. "I just wanted to talk, that's all!" He buttons his pants, continuing, "For all the conversation I get around here I might as well be a fuckin' dildo." "If you were a dildo, we wouldn't be fighting," Irina murmurs. Uh, I wouldn't go there, Irina; I wouldn't even go to that area code.
Tony snaps, "What does that mean? Huh? You fuckin' refugee, what does that mean?" Irina grabs a lighted candle from the bedside table and chucks it at him, and it almost hits Tony in the head but he manages to swat it away with his forearm, and she grabs the lamp , but Tony tackles her before she can throw that too and threatens to "knock you out, you fucking Communist cunt," and Irina shrieks and struggles and wrenches free and hits him a few times on the back before storming back into the bathroom and yelling something in Russian. "Yeah, same to you!" Tony yells, rubbing his elbow. "Ya fuckin' burned me!"
Satriale's. Christopher, sporting a reasonably unfortunate v-neck tank top with red stripes on the sides, steals a slice of luncheon meat from the giggling girl at the meat slicer. Percussive he's-in-his-element music plays. He joins the boys in the back, all sitting around the table playing hearts, and tells Tony, "Hesh is outside." "Tell him to come in." "He says he needs a word with you," Christopher says portentously. "What the fuck?" Pussy bitches, picking up the queen of spades. "I've eaten more queens than Lancelot." Ba-dum-bum. Big Pussy Bonpensiero, folks. You've been a great crowd -- drive safely.
Tony goes out to find Hesh getting out of his car. "What's up?" "Let's walk," Hesh says. "I'd like to show off this safari shirt." Okay, he doesn't say that last part. And he shouldn't. "That serious?" Tony asks. On the sidewalk, Hesh asks Tony if he's spoken to his uncle lately. "Junior? Yeah. NoI don't know, why, what's up?" "Your father was a fair man, Tony." Tony wants to know what that's got to do with Junior. "Junior's not so fair." Tony wants Hesh to get to the point. "He's taxing me, Tony." Tony slows down in disbelief. "He's taxing you? When did this happen?" "Today." Tony, getting angrier, asks if Hesh told Junior that he's operated for years without tax, that Johnny "loved you and respected you," that ten percent that goes to Junior comes from Hesh's "shylock business." Hesh looks down and shakes his head. Tony bitches that "my uncle's been boss of the family ten fuckin' minutes, already I got agita." Tony puts his hands on his hips and fumes, "What'd you tell 'im?" "I told him the truth," Hesh shrugs, "it's a reasonable request but an unreasonable figure." Tony wants Hesh to hold on: "Whaddya mean it's a reasonable request?" "He's the boss now, Tony," Hesh tells him gently, and if Junior calls the tune, they all dance to it: "That's the way it's always been done." He goes on to say that people can either respect the past or change the rules, but he came over to tell Tony that, "with all this bullshit going on," he doesn't know if he can stick around. "Oh yeah? Where you gonna go?" Hesh reminds Tony that he can sit on his royalty checks; he did write six gold records, after all. Tony in turn reminds Hesh that six black kids wrote the gold records, but Hesh owned the company and treated himself to a co-writing credit. Hesh just smiles. Tony says, "Besides, I know you -- you leave this action, you're gonna kill yourself." He asks how much Junior wants. "Five hundred large, plus two points monthly on my shy," Hesh tells him; Tony winces. Then he starts chuckling -- whether out of sheer frustration or because he sort of respects Junior's cold-bloodedness, I can't say -- and tells Hesh to "sit tight for now." Hesh nods and walks away. Tony mulls.
Casa Soprano. Crickets chirp. Tony and Carmela sleep. We zoom in on Tony, then zoom out again to see him in Irina's bed, surrounded by lit candles; a doo-wop group croons on the soundtrack. Tony comes to and finds a figure draped in the black satin sheet making its way down his torso. The figure starts doing her thing under the sheet; Tony grins and clutches the sheets and sings along with the song. Gee -- I can't imagine who's under that sheet! Oh, wait. I can. Because I've just spent the last hour watching Foreshadowing try on my clothes. More doo-wop. More Tony squirming in ecstasy. After the Lewinsky is finished, the figure under the sheet asks, "How was that, baby?" "The bestyou are the best," Tony pants, and he pulls the sheet away from the figure and smoothes back her hair to reveal -- ta da! -- Melfi. Lorraine Bracco does actually bear a slight resemblance to Irina in this shot, but I imagine that isn't really the point. As Tony shudders and tries to sit up, Melfi says in a weird dubbed Russian accent, "Tony, I love your cannoli." He wakes up with a start to hear Carmela asking, "Are you okay?" He tells her to go back to sleep and sits up to get his bearings. "You sure you're all right?" she asks again.
Shot of the Manhattan skyline. The plinking of a mandolin. In a bar, a guy in a tan blazer asks Tony, "So what do you want New York to do?" Tony fiddles with his signet ring and tells Tan Blazer that, first of all, "Junior can't know that we talked, he's gotta think that Hesh came to you on his own, by himself." Tan Blazer puts his drink down and eyes Tony: "So you are still running things." Tony doesn't answer, just adds that "the arrangement, whatever it is, can't be insulting to my uncle -- Hesh has gotta pay something." Tan Blazer looks down at the bar as Tony says that he hasn't figured out what Hesh will have to pay yet. Tony looks behind him at Carmela sitting restively at a table for two, then tells TB that he's "gotta get back -- we'll talk later." Tan Blazer watches him go.
Tony comes back to the table and asks, "How's the veal?" "It's like rubber," Carmela sighs. Carmela has her hair up in a big complicated bouffant, and she's wearing a silvery dress and her customary no-nothing's-wrong-it's-fine-I-hate-you-please-pay-attention-to-me deep-freeze expression. Tony tries a bite of the veal and says it tastes all right to him, but asks, "You want something else?" Carmela shakes her head coldly. The waiters come over and sing "Happy Anniversary" to them in Italian and serve them tiramisu with candles stuck into it; Tony and Carmela both look profoundly uncomfortable, and Carmela gives Tony a wounded glare. Tony tips the singer and grunts, "Don't look at me." "Compliments of Johnny Sack," the singer tells Tony, and Tony waves at Tan Blazer, who raises his glass from the bar. Carmela suggests that maybe Tony would like to spend the rest of their anniversary with Johnny Sack. Tony allows that yes, he would, and gets up from the table. Okay, he doesn't do that, but I think he should have. Yes, I know he's a cheating, lying, stealing murderer. Yes, I know she can't just pack a bag. But if she didn't know what she'd gotten herself into, she should have, and either way, she herself admitted in the last episode that she tolerates his bullshit because she wants the luxuries he can provide -- maybe I should, but I don't feel sorry for her. Suck it up, Carmela -- and one more thing. The moany, weepy, icy poor-me routine won't get you what you want. Trust me, I've tried it. ["You know who else has? Livia. And look where it got her." -- Wing Chun]
Anyway, Tony settles for muttering, "I was over there for ten friggin' minutes, Carmela. Don't do this." "All right, Tony. At least I know where I stand," and she tries not to start crying but fails. "Why you always gotta be so dramatic, huh?" Tony asks, adding, "Oh, here we go -- all right, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry." Carmela regains her composure and hisses that he doesn't even know what he's apologizing for: "It's our anniversary, Tony -- ours, not yours, mine, and Johnny fuckin' Sack's. Ours!" She thought maybe they could get a room at the Plaza "like last year, or, I don't know," and she retreats into fiddling with her bangs. Tony hesitates for a moment, then reaches forward to rub her arm and tell her, more sincerely this time, "I'm sorry, Carmela -- huh? I've just got a lot on my mind, and I'm not thinkin' straight." Carmela, now fiddling with her lip, doesn't look at him. "Hey. I'm sorry," he says again. Finally, she looks up. "Should I call the Plaza?" he offers. "C'mon." But she won't bite: "Nah, let's go home."
The Mercedes pulls into the garage. As Carmela unbuckles and prepares to get out, Tony says, "Hey, c'mere," but she won't. "Carmela, what do you want me to say? I'm lost at sea here." "You've changed, Tony," she snaps, "and I resent it." He slumps back in his seat; Carmela goes on, "I resent it because it's destroying what little self-esteem I have left." She adds that, sometimes, she thinks he skeeves her. Tony doesn't know what that means, saying exasperatedly that "you're the mother of my children, how the fuck can I skeeve you?" Carmela bites off, "You see? You see what I'm talkin' about? Right there -- 'you're the mother of my children.' I feel like I'm just someone you've chosen to procreate with!" Tony rolls his eyes: "You knew this might happen with the Prozac!" Oh, so she's talking about the impotence. Carmela says that a friend of hers "has been on it for years, and she'd hump a fire hydrant if it could make a pass at her." Tony explains impatiently that Melfi said it affects different people in different ways, which prompts Carmela to sneer sarcastically, "Oh, she told you that?" and huff out of the car and into the house. Tony rubs his forehead and sighs.
Cut to Tony performing the coffee ceremony again in Melfi's office. She watches him for a moment, then says that before they start, they should "address the coffee situation." It's not appropriate for her to take gifts, she says; Tony stares at her, so she smiles, "Let's just make a rule, okay? No gifts." "Does this mean I can't drink mine?" Melfi laughs. Just then, her phone rings, and she apologizes, saying that she usually has the answering service handle calls when she's with a patient, but she has a car emergency. She picks up: "Yes?What does that mean, a 'diagnostic'?I just wanna know what's wrong with my carno, no, don't do anythingno, I want to get a second opinionI'll, I'll take my chances." During this exchange, Tony eyes her indulgently. She hangs up and apologizes again, and she asks how it's going. "Good, real good," Tony says, and announces that he's considering "flush[ing] the medication," just to "see if the changes I'm feeling are for real." Yeah, right -- that decision has nothing to do with the Limp Bizkit show playing in his pants at all.