Previously on The Sopranos: Paulie's mom got picked on; Tony admitted his miserable prickitude and quit therapy; the judge ruled Junior competent to stand trial; Paulie sucked up to Johnny Sack, and Johnny Sack pretended that Carmine knew Paulie from a hole in the ground; Carmine and Tony scuffled over the HUD deal; Vic The Appraiser got a fat lip; Vic The Appraiser got another fat lip; Carmela and Furio got naked on his kitchen floor and did unmentionable things with marinara, except that they totally didn't, and I've seen subtler flirting from drunk eighth-graders so could they please get on with it already; Tony reached out to Little Carmine, and Little Carmine reached out to a bottle of self-tanner.
Woke up this morning, got myself a sixty-five-minute episode. Madon'.
Courtroom. A prosecutor suffering from Kim Delaneyitis delivers his closing arguments to the jury, droning on about how Corrado Soprano looks like an innocent old man but is in fact "a ruthless and calculating Mob boss who controls a vast [beat] criminal enterprise." As Junior scribbles on his legal pad, the prosecutor confirms for us that the flirty nurse from the season premiere is indeed an FBI plant; we get a shot of her glaring disapprovingly at the back of Junior's head from her seat in the gallery. Cut to Bobby Bacala looking vaguely menacing, then a pan across the jury box to a guy who looks like John Pankow. Bobby squints at the juror thoughtfully while the prosecutor comments with rhetorical non-flair that Junior "orders up murder [beat] like you and I [beat] order up [beat] coffee." You know, I feel like we should have seen more of the trial so far this season, and while I can understand why we didn't -- Chase et al. probably felt that getting too deep into the way RICO cases work would occasion far more nitpicking from the fans than the storyline warranted -- I can think of at least three subplots that should have taken a backseat to the trial now and then.
Oh, look -- here's one of those subplots now. Carmela's taking scones out of the oven when AJ schlumps into the kitchen, grumbling, "All right, so I rewrote it." He begins to read from his paper on Billy Budd, which, not surprisingly, is written at about the seventh-grade level; mercifully, the doorbell interrupts him. Carmela goes to answer it, occasioning an eye-roll from young Harold Bloom; it's Furio, kitted out in a puffy Peroni sweat suit and looking like he might throw up from nerves. Carmela invites him in, beaming. Blah blah blah Furio's mother's apartment blah blah blah leak in the foundation blah blah blah Carmela's father is a contractor, so he can take a look at it blah blah blah get-on-with-it-cakes. Carmela offers Furio a scone, which he declines, and AJ whines about the "fat and carbs" in said scones (shades of Meadow's "get outta here with that fat" from the series premiere). Carmela ignores that in favor of bitching at him to greet their guest, and AJ in turn ignores her and keeps reading his paper aloud, and Carmela and Furio ignore him to give each other The Look while Carmela pours Furio a cup of coffee. I haven't read much Melville, so upon first viewing I ignored AJ also, as is my usual custom, but as far as what happens later in the ep, here's what you need to know: 1) Billy Budd is often viewed as a Christ figure; 2) many critics point to a marked homosexual subtext in the novella; and 3) many critics also make note of the narrator's "alienation and dehumanization." All interesting concepts to apply to The Sopranos, and all totally lost on AJ, at least according to what we hear of his paper.
Tony comes rattling down the stairs. Furio hands him a ticket envelope, and Tony samples a scone and nods approvingly at Carm, who gives him an inscrutably irritated look in return before dismissing AJ to his room. AJ stomps off. Tony comes around the breakfast bar and gives Carmela the tickets, and she reads aloud: "Ocean Club at Paradise Cove." Tony grabs her and dances her around, telling her they leave tomorrow for "three beautiful days" of R&R. Furio: "[Hangdog.]" "Tomorrow?" Carmela repeats, her mind clearly racing to find a pretext for not going. Tony knows it's short notice, but he got first-class plane tickets, a view suite…at Carm's doubtful look, he trails off. "What?" Carmela starts coming up with excuses, including AJ, her mother's skin condition, and the time it's going to take her to pack. "To pack," Tony repeats flatly, shooting Furio a "you believe this crap?" look. Furio glums that he'll go wait in the car, and Tony tries to convince her, claiming that "with all the shit that's been goin' on, I mean, the horse and all," he knows Carmela needs a break. Yeah, you read that right. Carm and I both stare at Tony all "yeah…wait, what?" as he goes on to say that, "deep down, that's probably the reason you got your hair cut." Right. Because of the horse. That Carmela saw…one time. Nope, no projection there.
Evidently, Carmela says much the same thing, because when we cut to Tony and Furio in the car, Tony's crabbing about how Carmela's always bitching that they never get away, so he finally makes it happen, "top-shelf, across the board," and now she won't go because of her mother's psoriasis. Furio, meanwhile, is driving and looking conflicted. Tony spits that he doesn't know why he bothers, and when Furio suggests that Carmela's just worried for her mother, Tony grumbles, "Fuck that -- they've got her on the cortisone," then adds that he knows Carm's his wife and the mother of his children and everything, "but let me tell you somethin' -- she can be a moody bitch." Takes one to know one, Prozac Nation. Furio: "[Pained.]" The car zips down the road…
…and segues into a shot of Johnny Sack zipping up to a tee on a golf cart and greeting Little Carmine. Where's Big Carmine? So glad you asked! He's in the clubhouse, attending to athlete's foot prevention. That gives Johnny a chance for a quick word with LC about "this shit with Tony," which LC calls "a total debacle," saying that Big Carmine's "testadura" (hard head) isn't helping. "Anything you can do to change your father's mind," Johnny sighs, and LC assures him he came up from Florida to do just that. Carmine pulls up in a cart and nags the others about putting on sunscreen (it's cloudy out…heh), and as he sets up on the tee, LC fills him in on Tony's visit. Carmine isn't crazy about Tony doing "that end run," but LC defends Tony and says he's sure Tony didn't mean to insult anyone. Carmine shanks a worm-burner off the tee and snaps that LC's distracting him, so he's taking a mulligan, and at last, my dad gets the shout-out he's always wanted. Heh. Just kidding, Dad. LC observes that maybe Carmine "backed [himself] into a corner" with the HUD thing, particularly the forty percent he's insisting on; Johnny hastens to remind Carmine that he, Johnny, considered forty percent "a tad steep" from the beginning. After prying Johnny's lips off his ass, Carmine lines up another shot and complains about Tony's hard head and ego, but says that when he first met Tony, he'd have been proud to call him his own son. The current son clearly doesn't like the sound of that.
As Carmine walks off the tee, Johnny comments that maybe there's a compromise, then. "There's always a compromise," Carmine grunts, but LC sniffs that "he's a bit of a poseur, you ask me." Tellingly, he pronounces it "poe-zore." In response to Johnny's quizzical look, LC shrugs, "Tony. He likes to talk the talk, I don't know." Carmine asks what Tony said, and LC says ultra-casually, "His turf, his appraiser." Carmine: "Son of a bitch." Johnny can see exactly where this is going -- LC resents Tony's influence with Carmine, and will now proceed to play Carmine like a fiddle in order to screw Tony over -- and he tries to distract Carmine with a desperately cheery, "What'd they, re-sod that green?" Heh, but it doesn't work. LC tells his father to cut Tony slack, since "he hasn't really been boss of a family very long," and apparently that's a sore spot with Carmine, because Johnny gets an "oh, shit" look on his face. Carmine snaps, "'Family'? I told you -- they're a glorified crew." LC puffs smugly on his cigar. Johnny, glaring at LC, says in a controlled tone that "whatever they are, Carmine, the Sopranos bring in a lot of cash." He also reminds Carmine that he's friends with Tony a long time. LC, seeing that his plan is working, blowhards that "maybe that's the sticking post [sic]" -- Tony thinks of Johnny as a friend, not as a business associate. Carmine blows his top and clangs a ball-washer with his club. (No, that thing's really called a ball-washer. Oh, shut up.) LC looks at Johnny all "yeah…sorry." Johnny narrows his eyes at LC all "nice one, dillweed."
Furio's mother's apartment. Blah blah "decorating challenge" blah blah mirrors blah blah blah meeeeeaningful loooooks. Furio thanks Carmela for helping him; she tries to play it off, but he tells her, "You're a very special woman." And now, a week of significant staring. Maintaining the eye contact, Carmela pants, "Have you thought about flooring yet?" Furio, hypnotized: "Not really, no." Continental drift is FINALLY about to bring them together for a kiss, but a workman interrupts, so they have to babble nervously about ceramic tile. Carmela, who seems like she's on the verge of giggling, suggests going to Color Tile. Furio, dreamily: "I would love to go with you there." "Great, it's a date then!" Carm bubbles. Furio smirks, "Good. It's a date," and then he does a weird flirty thing with his lips. Before the scene ends, we cut back to Carmela smiling happily, and with the lighting in that scene and the new haircut, Edie Falco looks stunning and about twenty years old.
The parking lot of a VFW. In a gigantic black sedan, Mama Walnuts and her friends look for a spot and discuss Julius LaRosa; Mama Walnuts is relegated to the backseat, and out her window, you can see a sign for Bingo. Nice. Long story short: Minn pulls out of a space and slams into another car; much wailing and moaning.
Foxwoods. Silvio approaches Tony, who tells him Johnny Sack wants a sit-down the night. When Tony orders another drink, Silvio suggests taking off, but Tony wants to stay. Silvio and Patsy Parisi untangle themselves from the local talent, and the pit boss shows them out. Furio, wearing a sassy red satin shirt and barely paying attention to the well-appointed brunette assigned to him, glowers at Tony as he dances a blonde around and nuzzles her. Cousin Brian slurps a large drink and follows a different blonde out of the shot as the brunette croons into Furio's ear, "You wanna go upstairs?" Furio grits out a no thanks and continues to stare morosely at Tony, so the brunette shrugs and walks away. Tony keeps macking on the blonde; over her shoulder, he looks at Furio. Furio seethes and drinks his drink.
Emergency room. Mama Walnuts is fine, but Paulie bitches Minn out for driving at her age. "I've been driving since I was a young girl," Minn snorts, and Paulie snorts back, "Horse and buggies don't count." Heh. Minn blames Mama for "talking in [her] ear," and Mama finally shows a little Walnut shell when she turns to Minn and says coldly, "We were all chatting." Anyway, Paulie decrees that Minn isn't driving Mama around anymore; when the girls go to see The Producers, Paulie will take them himself. I could probably think of a more nightmarish theoretical outing if I tried hard enough, but let's just move on.
Carmela comes into an apartment with shopping bags -- from Kings! Great deli counter. The apartment is Meadow's, and we get exposition to that effect courtesy of Carm and Meadow's roommate Colin's mother, who's visiting from Akron. Then Mrs. McDermott raves about Meadow for a while and how "she's going places," praising her poise and maturity and saying that she cooks for the other two roomies and volunteers at the law center and it's "extraordinary" and on and on and on. While the college of cardinals considers Meadow's application for sainthood, Carmela smiles and nods and looks both proud and sort of bored at the same time. Meadow herself turns up shortly thereafter. We meet Alex, the other roommate, and then the tertiary characters scatter so that mother and daughter can have a sofa heart-to-heart about Meadow's boyfriend Finn, who recently arrived on the show from left field. Seriously -- the hell? Meadow's all depressed about Jackie Jr., there's a big blow-out, she goes back to school and grows a social conscience, then she basically disappears except for a couple of drive-bys mid-season, and now…she's back? With a boyfriend? And that's it? That's all we get?
The show keeps doing that to us -- giving characters big showcase episodes, then shuffling them to the bottom of the deck for weeks at a time -- and I don't think Season Four is nearly the bust a lot of critics do, but it's got a couple of problems, and if I had to point to the biggest one, I'd point to that. The Sopranos has too many characters taking up too much airtime, and a lot of them just don't merit the attention. My apologies to the Bacala fans in the audience, because Schirripa's a good actor, but Bobby is Exhibit A. The guy's a tertiary character, he should have stayed one, and if Chase couldn't find a good plot for Janice, he should have sent her back to Seattle or killed her off. AJ is another example; that subplot did nothing to advance the character or any other plot. Ditto Artie Bucco. If you don't know what to do with him, don't do anything. Send him into the shot with an armful of plates and then tell Ventimiglia to go home. One FBI agent will do, or two. Not four. No more Irina. No more Intintola. We remember them, but there's no need to prove that the show does, too -- put them away and leave them there. And the Furio "plot"…oy. It had potential, but it came out of nowhere, took too long, and wasted time that belonged to other characters, characters like Melfi and Junior who felt like afterthoughts for most of the season -- and that's on top of taking Paulie out of commission for awhile.
It's still an outstanding show. A lot of things will come together in the finale. I have faith. But the season as a whole has felt underplanned and scattershot to me, and I think it's a direct result of the cast getting too big and unwieldy. Demote a few of these characters, kill a few others off, and don't spend eighteen months overthinking what to do with the ones you've got left.
UPS Guy: Sign here, please.
Aaron: That's weird -- I don't remember ordering a soapbox.
Aaaanyway. Meadow is waiting for Finn to tell her he loves her, but he hasn't yet. Carmela hugs her and sighs, not unhappily, "Some men have to move at their own pace, Mead." Do you get it? Do you? Sure? Okay, just checking. "It's amazing, isn't it?" Meadow says with a wistful smile. Carmela strokes Meadow's hair and stares into space, picturing Furio riding shirtless on a unicorn.
Back at Foxwoods, a drunk Tony dumps an even drunker Cousin Brian onto a couch between Furio and the brunette from before. "Whoa, Nellie," laughs the pit boss. I say that all the time. Shout-out? No, I don't think so either. Anyway, blah blah "we gotta go" blah blah the limo's on its way blah blah chopper? blah blah the pit boss arranges for the helicopter to pick all of them up while Cousin Brian slurs and drools and sings an homage to Apocalypse Now and Furio emits waves of sullen lovesickness.
Out on the tarmac, the guys pile out of the limo. Tony hands the driver a bill and apologizes "about the mess." Oh, yuck. I've always felt so sorry for limo drivers, especially around prom time -- the post-puke clean-up on that has got to suck. Cousin Brian hauls himself out of the limo, and the pilot slings him over his shoulders; as the group heads for the helicopter, we get a gratuitous shot-from-below close-up of Cousin Brian speeyacking. Again. What's with all the barfing this season? The pilot drags Cousin Brian away, and Tony and Furio head to the edge of the tarmac to take a piss, standing dangerously close to the chopper's rear rotor to do so. Tony weaves a bit as he whizzes, and we cut to a shot from Tony's other side, through the rotor, of Furio staring at him with a mixture of calculation and disgust. Then Furio checks over his shoulder to see if anyone's watching them. Nope -- Cousin Brian is throwing yet another meal into reverse all over the pilot's shoes. Furio turns back to Tony, who appears on the verge of falling asleep, and when Tony half-turns, half-lurches towards Furio, Furio grabs him by the lapels and wrestles him even closer to the rotor. Tony, angrily: "What the fuck you doin'?" Furio comes back to himself, and lets Tony go with, "You're standin' too close." Tony peers at him for a minute, confused, but he seems to accept that; as Furio walks off, Tony whips around and stares at the rotor for a minute, contemplating how close he came to getting Romano'd, then staggers after Furio.
On board, the co-pilot hands Cousin Brian a barf baggie, and as they prepare to take off, Furio stares out the window, brows furrowed in misery.
The day, Tony comes gingerly down the stairs and into the kitchen. Carmela's at the table, just sitting there, but when she hears Tony approach, she quickly grabs a section of the newspaper and feigns engrossment. Tony settles delicately on a stool and cotton-mouths, "Furio come by?" He's already forty minutes late, Carmela says. Tony greets that suspiciously precise answer with a long look before joking that "he's probably worse off than me." Carmela asks if they went out the night before, and in response, Tony grunts, "Can I get a cuppa coffee?" Ordinarily, I'd give him shit for that -- first of all, he's always telling Carm to fix him things and then stomping off without eating or drinking them, much less thanking her, and second of all, he's closer to the coffeepot anyway -- but I have had that exact hangover, and if I recall correctly, praying for death is taking up pretty much all of Tony's energy at the moment, so I'll let it go. Then Tony bitches, "Where the fuck is he?" and Carmela, pouring coffee, asks in an overly chipper tone if Furio went out "with somebody" last night. Tony lowers his eyebrows: "He's a single guy -- how should I know?" Carm hands him the coffee. Tony sniffs it, makes a "nope, can't do it" face, and grunts that he's going back to bed, so don't wake him when Furio gets there. Carmela intently watches him go, and after he's eased himself off the stool and lurched back upstairs, she grabs the cordless to crank-call Furio. The machine picks up after one ring; Furio's not answering, so she hangs up without leaving a message.
Of course, the phone rings two seconds later, but it's not Furio *69-ing her -- it's Meadow. Carm's disappointed, which Meadow picks up on, but Carmela denies it. Meadow invites the fam into town for dinner that Sunday, and fits in a bit of exposition about how she's going skiing in Canada with Finn for "break," so I guess it's springtime in Sopranoland. Carmela offers to make something, but Meadow's doing everything herself, although she does tell her mom to bring wine: "We only drink good wine when parents come." Hmm. I'll have to have a word with my own parents. The Boone's Farm they keep bringing over is starting to rot my tooth enamel. Carmela hangs up and sighs.
Carmela pulls up in front of Furio's house in her car. She looks at the house in the rearview and debates with herself, then closes her eyes, sighs, and pulls away.
At a bar, Johnny Sack pours shots of what looks like grappa. Enter Tony, showered and besuited but still looking fragile, with a red-jacketed Silvio in tow. Hugs all around. Exposition about the restaurant, which opens in a few weeks, and the mural on the wall, a Venetian scene which apparently used to hang in Fiorello LaGuardia's office. The three toast, and Johnny tells Tony it's very important to Carmine that they work something out. "If it's so important, where is he?" Tony snorts. Johnny makes the excuse that Little Carmine is leaving the day, and Tony's all, "Fine, whatever -- what's the offer?" "Forty percent of the HUD take, across the board, starting now." Hmm. That sounds a lot like the last offer to me. Tony agrees, snarling that LC "said he was gonna take care a this." Silvio pulls a face like Johnny just cut one as Johnny explains that LC did take care of it -- "that's why the concession." "We were at forty a week ago," Silvio snaps, but Johnny explains the difference: whatever they already took in from the HUD deal is theirs to keep, and the forty percent "only applies to future deals." Tony's having none of that, and neither is Silvio's coif, which gleams threateningly. They stomp out, and as Johnny picks up his cigarette from the ashtray and takes a pensive drag, we hear church bells tolling.
In the scene, Carmela is leaving church when her friend Darlene flags her down to exposition -- er, "thank Carmela for getting her real estate office a listing." What listing, you ask? Furio's house, which just went on the market. Her work done, Darlene goes off to greet another friend. Carmela stands there with her jaw on the ground.
Close-up on a Century 21 "for sale" sign as Carmela's wagon pulls into the driveway in the background. She gets out of the car. Up on the deck, she peeks in through a window. We see her looking in from outside, the shot framing the window, and as she keeps trying to see inside, the camera slowly pulls back through a doorway to show us that the house is completely empty.
More church bells ringing, now at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights. Tony gets out of the Suburban, frowning and talking on his cell phone. Carmela asks what's up, and Tony tells her it's Silvio. He pauses for a second to shake his head all "the hell?" before continuing that, apparently, Furio bolted back to Italy. Carmela makes a perplexed face as Tony grouches that Furio didn't tell anyone, just left a message to that effect on the Bing's answering machine at four-thirty in the morning. Tony hands AJ a crate of Evian and keeps unloading provisions for Meadow from the back of the Suburban, oblivious to Carmela, who's standing on the sidewalk clinging to a bakery box with her face falling in on itself.
Upstairs at Meadow's. The Sopranos file in; Meadow's in the kitchen with an apron on, and her boyfriend Finn -- who looks like Bob Saget, if a beaver got thrown out a tenth-story window and landed on Bob Saget's head -- nervously introduces himself. Exposition about Finn's plans to go to dental school. Jokes about Tony's loose filling. Colin and Alex stand around uneasily. AJ checks the place out as Tony asks what smells so good, and when Meadow says she's making Carm's recipe for chicken cacciatore, Tony smiles that he should have known; he puts a hand on Carmela's back as he says it, but Carmela flinches forward away from his touch and quickly changes the subject to whether it's safe for Meadow to leave her apartment door open all the time. Finn awkwards, "I'll protect her, don't worry." Yeah, right, Art Rock Hair. Still, a flicker of naked envy crosses Carmela's face, and she quickly looks down. Tony makes another "funny" about Finn and teeth, and Meadow finally introduces Colin and Alex to Tony. Tony's confused that Colin lives there but Finn doesn't. Finn says he has a place on 118th. "Good," Tony says in a faux-mild tone.
Everyone shuffles into the living room except Carmela, who fusses with the place settings before joining the others, and Tony and Finn chat about where Finn's from. Finn's father is in the navy, so he's from all over. "So you've been all over the world," Carmela says too brightly, coming to sit down and giving Finn an appraising glance. Meadow offers her mother a mushroom, which Carmela declines flatly; Tony urges her to "try one, they're good," and Carmela bristles, "Maybe later." Colin tells Carmela that Meadow "absolutely keeps [them] alive with her cooking," which Carmela feigns happiness at hearing, but as Alex asks Colin if he didn't make mac and cheese one time (Colin: "Well, I didn't want to brag." Hee!), Carmela slumps, absently accepting a glass of wine from Tony.
Back at the restaurant from earlier, we find the younger members of the crew thoroughly trashing the place. The Frisbeeing of plates around looks kind of fun, actually. One guy proudly shows off the cock and balls he's spray-painted on the Venetian mural. Heh. (I'm five.)
At dinner, Carmela questions Finn about the skiing. The trip sounds impossibly nice, but of course Carmela has to pee in the cornflakes by cautioning the kids to "just be careful, with all those accidents you read about -- Sonny Bono?" Snerk. Then we find out that Alex is descended from Spanish royalty; Colin and Meadow tease her a little about it, and she rolls her eyes but explains that she had a countess for a great-great-grandmother or something. "Which makes you…?" a fascinated Carmela asks. "Technically, I'm an infanta de gracia," Alex explains, embarrassed, and Finn pipes up that that wouldn't fit on Alex's driver's license. Heh. Everyone at the table laughs at that, except for Carmela, who snaps at Meadow through a fake smile, "Well, you might've told me you were living with royalty." Tony jokes that hey, Meadow is an Italian princess: "Does that count?" Meadow beams at him as he adds, "My wife too, for that matter." Carmela gives him an inscrutable look. Finn takes the wheel of the flagging conversation to question AJ about whether he's looking at schools yet; AJ guesses he'll go to Rutgers. With his grades? Not likely. It's a state school, not a day care. Anyway, Meadow asks if he's passing everything, and AJ says proudly that he got a C on his Billy Budd paper. Carmela's shocked, and not in a good way, but Tony points out, "He usually gets Ds and Fs -- what's with you today, you okay?" Dude, Tony -- not in front of company, my man. Carmela says AJ worked hard on it: "Why only a C?" "I don't know," AJ snots, and the roommates look uncomfortable, but Finn saves things again by asking if AJ liked the book. It's okay, AJ says, and adds that his teacher "says it's a gay book." And so it begins, with Carmela gasping, "Who, Mr. Weggler? Oh, that is ridiculous." Finn says that actually, he's heard that before, and Colin and Alex both nod, but Carmela won't hear of it: "That was written when, in the nineteenth century?" AJ pipes up eagerly: "Yeah, I didn't even know they had fags back then." Shut up, AJ. The exchange which follows is priceless, even by this show's standards:
Meadow to AJ: AJ!
Tony to Colin: No offense.
Colin, unconcerned: I'm not gay.
Tony, taken aback: You're not?
Colin: No.
Tony: [speculative sideways look at Meadow]
Meadow: [stricken "oh did I forget to mention that my male roommate is straight oops tee hee oh God please don't kill him" look at Tony]
I can't really do it justice, but the side-eye Tony shoots at Meadow after that revelation is hilarious. Anyway, Finn says he read that researchers found gay cave drawings in Africa. Alex is all, "Really?" and Finn is all, "Um, no," and everyone laughs, but Carmela doesn't see the humor and bitches about how "this stuff" is "pervading" education, movies, TV, blah blah. Oh, boy. Shut up, Carm. Naturally, even a hint of prejudice in front of a college sophomore is like blood in the water, and Meadow pounces on it with a pointed, "What stuff?" "This gay nonsense they're teaching," Carmela says stridently. "I am sorry, but Billy Budd is not a homosexual book." Meadow, wearing the patiently patronizing smile I employed to torture my own parents on matters pretentiously academic hundreds of times in the early nineties, is literally laughing at Carmela's ignorance: "Actually, it is, Mother." Shut up, Meadow. Carmela, just as patronizingly: "I saw the movie, Meadow, with Terence Stamp." Ha! Meadow smirks some more as Colin tries to get things back on track with a mention of Terence Stamp's performance in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Carmela doesn't know about that, but she does know that "Billy Budd is the story of an innocent sailor, being picked on by an evil boss." Any homophobia on Carmela's part aside, it's pretty telling that that's her take on it. Even more telling is the quick shot of Tony that follows, in which he's eating nonchalantly. Meadow tries to explain the queer reading of the text, which sounds valid to me, even if I don't love the condescending tone -- again, I've never read the book -- but Carmela responds with a shrill "oh, please." It's Alex's turn to try to talk sense to Carm, and she mentions a passage where Melville compares Billy Budd to a nude statue of Adam. AJ is grossed out: "Really?" Tony to AJ, dryly: "I thought you read it." Aaaaand AJ is busted. Heh. Carmela explains that away as a "Biblical reference -- does that make it gay?" at which point Tony finally interrupts to ask what's the difference, but Carmela can't admit that maybe she's wrong, shrilling that she thinks "it's ridiculous how everything is being sold as homosexual nowadays."
Tony breaks the tension momentarily by cracking wise about how Billy Budd is the ship's florist. The smart money drops the subject at this point, but Meadow, in the proud tradition of twenty-year-olds since time immemorial, has to show her mother how much more than Carmela she knows. In a voice dripping with condescension, she tells Carm that Leslie Fiedler has written a great deal on gay themes in literature over the last forty years, and on Billy Budd in particular. I think Meadow used Fiedler deliberately to set a trap for Carmela, and here's why. 1) Carm reads bestsellers, not lit crit; she probably wouldn't have heard of any cultural critic Meadow had chosen to name, and Meadow knows that. 2) Meadow also probably knows that Carm is likely to think a Leslie is a woman, which will allow Meadow to show up her mother's ignorance that much more dramatically. 3) A twenty-year-old Sars used to land-mine conversations with her mother exactly the same way at Meadow's age. Sars proceeded to take heavy artillery fire from her mother's honors English degree and wound up with an ass full of shrapnel, but it's an obnoxious debate tactic even when it doesn't work. Predictably, Carm falls into the trap, squalling that "she doesn't know what she's talking about," and Meadow is thrilled to tell Carm in a tone usually reserved for fractious toddlers that "she is a he, mother, and he's lectured at Columbia, as a matter of fact." Shut up, Meadow. "Well, maybe he's gay, you ever thought of that?" Carmela snaps. Um…yeah. Sorry, but -- shut up, Carm. Meadow pulls a face. AJ, Colin, and Alex stare at their plates. Carmela sips her wine angrily. Tony, unconcerned, wipes his face.
The restaurant. Workers sift through the damage. Carmine glares at the genitalia on his beloved mural.
Bing back room. Paulie is bitter that Little Paulie trashed Carmine's restaurant, because Little Paulie works for Paulie, not Tony. "Eh, what do I know, huh?" Silvio shrugs as he tabulates receipts at the desk. More than Paulie, Paulie points out miffily: "Everybody does." Silvio thinks for a second, then decides to go "off the record" about why Paulie's out of the loop lately, even though he probably shouldn't: "I think certain people are startin' to wonder…where your heart is." "People who, Tony?" Paulie wants to know, and swoops down to the desk. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Silvio points to that response as typical of Paulie's "attitude lately," and Paulie bitches that he spent four months in jail, so he has the right to an attitude, but Silvio tells him, "You're only as good as your last envelope -- you know that!" He mentions how much Albert kicked up the week before, and Paulie gets pissed off, calling Albert a "fucking parakeet" and saying he'll never have the relationship with Tony that Paulie does, "no matter how far he sticks his tongue up Tony's ass." Thanks so much for that image, Paulie. Really. Kisses. Silvio, who probably knew Paulie would flip out like this, shrugs, "All right. Fuck this," and goes back to work. Heh. Paulie gets defensive, saying that "every friendship has its peaks and valleys," and he and Tony have hit a valley, but things will pick up and he's not going to worry about earning and blah blah blah. "So there you go then," Silvio snarks. Paulie bites his head off for "that smart-alecky shit," reminding Sil that he goes back as far as Johnny Boy Soprano with the family, "before you even," then blames Sil for the flapdoodle with the missing Russian that got him in trouble with Tony. Silvio, getting annoyed, suggests that Paulie "accept some responsibility for a change," so Paulie calls him a "wormy cocksucker." Silvio jumps up all "ohhhhh" and snarls that he's just telling Paulie "how [he's] bein' fuckin' perceived," but Paulie tells him to worry about how he's perceived instead: "Nobody knows what the future holds, my friend." He slams out of the back room.
Johnny comes into a bar in Little Italy (it's at Mulberry and Grand, if you ever find yourself down there -- I don't remember the name, but the bartender makes a mean vodka tonic). Carmine is smoking and sulking about the restaurant vandalism. Johnny asks how he wants to handle it, adding, "We gotta break this guy's back." Carmine didn't want to do this, but he has to: "Call the union." Johnny nods a little too quickly.
At Vesuvio, Carm fills Rosalie Aprile in on Furio's unexpected departure: "We had a date to go to Color Tile." Rosalie cocks an eyebrow: "A date?" "To look at tile for his mother's apartment," Carmela explains. Ro makes a "pfft" face: "Oh." Hee. I know what I said about too many characters before, but I love Ro, and the show uses her just the right way. Anyway, Carm doesn't get it: "No phone call, no note…" She looks at her lap. "I know I sound foolish." Rosalie assures her that she doesn't. Carmela says that when she heard, "I felt like somebody punched me in the stomach. I almost threw up the sacrament." Ro looks concerned as Carm, on the verge of tears, says she doesn't know what she's going to do. Ro tells Carm firmly that there's nothing to do -- "a couple of months, you'll forget all about him," but Carm doesn't know if she can. Something occurs to Ro: "You don't think Tony said somethin' to 'im, do ya?" Carmela bursts into tears and runs from the table.
Post-show meal with Paulie, Mama Walnuts, and the girls. When the doggie bags arrive, the women basically strip the table of rolls and condiments and stuff them into the bags. Heh. The bill arrives, and Paulie doesn't pay for Minn and Cookie, although he "generously" offers to cover parking and gas. What a guy. That leads to a bit of stage business about Minn not having cashed her check, primarily to establish that she doesn't have a bank account and may or may not stash her money in the mattress. Then Paulie accuses Cookie of stealing Mama Walnuts's rolls and behaves ungraciously some more, and Minn glares at him. Whatever.
Esplanade. Guys hammer stuff while a guy whose name I don't know, Wide Guy, and Patsy respectively pick their cuticles, do the crossword, and nap. A flatbed with giant inflated rat on the back (…heh?) rolls up, and out of the lead vehicle emerges a business agent for the union. The foreman barges up to him, and the union agent expositions for his benefit and ours that the site is employing non-union labor, which violates the union's contract. The union agent adds, "Frankly, sir, I'm shocked and appalled." The foreman, however, has lived in New Jersey for more than ten minutes: "Yeah, right. What, are you fucking kidding?" The union agent megaphones, "This site is shut down until further notice!"
A deli. The juror we saw earlier buys candy for his son. A Soprano associate comes in and does the friendly yet threatening "we know you'll do the right thing" thing, then leaves. The juror looks conflicted.
Carmela cries in the bathroom, but when the phone rings, she slogs out to answer it. It's Meadow again; she asks what Carm's up to. "Nothing -- just reading," Carm lies, and asks if Meadow's okay. Meadow asks if she did something to piss Carmela off. "Well, Little Miss 'Tuna Sand,' there's your sense of entitlement, your continued pervasive lack of respect for me, and the way you treat me like an indentured servant, JUST FOR STARTERS." Oh, wait. That was me. Shut up, Meadow. Carmela doesn't know what she's talking about. Meadow mentions that Carmela seemed pissed at her at dinner the other night, but Carmela's all, "Why would I be mad?" so Meadow drops the subject to invite Carmela to do their "tradition," tea at the Plaza under Eloise's portrait. Carmela, touched, gets a little weepy again: "Really? That's so wonderful. [sniffle]" Meadow asks if she's crying, but Carmela plays it off like she's just happy about Meadow's thoughtfulness. Meadow suggests the day, and after a little mild bickering over the best river crossing to take to get to midtown, they say their "I love yous" and hang up. Meadow clicks off the cordless and looks at it thoughtfully for a second.
Bing back room. Tony comes in to find most of the crew assembled, and Silvio and Wide Guy kvetch helpfully about the union agent before Tony snarls that Carmine can run the Esplanade shutdown past the other four bosses and see how they feel about it. Wide Guy offers to torch a few of Carmine's cement trucks -- aw. So considerate, that Wide Guy -- but Tony says no, no retaliation: "We just sit tight." "It's gonna cost us, T," Silvio sighs. "That's why Carmine did it." Tony grunts that it'll cost Carmine too.
Close-up on a harp player at the Plaza. At a table for two, Carmela produces two pairs of white gloves from her bag. Meadow -- very nicely, for her -- declines to wear them, "Soprano family tradition notwithstanding." Carmela didn't think so, she says, but she's wearing hers, and as she draws them on, Meadow asks in a pass-the-time sort of way where Carmela parked. Carmela immediately gets defensive, asking if Meadow would like to lecture her on parking, too. Meadow's like, "Whatever, it's fine," but Carmela sarcastically says she figured that since Meadow is also an authority on "driving directions, not to mention literature…" "So it's the Billy Budd thing," Meadow says, getting that patronizing tone again and shrugging that she just wanted to point out to Carm "what serious literary critics have to say about the book." Well, more that you know what said critics say and Carm does not, but I've covered that. Shut up, Meadow. Oh, wait. I believe I may have covered that too at some point. The three-tiered tray of tea cakes arrives, and the subject switches to Meadow's travel plans; Finn will pick her up in New Jersey, because her ski stuff is there, so she'll stay over the night before and do some laundry. Carmela stares at her, sucking a mental lemon, so Meadow asks if that's a problem. No, Carm says, as long as Finn stays in the guest room. "He's not staying, Mother," Meadow says with exaggerated patience. Carmela adopts an innocent tone to observe, "Well, the way you two hang on each other…" Meadow shoehorns in another pop-cult reference with, "Well, excuse me, Mrs. Danvers -- what do you have against love?" Carmela's face falls: "Nothing." Meadow wants to know why Carm's not happy for her, and when Carmela clears her throat in lieu of an answer, Meadow snots, "What, are you jealous, just 'cause you and Dad are middle-aged?" Wow. I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- if I ever talked to my mother like that, she'd hand me my face with a side of slaw.
Anyway, that earns Meadow a "watch it, young lady," but she's not done: "What am I, a child?" "Actually, yes, your 'apartment in Manhattan' notwithstanding," Carmela snips, adding the air-quotes verbally, God bless her. "What?" Meadow hisses. Carmela goes on, "And I'm sure your friend the princess found us quite amusing." Well, Carm, you had me, and then you lost me. Meadow reminds her that Carmela's the one who wanted Meadow to go to an Ivy League school: "These are the type of people who go there. There are also people who grew up without indoor plumbing, but you would know even less about them." Whatever you say, Cesar Bitchavez. Contempt is dripping from Meadow's voice and puddling under her chair as she adds, "Would you rather I transfer to Montclair State? Then maybe I can drop out, like you did." Hold on while I go put a hat on, because that shit is cold. It's dead on, though -- Carmela obviously envies her daughter, for her youth, for her boyfriend, for her education, for the advantages she has that Carmela didn't, you name it -- and Carmela just stares at her. Meadow holds the stare, challenging her. Carm backs down and apologizes. Meadow squawks that she invited Carmela there "to have a nice time, not to belittle [her]." Well, and to pay for the whole thing, but we'll get to that in a minute.
Meadow then plays her customary trump card, snitting that maybe Carmela would prefer it if she didn't "come around anymore," but Carmela doesn't take the bait, snitting in response, "Except that won't happen, 'cause you'll need money in about a week." OH YES YOU DID, CARM. Nice one. Seriously. Also? Shut up, Meadow. Instead of thinking that perhaps she might consider showing some respect to the people who finance her education and pay her rent, Meadow threatens to transfer to Northwestern "so [she] can be near Finn when he goes." Carmela again refuses to take the bait, and merely averts her eyes. Meadow flops back in her chair. The Ironically Harmonious Harp serenades us all.
Salsa music at a wedding. Paulie walks in, surveys the scene, and spots Carmine at a table on the other side of the dance floor. Approaching Carmine, he utters his trademark cackle of satisfaction, and kisses Carmine on the cheek like an old friend. Carmine looks blank as the two of them make small talk; he clearly doesn't know who Paulie is, but that doesn't stop Paulie from bulldozing ahead and bringing up the Tony situation. Carmine interrupts him to ask Paulie his name. Oh. Oh, dear. Paulie introduces himself, and Carmine responds -- well, not with recognition, exactly: "Your father was run over by a trolley, right?" Oh, man. Also, hee! Paulie stares at him, concerned, and asks, "Johnny talked to you about me, right?" Carmine, with his customary diplomacy: "Johnny who, Sack? Talk to me about what?" Sars: "Dude. Dude." I guess I should have caught on sooner, but I have to admit that I didn't see that twist coming until it showed up. Paulie continues to stare at Carmine, his expression going from joviality to annoyance to outright devastation as it dawns on him that Johnny Sack helped him fuck himself over.
After a little more awkward staring, Paulie sleepwalks into the bathroom and leans on the sink, then looks into the mirror, terrified.
Carmela sorts the mail and comes across a postcard with Roman ruins on the front. She flips it over, but it's only a "We're Moving!" postcard from Via Appia Haircutters. She sighs, annoyed with herself for falling for it, and walks into the kitchen, where Tony is adenoidally eating lunch. "Anything good?" "Just bills." Carmela busies herself with them; Tony eyes her, then says casually, "So, you never told me about your lunch." "It was horrible, since you ask," Carmela says flatly, and tells him about Meadow's threat to transfer to Northwestern. Tony frowns: "What brought that on?" Carmela dismissively says it's probably Finn, or "maybe she wants to put some space between us" -- she doesn't know. "Why would she wanna do that?" Tony asks through a mouthful of food, and Carmela snaps that she doesn't care, frankly, and the way she feels now, if she never sees Meadow again, that's fine. I hear that. Tony angrily wants to know how she could say that. Carmela doesn't really want to get into it, so she says that she doesn't feel well -- achy joints, queasy stomach -- and that he asked, so she told him. Tony says he's just making conversation, but Carmela is not dealing well at all, and snarls tearfully that he shouldn't bring it up if he doesn't care about the answer. He bitches at her to calm down, saying that he's got enough on his plate: "One a my key guys disappeared to Naples, for chrissake!" Carmela pretends to bury her nose in a cooking magazine, but when Tony slams his plate into the sink and brats out of the room, she drops the magazine and sets her jaw unhappily.
AJ's in his room with his feet up, reading Death In Venice. Meadow comes in looking for her ski goggles (he used them to solder something on his computer -- heh), and they get to talking about Carmela. Meadow asks if she seems "weird" to AJ lately; AJ says that "I guess she's been crying a lot" in the last week, and theorizes that she's sad about Furio's dad. Meadow's confused, so AJ explains that Furio's dad died and Furio had to go back to Italy and blah blah blah, and adds, "But she was goin' over there a lot." Meadow's even more confused now: "To Furio's?" AJ explains about Carmela helping Furio decorate, and relates in a delightfully offended tone that she kept dragging AJ along: "It was really a pain in the ass!" None of this is quite adding up for Meadow, who asks, "She took you there? More than once?" A couple, three times, AJ guesses. Then AJ lifts his hips and covers himself with everlasting glory by ripping a lengthy Jockey-scorcher of a fart, then declaring, "Aww, dude. Meeting's over." HA HA HA! Meadow makes a gagging noise and quickly leaves. Sweet. I'll have to try that.
Paulie, breaking into a house. He skulks into the bedroom, hoists up the mattress, and starts rifling around looking for Minn's cash stash. While he's rooting around under the box spring, he sees slippers entering the room. Oops. Caught in the act, Paulie lies that he brought her something "from my ma," but Minn's completely not having it and heads for the phone to call Mama Walnuts, so Paulie tries to bribe her with the promise of a lunch date, but Minn accuses him of coming to rob her and makes a move for the Medic Alert-y device she has around her neck. Paulie tells her not to press the button. Then he grabs her. Then she starts screeching for help. Paulie grabs her harder, so she kicks him in the goolies -- nice one, Minn! -- and shuffles down the hall, still bellowing, "Heeeeelllllp!" After taking a moment to bounce off the dresser, Paulie gives chase, and they tussle in the kitchen doorway, Minn telling Paulie, "You were always a little bastard." He tells her to shut up and tackles her to the floor. They bounce off the couch. Minn keeps screaming. He whaps a pillow over her face and presses down. The way the sequence is shot reminds me to a distressing degree of Tony beating Ralph's head in, to the point where I half expected Paulie to jump up and puke in the sink afterwards, but he doesn't. He does, however, drag himself off of Minn's dead body and tromp back into the bedroom to get what he came for.
At the Bing, Paulie finds Tony in the back room. Tony's at the desk, bent over paperwork, but Paulie makes a point of going for a hug and a backslap. Then he hands Tony a fat envelope. Tony asks if he robbed a bank. Paulie shrugs, "Back in business, T," and attempts to chat Tony up about going to the track (Tony says he's "thinking about it," which I guess means he's trying to put Pie-O-My behind him). Patsy comes in to say that Johnny Sack is on the phone. Paulie snaps, "What's that prick want?" Tony doesn't know. Paulie stands there. When the hint finds no purchase in the rocky soil of Paulie's "social" "graces," Tony tells him, "Let me take this," and waits for Paulie to leave. Paulie does so…
…and promptly presses his ear to the door from outside. Heh. Tony's side of the conversation: "Hello…thought we did…all right, I'll meet ya." Paulie shudders and walks away from the door.
Soprano Manor. Tony asks Meadow if she said goodbye to her mother. Apparently, Carmela went to the store before Meadow got out of the shower. Tony sits on the stairs and watches Meadow get ready, then tells her that Carmela loves her: "You know that, don't you?" Meadow makes a "yeah, yeah" face and says she knows. She goes to sit by Tony, who asks her to cut Carm some slack: "She's goin' through a tough time right now." When Meadow asks why, Tony theorizes that maybe it's menopause or empty-nest syndrome. Shot of Meadow regarding him sadly as he mentions that he and Carm talked about it in counseling. Meadow, surprised: "You guys went to counseling?" Tony shrugs that it's part of the therapy for his panic attacks. "You? Were in therapy?" Okay, so AJ knew about Tony's therapy as far back as the first season, but Meadow didn't? That seems unlikely, but I can't recall a scene contradicting that, so…okay. Anyway, Tony thought she knew about it; Meadow's all, "Oh. My. God," but she seems proud of him. Tony goes on that maybe Carmela feels "unfulfilled" on some level, and when he uses the word "unfulfilled," Meadow starts to look sad again, and a little bit afraid, too. "Switch on Rosie O'Donnell, that's all these women bitch about," he grumps, but as Meadow continues to regard him worriedly, he admits that that's probably his fault. "It's an epidemic…right?" he concludes. We can see Meadow trying to decide if she should say what she thinks she knows. Whether she does it to spare Carmela or Tony is open to debate, but she opts for a relatively neutral, "You really think that's it?" "Yeah," Tony shrugs. Meadow's eyes fill up. Tony turns to look at her, and she looks down, bites her lip, and agrees softly that "it's probably the beginning of menopause, like you said." Tony kisses her on the forehead and tells her to have a good time and goes into the kitchen. Meadow sits a minute longer and looks worried some more. Good scene between those two, as always.
A car pulls into a parking lot. Focus pull to Tony, smoking a cigar and waiting in the Suburban. Johnny gets into the front seat beside him; he's all fidgety, and Tony waits him out for a moment before asking, "Well, here I am, what is it?" Johnny reminds him that they go back a long way, and they've "come way too far to let it all go to shit." Tony rolls his eyes and tells him, "With all due respect, uh, you wanna go down memory lane, put it in second gear, huh?" Heh. Johnny makes a "yeah, okay" gesture with his head and says he wishes Carmine would "ease off" on the whole Esplanade thing, for his own sake. Tony dryly suggests that Johnny tell Carmine that. Johnny sighs, "He's so easily upset these days…his teeth." Hee. The restaurant thing didn't help either. Tony impatiently reminds him of The Appraiser Incident: "What was I supposed to do? It's on page four of the boss manual, John, Jesus." Hee! Johnny finds that funny too, laughing ruefully that Tony's "preaching to the choir" -- Tony has no idea how many of Carmine's decisions lighten Johnny's pockets. Tony thinks that over, then asks why Johnny's telling him all this. "Because at heart I know you're a pragmatist, as I am. I'm telling you now, Carmine won't bend." Tony, in a "yeah…and?" tone: "And I just told you I won't."
Johnny then ruminates that, "if Carmine's health were bad -- if something were to happen to him, [meaningful look at Tony] God forbid -- all of this unpleasantness would just…" Tony's not sure what he's hearing: "John, Carmine's fine." "Yes," Johnny sighs, "he's very healthy. [another pointed look at Tony] Thank God." Tony can't quite believe that Johnny basically just suggested offing Carmine. Johnny wraps it up with a strangely chipper, "Call me," and gets out of the car. Message received -- Tony, almost smiling, mutters to himself in disbelief, "Holy shit."
A peaked Carmela is propped up in bed, watching How To Marry A Millionaire. Yep, I think we get it. When Tony comes in, she comments that he's home early, and asks if she has a fever, and he flops across the bed backwards to feel her forehead -- deft ironic touch, that little gesture of familiarity. After a little back-and-forth about her temperature, we cut to a shot from Carm's side of the bed as she rolls over on her side. Tony says he talked to Meadow that morning, and she left on her ski trip. "Oh?" Carmela forces out. Tony says Meadow's a good kid. "She hates my guts, Tony," Carmela says flatly. Tony says Meadow doesn't hate her: "She's gonna call you! C'mon. You know how that works." He undresses and curls up beside Carm, adding, "Finn'll go, she'll forget all about him in a coupla weeks. In a few years she'll find somebody else…settle down." He strokes the ends of Carmela's hair, with a tenderness we usually see him reserving for his mistresses; Carm just lies there, staring into the middle distance. Tony: "Maybe she won't, who knows. She can do whatever she wants." Carm, staring, listens to Tony as he lists all the things Meadow is and can become, things Carmela envies in Meadow and wants in herself -- things she wants Tony, Furio, anyone to tell her about herself, not about her daughter. Tony fiddles with her hair some more, saying that Meadow's becoming a "smart, beautiful, independent woman that you created. Isn't that what you dreamed about?" Carm blinks slowly before droning, "Yes." As Annie Lennox's "Little Bird" kicks up on the soundtrack, she stares a moment longer, then finally closes her eyes, and we go to credits.
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