By Aaron
Livia's house. Tony and Janice are in the kitchen, fixing lunch and making up after their infamous roadie blowing contretemps from a few weeks back. "You can't just say whatever comes to mind," complains Janice. "You were fucking horrible." And every single time I check my email, I expect to get a message from David Chase saying exactly that. Once things are satisfactorily patched up between them, Tony changes the subject to Bobby's kids, and the fact that he seems to believe they actually like Janice. She says it's because she lets them do whatever they want. Except drink chocolate milk, that is. Or Snapple. Or have a trauma-free childhood. They both move to the living room, where Bobby is relaxing on the sofa while the kids themselves are sprawled on the floor watching Beethoven on the TV. This, of course, prompts Bobby Jr. to beg his dad for a little doggie of his very own. He even promises to "pick up all the poo and pee." "Pee?" observes Janice. "Right. Start with your underwear." Heh. That kid is going to be in therapy until he dies. Tony starts to reminisce about "Tippy" the dog, who was briefly a member of the Soprano household when they were kids. But then Tippy got worms and "had to move to the country." Un huh. "Tippy was gassed," reveals Janice. "Daddy took him to the pound. He used to drag his ass on the carpet just to scratch himself. My mother went crazy." Well, of course she did. My mom always freaks out when I do that. Tony, however, is utterly shocked that dad would lie to him about the death of a pet. "They always say that," proclaims Bobby, referring to the mythical dog heaven out in the country. "That same farm must have seventeen billion dogs on it," he adds. "Dog shit up to the rafters." I'm assuming that would be Nostradamus's farm, right? This conversation is interrupted by Tony's cell phone, and he answers it to get even more bad news. He announces that Aunt Concetta has died, and then kicks off our network TV-bashing theme of the week by adding that "Uncle Zio found her on the couch after Meet The Press." Well, duh. That shit would kill anyone. Farewell, Aunt Concetta. At least they didn't name you "Tia."
Cut to the funeral, with Father Phil presiding. We finally get to meet the much-mentioned Uncle Zio, who looks sort of frightening, with longish hair and eyeglasses with one side blacked out. Tony stands with Bobby, Janice, and Barbara, and Carmela is there too, looking bored and sort of hiding out way down at the end of the row.
Once the service is over, Tony corners Junior and tells him that he's going to visit Papa Johnny's grave. He invites Junior to join him, but Uncle Jun has other ideas: "Five hours they let me out for these funerals," he complains. "I gotta spend it being maudlin? It's a beautiful day!" Tony is more than a little offended that Junior wouldn't want to pay his respects, and it only gets worse when Junior claims that he can pay those respects from "the after party." Heh. I've sat plenty of shiva in my day, and I'm not sure I've ever heard it called an "after party" before. All things considered, though, it's not that bad a description. Junior merrily wanders off, and Bobby comes over to explain that the "uptake inhibitors" the old man has been taking have improved his mood and his memory. But not his sense of decorum, apparently.
Tony makes his way over to another part of the cemetery, where he finds a woman with orange hair, an orange necklace, an orange shirt, and a tangerine skirt sitting on a bench near Johnny and Livia's graves. You know, I wrote a lot of term papers back while I was at Syracuse, so I'm totally taking her choice of palette as a shout-out. And also as an indication that she's color-blind. Incidentally, the blessings of HDTV allow me to reveal that Livia's epitaph is "A mother's love." Um, okay. Unfortunately, no one has managed to get off their ass and make an HD-TiVo available to me just yet (I'm looking at you, Comcast!), so I didn't have time to check out Johnny's as well. Anyway, Tony tries to strike up a conversation with the Princess of Orange, on the assumption that she must have been a friend of Livia's. Which is why he's a bit surprised to learn that she knows Tony's name, and even more surprised when he asks if they know each other and she replies, "No, you're not annoying me." Heh. Speak for yourself, lady. Tony repeats the question a little louder, and she finally understands and clarifies that she was a "friend" of his father. The air-quotes around "friend" were apparently actually audible, because Tony quickly realizes that she's "the lady from Bamberger's" whom his dad was having an affair with. He's surprisingly amused by the whole thing, and after she introduces herself as Fran Felstein, they sit down together on the bench. She then goes on to reveal that she visits Johnny's grave every now and then, and that she was very sorry to hear about Tony's mother's death. "At least she didn't suffer," jokes Tony. "She made all of us suffer instead." "Believe me," agrees Fran. "I heard the stories from your dad." She also tells him that Johnny was very proud of his son, and that he always told Fran she should call Tony if she ever needed anything. "What do you need?" asks Tony, sensing that the other shoe is about to drop. But it never actually does, because she replies that she needs nothing at all, and the scene comes to an end. Now, I know a lot of people in the forums believe this was all a set-up, and that Fran was waiting at the grave because she knew Tony would be coming and she could get her hooks into him. Personally, I don't believe that for a second. You know how you can tell it wasn't a conspiracy? Because it was Father Intintola performing the ceremony, and not Ryan Chappelle. That's just not this show's style.
At the "after party" over at Vesuvio, Tony tells Junior all about his meeting with Fran, surprising his uncle with a blast from his past. "I was in love with that woman," confesses Junior. "She was the reason I never married." You mean it wasn't the bald head and bad glasses? Because I'm pretty sure that's the reason I never married. Junior had a ring picked out and everything, but he never managed to propose. "I hesitated," he explains. "How could I bring this life we live on a woman?" I suppose he's probably referring to all the mob stuff and whatnot, but I think we've all seen enough of how Junior actually lives to know that he couldn't inflict that life on a woman, either. At least not without spending $500 an hour, that is. So anyway, Fran figured that Junior wasn't interested, and then she met Johnny one night, and "that was that." "She never knew my feelings," he sighs. "What could I do? For years I suffered in silence." Tony gives his uncle a nicely compassionate clap on the shoulder, and then gets up to leave. And then Junior decides that he's suffered in silence for long enough, and he starts singing loudly to the entire restaurant, much to the embarrassment of those around him. You know, I'd give anything to be suffering in silence right about now.
Well, it looks like our old friend the Ironic Segue Fairy is back from his extended absence (ironically enough, he was hospitalized after a bad Segway accident) (Oy. I am soooooo very sorry), because we immediately cut to a room full of people applauding. In fact, there are probably more people in that room than people who bought Dominic Chianese's last album. It's an AA meeting, and out first speaker is none other than Tim Daly. "My name's J.T.," he says, by way of introduction. "I'm an alcoholic and an addict." Hi, J.T. "I'm also a TV writer, which by default makes me a douche bag." And for the first time in Sopranos history, the joke writes itself. Anyway, Tim tells his sob story, which involves heading out to Hollywood, becoming a big success, and picking up "the Beamer" and "the actress girlfriend," not to mention "all the flake [he] needed to keep churning out that snappy dialogue for Corbin Bernsen." One can only assume he's not referring to writing Corbin's role in Jamie-Lynn DiScala's Heidi Fleiss movie, but I wouldn't exactly put it past them. The other thing that drives me nuts about this show, by the way, is that it constantly sends me deeper into the TWoP archives than any man should ever have to go. I mean, come on. The Fugitive? You didn't even know we recapped that, did you? ["I did! The graphic for it is my favourite in all of TWoP." -- Wing Chun] Hell, you snooty HBO folk probably didn't even know it was a series in the first place. Tim's big fall came when he missed a deadline on Nash Bridges (blessedly unrecapped, that one), got fired, and ended up in rehab with Christopher, of all people. He point out Chris, who is sitting in the back somewhere, and then announces that he'd like to spend the session talking about "taking a moral inventory."
And the Ironic Segue Fairy must have a highly addictive personality, because he's got another one for us right away. This time we cut to Tony, taking a moral inventory in Melfi's office. Actually, what he's really doing is telling her all about Dad's relationship with Fran: "He got from this woman what he couldn't get at home. Support. Love. A smile when you walk in the fucking door." He then states emphatically that it was Livia who drove Johnny to cheat, and that she never even visited the man's grave after he died. "It's possible your mother found it very painful," guesses Melfi. "Oh, poor her," snaps Tony, this time acknowledging the irony in his choice of phrase. He goes on to say that it was a little weird sitting there with his father's mistress. Melfi is no fool, so she immediately asks if he was attracted to her. "Come on, she's old enough to be my mother," answers Tony. Melfi just grins. Heh. "Oh, Jesus Christ," he yells. "It's an expression. Don't cream yourself." Ew. I could have lived without that mental image. On the other hand, it is a perfect excuse for me to point out that Melfi's hemlines are back above the knee now that Tony is no longer actively pursuing her. She's quite the little knee-tease, isn't she? "I do not want to fuck my mother!" declares Tony, maintaining his messy mental image momentum. "You should have seen her in her house dress with that hairnet. This conversation would be over in two seconds." Hmm. Maybe the house dress is why I never married.
Chris and Tim Daly, meanwhile, are enjoying a nice post-meeting snack at an IHOP somewhere. Tim announces that he's decided to move back to New Jersey, and that his agent has already gotten him a meeting with Dick Wolf. Christopher then mentions that he once saw Dick Wolf at Rao's, which is so massively meta that the entire state of New Jersey suddenly collapses back in on itself and turns into Delaware. Chris also claims that he was impressed by the fact that Dick Wolf owns his own limo, even though Christopher himself has gone through at least two Land Rovers and a Humvee in the last three seasons, any one of which probably cost more than your average limousine. Tim changes the subject by asking about Christopher, and our boy confesses that he slipped up and had some wine a few weeks back. And by "wine," by the way, he actually means "vodka." And by "slipped up," he means "mistakenly thought his wife was road-blowing the boss." "I didn't even like it," he adds (about the wine, not the assumed road-blowing) while taking a deep drag on his cigarette. A number of AA platitudes are exchanged at this point, and then Tim gets up to leave, ostensibly because he has to "meet someone." He also sticks Christopher with the check. Hmm. How much are you supposed to tip Foreshadowing, anyway?
Junior's Joint. The old guy is reading the obituaries with a magnifying glass. You had to see it, but heh. He spots a random Italian name, and then calls up Melvoin to ask him for permission to attend the funeral. Mel reminds him that he can only get out of his house arrest if the funeral is for a relative. Or, you know, if he just wants to go for a walk or something. Junior: "He's my niece's godfather. I think I met him at a barbecue once. The bicentennial." Hmm. Now would that niece be Barbara or Janice, do you think? And more importantly, why would I ever be crazy enough to try to understand the family trees on this show? In any event, Mel promises to give it a shot. Then we get a look at the client who's been waiting in his office this whole time, and the guy totally wants to be LL Cool J, but just isn't quite making it. Which is really sad, when you think about it.
Tony pays a visit to Fran at her house, which has apparently been trapped in some sort of shagadelic, Austin Power-esque, 1960s time warp. While she fusses around making coffee, Tony checks out the pictures on her countertop. I gotta say, Polly Bergen -- like Nancy Marchand -- was quite a babe back in the day. Tony, however, is more interested in a picture of Fran's son, who looks exactly like Harry Potter. Tony's not much of a Quidditch fan, though, and what really grabs his attention is the dog that also appears in the picture. Fran starts babbling about her son, whose name is Bruce, and who "met an Israeli girl," and now works as a "food-service director for El-Al." Heh. I've flown El-Al, and that food could definitely use some direction. Then again, given this show's well-known flight-attendant fetish, I wonder what Tony would say if he knew that El-Al stewardesses frequently serve beverages while strapped with a sidearm. He'd probably get pretty turned on, to be honest. But that's not important right now, because Tony has definitely recognized the dog in the photo as the late, lamented Tippy. "That's my fucking dog!" he shouts, before calming himself. "Excuse me, I'm sorry. This was my dog. His name was Tippy." Fran confirms that the dog was a gift from Johnny, but tries to console Tony by telling how much Bruce really loved "Freckles." "He had him for almost ten years, until he moved to Tel Aviv. Then I had to put him to sleep." Hee hee. I have no idea why, but that's definitely got my vote as the funniest line of the season so far.
Blissfully unaware of the impact this news has had on Tony, Fran changes the subject by pulling out a box of old photos featuring her and Johnny. Tony paws through the stack, coming across one of the two them standing alongside Young Hesh and a very attractive black girl. Some things never change, I guess. Fran, however, isn't quite the Hesh fan that I am. "He was a whoremaster," she spits. "And cheap." And that's why I love him. "You know, he screwed me out of my retirement money," she continues. "Against your dad's wishes, by the way." Tony demands details, and Fran plays coy for all of two seconds before spilling the story: Johnny, Hesh, and Phil Leotardo all bought a racetrack together, and Johnny had promised Fran that his share of the track would go to her after he died. But when she called up Hesh after the funeral, he simply gave her $500 and sent her packing. Tony immediately goes into avenging-angel mode, and promises to look into the situation. Fran doth protest too much for a moment or two, and then Tony suggests that they go for a nice little drive after dinner.
Which they do. In the car, Tony tells Fran all about his conversation with Junior. "I don't know if you know it," he gossips, "But he was always a little hot for you." "He was practically a stalker," laughs Fran. "He used to skulk outside my building at all hours. Weird phone calls. I always had a hunch he told Livia about me and Johnny." Oh, please. That's not stalking. That's being a conscientious doorman. I mean, if anyone knows stalking, it's me and Lauren Ambrose's lawyers, and simple "skulking" wouldn't even merit a cease and desist these days. Now that the subject of Livia has been broached, Fran notes that "she was a handsome woman...not sexy exactly, but statuesque." Which I suppose is more of a compliment than "Rubenesque," or "Austin Powers-esque," or even "sociopath-esque," although it's pretty obvious that Livia is probably the only person Fran ever liked less than Hesh. She then whips out a hip flask filled with Remy Martin and takes a couple of lengthy swigs. She offers it to Tony, who takes a slug himself, and then he suddenly swerves to avoid a raccoon and ejaculates all over the sun visor.
Oh, not really. Most of it actually ended up in the cup-holder. They eventually arrive at the racetrack, however, where a bunch of old-style, Herbie-the- Love-Bug-esque midget cars are running practice laps. They sit on the bleachers and watch, while Tony grouses that Hesh and Phil must be running some sort of secret scam to keep the place open. Fran doesn't want to trouble her pretty little orange head with business details like that, so she opts to ask Tony about his "women" instead. After thinking about it for a moment, Tony describes Carmela as a "good woman" and a "good mother." When Fran asks about his girlfriend, though, Tony becomes much more talkative. "She's an art dealer," he announces. "Very sophisticated." Uh huh. Because nothing quite says "sophisticated" like olive loaf and rhinestone-studded Lee Press-Ons. "She's Latin," he continues." "You know, from Spain." Oy. Or perhaps, olé! Well, at least it's good to know that Tony is dumber than Dan Quayle.
At a gym somewhere, Chris is spotting for Tim Daly while they work out. He's also basically accusing Tim of being back on heroin, because the guy "ran out of IHOP like [he] was on fire." Oh, Christopher. Heroin can be a harsh mistress, but that's not why people run out of IHOP like they're on fire. Trust me. Or just ask Adriana's bowels. Tim's excuse is that he was meeting a girl to go to the track, and therefore didn't want to miss the last race. You know, because there's nothing chicks dig more than the fresh scent of horse manure mingled with that of drunken surly gamblers. Hmm. Maybe that's why I never married. Chris accepts this load of Pie shit with an apology, and Tim sanctimoniously thanks him for his concern. Then Christopher offers to handle all of Tim's future gambling action, and the guy immediately bets a dime each on the Yankees and St. Louis. "Whoa!" gushes an impressed and mildly Keanu-esque Christopher. "High roller." "I just got a three-grand residual on a That's Life episode," explains Tim. Chris: "That fake guinea-fest with Paul Sorvino? That was totally unrealistic." Heh. Well, I guess now we know why Jack Bender hasn't been back in the director's chair for a while.
Back at the track, Tony is busy admiring Fran's outfit. She's all in green this time (except for the hair, of course), so I'll take that one as a shout-out to the University of Miami football team, which probably spends more per capita on term papers than any other organization in the world. Including ETS. Despite the fact that Fran resembles nothing so much as a leprechaun with a nasty scalp inflammation, Tony remains impressed with her sartorial selections. "You're very...I don't know," he observes. "You got a lot of class." You know, because nothing quite says "classy" like lime green pantyhose. They've left the bleachers and started walking towards the exit at this point, and they both suddenly look up to see a huge "For Sale" sign hanging from the front gate. Standing to the sign is a giant wooden Indian, which makes me wonder if he ever gets together with the giant lumberjack from the opening credits to go get a drink at that giant beer bottle we saw in "Where's Johnny." Now that's a party I'd like to crash.
Hesh's House. My Hebrew hero is a bit peeved that Tony has brought up Fran's claim on the racetrack, because Hesh was of the opinion that he deserved to keep Johnny's share for himself as a reward for all the work he did running the place by himself while Johnny was dead and Phil was in jail. That explanation doesn't exactly fly with Tony, who also wants to know why Hesh never bothered to kick up Tony's percentage of the take. "You were my father's friend!" he shouts. "My friend!" Proving that he's smart enough to read the recaps and knows how we all miss him, Hesh quips, "If I'm such a friend, how come I never see you?" Aw. He's totally a Jewish mother. Tony makes excuses, and claims that he's just been too busy lately. Uh huh. "You're never too busy to call at 2 AM, to hear your problems," gripes Hesh. "One time that happened!" insists Tony. "My therapist was on vacation." Hesh reveals that the track has been sold, and reluctantly agrees to pay off Johnny's share. He does, however, ask Tony for help in getting Phil Leotardo to pay up as well. And then he sighs, and says that something about Fran always seemed to rub him the wrong way. "Maybe because she was rubbing him and not you," snarks Tony. "How long you know me, bub, huh?" replies Hesh. "She's a little pale for my taste." Hee! I love Hesh. Although I probably shouldn't admit that too often. I mean, I loved Furio in season 3, and they ruined him in Season 4. Then I loved Bobby, and they gave him the kiss of death by marrying him off to Janice. If I don't shut up soon, Hesh will probably end up dating Omarosa season, and fleeing back to Haifa when it doesn't work out.
Melvoin's office. He fast-talks some assistant DA into letting Junior out for another funeral. "You're worth every fucking cent," laughs Junior. Yeah. Not if you've seen my cable bill, he isn't. Then we cut back to Junior's Joint, where he and Bobby are donning their best black suits in anticipation. "They're gonna have Scottish bagpipes," Bobby announces. "It should be interesting." Um...I don't think so. Trust me on this one. My aunt owns an entire collection of bagpipe albums, and unless by "interesting" Bobby actually means, "like a flaming sack full of angry kittens that's been patched into the Shea Stadium sound-system," I'm thinking the guy might have picked the wrong adjective.
The Bing. Tim shows up and greets Christopher by calling him "Don Provolone," and then passive-aggressively checks on his sobriety by asking the bartender to bring him one of whatever Chris is having. Which somewhat disappointingly turns out to be ginger ale, by the way. Timmy is also thrilled that he won his bets, and asks Christopher to remind him "to send Jeter a dozen roses." Oh, I think Sars is way ahead of you on that one, Timbo. Tim's planning to take his baseball winnings up to the Indian casino, but Christopher convinces him to join the Executive Game instead, mostly by offering up the potential presence of David Lee Roth as a tease. Oh, please. Doesn't Chris know that LT would be a much bigger draw? Especially to someone who likes to bet on sports. I mean, really. Christopher confesses that he's had yet another "slip-up," this time when his super came by to caulk the toilet and they ended up doing bong hits together. "I just wanted to see if I could get high like a normal person," he explains. "You're not normal," yells Tim. Oh, I'll say. "And on top of that, you ask me to meet you in a bar?" Heh. In Chrissy's defense, though, I don't think any of them really considers the Bing to be a bar. It's more like an office. Or maybe a shooting range.
The sit down. We're in the back room of that one restaurant where Tony always meets the New York crew (and how come we get all that detailed exposition on the ownership and tax filing status of a racetrack that'll never be mentioned again, but we still can't get a name for this frigging place?), and the usual gang has gathered to convince Phil to pay for his share of the racetrack. Johnny Sack slides into the Solomon role this week, and promptly divvies up the loot. Tony is given $150,000, 25% of which will come from Phil. "Jesus Christ, that's like forty grand," he grumps. "You gotta be fucking kidding me." "Am I smiling?" wonders John. And for record, he's most assuredly not. "You got some balls, kid," Phil tells Tony. "I'll give you that much." Tony, however, is obviously fed up with taking crap from the old guys, because he spits back, "You'll give me what I tell you to give me. This ain't the '70s. And I'm not a kid." Then he demands his money and stomps out with Silvio in tow. "That was out of line," complains Phil, but Johnny points out that Tony is still a boss. "Jersey?" snarks Phil. "Come on, huh?" Heh. That's the first time I've actually liked the guy.
Fran's house. Tony happily tells her the news about the track, and she's thrilled. As a reward, she pulls out something she's been meaning to show him, and it turns out to be a monogrammed handkerchief in a fancy wooden box. "Check out the initials," she orders, and Tony flips out when he sees that they spell out "JFK." He tells her about the captain's hat he bought back in Season 1, and Fran points out that her lipstick is still blotted on the hankie. Tony feels compelled to smell the thing for some reason (ew!), and while he's still sniffing, Fran announces that she and JFK once "had a little thing." And she does mean little. Rimshot! "March of '61," she explains. "Right before the Bay of Pigs." She tells the story, which involves her and a friend ending up at a party in the Presidential Suite at some hotel along with a bunch of celebrities: Peter Lawford, Sinatra, and -- wait for it -- Jackie Gleason. Heh. "I'm looking around," she continues, "And I glance across the room, and suddenly, I am locking eyes with John. Fitzgerald. Kennedy." He latched right onto her, and by the end of the night he was using an incredibly cheesy pick-up line involving national security and Fran's Russian-made fur coat. Oy. Why is Presidential sex always so tacky? Tony wants to hear all the juicy details, and Fran is reluctantly forced to admit that it was just a one-night thing, and that JFK blew her off the only other time she tried to get together with him. "He had something special, though," she reminisces. "That was something your mother never understood. When you're married to a powerful man, you'd damn well better make him feel powerful." Hmm. Maybe that's why I never married. Fran goes on to tell him that she once saw a picture of Livia on New Year's Eve, and his mother "looked like a refugee." But totally a statuesque one, I'm sure. Tony makes excuses to leave early at this point, and a lot of people in the forums have speculated that her insulting Livia like that must have pissed him off. I think it's something else, though. After all, the very time we see him, he's busy fucking Valentina, so I think it's safe to assume that all that JFK talk got him horny for a "classy" mistress of his own. And besides, if Tony really was pissed, would he have handed Fran a big wad of cash like that on the way out the door? He tells her to get her phone turned back on and her rent paid up, and she strokes his face and chest in a more-than-mildly inappropriate way. "Your dad would be so proud," she sniffs. "He raised a real gentleman." Hmm. I think the JFK story got Fran a little hot, as well.
The Executive Game. Tim is playing with Chris, Wide Guy, Random Dude #1 ("The Car Wash King"), and Random Dude #2 (the...uh, "Sausage King of Chicago"), while Tony and Larry Barese watch from the sidelines. Wide Guy manages to win the hand, but the real action comes when Random Dude #1 starts asking Tim some TV questions: "So when you write on TV, what do they have, like one guy who writes the words for Dylan McDermott, and one guy who writes for Nicholson's girlfriend?" Heh. We should try doing a recap like that someday. Of course, this does sort of point out the big problem with the long hiatuses this show takes, because Dylan McDermott isn't even on that show anymore, and Terrence Winter has got to be kicking himself that he missed out on an easy Shatner joke here. You know, I think it's a little bit ironic that they're using this character to get in digs at all the crappy, poorly-written, poorly-executed shows on network TV, and yet director Steve Buscemi can't even get the eye-lines right in this scene. Random Dude #1 keeps looking off into an empty corner in all his close-ups. Oops. Christopher announces that he's calling it a night, but Tim decides to stay and keep playing, because he's been "getting killed." Oh, Timmy. You have no idea. The Sausage King starts to deal the hand, and the Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters have correctly noted that he's dealing from the bottom of the deck. And I was totally going to put a huge paragraph here about how I love the obsessive attention to even the tiniest details of subtext that this show consistently demonstrates, but then they fucked up the eye-lines and I'm getting close to deadline anyway. So, sorry.
And speaking of sorry, cut to Tony pounding away at Valentina. No, not like that. For once, those of you with the dirty minds are right. She's all gasping, and moaning, and screaming, "show Valentina that you love her" over and over again. Oh, yeah. That's classy. Tony starts losing steam, presumably because he's distracted by her unwarranted usage of the third person (no, not like that). Then he looks up and sees a picture of a dog in a raincoat on the wall, and this somehow gives him the will to continue. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether the dog looked like a refugee and reminded him of Livia, or if a dog is just a dog and it reminded him of Fran. Because honestly, I don't want to think about it either way. What I do want to do, however, is tell the people who think it was hypocritical for them to cover Tony's ass this week when Carmela bared all last week that they're way off base. I mean, HBO is basically the Official Network of Sex, Death, Meat, and Male Nudity, or at the very least the only one where you don't have to pay-per-view to see a penis. Hell, if you take away Dream On and the Bada-Bing, the overall dick-to-tits ratio goes right through the roof (and no, not like that). And besides, male or female, gay or straight, I think we can all pretty much agree that Edie Falco has a much nicer ass than James Gandolfini.
Junior's Joint. Bobby shows up to make his daily delivery of oat bran, Metamucil, and stool softeners, and then sadly reveals that the seven-year-old son of his dry cleaner was recently killed in a tragic hot tub accident. You can actually see the light bulb going off over Junior's head when he hears this, but that's mostly just because his dome seems particularly shiny today. As soon as Bobby is out the door, Junior is back on the phone to Mel, who had been enjoying a nice, relaxing slice of pizza in his office. Mel reminds Junior yet again that he's only allowed out for the funerals of close relatives, so here's Junior's justification for attending this one: "It is a relative, goddammit. My old man came over with this kid's great-great grandfather. The guy had a club foot...The whole fucking village of Avelino settled in this area. We gotta be related somewhere down the line." "Corrado..." starts Mel. "'Corrado,' my balls!" yells Junior. "I gotta get out of this house! I'm going fucking stir-crazy!" Hee hee. I not a big Junior fan, but I do love me some Chianese. Sorry about that album crack, my friend.
The morning, Tim is still playing in the Executive game. So is Wide Guy, for that matter, but all the Random Dudes have been replaced with new Random Dudes. The shark-jumpers in the audience will likely be quick to notice that one of those new guys bears a disturbing resemblance to Henry Winkler. I'm just saying. We also learn that it's not even the morning, but actually the morning after that. So that's, what? Like, forty hours straight? Don't these people have jobs? Families? Noses? I don't even want to think about what forty hours in a room with Wide Guy might be like. And while we're at it, how did Wide Guy get so Wide if he never leaves the table to eat? Oh, wait. There's like a googol of room-service trays in the background. Hmm. I wonder what everyone else ate? Anyway, Tim goes all in with his last few chips, and loses again to Wide Guy, who picked up a flush on the river card. They were modern enough to play on the newfound popularity of Texas Hold 'Em, and yet they still think Dylan McDermott is on The Practice? What's up with that? ["Maybe the joke is that Random Dude #1 is so out of the loop that he doesn't know who's still on The Practice? Hey, check me -- I'm fanwanking!" -- Wing Chun] Christopher discreetly checks in with Larry, and learns that Timbo is down $57,000 to the house. He immediately yanks the guy out of the game (like, way to wait until ten seconds after he loses his last chip, moron), and demands to know how he's going to cover the debt. Tim tells him to relax, because once that Dick Wolf money starts flowing, $57,000 will be like one month's salary. "Well, what about this month?" asks Christopher. Tim actually takes that as an opportunity to ask Chris if he can borrow even more money, because he's also got child support to pay. Christopher offers to give him $3,000 for "incidentals," which makes the total an even $60,000. And once the vig is added in, Tim owes $1,200 a week, starting one week from today. "Don't give me that look," snarls Christopher. "This is your fucking problem. I will not enable you." That one gets a "Hee!" for delivery, and a bonus "Heh!" for the irony.
Tony's car. Which is a nice, shiny-new, silver Escalade, by the way. Looks like Cadillac paid their product-placement bills in full this month. Ever the classic-rock aficionado, Tony is rocking out to The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" when he spots Phil Leotardo coming out of a neighborhood pizzeria. Just for the record, when I sat down to write this recap and fired up the iPod, that was the first song that came on. I'm not sure what that might mean. Tony finds a parking space and clambers out to chat up Phil, but Phil just ignores him and climbs back into his own car. He yells something about meeting Johnny Sack, and then squeals away, leaving Tony to run back to the Escalade and give chase. It's a pretty nifty sequence as these things go, punctuated by a hilarious shot of Phil tossing his snack food (I'm guessing Italian Ice) out the window. We also get lots of rear-view-mirror shots, and the sound editors get funky and only play "Rock the Casbah" when we're inside Tony's car. Tony eventually pulls up alongside Phil, shouting, "Where you gonna go, motherfucker?" Phil tries to accelerate past him, but finds himself boxed in. Then he looks up and sees a double-parked Boar's Head truck just an instant before he smashes into it.
Tony pulls over and leaps out of his car so that he can play the concerned citizen in front of a rapidly growing crowd of on-lookers. He heads over to Phil, who is alive, but dazed and groggy with an airbag in his face. Aw. Steve Buscemi gave himself a shout-out. Isn't that cute? It's not like the even better shout-out he gives himself at the end of the episode, but it'll do for now. Tony leans in real close, grabs Phil by the throat, and demands his money. "You got twenty-four hours," he threatens. Then he turns to the shocked bystanders, announces that he's called 911, and gets jauntily heads back to his own car. Heh. Sars just laughs at me every time I ask this question, but how is it possible that none of these people have ever called the cops on these guys?
Yet another funeral, presumably for the hot-tub kid. Mom is bawling her eyes out, and Dad the Dry Cleaner has to lead her upstairs. Everyone else in attendance appears appropriately melancholy. Everyone except for Junior, that is, who's smiling happily and quite pleased that the chicken is "nice and spicy." Whatever. Farewell, Hot Tub Kid. But look at it this way: If this were Six Feet Under, they probably would have shown the contusions from where you got sucked into the filter.
Tim's place. He's working at his laptop, and I have to say that his writing style perfectly matches my own. In other words, he's got an ashtray jammed with butts on one side, a cup of coffee on the other, and he's busy playing Snood instead of writing anything. He's just like me! Only better-looking. And better paid. And he's also got an Emmy on the shelf behind him. I've got a Lego Darth Vader on the shelf behind me. Maybe that's why I never married. The doorbell rings, and Tim tries to go all stealth and look through the peephole without giving away that he's at home. It doesn't quite work, though, because Christopher yells that he can see Tim's shadow. Tim reluctantly lets him in, claiming that he thought Christopher was some girl who's a big pain in the ass. Yeah. I'm betting he's not the first person who's ever thought that about Christopher. But maybe I shouldn't make that bet, because Chris is all business when it comes to collections. Tim keeps insisting that the Dick Wolf thing will come through any day now, only this time we learn that his big meeting is actually with someone named "Rene Balcer," who is either a seventeenth-century court fop from Versailles, or Dick Wolf's "right-hand guy." "I got out of that business because people fuck you over," says Chris, apparently not noting the irony inherent in his current business. "Jon Favreau? Faggot cocksucker tried to steal my ideas." And what spectacular ideas they were. Timmy promises to have the money by week, but Chris tells him to have it by the day.
Tony has taken Fran out for dinner at Vesuvio, and she's bragging all about the $600 shoes she just bought. She's also lifting her foot up over the table so that he can see them. Oh yeah. That's classy. "I thought you were paying your phone bill," gripes Tony. And she was going to, she says, but it'd been so long since the last time she treated herself. So, you know, she decided to buy some really uncomfortable shoes. Artie shows up to deliver their wine glasses, and I have to say that the absolute best thing about this entire episode is that we see Artie, AJ, and Meadow, and yet they don't get even one single line between them. In other words, while everyone else in the TV industry is getting slammed, I get the best shout-out ever. Aw. Sniff. I love you guys. Tony tells Fran all about Uncle Zio and Aunt Concetta, and how Zio's health has gone rapidly downhill since she died. Fran doesn't really care about anything except her new shoes, so she just sits there looking awkward until the waiter shows up with their wine.
And speaking of awkward, Tim Daly opens his apartment door to find a pissed-off Christopher and Little Paulie standing there looking menacing. "What is this, fucking Pulp Fiction?" he quips. "Am I supposed to be afraid?" I'd put a Kill Bill joke here, but I'm just so damn tired of Tarantino that I can't be bothered. Tim obviously still doesn't have the money, but he also still doesn't get it. "Chris, you know me," he says. "What could you possibly do to me that I haven't already been through?" "I'm positive we'll think of something," answers Christopher, before punching him right in the face. Hee! Tim turtles up, but Chris and Little Paulie continue with the kicking and the stomping and the beating. The highlight of the scene comes when Christopher smashes a very nice framed Dr. Strangelove poster over Tim's head, and then leaves him lying on the floor in a pile of broken glass while they keep kicking away. I'd put a Clockwork Orange joke here, but it's been raining all week in Pittsburgh, and I just don't feel like singing anymore.
Cut to still another funeral, although it's not Tim Daly's. It's Uncle Zio's instead, and he's all laid out in his coffin. Father RinTinTin performs yet another service, because he's the only priest in New Jersey, and because he needs all the screen time he can get now that his 24 gig is over. He delivers a lengthy eulogy about how Zio and Concetta were married for almost seventy years, and how Zio just couldn't bear to go on without his beloved wife. Somewhat surprisingly, he totally fails to direct his patented Pepper Mill Death Stare at Carmela while he gives this little speech, although she is in attendance at this funeral, and also wearing a highly inappropriate cleavage-baring dress. As the eulogy continues, Junior begins to sob. At first it's quiet and touching, but then it just keeps getting louder and louder until everyone starts staring and Bobby and Janice have to drag him out of the room as he wails, "Ah this fucking shit! What's the point? I can't take it anymore!" Sigh. Bring back Young Junior, dammit! He was creepy, but at least he was interesting.
And then we cut to the most meta scene you'll ever see on this show, as Tim Daly tires to sell his Emmy, only to be shot down by an uninterested pawn broker. It's so meta, in fact, that Delaware reverses itself, turns back into New Jersey, and then forms a black hole singularity that swallows the entire Earth and hurtles Wide Guy into an elliptical orbit just inside the Oort cloud, where relocated lunar astronomers will one day discover him after observing the space-time distortions he creates and promptly name him after the Greek god of cholesterol. And then Dick Wolf will make a TV show about it called Newton's Third Law & Order, starring Paul Sorvino as Wide Guy and Joseph Gannascoli as himself. And even then, it still won't be as meta as this scene. Metamucil isn't as meta as this scene, for God's colon. Anyway, the pawnbroker is only willing to offer $15 for the Emmy. "If it was an Oscar, maybe I could give you something," he adds. Heh. Somewhere in L.A., Alan Ball is cackling like a madman. Tim sadly offers up his laptop instead, and that at least sparks some interest.
Quite a bit of interest, in fact, because the very shot is of Little Paulie delivering the full $1,200 to Christopher. Hmm. I've seen Tim's laptop, and there's no way he could pawn that thing for $1,185. Snood just doesn't look right without at least a GeForce. Although he apparently also had enough leftover to score some heroin, because Little Paulie reports that Tim was almost as high as the odds of this show's ever winning an Emmy again.
And now we're back at Fran's place again, as she cooks up a fancy dinner, and Tony shows off an envelope with $150,000 cash in it. It's worth noting that he gave her the full amount, without taking a cut for himself. On the other hand, what does it say about a man that not cheating his father's mistress out of the illicit proceeds from a illegal mob transaction that he had to commit vehicular assault just to obtain is probably the most noble thing we've ever seen him do? It's also worth noting, by the way, that Fran pays no attention to the money whatsoever, which I think further shoots down the idea that she was just playing Tony for cash. She's playing him for attention, not money, and besides, the rest of this scene makes it painfully obvious that she can't even come close to hiding her emotions well enough to pull off a scam like that. Fran chatters about some vacation that she and Johnny took, and how they had to stop so she could buy cigarettes along the way. Tony, however, is furious that she was still smoking even after Johnny came down with emphysema. Even Livia quit, he says. Fran insists that Johnny wanted her to keep smoking, and then the oven bell rings, and she serves up an appetizer of water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, with duck sauce for dipping. Aside from the de rigueur duck reference, I'm more interested in knowing what her El-Al-catering kid thinks of the bacon Ma keeps cooking up. Tony tries one of her snacks, and does a reasonably graceful job of pretending that he likes it. Then he pulls out the Kennedy captain's hat, and Fran immediately scampers over to the mirror to try it on. She preens for a moment, and then turns back to face Tony before launching into a frighteningly squicky rendition of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President." Oh. My. God. It's like the worst train wreck you've ever seen, multiplied by a billion and then painted Day-Glo orange and stuffed into a really ugly blouse. Polly Bergen might have been a babe, but I wouldn't fuck Fran Felstein with Dick Wolf's dick. She sashays over to Tony as she sings, getting right up against the camera's lens in a truly unfortunate close-up. The "will they or won't they" sexual tension here is intentionally so think that you could cut it with Ginsu knife, assuming Ginsu had paid their product-placement bills. And also assuming you could open your eyes long enough to see it. Fran finally finishes, and then giggles coquettishly. Tony just sits there silently, trying to keep that bacon-wrapped water chestnut from coming right back up the other way.
Tim's place. Mr. Daly has finally hit rock bottom (and after The Fugitive, you wouldn't think there'd be much farther to fall), and he's whining to an angry Christopher about all his problems. The Dick Wolf thing fell through, like we all knew it would, and now he owes both Christopher and his ex-wife way more than he can pay. Oh, and he's also been shooting up heroin for days. Chris gets all AA on his ass, and demands to know why Tim never called his sponsor. "I couldn't get him!" sobs Timbo. "So why the fuck didn't you call me?" shouts Christopher. Tim just looks utterly incredulous at that, and Chris slowly figures it out. Heh.
Melfi's office. Tony is sadly recounting his experiences with Fran, and he may be starting to realize that she and his daddy might not have been the wonder couple he was building them up to be. He tells a story about how he came home from school one day to find a note saying that Livia was in the hospital. She'd been pregnant with a "change of life" baby after Barbara, but then apparently had suffered a miscarriage. Tony's job was to find his father and get him over to the hospital as quickly as possible. As Old Tony explains that he called every number he could think of and still couldn't find Johnny, we segue into a flashback featuring Young Tony. And let's take a moment, by the way, to discuss Young Tony, who is now a teenager and significantly thinner than he was the last time we saw him. He's also got a truly unfortunate haircut that looks like what would happen if you gave a kid a bowl cut for his tenth birthday and then never touched it again. Anyway, later that night Young Tony gets a call from Johnny, who's in bed with Fran. Johnny seems genuinely stricken by the news, but Fran was more of a player back then, so she stubs out her cigarette, stomps out of the room, and quickly calls him to dinner. This prompts Johnny to say that he's all tied up at the moment, but that he'll come out and get Tony as soon as he can. "He came and got me the morning," narrates Old Tony, and then we're right back into the flashback. Now it's Livia who's in bed, albeit a hospital bed. Incidentally, is this same Young Livia as last time? ["No. That was Laila Robins; this is some nobody named Laurie Williams." -- Wing Chun] I remembered her looking different in that "Meat the Parents" scene. She certainly doesn't sound any different, though, because she's screaming at Johnny for being with "that whore" instead of at the hospital. Johnny spins a highly improbable yarn about taking Tony to a Yankee game, and the car's breaking down, and them all having to spend the night at cousin Jimmy's house. If nothing else, at least Tony's a better liar than his dad. Or rather, he will have had been a better liar than his dad: Johnny asks Tony to confirm his story, and Livia turns a cold eye on her son and waits for his response. Young Tony quivers with indecision for a moment, before backing his dad and causing Livia to turn away in tears. It's obvious that she already knew the truth, and just wanted to see which way Tony would go. So we probably shouldn't forget that she was still quite the evil bitch, even while Tony (and by extension we the viewers) are learning that Johnny wasn't exactly a prince himself.
"She could have fucking died," sighs Old Tony, ending the flashback. Then he starts to cry a bit, before muttering, "fuck her." Melfi asks if he ever assigns any blame at all to his father, who was after all a criminal, a liar, and an adulterer. "Listen to me," she tells him. "This is very important. Your mother had her faults. But after all this time what should we do with the old woman? Have an auto-de-fe?" What's an auto-de-fe, you ask? Well, it's what you oughtn't to do, but you do anyway. "You need to forgive her and move on," continues Melfi. And for a moment, it looks like Tony actually might. But then he hardens, growling, "She made my father give my dog away." He totally excuses Dad for giving the dog to a girlfriend, and gets in a further jab by asserting that Livia would have had the dog gassed if it were up to her. Which is probably true. Man, there are just no good guys here at all, are there?
IHOP again. Chris and Tim pull up in Timmy's Z-3, Chris driving. A quick phone call reveals that the car's book value is $17,000, which he's knocking off the principal Tim still owes. You know, I've been thinking about buying that exact car now that I've replaced term papers with recaps, so I'm glad to know they can be had so cheaply. Or maybe BMW just wasn't quite as generous as Cadillac. They sit in the parking lot as Tim sadly signs over the title and laments the fact that he truly loved the car. "I'll see you when you get out," promises Chris. "We'll figure out the rest of the payments." Ah, Christopher. Ever the professional, that one. "You can do this," he adds. "I have faith in you. There's no chemical solution to a spiritual problem." Ah, Christopher. Ever the doofus, that one. Tim recycles his incredulous expression from their scene, and then gets out to head off to rehab and a remake of Regarding Henry.
A random doctor's office. Junior, Tony, Janice, and Bobby learn that Junior's medicine isn't working anymore, and so the doctor recommends that they adjust the dosage. Uh, yeah. Could you maybe add a little Benzedrine? I'm snoozing over here. Junior ends his sub-plot for the week by delivering the following sob story: "My life is death. I'm living in a grave. I beat prison, and for what? I have no children. Will somebody please explain this to me?" You know what's weird? That could totally be my story, as well. My life is death on this show, I live in a grave on Six Feet Under, I beat prison on Oz, and I'm still waiting for someone to explain Carnivàle to me. And, oh yeah. I have no children. Maybe that's because I never married.
And then we wrap things up for the week in the Bing, which is just chock full of gratuitous tit shots. God Bless America, my friends. Tony and the gang are gathered around the bar, and Tony is regaling them with stories about Fran, and bragging about her relationship with JFK. He's also embellishing it quite a bit, claiming that they dated for three years, and that Jackie Kennedy thought the marriage was over. Everyone buys it hook, line, and handkerchief, except Diet Tony, who starts to look a little skeptical near the end. But that doesn't really matter, because we cut back to the tits, and then Tony takes a long drag on his cigar that's never just a cigar, and The Sopranos fades to black while reminding us of ALL the reasons why network television just can't compete.