Fade up in a modern-looking church sanctuary; a kid stage-whispers, "Here, take a swig -- and don't backwash!" Pan past the candles in the nave. The kid mutters, "Shit, don't break it," and another kid says, "Quick, it's almost time for the nuns' rosary!" AJ and two friends scatter from a room off of the nave and head for class, arguing over whether the wine is sacramental, and one of the friends asks if AJ's "gonna confess this," and AJ says, "I'm gonna tell them I stole something, not what!" After they've run out of the sanctuary, the camera comes to rest on a statue of a sorrowing Jesus.
Cut to a gym teacher yelling things like "warm it up" and "hustle, hustle" at the boys' gym class, and he orders them to form straight lines. AJ and one of the friends straggle into the gym, flushed and unable to walk straight, and the teacher busts on them for lagging: "Soprano, DiCarlucci, shake a leg, let's go." Then the teacher calls out, "Jumping jacks, ten of 'em, count 'em down!" I think I'll go waaaaay out on this skinny little pencil-width limb over here and predict that someone is going to barf at some point during the scene. AJ and DiCarlucci flounder to the back of the group and try to do jumping jacks, and they can barely stand up, much less coordinate their arms and legs; Barber, the third li'l tippler, isn't doing much better. The teacher walks around the side of the group, gives them the furry eyeball, and tells them to "sync up" with the rest of the class. The boys start giggling. The teacher asks what's so funny and if they'd like to share it with the rest of the class (a tactic I always hated), and DiCarlucci slurs, "Sorry, Mr. Miskimmin." Eyeing them suspiciously, Mr. M fweeps his whistle and starts calling off squat thrusts (another element of secondary-school phys-ed that I always loathed), and AJ and his friends flail about while Mr. M hollers, "Floor! Kick! Return! Up!" "I'm dizzier than shit," one of them (I can't tell which) burbles. Mr. M strolls towards the three of them, and AJ mutters, "Fuck, here he comes." Mr. M fweeps his whistle again, and the three lie on the ground, smashed and nauseated, and stare up at him helplessly. Disgusted, Mr. M orders them to their feet; the rest of the class turns to gawk. AJ shakes his head to clear it and says, "Whoa." DiCarlucci looks at the floor. Barber clutches his stomach and groans that he doesn't feel so good. Mr. M snaps that he doesn't want any excuses, but Barber makes a pre-heave motion and says he has to go to the bathroom. Mr. M leans in towards him: "Is that alcohol on your breath?" The class begins to titter, and Barber staggers off to the edge of the gym and hurls expansively, which makes the class groan and start laughing outright. AJ and DiCarlucci, woozy and appalled, stare at Barber painting a mural in the corner.
Tony pulls up to a construction site in his Suburban, gets out with a cup of coffee, and asks a hard-hat-wearing Christopher, "How's the boy?" "How am I? I got dust up the crack a my ass and I'm starvin' to death," Christopher tells him sourly. Tony, enjoying Christopher's annoyance, tells him to take pleasure in doing a good job. Christopher complains that some "guy's been raggin' in my fuckin' ear all day, I'd like to kill the prick," and he punctuates the sentiment by yelling, "Ya hear that, prick?" The prick in question comes storming across the site, bitching at Tony to get Christopher the hell out of there. Tony asks if there's a problem, and Prick tells him he's made his point. Tony plays dumb: "What point is that?" Prick says he's had it with the work stoppage. Tony explains with a great show of patience that Christopher is there as a union safety official, and as such he can't allow work to go forward until "he deems this workplace is free of hazard." Or until Prick meets Tony's terms of extortion, whichever comes first. "I have the money," Prick snaps. "You do?" Tony asks in disbelief. He instructs Christopher to call the union office and see if Prick has paid up his dues, and then they'll pop open a set of wheel covers and check the brake pads. "I'll get right on it," Christopher says. The two of them just stand there; Tony sips his coffee calmly. Prick says, "I'll get your money, okay?" "We shall return," Tony says, and he and Christopher walk away, Christopher chucking his hard hat over his shoulder and grumping, "Halle-fuckin'-lujah." Tony asks for Christopher's cell so he can call Carmela.
The Practice-esque whoosh to Tony asking incredulously, "You sure it was them?" Pan over to Carmela grousing, "They were drunk in gym class. Byron Barber vomited all over the teacher." Pan further over, past the bottle of wine on the principal's desk, to AJ protesting that he didn't even drink it, he spat it out. "Anthony," the principal warns him, and Carmela bites off, "On top of this, you're gonna lie to me now?" Tony tells the principal that "[AJ's] very sorry, Father Hagy, and he's gonna be even sorrier when he gets home." Father Hagy suggests that AJ wait outside; AJ glances at Tony, who motions him out with his head, so AJ stomps over to the door and stomps out. Nice attitude, Demi-Lush. Carmela mutters to Tony, "He's suspended for three days." Tony, reaching for his wallet, offers to pay for the wine, but Father Hagy coldly informs him that the theft of the wine "is not just a crime against property -- this is an affront to our holy sacristy." Tony shrugs and puts his wallet away. Heh. Father Hagy says that he's asked Dr. Galani, the school psychologist, to join them, adding that Dr. Galani has "been keeping an eye on Anthony" and talking to his teachers. He gives Dr. G the floor.
Dr. G comes out from behind Father Hagy's chair, sits on the edge of the desk, and tells Tony and Carmela that "in many respects, Anthony is a normal, healthy eighth-grader." Tony looks bored and Carmela horrified as Dr. G opens a folder and says that Sister Patricia, AJ's art teacher, thinks he shows "strong skills in spatial orientation." Wow, talk about damning the kid with faint praise. Dr. G goes on, "The thing is, though -- and it's not just this one incident...Anthony sometimes has trouble following the rules...weighing consequences...at times doesn't think before he acts." Tony nods as though he's heard it before. Dr. G says hesitantly, "And -- it's thought there's a good possibility -- that Anthony could be ADD." Tony and Carmela look blank, so Dr. G clarifies that he means attention deficit disorder. "I knew it!" Carmela exclaims, happy that she has a new martyrdom bone to worry: "I always knew there was something." Dr. G explains that "it's an aggregate of symptoms," including impulsivity, inattention, and sometimes hyperactivity, but they'll need to do a full evaluation on AJ. Tony offers the opinion that all AJ needs "is a whack upside the head," and I have to agree with him in theory, if not in practice -- I don't doubt that ADD exists or anything, but let's distinguish between kids acting up and kids having a genuine disorder. AJ is, what, thirteen? No thirteen-year-old ever got in fights or bagged an illegal bottle of wine or didn't pay attention in class before? I mean, please. He doesn't need Ritalin; he needs a foot in his ass. And thus endeth this week's episode of "The Childless Woman Tells Other People Fuck-All About How To Raise Kids."
On with the show. Carmela responds to Tony's comment by snarling, "If he has an illness?" To Dr. G: "It's an illness, right?" To Tony again: "You'd hit somebody who's sick? You'd hit somebody with polio?" Dr. G and Father Hagy exchange an uncomfortable look, and Dr. G asks with a wince, "You...hit Anthony?" Tony says impatiently that "nobody gets hit in our house -- not exactly my idea," and goes on to say that he doesn't know "what the world's coming to if you can't do a little tarantell' on the kids every once in a while, when they step out of line." Dr. G looks dismayed. Carmela sucks her teeth and, ignoring this statement of purpose from Tony, asks, "So what happens now?" Dr. G says eagerly that AJ will undergo a battery of psychological, behavioral, and physical testing, but Tony breaks in: "Lemme ask you a question. These other kids -- you 'keepin' an eye on' them? Are you testin' them? The ones that aren't named Soprano?" Dr. G grudgingly admits that "there's no immediate plans [sic] for that," and Father Hagy interrupts to read from the school's admissions pamphlet: "We attend every child at Verbum Dei according to his own special set of circumstances." Tony asks sarcastically what they as the parents do, "nothin'?" Dr. G tells them patronizingly, "Oh, no -- I mean, Anthony's misbehaved. He should be consequenced." "Consequenced"? Shut up, Dr. G. Carmela nods. Tony also nods, but it's much more of a "wait until I get that kid alone" nod than Carmela's.
At the dinner table, Livia wails that "it's a crime" that AJ got suspended, especially "with all the money you give them." Don't put too fine a point on it, Liv. Carmela, whose hair has undergone a rather unfortunate Sam-The-Eagle-esque transformation for this scene, has that "must...resist...responding" look that snapped down over my mother's face every time my grandmother intimated that she might do things differently with us kids. Junior, wearing a fairly snazzy black Rat Pack-y shirt, says to AJ, "I bet that gym teacher shit a brick when your little friend puked on his boots, huh, Anthony?" Snerk. AJ and Meadow both chuckle. Tony tells Junior not to "encourage him," and Junior snorts, "Hey, what ever happened to 'boys will be boys'?" Carmela, passing him a bowl of potatoes, snaps, "He stole from the church. They don't make 'em any lower than that." "What a loser," Meadow smirks, but not unkindly. "That's enough outta you," Carmela tells her. Livia pokes listlessly at her fettuccine and sighs, "Oh, his father was the same way. I practically lived in that vice principal's office." Tony rolls his eyes: "Could we not, please?" "Well, you only remember what you wanna remember," she passive-aggressives. (I think I've had this conversation. "And then I come downstairs to find that you had carved your name into the table!" "Ma. Please." "Oh, right, I forgot -- it's Miss Revisionist History." "Ma. It was twenty-two years ago, and if you were that upset, how come you've still got the same table in the den?" "Eh. That's not the point." "All right, Ma? Can we drop this?" "[sigh] I suppose I should have been happy you could spell at such a young age." "MA!!") "I must have had another son who stole a car when he was ten years old," Livia groans, directing the comment to the heavens; a look of sheer delight dawns on AJ's face, as Livia adds, "You could barely see over the steering wheel!" Tony just chews his food and tries not to perforate his mother with a fork. Junior pipes up fondly, "He was a hellion, this one -- him and his little crew. They used to steal lobsters on the boats on the shore, and sell 'em for a buck apiece down on Bloomfield Avenue." "Really?" AJ asks excitedly. Tony plunks down his silverware and shouts that he doesn't want "that kind a talk" in front of AJ: "That stuff is wrong, and I don't condone it!" "Yeah. Sure," AJ snides, taking a sip of his soda, and Junior asks Tony, "Who do you think you're yellin' at?" and Carmela leans across the table and snaps at AJ, "What?" and Meadow turns to him and mutters, "You stupe." Ha! I didn't know kids still called each other that. Carmela: "What did you just say?" Livia wants to know what's going on, Junior bellows that Tony yells at him "like a miserabl' [shrew]," and AJ tries to make like he didn't say anything, but Carmela won't have it, saying in her bitterest voice, "Anthony, I thought this could wait till after dinner. But your father and I have talked." AJ starts to look afraid.
Carmela hands down the punishment: no playing Mario Kart, going skateboarding, or watching TV for three weeks. AJ makes a snotty face: "No." "No"? "NO"? Who says "no" to a punishment? If I'd said "no" to the terms of a grounding, my mother would have sent me to my room and then bricked me in there. AJ looks at Tony in an appeal for help, but Tony gives him a snotty look right back. And there's more -- AJ can't "sit on that Internet" either ("that Internet"?), and every day, he has to ride his bike over to Green Grove and visit Livia. "Oh, that'll be nice," Livia says, jamming a huge forkful of pasta into her craw. AJ, crying now, slams out of his chair: "It's not fair!" Meadow shoots a "HA ha" look at AJ's back as he huffs out of the room; Carmela takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Tony pushes his plate away angrily.
Later, in the master bedroom, Tony and Carmela get ready for bed. Did you ever notice that, on TV, couples always go to bed at the same time? Does that ever happen in real life? I don't think I've ever gone to sleep at the same time as one of my boyfriends -- either one of us stayed up reading and watching TV or the other one did, but we never just declared, "Bedtime!" and clambered into bed in our PJs, even after a night of drinking. ["In our house, Glark's usually going to bed as I'm getting up." -- Wing Chun] Anyhow, Tony comes out of the bathroom and says, "Some fuckin' day, huh?" Carmela, putting on hand lotion, says she feels like a bomb went off. Yeah, it did -- in your hairdryer, so get thee to a hot oil, Carmela. Tony sits heavily on the bed and says he's never seen any of the stuff in AJ that the doctor talked about. Carmela asks, "You never noticed the way he picks at the tongue of his tennis shoe? Like he can't help himself." "If he even has this thing," Tony grunts. "Something's goin' on," Carmela sighs. Yeah -- he's in eighth grade! His life sucks! He's having wet dreams and growing like a weed! Ground him and get on with your lives! God! "Carm," Tony asks, "you think he knows?" "I don't know," Carmela shrugs, letting her hair down from its claw clip. "She knows." Carmela climbs into bed. Tony has a micro-flashback to Meadow in the car, asking if he's in the Mafia, and asks Carmela, "Really? What makes you say that?" Micro-flashback. Carmela says that Meadow says things and "makes remarks, like this today with him," that lead her to believe Meadow knows. Micro-flashback. "She talk to you? About me?" Tony asks. "Talk? To me? Pffff," Carmela scoffs. Tony smiles. Carmela fiddles with her rings and asks, "Something happen on that college trip?" Yet another micro-flashback, this one to Tony strangling Petrulio. "'Happen'?" he repeats. Micro-flashback of the garrote. "Like what?" Micro-flashback of Petrulio struggling. "I don't know -- she seemed peculiar when she got back." Carmela turns her head on the pillow to look at Tony; he micro-flashbacks to getting Petrulio on the ground and finishing him off, but says only, "Pretty soon we're gonna have to -- you know, talk to her. About the business." Carmela agrees that the two of them should sit down with Meadow and "talk as a family." "And with him, we'll get the tests and we'll see what's what. Right?" Carmela doesn't answer, just looks worried. Tony leans over and kisses her goodnight, then rolls back to his side of the bed and lies there looking sad for a moment before turning out the light.
Melfi's office. Tony acknowledges that maybe he doesn't want to admit "there's something wrong with my kid," but the ADD still "sounds like bullshit" to him. Melfi asks why, and Tony says that if AJ has a disease, then why did "they" tell Tony to punish AJ: "Doesn't that sound like bullshit?" Melfi admits that "it's a controversial subject." Tony, getting hacked off, wants to know if it's really a disease or just a way "for these psychologists to line their pockets," and Melfi lets him steam for a minute before noting that "many children can really benefit by [sic] professional intervention." "He got in a little trouble," Tony says defensively. Melfi asks if that's "out of the norm" for AJ, and Tony snaps, "No," then says, "I don't know...I mean, what do I know about it?" Melfi asks what he means. Tony asks if he has to spell it out for her. Melfi rephrases: "Do you see his behavior as a reflection of your own?" Tony looks down and doesn't answer for a moment, and you almost can't tell because Melfi's shoulder blocks the shot, but he's picking at the tongue of his shoe. Finally, he repeats that maybe he doesn't want to admit that there's something wrong, "but if he's got this thing, we'll deal with it. If he had polio, we'd deal with it. You pick up the pieces and you go on from there. So that's what we're gonna do." Melfi, whose hair has morphed into a Brenda-from-first-season- fright wig between the shot of her and this one, nods slowly and asks if he has anything else he wants to say on the subject; Tony shakes his head and heaves a deep sigh. Melfi reluctantly brings up the fact that, at their last session, Tony said he had "intimate feelings for" her, but he hasn't mentioned it this time. "'Intimate feelings'? I think I said I was in love," Tony grumps. "How are you doing with it?" she asks. Tony shifts uncomfortably in his chair and, without looking at her, says he can't turn off his feelings just because Melfi says it's a by-product of therapy; Melfi never told him he should do that. Tony thinks about that, then tells Melfi, "Well, I already got a girlfriend." He begins to leer, apparently in an effort to get a rise out of Melfi: "She's Russian. Twenty-four." When he says "twenty-four," he makes a pumping motion with his fist. Ew. Melfi just blinks impassively at him, and Tony finds himself all sleazed up with nowhere to go, which embarrasses him, so he asks Melfi meanly, "How old are you?" Melfi blinks again and says she finds it interesting that it took him so long to tell her he had a girlfriend. "How are you doing with it?" he mocks her. She arches an eyebrow all "nice try, humble layperson." Tony in turn clears his throat all "damn, tough crowd" and changes the subject back to AJ, asking if she thinks he should go easy on AJ for now, or push him harder. "Well, that's difficult to say," Melfi says. "You want a raise, maybe? Figure this out?" Tony jokes.
Cut to Casa Soprano. Tony lies in bed, asleep; the clock reads 9:17. From downstairs, forty-eight sets of fingernails drag across a blackboard -- oh, wait, it's Carmela, blaring, "Anthony! Anthony Junior, you get up!" Tony stirs, then tries to go back to sleep. No such luck; AJ grumps that he doesn't see why he should get up, since he's suspended, and Carmela screeches that he can't lie in bed all day, "we're not running a hotel over heah! Get up, have some breakfast!" Oh my holy God, Carmela's voice is so very very unpleasant. Tony rolls over, checks the clock, and slaps it back down, unable to believe his eyes.
AJ bellows back that he doesn't want breakfast, he's not hungry; Carmela announces, in a tone of voice which not only approximates the sound of a dental drill entering the inner ear but also keeps intensifying as the scene goes on, that today AJ will rake leaves and clean the pool filter. Okay, my mother must have written this episode. I mean it. Whenever I got grounded and couldn't watch TV or go over to friends' houses, I inevitably got assigned weed-pulling duty on the weekend, and my brother would go off to play with his friends and give me that smug "nyah nyah nyah NYAH NYAH" smile as he departed the back yard, and the knot in my back and I would have to stay there and yank creepers out of the rhododendrons. Tony sits up in bed, steaming, as rap music kicks in from AJ's room, and Carmela keeps flaying AJ's inner ears, yelling about his doing "some work around here," and Meadow's yelling that she can't find something, and Carmela's screeching at AJ to turn off that music because his father's still sleeping, and Tony gets up and lumbers into the bathroom. He pauses for a moment to listen to the din -- AJ is now arguing that Carmela didn't say anything about playing music, and Carmela is shrieking at him to turn it off, right now, because she said so, and honestly, I don't know how many more synonyms for "screech" I've got left -- and walks over to the bathroom cabinet and gulps a Prozac, and the music in the background subtly shifts to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," and Tony stares at himself in the mirror and sighs as Grace Slick observes that one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, and we all get it, thanks, and then he smiles...
...and we find ourselves in a flashback, because all the cars look thirty years old. Young Junior pulls up to the Soprano house in a black gas-guzzler and yells for Johnny, Tony's father, and Little Tony comes out and asks Junior what he's doing there so early. Junior asks him why his dad isn't out front, and Tony offers to go get him, but Junior just asks if he heard the game the night before; Tony says his mom made him go to bed. Young Livia -- played by Laila Robins, who has appeared in several Law & Order episodes and who really nails Livia's voice and pronunciation -- comes out on the front steps in curlers and tells Tony to hurry up or he'll miss his bus, and does he want to have to walk through "the colored neighborhood"? Then she comments sarcastically on Junior's "big fancy car" and nags Johnny that they have to go to her sister's that night and he promised to bring a pork loin, and Johnny walks to the car and nags back, "Bah bah bah bah bah, nonstop -- don't you get sick a yourself?" Livia sucks her teeth at him. Tony asks his dad to give him a ride to school; Johnny tells him he can't, but Tony should behave himself in school and "listen to what those teachers tell you," and Johnny and Junior take off. Tony says, "See ya, Ma." "Okay," she says flatly, "be good," and she drags herself back into the house.
Young Tony heads to school on foot. As he rounds the corner, he sees his bus pulling away, and he starts to run after it but pulls up short when he sees his father and Junior drive up to a group of men and chase one of them down. Tony hides behind a tree and watches his father and Junior deliver a beatdown to some guy named Rocco, and the frame freezes on Johnny walking away from the guy and counting money. Then there's a white flash...
...and we're back to the bathroom. Tony stands up straight and stretches in front of the mirror. Carmela comes in, clad in a sporty striped outfit from Contempo Casuals, and says in a surprised tone, "You're up." "Who the fuck can sleep with all this shit goin' on?" he asks, shuffling out of the bathroom.
Melfi's office. Tony relates that he started thinking about Jefferson Airplane earlier, and it made him think about his father. "What about him?" "First time I ever saw him whack the shit outta somebody." Melfi asks what made Tony think of that; Tony thinks it's to do with "what's been goin' on" with AJ. Melfi asks timidly why Tony's father whacked the shit out of some guy, and Tony says he'd never seen his father do something like that, although he used to "whack us kids around a little bit." "Really?" Melfi asks gently. Tony jokes that "the belt was his favorite child-development tool," but Melfi doesn't smile. Tony goes on to say that "this was different, though -- you could tell he knew what he was doin'." Melfi asks how Tony felt about his father after that. "I didn't want him to do it to me," Tony says. Melfi, not buying the jokey tone: "Seriously." Tony won't break: "Whaddya want me to say? I was glad he wasn't a fag." Melfi gives up on that angle and asks how Tony and his father got along. Tony, looking down and fiddling with a thread on his pants, says he got along "good" with his father, everybody liked his father, he knew how to have a good time, he taught Tony how to eat shellfish, blah blah blah; he tells an anecdote, clearly designed to change the subject, about slurping down oysters with Worcestershire sauce, and Melfi smiles. But Tony abruptly changes tone to one of aggravation: "My mother never ate anything raw." He adds that his father "wasn't around much." Melfi asks what Johnny did for a living. "Retail meat and provisions." Oh, hello, Euphemistic Vocation. Melfi sits, waiting; after a moment, Tony sheepishly admits that his father dabbled in numbers, loan sharking, and extortion also. Well, it's nice to have a hobby. Just kidding. Melfi asks how Tony felt about that. Tony repeats the question and shrugs; Melfi prompts him, "About your father being engaged in illegal activities?" Tony lies that he never really knew about it, and when Melfi presses him about when he found out, he gets even more shifty and says, "Who remembers?" Melfi reminds him that he thought about the beating incident this morning: "Are you concerned that your son is going to find out about you?" "Don't start talkin' to me about legitimate business," Tony grumbles, and he rambles on about chemical companies and deformed babies and toxic waste, but the effort to throw Melfi off the scent fails: "Does he know anything?" Tony gives up, saying tersely, "I don't know." "Has he asked you?" "No." "How are you gonna handle that?" Tony, getting annoyed: "I don't know!" "Did you ever talk to your father about it?" "What, are you kiddin'?" Hmm. Guess not.
Bada Bing. Girls in thongs, in an obvious shout-out to Pamie. In the back room, Silvio pours a shot of something into Tony's coffee cup and says that "that doesn't sound like Anthony," and Tony gripes, "Yesterday he's a little boy, today I gotta worry about him." While Big Pussy lines up a shot on the pool table, Silvio spikes Pussy's espresso too while complaining that his daughter gives him shit about Bada Bing and how it objectifies women, and he tries to explain to her that the girls at the Bing make fifteen hundred a week, "but this bears no weight with the principessa." Tony says that it's not the same, that "this is my son," and Pussy weighs in with the profound insight that "boys are different from girls." Tony asks Pussy if Pussy's sons ever ask "about this thing a ours." "I lied through my teeth, but they knew," Pussy sighs. "Fuckin' nitwits, they love me anyway." "It's hard to raise kids in an information age," Silvio says. Heh. "To protect them," Tony adds, and takes the pool cue from Pussy. Enter Christopher with a selection of stolen ladies' watches, which Christopher pinched from a Fed Ex van when the driver went for lunch. Pussy says admiringly, "No shit, Fed Ex -- they're usually pretty careful with those." Tony isn't as impressed: "You did this in broad daylight?" Christopher says that nobody saw him, but Tony bitches at him that "that's interstate commerce" and Christopher will get eight years, and Christopher murmurs to Silvio that he takes a licking but keeps on ticking -- like, ha ha. Not. -- and Tony agrees with me and stomps out. Christopher: "What's with his ass?" "He's got a lot on his mind," Pussy says gravely.
Dr. G hands AJ a psychological test card with a riderless horse on it. AJ grouses about having to take the tests; Dr. G tells him that the faster he answers, the faster they'll finish, and asks him about the card. AJ comments that "there's no guy" on the horse, and Dr. G asks where the "guy" might be; AJ says, "Out buying food for the horse, maybe?" Dr. G scribbles on a pad. AJ says that maybe the guy's off watching TV, maybe South Park, and then he starts blathering on about how the first episode "was supposed to be on tonight -- the one where Cartman gets abducted by aliens," blah blah blah fishcakes, and Dr. G keeps scribbling and looking vaguely distressed. AJ shuts up.
Casa Soprano. Tony says to Carmela, "You're home." Carmela, her lips frosted Jackie Susann-style and her nose buried in a book on ADD, says that if it's bad, the school will put AJ in special ed. Tony gets some juice out of the fridge, curls his lip, and asks, "Doctor say that?" Carmela says no, she read it in these books she got at the mall; the testing just started today, anyway. Tony makes fun of the book titles, but Carmela ignores him and reads aloud that fifty percent of kids diagnosed with ADD wind up in special education classes. Tony snaps that they don't even know AJ has ADD yet, and Carmela says sarcastically, "You're right. Let's just be ignorant. Why worry about anything now?" Tony accuses her of blaming him for AJ's problems. "Who said anything about that?" Carmela says, without looking up (read: "Yes, I do."). "No, go ahead," Tony grits out. "You blame me." "I blame myself," she says flatly. "For what?" Tony asks. "For what," she mocks him, and goes back to her book.
"For staying with me?" he wants to know. "I have two eyes," she sighs, again not looking up. Tony asks who they blame their daughter on, then, and lists Meadow's achievements. "This isn't going anywhere," Carmela mutters, gathering her things, but Tony keeps at her: "Like father, like son, right? What about daddy's little girl?" Carmela keeps trying to ignore him, but Tony reminds her that AJ has Carmela's Uncle Lenny -- a scumbag of some sort, I guess -- "in his gene pool, do I blame you for that?" "If it helps you," Carmela snarls, snatching up the dry cleaning and storming upstairs, her haystack hair flapping offendedly. Tony leans against the counter and scratches his head.
Cut to a shot of the words "Death Notices" visible through a magnifying glass. Hold onto your hats, folks, because you won't believe who's reading the obits -- it's Livia. No, for real. AJ finds her in the living room of Green Grove and greets her, and she exclaims over him and pinches his cheek. "Ow," AJ says. Livia shows him off to another older lady, who asks, "How come he's not in school?" "Because he was a bad boy," Livia singsongs affectionately, pinching his cheek again. "Ow!" AJ says again, yanking his head away. "Ooooh, he's a big one!" the other lady says, in the tone of voice usually reserved for veal cutlets. Still, she's got a point. Livia confides to AJ after the woman has walked away that she had a stroke, and "now half her brain is gone." "Whoa," AJ says. A real chatterbox, that AJ. Livia hoists herself out of her chair and asks, "So, what shall we do?" and suggests they play Scrabble, but AJ declines politely: "I'm kinda wiped." Livia tells him he's "too young to be so tired," and AJ tells her that he spent the morning with a psychiatrist, taking a ton of tests. "A psychiatrist?" Livia repeats, horrified. "Yeah, 'cause I got suspended and everything," AJ says, not seeing the big deal. "They sent you...to a psychiatrist?" "Yeah," AJ says, still not understanding why she's making such a fuss, but Livia calls that "crazy" and "a bunch of nonsense" and stage-whispers that "it's nothing but a racket for the Jews." AJ shrugs, "Dad goes." Livia doesn't believe him. "Yes he does." "No he does not." "Yes he does." "To a psychiatrist?" Livia asks again, with the secretly gleeful look she gets when she has something on Tony, but she still doesn't believe AJ. More back-and-forth, Livia saying "that's ridiculous," AJ saying "I heard him and Mom talkin' about it," Livia asking why Tony goes to a shrink, AJ asking if he can take a pear from the fruit bowl, and Livia saying vengefully, "He goes to talk about his mother. That's what he's doing. He talks about me, he complains, 'She didn't do this, she did that.'" Then, as AJ bites into a pear, she starts to get really upset: "Oh, I gave my life to my children on a silver platter. And this is how he repays me." She weeps into a hankie; AJ unconcerned, eats his pear. You know, most of the time -- like, say, in this scene -- AJ acts like he needs turning towards the sun and watering; how can they think he has ADD?
Long shot of the Suburban. AJ asks, "What's that sound?" and Tony gripes that it's a flat tire, and didn't he tell AJ to clean the nails out of the driveway that morning? Cut to Tony undoing the lug nuts and preparing to jack the car up as AJ says he'd prayed for something like this to happen, and Tony telling him curtly that they spent too much on braces to stop taking him to the dentist now. While Tony tries to change the tire, AJ sits in the back seat. Um, AJ? He's trying to jack the car up, so if you aren't going to help, at least get your fat ass out of the car and stop making it heavier. But AJ doesn't get out, and AJ doesn't make a move to help his father; no, AJ thinks they should call the auto club. Tony stares at him coldly and says, "We change tires at our house. Watch and learn." AJ rolls his eyes. Tony asks him how it went with the psychologist, and AJ relates that Dr. G had him look at pictures and say things about them. Tony, trying to ascertain whether Dr. G and AJ discussed him, asks if they talked about "anything interesting." "Well, that's kinda between me and my therapist," AJ says, and Tony gives him a "whatever" look. AJ says that Dr. G said he didn't have to talk about it if he didn't want to. Tony grouses, "That's what we pay extra for at that school?" AJ makes a snitty face and doesn't say anything. Tony brings up the remark AJ made the other night at dinner, which AJ hotly denies making, but Tony reassures him that "I'm not mad, I just need to know what you meant by it." AJ again denies meaning anything. "C'mon," Tony says. AJ stares at him stubbornly for a moment; Tony stares stubbornly back. AJ relents: "Some kids at school said some stuff." "What'd they say?" "That you were in the Mafia." Tony doesn't miss a beat: "What do you think?" AJ shrugs and says he doesn't know, but he saw all the guys writing down license-plate numbers and taking pictures at Jackie's funeral: "Those were Feds, right? Just like in Godfather One." "Uncle Jackie's funeral. Right," Tony fumes, looking at the ground. AJ goes on that he found a Website with Jackie's picture on it, and it said that Jackie "ran some union that ripped off these pension things or something." A brief silence before Tony lies, "Uncle Jackie was a complicated man. But you loved him, right?" "Yeah," AJ says quietly. "You didn't see me on that Web thing, didja?" "No," AJ says; I can't really tell if he's lying. "That's right," Tony says, clearly relieved, and tells AJ to help him with the tire "so we can get the algae scraped off your teeth," and AJ smiles and gets up, finally, to help his father.
Melfi's office. "I'm goin' crazy with this shit -- what he knows, what he doesn't know. He's gonna find out eventually, what difference does it make?" Tony asks testily. He goes on, more quietly, that between him and his father, AJ's ADD is "probably all in the genes, right?" Melfi doesn't say anything. Tony uses Pussy as an example -- and we have The Obligatory Moment Of Confusion And Levity at the mention of his name -- saying that Pussy, a "stone gangster," has three kids, all of whom graduated from high school and two of whom go to Villanova. Melfi asks how Tony accounts for that, but he talks right over her, saying that Leopold and Loeb "cornholed and murdered" a kid for fun, and "their father was a successful businessman [sic], a fuckin' millionaire." Melfi asks if Tony holds his father responsible for what he's become.
Tony answers easily that yeah, sometimes he thinks about how his life would have turned out if his father "hadn't gotten mixed up in" the Mob: "Maybe I'd be sellin' patio furniture in San Diego or some shit." What is with Tony and the patio furniture? Did he suffer childhood trauma at the hands of an umbrella table or something? Melfi reminds him that, last time, they'd talked about how Tony felt when he first discovered his father's "criminal life." Does Tony have any more thoughts on that? Tony fidgets. Melfi reminds him of the dream he related to her when he first started therapy, the one about the ducks flying away with his penis, and asks if AJ finding out about Tony's underworld ties is "the terrible thing" the dream seemed to allude to. Tony tells her in a strange breathless voice, "Look, if you know something, please -- quit fuckin' around." Melfi says she thinks it's important to remember, adding that Tony has said he likes the History Channel, and he who doesn't understand history is doomed to repeat it: "Let's talk about your father." Tony stares at her dully: "My father."
Flashback fun times! Li'l Tony, playing catch in the front yard. A little girl in a pink Sunday dress runs down the front steps, and he turns to stare at her; a baseball almost hits him in the head. "Heads up!" yells Uncle Junior.
Flash forward. "Why are you smiling?" "Just thinkin' about my uncle," and how he used to throw the ball with Tony. "The one with whom you have all this static?" "Yeah," Tony grins. "He used to practice his curveball out in front of the house...I was probably about eight or nine...and then my sister came out." "The one who lives in California?" "Yeah...Janice," Tony says, in an inscrutable tone. "How does she feel about your parents?" Melfi asks. Tony suddenly gets angry and asks who cares what Janice thinks, "she calls herself 'Vishnamatha' or something, 'Soprano' isn't good enough for her." Melfi, curiously: "Why were you thinking of your uncle?" Tony stonewalls, "I dunno."
Flashback. Tony: "What are you doing?" "I'm getting in the car," Janice says smugly. "Why? Where're you going?" "Someplace," Janice says, getting into the convertible. My brother and I used to annoy each other in that very same way. Johnny jogs down the front steps, and Tony asks if he can come with Johnny and Janice, but Johnny says no; Livia wants Tony to help her get the screens down to the basement. Tony whines, "I wanna go with you guys!" "He said no," Janice snots at Tony, and Johnny tells her to zip it or neither of them can come with him, and he starts the car and pulls out, and Janice gives Tony a victory bird; Tony starts to throw his baseball at the car, but stops himself.
Flash forward. "Go on," Melfi prompts. Tony says that Livia "was inside, cookin' the meat for the gravy -- 'the red lead,' pork bones and veal. It was a Sunday."
Flashback. Livia, cooking and tending to an infant with her hair twisted up in a chignon and an apron on; Tony, nagging her to buy him an electric organ. Livia snaps at him; Tony says that "if Janice wanted it, she'd get it," and whines that he wanted to go with Johnny and Janice. Livia tells him, "That's because your sister does as she's told," and Tony snarks, "Oh, that's right, I forgot. Janice never does anything wrong, she's just perfect, perfect." Livia rounds on him and makes as if to poke him with a meat fork, shrieking, "You're driving me crazy!" Tony, frightened: "No, I'm not."
Flash forward. Melfi: "She said what?" Tony, smiling, calls his mother "very high-strung" and "dramatic."
Flashback to a shot of Livia from below, yelling, "I should stick this fork in your eye!" Tony looks horrified.
Flash forward to Melfi looking equally horrified. Tony tells her, "Well, she wasn't gonna do it," and Melfi makes a "yeah, right" face. "Holy shit, that's why I'm rememberin' all this," Tony realizes. "On account a where they were goin'." "Where were they going?" Melfi asks. Tony says, "I found out a couple a Sundays later."
Flashback to news footage of what looks like the '68 Newark riots. Tony walks past Livia at her ironing board and says he's going down to the CYO to play ball. She tells him to take a bat with him and nods towards the TV: "Look what they're doing down on Springfield Avenue."
Outside, Tony gets into the trunk of his father's convertible, rigs it so he can get out again, and closes himself in just before Janice and Johnny come out of the house. Johnny tells Janice to keep her sticky fingers off the car, "I just waxed the damn thing." Janice asks if she can steer, and Johnny tells her, "Maybe on the way home, honey." Off they go. We see Tony curled up in the trunk, sulking and biding his time.
"Here we are," Johnny says, parking the car, and he takes Janice's hand. Tony pops the trunk and looks over at where they've gone; he sees a Ferris wheel. Leaning on the hood, he watches them disappear into an amusement park called Ride Land. Then Junior materializes. "Uncle Jun'?" Tony says aloud. His father gives Janice money and sends her on her way; then Johnny and Junior disappear behind a building.
Flash forward. Tony, trying to smile: "My heart was broken." Melfi, softly: "You thought your father was showing favoritism." Tony still gets that feeling in the pit of his stomach when he remembers that day. Melfi asks if he confronted them. Tony says impatiently that she isn't listening, that "kids don't confront in my family." Melfi asks how this pertains to the AJ situation, and Tony says, "'Cause this amusement park was where I found out that my father wasn't like other fathers. I took the bus this time. It was three transfers from Newark. I had this candy bar in my pocket, and it had sand or lint or somethin' on it."
Flashback to Tony getting off the bus, taking a bite of the candy bar, making an "ew" face, and spitting out the bite and chucking the wrapper. Three kids walking behind him start harassing him for littering, so he takes off running and the other kids give chase, and just then a bunch of state trooper cars pull up on the sidewalk in front of all of them. The other kids scatter; Tony instinctively puts his hands up, then drops them and wanders closer to Ride Land to see the commotion as the cops dash inside. A guy in a red shirt runs out of the funhouse, and there's lots of "stop or I'll shoot" shouting, and the cops shoot the guy and wound him. Women scream and uniforms swarm around the guy as Adult Tony VOs, "His name was Kiki Sasso, my father's cousin on his mother's side. Got out of Vietnam on account of the cops blew his kneecap off." Then Li'l Tony looks over to see his father and Junior coming out of the funhouse in cuffs, and Janice comes running over, shrieking, "Daddy! Daddy!" and Johnny comforts her as uniforms lead her and some other kids away. Tony watches the cops lead away more men, a rack of fur coats, and a clown, and as the procession passes the crowd that has gathered, someone in the crowd calls out, "That's Johnny Boy Soprano," and all the guys get stuffed into the paddywagon. The music from the carousel gets louder and louder; Tony looks sick.
Fade back to Melfi's office. "He was usin' my sister Janice as a front. All the guys brought their daughters, so that when they did their business it looked sweet and innocent." "That must have been devastating," Melfi says. "Aw, turned out it was no big deal," Tony says, downplaying it, but Melfi doesn't buy it: "To see your father handcuffed, being led away by the police?" Tony admits that, at the time, "I thought my head was gonna explode...he looked...helpless. But when I got home, my mother had a different perspective, which made me feel better," but he says this last part acidly. "So in her pain, she reached out to you," Melfi says encouragingly. Irony alert! Tony snorts, "That's one way to put it."
Flashback of Li'l Tony coming home after dark. Livia sits on the plastic-sheeted couch, smoking, and she tells Tony triumphantly that "your father may not be home for dinner tonight." "I know," Tony says glumly. She turns to look at him: "What do you know?" "I saw 'im gettin' arrested," Tony tells her. "What did he do?" "He didn't do anything," Livia shouts. "They just pick on the Italians!"
Flash forward. "Still, in my heart, I knew that my father was no freedom fighter." "So...he went to jail?" Melfi asks gingerly. "Nah, he came home in a couple hours. We were watching Ed Sullivan."
Flashback to Tony and Janice watching the Rascals on TV. Johnny comes in, and they run to greet them; he's brought ice cream. Livia appears and observes sourly, "That didn't take long -- you must be in good with the uppity-ups." He tries to kiss her on the cheek, but she leans away from him. Johnny plops down on the couch with Janice and lies that the cops went to the wrong place and arrested the wrong guys. He asks if Janice is okay, and she says yes; Tony watches them guardedly. From outside, a man's voice yells, "Johnny Boy! Hey, Johnny Boy, hey!" The whole family goes to look out the window, and a guy with a bandaged head and a sling on his arm yells out his own window, "Good for you, Johnny!" and says Johnny "showed them." "Eh, thanks, Rocco," Johnny says, and everyone sits down again. Tony stares at his father as Johnny asks, "Everything okay here?"
Flash forward to Melfi asking incredulously, "The man your father beat up was the same one who was congratulating him?" "Yeah, one of 'em," Tony says, smiling wryly. "Rocco Alitore." Melfi asks why Johnny got arrested in the first place, and Tony tells her that "he was in violation of his parole -- 'association with known undesirables.' But nothing ever happened about it, and it just kinda went away." Melfi asks if Johnny ever did any time; Tony says that "he was away when I was a little kid, but they told me he was in Montana, bein' a cowboy." Man, the whoppers that adults will tell kids never cease to amaze me. Kids just don't buy stories like that, even really little kids. They don't know what's going on, exactly, and they won't contradict you because they don't want to get yelled at, but they know. And they'll find out later anyway. They'll believe in the monster under the bed, or they'll think that The Brady Bunch is real, but if a grandparent dies and you tell them that Grandma went to sleep for a long time with God, they don't believe that crap. Anyway, Melfi sort of snorts, then nods sympathetically. Tony asks, "What?" Melfi shrugs. "My son is doomed, right?" Tony sighs. "Why do you say that?" "C'mon," Tony says bitterly. "This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you how terrible my father was, and the terrible things he did to me, and how he ruined my life." Defense mechanism...activated. Tony leans forward: "But I'll tell you somethin', I was proud to be Johnny Soprano's kid!" When he saw his father whale on that guy, he went to his classmates "and told them how tough my father was." "Do you think that's how your son feels about you?" "Yeah, probably," Tony snaps, "and I'm glad! I'm glad if he's proud a me! But that's the bind I'm in, 'cause I don't want 'im to be like me!" Melfi looks puzzled. Tony rants that AJ could grow up like a kid he knew in high school whose grandfather invented the ties on the end of salamis and made millions. Huh? Melfi sees through this digression: "Have you communicated any of this to your son?" "Not in so many words," Tony grumbles, then admits, "Probably not at all." Then he gets frustrated again: "And what difference would it make, you said so yourself -- it's in the blood. It's hereditary."
Melfi points out that genetic predispositions "are only that: predispositions," and it's not written in stone: "People have choices." Tony says mockingly, "She finally offers an opinion," but Melfi takes it with good humor, asking whether he thinks that everything is preordained and human beings don't have free will. "How come I'm not makin' fuckin' pots in Peru?" he asks. "You're born to this shit. You are what you are." Melfi repeats that, within that range, people have choices: "This is America." She smiles. "Right. America," Tony snorts, but he smiles too.
Flashback to Tony wandering downstairs, sock monkey under his arm. Aw. He hears Johnny and Livia arguing; Johnny is trying to sell her on some idea for "a new book" Rocco is starting up in Las Vegas, and Livia is making her customary spiteful comments, and Johnny sneers, "Aw, what do you know about it? You're scared of your own shadow!" He tries again to get her excited about the idea, saying that Rocco's starting a supper club "out there" and he wants Johnny to run it, but Livia shoots him down with, "A supper club? Are you drunk?" Johnny curses her out and calls her a "fuckin' albacore around my neck, every time I try to do something!" He grabs his jacket and makes to leave, saying that he and the kids can go without her, and as Tony watches fearfully from behind a table, Livia screams that she'd "rather smother them with a pillow than take them to Nevada!" "Always with the drama!" Johnny yells. Freeze frame on a petrified Tony, then white-out...
...and fade up on Livia working a jigsaw puzzle in the living room. Junior, wearing the ugliest outfit ever committed in the name of beige polyester, comes up behind her, and she complains that he scared her to death. But...wouldn't she want that? Anyway, he says he'd have come sooner, but he's having "business headaches like you wouldn't believe." Livia sneers, "Oh, yeah yeah, you and -- the other one! With all your headaches." "Who, Tony?" Junior asks, and he tells her ease up, adding that Tony has "a lot to learn, but he's headed in the right direction." "Where to?" Livia cracks, "Overbrook State Mental Hospital?" Well, they closed Overbrook about thirty years ago, so unless he wants to see the latest in Jersey gang graffiti, I don't think they'd send Tony there, but whatever -- Junior snaps, "What?" Enter Tony, who hails his uncle; Junior laughs indulgently and says to Livia, "You see what a good boy, he comes to visit his mother?" Livia just stares at him, then passive-aggressives that she would invite Junior to stay for dinner, but she doesn't imagine he has time, and she turns to Tony and murmurs, "Junior's very busy these days, with his headaches." Junior says he'll let mother and son "catch up with each other," then tells Tony they should catch a ball game together sometime. After Junior leaves, Livia mutters that "he's so full of himself" since becoming boss that he makes her sick. Tony exhales in an attempt to keep his temper.
As they shuffle into the dining room, Tony asks pointedly if Livia remembers the Alitores. "Who wouldn't?" she says, saying that they moved to Nevada: "They're billionaires now." She calls Rocco "a real go-getter." "Didn't Dad wanna go with 'im?" Tony asks meaningfully. Livia doesn't take the bait: "Your father? Noooo." Tony heard them talking about it, he says -- about how "Dad was gonna do a little thing with" Rocco. Livia says that Rocco "just got him all worked up, that's all," and as Tony comes around to stand in front of her, she snaps, "What is this, with all these questions?" Tony says firmly, "Dad wanted to go with 'im, and you wouldn't let him." "'Let him'? What do you mean?" Livia whines, then demands to know, in a voice steeped in vinegar, of "one time your father didn't do exactly as he wanted." "I don't know," Tony says nastily. "Maybe this was his chance to get out. Dad was no choirboy, but maybe with a little bit a support --" "Oh, Mr. Sensitive now," Livia interrupts in a low voice. "Well, if it bothers you, maybe you better talk to a psychiatrist." Smugly, she pushes past him. He takes her arm: "Whoa -- what're you talkin' about, 'a psychiatrist'?" Livia says innocently that "that's what people do when they're looking for somebody to blame for their life, isn't it?" "You're a real stone player, aren't ya, Ma? You threatened to smother his children." Well, that's not exactly what she said, but anyway, over Livia's objections, Tony goes on, "You know, everybody thought Dad was the ruthless one, but I gotta hand it to ya -- if you'd been born after those feminists, you'd a been the real gangster." He's smiling, but his eyes hate her. She steps forward into his face and sneers, "I don't know what you're talkin' about," and walks off. After a moment, Tony follows her.
Dr. G invites Tony and Carmela to sit, saying he's sure "[they're] eager to hear the results of our testing." He asks after AJ, and Carmela says he's doing "good, I think -- don't you think so, Tony?" Tony basically says "whatever," and Dr. G sits down, smoothes his necktie, and tells them that there's no evidence of a learning disability, all of the testing puts AJ "within the normal range," and his pediatrician gave AJ a clean bill of health. Carmela, holding Tony's hand stiffly, breathes a sigh of relief, but Tony gripes, "All right, well, that's all the good news, now...why don't you tell us the bad news." Dr. G says the APA guidelines state that kids with ADD manifest six out of nine possible symptoms, and AJ manifests five. "Five? Really?" Carmela moans, and Dr. G lists the symptoms AJ has: can't wait his turn, acts like he's on the go (Dr. G makes little air quotes here -- shut up, Dr. G's fingers), seems driven by a motor (more air quotes), interrupts or "intrudes on" others, and "fidgets with hands or feet." A skeptical Tony asks for clarification on this last one: "You mean, like, he fidgets." Dr. G nods. Tony sarcastically asks if fidgeting is a sickness. Dr. G says patiently that it's one of nine possible symptoms. Tony asks what constitutes a fidget; Carmela tries to rein Tony in, but Tony angrily asks a second time what constitutes a fidget, who doesn't fidget in school, AJ's thirteen, "he gets a hard-on every ten minutes, for chrissake." Word. Dr. G tries to interrupt that "Anthony is a borderline case," and Tony goes off on a rant about how he's not a case, he's a thirteen-year-old boy, and that's the trouble with shrinks, they make everything into a disease. Tony ends by thundering, "He's a kid who made a mistake, and he's gonna pay for it, but he's gonna be fine." He gets up and tells Carmela, "C'mon," and she follows him, but turns to tell Dr. G, "Frankly, I think he's right. And I don't think we should have to pay for this testing, either." Dr. G sighs and closes the folder.
Tony on the Nordic Track, watching the History Channel. A battleship is sinking as he climbs off the machine, sweaty and out of breath. He towels off and heads upstairs to the den, where he finds AJ doing some government homework. "You know, this is not the end of the world, Ant," he tells him. "I'm depressed," AJ shrugs. Tony corrects him with a chuckle; he's not depressed, he's pissed because he did something stupid and he got grounded and he can't watch TV or use his computer, "and it's gonna stay like that." Heh -- my mother did write this episode. Every time she grounded me, she'd deliver the punishment, and I'd just sit there, afraid to say anything, and she'd say, "Are you just going to sit there?" and I'd shrug and say, "I'm sorry," and she'd sniff, "Yeah -- sorry you GOT CAUGHT," and I always hated her at that moment, because she was right. (Quick sidebar: I tell these stories on my Ma, but she's not Livia or anything. She's great. She's just...a mom. And I love her. I love my non-dead, non-gay mom! Okay, back to the recap.) "It isn't fair," AJ says. "Ya got that right," Tony tells him, pats him on the chest, and goes into the kitchen. Okay, my dad would have said, "Yeah, I heard," or "Well, Sar, life isn't fair," so maybe my mother only consulted on the episode.
Opening bars of "White Rabbit." Aerial shot of Tony putting ice cream in a bowl. He gets a can of Reddi-Wip out of the fridge and shakes it. AJ comes in and asks what he's doing. "What's it look like?" AJ asks if he can have a sundae too. Tony indicates a second bowl: "This one's yours." He tells AJ to get out the sprinkles. Grace Slick tells us again that one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. Tony sprays Reddi-Wip straight into AJ's mouth. Grace observes that the ones that Mother gives you don't do anything at all. Tony sprays Reddi-Wip into his own mouth, then some more into AJ's. Okay, it sounds kind of gross, but it's actually a sweet moment between them. No, not like that. Ew. Grace suggests that we ask Alice, and then she's on about chasing rabbits as father and son continue clowning around with the Reddi-Wip. Fade out.