Tony takes Meadow on a trip to various college campuses in Maine to decide which institution she wants to attend.
He admires the campus grounds at Bates College when Meadow exits from the admissions building. When he asks how things went, she rattles off a list of its credentials and implies that the student body is very sexually active, much to his chagrin. She asks him why he left college, and he tells her that he got into trouble as a kid and got drummed out.
They get back on the road. As they drive, Meadow drops a bombshell on him - she asks if he's part of the Mafia. He blusters through an answer, claiming that he's in the waste management business and the idea that he's a mobster is outrageous. He admits to her that some of his money comes from illegal gambling. She tells him that she likes having the family reputation at school.
When they stop at a gas station, Tony calls Irina. She rants at him about her sister, Svetlana before he gets annoyed and hangs up. He then calls Carmela (who is sick with the flu) and asks how she's feeling. As she talks to him, he's distracted by a man wearing a vest and eyeglasses. He hangs up the phone and watches as the man drives off, then quickly gets Meadow and they drive off in pursuit.
Meadow asks what he's doing, and he claims that he thought he saw "an old friend". They weave through traffic and miss the turnoff for Colby College. After some cajoling from her, he stops at a nearby hotel that's down the road from the college and claims that he doesn't know the man.
Tony calls Christopher from the hotel's payphone soon after and claims that he saw Fabian Petrullo, a former member of the New Jersey crew who became The Informant and ratted on them. He gives a license plate to Chris and tells him to run it, then goes back to hang out with Meadow.
That night, Carmela is greeted by an unexpected guest — Father Phil, who stopped by to see how she's feeling. Having sent A.J. out to a friend's house earlier that day, Carmela invites him to stay over and watch a movie and have dinner. Soon after, she gets a phone call from Dr. Melfi (stating that she must reschedule Tony's appointment), thereby letting Carmela know that her husband has been seeing a female psychiatrist.
Carmela pours out her frustrations to Phil and talks about how much she fears for the sanctity of her own soul. Phil gives her an impromptu communion ceremony, but when it seems as though the action may lead to something romantic, Phil suffers a bout of nausea because of his intolerance for alcohol (or so he claims at any rate). Carmela leaves the infirmed man lying on the couch and goes to bed.
Tony tells Meadow over dinner how proud he is of her. After hearing him explain his family's heritage, she admits that she took drugs with friends a couple of weeks earlier to get through her SAT test. Tony is irate and asks why she'd admit something like that, and she explains that he was honest with her, so she felt like she could tell him.
He leaves Meadow to talk with a pair of girls who attend Colby and goes to make a phone call. Chris gets on the line and tells him that the plates didn't match. He tells him that he'll get Paulie or Silvio to look into the matter, and tells him he did good work while staring at Meadow across the restaurant.
Afterward, Tony leaves her at the hotel and sneaks to the address that was registered to the plates. He finds Fabian in the back of the house with a woman in a hot tub. As he looks on, a young girl comes out and asks for them to put her to bed because she's scared. Tony realizes that Fabian has a family and sneaks away, though not before the latter notices his car driving off.
Fabian drives to a local mechanic and asks if anyone was asking questions about him. The mechanic, Pete, offers to let Fabian know if he sees anyone before he leaves. As they go, Tony is revealed to be nearby strolling through the local community and makes a note of Fabian's alias. He searches through a phone book and finds a travel agency he works at. After taking a look inside, Tony realizes that this is Fabian's business and plans to ambush him the next day.
At the same time, Fabian is searching local businesses. He visits the hotel near Colby College and finds a guest log with Meadow and Tony's full names on it. He looks up in shock.
Tony goes back to pick up an inebriated Meadow at the restaurant. As they arrive back at the hotel, Fabian stalks them in the parking lot, but can't bring himself to shoot him because of Meadow's presence and leaves. Soon after, Tony goes back outside and calls Chris once again. Despite Chris' offer to come up and perform the hit himself, Tony tells him This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself.
The next morning, Tony drops Meadow off for an interview at Colby and says he has to go handle some business.
Fabian arrives at his office and meets with a pair of junkies, who he tries to convince to perform a drive-by shooting against Tony. They swear at him before leaving. Soon after, he becomes convinced that someone is sneaking around his property and goes outside with his pistol.
Tony ambushes him from behind and puts him in a stranglehold. Fabian begs for his life and says that he didn't kill him when he had the chance because of Meadow's presence. Tony strangles him anyway and leaves his body by the office. He goes back to pick up Meadow afterward. Despite her realization that something happened between him and the man, Tony dissuades her concerns and they drop the matter.
The rest of the trip continues without incident, and they head to Bowdoin College for another interview before returning home. When they do, Carmela tells him about how Phil spent the night over.
Tony calls her out on this, but she throws it right back in his face by telling him that she knows he's been going to a female psychiatrist. Tony awkwardly tries to make up an excuse as she walks off...
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: When pleading with Tony to be spared, Fabian, in his panic, refers to him as "Teddy"; so much time has passed that he doesn't really remember Tony's name.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Fabian, as he's being garroted by Tony.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: During Meadow's conversation with the girls from Colby College.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Meadow asking if Tony is part of the Mafia.
- Artistic License – Religion: Carmela's confession and subsequent reception of the Eucharist contain one example after another, better than which both characters involved would certainly know. Carmela starts her confession "Forgive me, Father..." (priests absolve, not forgive, and the difference is a big deal theologically) instead of the correct "Bless me, Father...". Father Phil states that God "absolves" sinners, when that is the priest's role. Father Phil suggests that Carmela receive the Eucharist even though she is still in mortal sin, no absolution having taken place because she was unprepared to commit to having "firm purpose of amendment." A priest might give various sacraments to a person in the hospital, but would not have said a private Mass for him or her as Father Phil explains that he has just done. Father Phil's method of transporting the Body and (especially) the Blood are suspect at the very least. Both Carmela and Father Phil receive the Eucharist without the required fast, and without meeting any of the conditions required for a possible emergency exemption.
- Asshole Victim: This was the first episode that actually showed Tony Soprano committing a murder on-screen; before it, he had always left the dirty work to his underlings. Being an early episode, though, network executives at HBO still had their doubts about whether or not the series could sustain an audience in the long term, and they argued that viewers would drop out in droves if they had to see the show's protagonist remorselessly killing an FBI informant without consequences. First, they tried to convince David Chase to write an alternate version with Tony letting the informant live or just having Christopher kill him instead. When that didn't work, Chase compromised by agreeing to make the guy as unsympathetic as possible, writing in additional scenes where he's seen peddling drugs to local teenagers and even planning to kill Tony right in front of his daughter.
- Bad Liar: Tony is usually pretty good at making others believe his Blatant Lies. But he gets nowhere with a daughter who is both a Brainy Brunette and a Living Lie Detector.
- Bambification: Fabian has a quiet moment with a deer before Tony brutally garrotes him.
- Blatant Lies: "There is no Mafia!" And pretty much anything else he says in reply to Meadow's questions.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Father Phil (a practicing priest) has a very low tolerance for alcohol, despite presumably performing Communion with the visitors to his parish. It is strongly implied, however, that he is merely faking nausea to hide the fact that he came in his pants from almost kissing Carmela. The same also goes for Meadow, who, as a high school student, also presumably doesn't have much experience with alcohol.
- Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: Meadow first starts to show Sherlock Scan levels of Hyper-Awareness when she realizes that Tony forced her into a car and rushed off from the gas station in order to follow Fabian. She's likewise suspicious of Tony making payphone calls when his own cell and the motel phones were readily available. She's naturally curious why Tony has to be off during one of her interviews and is late coming back. Then she notices the dirt on Tony's shoes and the small amount of blood on his hands while they're driving to the next college interview. She knows something definitely went down between Tony and Fabian, but she decides to let it drop.
- Confess to a Lesser Crime: Tony tells Meadow that some of his money comes from illegal gambling, as a way to get her off the questioning about whether he's in the mob.
- A Day in the Limelight: Meadow gets one this episode.
- Drives Like Crazy: Tony does this during his chase after Fabian.
- Establishing Series Moment: Tony takes time off from his daughter's college tour to murder a someone who betrayed the mob, the first time we see him kill someone on screen. This firmly establishes that, in spite of his sympathetic qualities, he is a ultimately a Villain Protagonist through and through. Executives fought this development, arguing that it would turn off viewers; instead, the opposite occurred, with the delicate balance between Tony's (and other characters') villainy and humanity becoming the show's main draw.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- The Mafia forbids killing in front of the victim's family, and it shows up more than once in this episode.
- Tony tracks Fabian to his house but drives away when he notices that Fabian is with his family in the house.
- Fabian tries to invoke this when Tony comes to kill him as a way of begging for mercy, informing him that he had a clear shot on him at the motel the night before, but didn't shoot while he had the chance. The reason is that he realizes Tony is with his daughter. The viewers, however, know that Fabian is truncating quite a bit when he claims this. He was absolutely ready to shoot Tony at the time, even if it meant killing him in front of his daughter, and didn't show a single sign of hesitation as he took aim. The only reason why he decided against it was the sudden appearance of some other motel guests and he thought it too risky to have witnesses.
- Foreshadowing: Carmela checks herself out in the mirror before answering the door to let Father Intintola in. It will become a Character Tic of hers when she develops a new crush on a future character starting season 2.
- From a Certain Point of View: Tony's excuse/explanation when Meadow asks if he's in the mob. He tells her that "some" of his money comes from legal operations, and that some comes from illegal gambling.
- Gaslighting: Tony tries to pull this on Meadow when she questions him about his call to Chris on a payphone at 1:00 a.m. the previous night, by telling her she was too drunk to really remember that night. It doesn't get very far.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Carmela's jealousy is aroused by learning that Tony has a female psychiatrist.
- Heel Realization: Carmela breaks down in front of Father Phil with the realization that by enjoying the luxuries provided by his blood money, she is complicit in his crimes as well. She'll have this realization a few more times throughout the series, but she just can't will herself to act on it.
- Hired Guns: Fabian tries to hire a couple of junkies to help him out against Tony, but they bail at the first sign of adversity.
- Hope Spot: For Fabian; he hears noises outside his trailer and grabs his gun to investigate. Another noise leads him to spot a deer in the brush. Before he can even relax and assume that's all it is, Tony grabs him from behind.
- Hypocrite: Tony calls out Carmela for spending the night hanging out with a priest friend, then hastily tries to cover himself when she reveals that she knows he's been going to a female psychiatrist. To say nothing of his mistress, Irina.
- Insistent Terminology: Tony repeatedly tells Meadow that he's in the "waste management" business.
- Jizzed in My Pants: It is at the very least implied that Father Phil came in his pants from the sexual tension of almost kissing Carmela, and that he saw that as a sign to back off and fake a bout of nausea to get out of the situation.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Meadow knows she's not getting any straight answers to her questions for Tony. But she realizes on the way home it won't go anywhere, so she eventually lets the matter drop.
- Living Lie Detector: Meadow instantly sees through all of Tony's Blatant Lies.
- Mood Whiplash: A quiet moment with a deer is followed by Tony appearing out of the blue and ferociously murdering Fabian. Finally, a band of birds/ducks crosses the sky.
- The Oath-Breaker: Tony explicitly invokes this as a justification to Fabian for strangling him to death.
- Oh, Crap!: Tony, after Carmela reveals that she knows he's been going to a female psychiatrist.
- Orbital Shot:
- As the camera pans around Tony at the beginning of the episode.
- Also used when Father Phil first arrives at the Soprano household.
- P.O.V. Cam: Used when Fabian points his weapon at Tony in the hotel parking lot.
- Properly Paranoid: Fabian carries a Hand Cannon and is smart enough to recognize he's being stalked but misses his chance to kill Tony.
- Resignations Not Accepted: It catches up to Fabian after a 10 year delay.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: How Tony and the rest of the Jersey mob feel about Fabian's fate.
- Rule of Symbolism: A flock of ducks flies away just as Tony has finished strangling Fabian to death. Will Tony's life as a Mafia boss drive his family away?
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The junkies Fabian tries to hire to take out Tony fob him off and leave the moment they get even a whiff that there may be any degree of risk involved.
- Shout-Out: The movie Carmela and Father Phil watch is, appropriately enough, The Remains of the Day. They also discuss Casablanca and The Last Temptation of Christ, and Carmella doesn't think Willem Dafoe was convincing as Jesus.
- Tony routinely refers to Father Phil as "Monsignor Jughead", due to his lanky frame and voracious appetite.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Meadow claims that she knows her father is in the Mafia because she found a US$ 50,000 worth of gold Krugerrands and a .45 caliber gun "while searching for Easter eggs" one year.
- Tony for that matter, figures out that he has indeed come across Fabian when he sees a wooden bust of Ronald Reagan in his office with oddly-carved lips - previously Christopher expressed disbelief that a bust Fabian was supposed to be Sinatra, as the lips "needed work".
- The Stool Pigeon: Fabian became an informant, leading to a lot of convictions of DiMeo crime family members.
- Terrible Artist: Downplayed. Fabian actually isn't half bad at wood carving, but he never really got hang of how to carve lips, a running joke in the DiMeo Crime Family being the bust he once made of Frank Sinatra with really bad lips as a gift for Jackie (Christopher mentions that he thought said bust was supposed to be Shaquille O'Neal). It comes back around when Tony scopes out a local business owned by "Frederick Peters", and spots a homemade bust of Ronald Reagan with really weird-looking lips, confirming to him that he has indeed found Fabian Petrulio.
- This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Tony insists on handling Fabian's murder personally.
- Time Skip: According to Meadow, two weeks have passed since she took drugs with Hunter.
- Villains Out Shopping: Tony finds Fabian when he and Meadow are touring Maine examining colleges. The character serves to show early on, in first person, the murderous, almost casual nature of what Tony does for a living and how good he is at lying to his family.
- Will They or Won't They?: Carmela and Father Phil.
- Witness Protection: Fabian was eventually kicked out of the program. He later went by the name of Frederick 'Fred' Peters.
- Would Hurt a Child: Fabian appears to be about to gun down Tony and Meadow but is stopped by the fact that there are witnesses.
