Recap / The Sopranos S 1 E 9 Boca

"I didn't hurt nobody."

— Tony Soprano

Livia, Junior, and A.J. visit the grave of Johnny Boy Soprano. After trying (and failing) to call A.J. over to pay his respects, she once again laments Tony going to a psychiatrist and says she didn't do a bad job raising her son.

At the same time, Tony, Carmela, Artie, Charmaine Bucco, and Silvio are watching their daughters taking part in a middle-school soccer game. While Tony and Artie point out how one player, Ally Vandermeed, looks distracted and lost, Meadow blocks a goal, and Silvio rants at the referee for handing out too many yellow cards. The coach, Don Hauser, silently pleads with Ally to do a specific maneuver, and she gets a goal to win the game. The team celebrates their success, while the group takes Coach Hauser to the Bada Bing for drinks.

At the bar, Coach Hauser tells the group that he's thinking of his family first and rejects the group's offer to buy him a private lapdance in the VIP room. Tony is distracted when Vin Makazian enters and begins giving him intel - namely, that Mikey Palmice suspects that there's a mole within the Soprano family. He tells Tony that he's still working on getting more information before leaving.

Meadow and her friends on the team celebrate their win by drinking wine in a nearby forest. When Ally doesn't show up for the party, Meadow and another go off to find her. They discover her attempting to slit her wrists while crying and call an ambulance.

Junior is sitting in the offices of his lawyer, Harold Melvoin, discussing what to do regarding the possible FBI indictments. Junior indicates that he's sick of the drama and is going to take a small vacation in Boca Raton, Florida. Before he leaves, Mikey tells him that the mole has to be within Tony's circle. Junior picks up his mistress, Bobbi, from the office of a union he controls and heads off.

At Green Grove, Larry Boy Barese arrives and visits Livia. He tells her that he's moved his mother into the retirement home and looks forward to seeing her more often. Tony also appears and greets his mother, along with Jimmy Altieri. In private, Larry tells Tony that it's a genius idea to conduct meetings at Green Grove because there's no FBI presence, while Jimmy listens intently. Tony is distracted when he reads in the paper that Coach Hauser is planning on moving to another state to work for another team. He sends Silvio and Artie to attempt to sway the Coach to stay, but the latter claims that he got a better job offer and a full scholarship for his daughter.

That night, Tony and Artie meet for dinner at an Italian restaurant. After complaining about Coach Hauser bailing out and antagonizing a patron in the restaurant who was wearing a baseball cap, Tony realizes that a pair of men sitting at a table behind them may be FBI agents. He asks the waiter to get the duo's license plate and smirks while Artie rants about lower values in modern society.

Junior and Bobbi go off on their vacation and spend several days resting at a beachfront property. Junior asks her not to tell anyone about his affinity for giving her oral sex, and they go out to a nightclub to dance the night away while an unseen FBI agent spies on them. When they get back home, Bobbi reveals this information to a friend at a nail salon, who in turn passes on the information to Carmela. During a family dinner that night, Carmela makes several veiled references to it, leading Junior to become suspicious.

Meadow also reveals to them that she's quit the soccer team. Despite Tony's attempts to smooth over the situation, it doesn't work and she storms off. Tony tries several tactics to force Coach Hauser to stay in New Jersey afterward, including delivering a stolen TV to his house and having Chris "pretend" to find his missing dog, but none of this sways the coach.

When Meadow continues to act defiant and refuses to rejoin the team, Tony confronts her and says he's just trying to help her. Meadow comes clean and reveals to him and Carmela that Ally has been sleeping with Coach Hauser, and that is why Ally tried to kill herself. Tony is horrified and walks off in shock, while Carmela learns from her that Ally claims she's in love with him. Tony tells Silvio afterward, who tells him he can put out a hit on Hauser, but Tony tells him to leave the matter and says he'll handle it in his own way.

Tony and Junior meet up the next morning for a golf game. Tony antagonizes Junior by making several allusions to Junior performing oral sex on Bobbi. Junior rails at him before teeing off. Afterward, Junior tells Mikey about Tony's appointments with the therapist and says he thinks the latter may be spilling confidential information about the crew. He also deals with Bobbi by confronting her about her leaking his sexual habits, smashing a cream pie in her face, telling her that their relationship is off and that's she's fired for good measure.

Tony grapples with whether or not to put a hit out on Coach Hauser, especially after Artie arrives and tells him that there's a better way to enact justice - have Hauser be publicly shamed and arrested. Tony eventually relents and gets Hauser arrested and charged with underage assault, and drinks himself into a stupor. He arrives back home drunk, and as Meadow watches from the balcony, Tony tells Carmela triumphantly that he didn't hurt anyone...

Tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Tony can't help laughing when Carmela tells him about Corrado (Uncle Junior) giving head to Bobbi. And he can't stop with several jokes of his own, to the point that Carmela herself tries to get him to stop.
• Amoral Attorney: Harold Melvoin, who manages Junior's legal interests and allows him to conduct mob business in his office.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: A very literal example. Chris temporarily kidnaps Hauser's Golden Retriever but brings it back unharmed. There's no way Hauser could possibly miss the intended message.
• Answer Cut: Charmaine asks Artie with complete seriousness if he thinks Tony is really going to stop at leaving a plasma TV on Coach Hauser's driveway. The next scene is of Chris threatening Coach Hauser with And Your Little Dog, Too!.
• Artistic License – Geography: This episode wrongly reports the location of the University of Rhode Island (URI), claiming that it is in Providence when, in fact, it is in Kingston on the other side of the state. While URI has a satellite campus (the Feinstein Campus) in Providence, URI's sports teams play in Kingston.
• Celebrity Paradox: When Silvio and Tony entertain Coach Hauser at the Bada Bing with drinks, the song playing in the background is a track from Steven Van Zandt's own album.
• Character Development: Despite his villainous tendencies, Tony is swayed by Artie to publicly shame Hauser and have him arrested, as opposed to killing the man outright. At the end of the episode, he drunkenly tells Carmela that he didn't hurt anyone this time.
• Comically Small Bribe: The mobsters have Paulie deliver a 50" plasma TV to Coach Hauser's driveway. It's small peanuts compared to the job waiting for Hauser that would double his take home pay. Then again, it's probably meant more to accentuate An Offer You Can't Refuse than anything else.
• Country Matters: Corrado calls Bobbi a "blabbermouth cunt" during his raging tirade.
• Death Glare: Tony tells a guy to take off his baseball cap in a restaurant. He doesn’t listen at first, but another look at Tony furiously staring at him and even softly growling is enough to make him do it.
• The Dog Bites Back, combined with Call-Back: Remember when Tony lets on to Dr. Melfi that he felt hurt by Uncle Junior telling the girl cousins that he "never had the makings of a varsity athlete"? Uncle Junior mocks Tony during the golf game about missing the fly ball as a kid. Tony clearly looks stung, as it reminded him of the "varsity athlete" jab. That's when Tony loses any remaining restraint and repeatedly taunts Uncle Junior over the rumors that he gives head to Bobbi.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Boca" is short for Boca Raton, but it's also Italian for "mouth". The episode revolves around Uncle Junior's relationship with his mistress in Boca Raton, Florida, but it also involves a sensitive bit of word-of-mouth gossip that Tony exploits to damage Junior's reputation. For the hat trick: the gossip involves Junior's willingness to give his mistress oral sex, which is seen as unmanly in the Mafia.
• Double Speak: How Tony delivers the taunting of Uncle Junior for giving head to Bobbi. The references include "muff", "sushi", "down south" and "Mexico way".
• Driven to Suicide: Ally attempts to do this by slitting her wrists, but survives. It's also said that she has a history of suicide attempts.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Uncle Junior feels deeply betrayed by Bobbi telling others about their oral sex, despite telling her several times not to.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Junior is distraught about the break-up with Bobbi.
  • Tony and Silvio think they are looking out for the best interests of their daughters when they intimidate Hauser.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The gang is downright appalled when they hear about Coach Hauser's affair with Ally.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Artie notices that Ally seems distant and not all there.
  • Coach Hauser gives a Meaningful Look to Ally to signal her to carry out a move that's like their shared secret, which suggests an unusual degree of familiarity between them.
  • Meadow gives Coach Hauser a Precision F-Strike, seemingly out of the blue. We soon find out that she had a very specific reason for doing so.
  • Almost as soon as Jimmy is seen, there's a long shot of him staring intently at Tony and Larry as they talk about recent business...
• Get Out!: When Artie tries to persuade Tony not to have Hauser whacked:
  Artie: Tony, don't do it. This is me asking you.
  Tony: Why don't you get out?!
  Artie: Come on.
  Tony: Get the fuck out, go!
• Gilligan Cut: Tony tells the soccer team, "Good job, girls!" The next scene is of several strippers dancing it up at the Bada Bing.
• Grave-Marking Scene: A.J., Livia, and Uncle Junior visit Johnny Boy's grave to start the episode.
• Henpecked Husband: Artie shows signs of this, being nagged by Charmaine to get back home and help her paint after his daughter's team wins the game and he goes out with the coach to celebrate.
• It's Personal: When discussing what to about Hauser:
  Silvio: Moldonado and his brother, they'll handle it. Mol owes me a solid.
  Tony: No. No hired help. This is personal.
  Silvio: I'm glad to hear you say that.
• Internal Reveal: Junior reveals to Mikey that Tony is seeing a psychiatrist.
• Jerkass: Tony deliberately distracts Mikey multiple times while he's trying to make his golf drive. He also really gets underneath Uncle Junior's skin with jokes about Junior going down on Bobbi. Though to be fair it is Mikey and Junior we're talking about.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Tony is extremely offended by a kid wearing a hat in a fancy restaurant so he intimidates him into taking it off which humiliates the poor kid in front of his girlfriend.
  • A more literal example is Chris kidnapping the Hauser family's dog on orders from Tony. Also has shades of hypocrite because of Tony's later reaction when a pet of his is harmed. Granted, they didn't have any intention of actually harming the animal, but making the family fear for its safety is almost as cruel.
• Large Ham: To say that Silvio was an enthusiastic soccer fan would be an understatement.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Junior indicates that he's not interested at the moment when Bobbi tries to rouse him for sex at their apartment in Boca Raton.
• Loose Lips: If only Bobbi had kept her mouth shut about her and Corrado's sexual proclivities....
• Meaningful Background Event: The FBI agents in the restaurant can be seen sneaking glances at Tony and Artie in the background, several minutes before Tony picks up on it and asks the waiter to get the license plate for the duo's car.
• Mistaken for Gay: Junior wishes to conceal the fact that he regularly performs oral sex on Bobbi, explaining that it's seen within his circle as next door to performing oral sex on men. Bobbi trivializes his concern; however, Tony's discussion of the matter with Carmela confirms that, while they all may secretly do it, the perception is shared among them.
• Mood Whiplash: Junior confronts Bobbi late at night for the latter's gossiping about his sexual habits. Just when it seems as though he'll kill her in a rage... he picks up a lemon meringue pie and smashes it into her face, reminiscent of a classic "pie gag".
• Morality Pet: Artie ultimately prevails on Tony not to go through with the hit on Coach Hauser.
• Not Helping Your Case: Tony tries to get Meadow to stay with the soccer team by telling her that Ally just had "a little suicidal gesture" and still needs support. She storms off from the table in anger.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse:
  • The mobsters try to oblige Coach Hauser to stay and coach the girls' team to the end of the year, at least before they learn he was carrying on with Ally. Coach Hauser indicates that he got an offer that couldn't be refused from Rhode Island University. Silvio's reply: "You haven't heard ours yet".
  • Then Paulie brings over a "free" plasma TV to Hauser's driveway.
• Papa Wolf: Tony, Silvio and Artie (all fathers to teenage girls) become enraged when it's revealed that Coach Hauser was having sex with a member of his high school soccer team. Tony and Silvio immediately make plans to murder the man, and even Artie is on board with that, at least initially.
• Parents as People: Tony, Silvio, and Artie are understandably outraged that their daughters' soccer coach was having an affair with Ally, a teenage girl.
• Pie in the Face: Corrado (Uncle Junior) does it to Bobbi to punctuate that he's breaking up with her.
• Pet the Dog: Prior to their break-up, Junior is surprisingly sweet to his girlfriend, Bobbi.
• Precision F-Strike: Meadow gives one to Coach Hauser.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Junior takes a vacation in Boca Raton, Florida after getting fed up with the possible FBI indictment coming down on him.
• Shout-Out:
  • Chris threatens Coach Hauser with And Your Little Dog, Too!. It could be considered a Shout-Out to the scene in The Godfather where Don Vito has the decapitated horse's head left in the bed of Jack Woltz.
  • Junior smashing a pie into Bobbi's face while calling off their relationship is a reference to the 1931 film The Public Enemy (1931), which has the title character do the same thing (with a grapefruit) to a woman he breaks up with.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Ally is under the delusion Hauser will leave his wife for her.
• Theme Music Power-Up: A dramatic version. When Tony is contemplating what to do with Coach Hauser in his office, a remixed version of Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning" plays.
• Toilet Seat Divorce: Things seemed to be going great for Uncle Junior and Bobbi. It's possible some couples could work past an indiscreet kiss and tell. But that definitely wasn't the case with Uncle Junior when he finds out Bobbi told at least a few people about him going down on her.
• Unperson:
  • Uncle Junior is afraid his status will diminish in the eyes of the other mobsters if it gets out he goes down on Bobbi (a perception that Tony later confirms is, in fact, shared in their community).
  • It is also heavily implied that this is the fate that Coach Hauser will now suffer after he's arrested and publicly outed for sexual relations with a teenage student under his supervision.
• Very Special Episode: On the dangers of teenage abuse. Both Ally and Coach Hauser only appear for a single episode, Meadow grapples with whether to tell this information to her family, and Tony learns An Aesop about not always resorting to the most violent action.
• Wham Line: More than one in the same episode. The first one radically alters an arc within the episode itself in an instant. The second kicks off the third act of the first season.
  • Meadow to her parents, "Coach Hauser had sex with Ally!"
  • Uncle Junior to Mikey, "I taught him (Tony) how to play baseball." Fans from the Pilot onwards certainly suspected that matters were heading towards an Enemy Civil War between Tony and Junior. Any lingering doubts get completely removed with the utterance of that line.

---