Tony starts spending more time at Adriana's club, the Crazy Horse; one night he is surprised after running into Meadow and her friends there. Tony and Adriana make separate visits to the doctor, Tony to have a wart from minor skin cancer removed, and Adriana to deal with an onset of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or IBS, implied to be the result of stress from her double life as an FBI informant. Christopher leaves town to smuggle a large supply of cigarettes, and sexual tension begins to build between Tony and Adriana. Tony walks in on Adriana sniffing coke in the back office and shuts the door to partake as well. They bond over their respective medical problems, and while playing darts nearly have a sexual encounter. The moment is interrupted by the arrival of Phil Leotardo, who seems suspicious.
Disturbed by how close he came to cuckolding his own nephew, Tony resumes therapy with Melfi. He discusses his sexual attraction to Adriana and briefly fantasizes about "starting over" with her, but admits that this would be disastrous for his family. Melfi believes Tony is making progress by resisting the urge to sleep with Adriana. Meanwhile, Adriana brings up the topic with Agent Sanseverino, who encourages her to get closer to Tony for more information, but makes fun of Adriana's attraction to Tony with her fellow FBI agents. That night, Tony returns to the Crazy Horse, and after it closes he and Adriana decide to visit her drug dealer in Dover to score some coke. Adriana is caught off-guard when Tony asks about her friend "Danielle", who was actually an undercover FBI agent, and she makes up an unrealistic story about how Danielle drowned at a picnic. Moments later, Tony swerves to avoid a raccoon that runs into the road, and ends up totaling the car. He and Adriana are both hospitalized with minor injuries. Tony visits Adriana and tells her they will have to prepare for the story of the car crash spreading, and how bad it will look.
Christopher returns and is immediately suspicious that Adriana and Tony were in a car together in Dover past midnight. The rumor spreads throughout the whole Soprano crew, now suggesting that Tony crashed the car because Adriana was sucking his dick. Christopher, humiliated, grows increasingly angry about the rumor, especially after a chilly interaction with Tony. Visiting Satriale's in the afternoon, he catches Vito Spatafore laughing about something and becomes paranoid that it's the blowjob story. He throws a sandwich at Vito and both men have to be subdued from fighting before Chris storms out. Going home, he viciously beats Adriana, kicks her out of his apartment, and breaks his sobriety, drinking vodka straight from the bottle.
Tony B visits Tony, warning him that Chris is out of control and Tony's life could be in danger. Tony moves AJ back in with Carmela to keep him safe, and while at the house Carmela expresses disgust at the rumors about Tony. Later, Chris arrives at the Bing and empties his pistol into Tony's car before going inside and waving it around. Chris is subdued and taken out of the club by Tony, Silvio, and Tony B. They drive Christopher out to a secluded location, where Tony holds a gun to Chris's head and tells him he has to believe Tony didn't do anything with Adriana, or otherwise he will have to kill him. When Chris remains defiant, Tony is about to execute him when Tony B offers an alternative. They pick up the doctor who treated Tony and Adriana after the crash, and Tony B gets him to explain medically how Adriana's injuries reflected that she was sitting upright. Chris is convinced, but still upset that the rumor is out there.
During his next session with Melfi, Tony describes how disastrous the situation was, and muses that he might as well have had sex with Adriana. Adriana meets with Sanseverino, who is disturbed to see her physical state. Later, Tony visits Carmela and insists to her that the rumors about Adriana were false. They argue, but Carmela is ultimately convinced and agrees to make a public appearance with Tony, Christopher, and Adriana to show that there is no bad blood. The group, as well as Tony B and his mother, dine at Vesuvio's, where Vito visits the table and shakes Christopher's hand. Tony's gaze shifts to Carmela, seemingly regretting their separation.
Tropes
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Chris was always capable of this trope. But falling Off the Wagon leads him into new territory as he starts to exhibit out of character behavior, and he comes within a hair of biting it for good.
- Appeal to Force: Tony tries to force Chris to accept that he didn't cheat with Adriana, or die with a bullet to the head if he won't. Chris just glares back and remains Defiant to the End.
- "Awkward Silence" Entrance: Several mobsters are sharing jokes of a Slut-Shaming nature about Adriana. They go silent the moment Chris walks in the door. Unlike a previous instance where Johnny Sack walked in on the guys cracking fat jokes about Ginny, Chris rightly guesses what they were up to and won't let it go.
- Beat:
- Tony's resumption of therapy with Dr. Melfi starts off with a prolonged moment of awkward silence.
- Adriana and Tony have a few of these, largely to highlight their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Being Good Sucks: Tony actually regrets ever stepping into the Heel–Face Revolving Door that Dr. Melfi offered him. He's convinced that the episode with Chris would have played out the same, whether or not he actually did help himself to Adriana. So he may as well have while he still had the chance.
- Black Market: Chris unloads massive amounts of cigarettes to his partners.
- Blank Stare: Carmela has one when Tony is emphatic that he would never carry on with Adriana, who's about to become a member of "THIS family". Carmela is now definitely clued in that Tony will become a Foot-Dragging Divorcee.
- Bribe Backfire: The doctor who treated Tony, and confirms Tony B's assessment of Adriana's injuries, refuses to accept cash from somebody he knows is a mobster.
- Bullying a Dragon: Chris couldn't have had any delusions about confronting Tony the way that he did, and hope to come out better for it.
- Call-Back: Both Adriana and Tony spend the first half of the episode trying to obscure each of their recent medical histories from everyone else. It mirrors how Uncle Junior had similar fears over developing stomach cancer.
- Chekhov's Skill: Tony B, on account of his training to be a massage therapist, has acquired a certain knowledge of medical injuries. He uses his knowledge of injuries that would result from straining against a seat belt and has the doctor who treated Adriana confirm that she had them, to convince Chris that Adriana couldn't possibly have blown Tony in the car. He thereby saves Chris' life.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Adriana admits to Agent Sanseverino that she would try to kill Chris if she caught him cheating on her.
- Commonality Connection: Sharing their recent respective medical problems, relieving stress through a little cocaine and making fun of Chris gets things started for Adriana and Tony.
- Continuity Nod: Adriana mentions to Agent Sanseverino that Tony used to have ducks in his pool.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Chris has always been really possessive of Adriana, but he goes up to eleven in this episode following the car crash. In fact, he takes it to suicidal levels against Tony. However, his suspicions are correct, since Adriana and Tony really did want to start an affair.
- Defiant to the End: Tony has his gun right in Chris' face, and Chris only gives him an unflinching glare right until Tony B intercedes.
- Domestic Abuse: Chris gives Adriana a worse-than-ever round of it following the rumors about her and Tony and then throws her out of their apartment.
- Double-Meaning Title: Tony tells Adriana that he's afraid a mole on his shoulder looks "irregular around the margins," a worry he's had ever since a cancerous mole was removed from his forehead. Adriana is diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, which is typically characterized by irregular bowel movements.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Chris only assumes that the Crazy Horse is a minimal source of stress for Adriana...
- An example that doubles as Call-Back is when Tony asks Adriana about bringing her "friend" named Danielle over. Adriana only replies, "She's dead", and that is was some incident at a picnic. She really means "she's dead [to me]", or at least some part of Adriana wishes Agent Ciccerone was dead.
- Adriana claims to Sanseverino that she would've had a similar violent reaction if she saw and knew Chris was cheating on her. He has, she merely hasn't caught him.
- Emasculated Cuckold: Played With regarding Chris. Adriana didn't actually cheat on him (and as Tony mentions they still haven't married yet), but the mere rumor that she did with Tony deals a massive blow to his reputation and self-esteem. He argues that knowing the explanation and truth makes it worse since nothing can take back the damage the gossip and his reaction have done.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Tony explains to Dr. Melfi that he refused to get involved with Adriana in recognition that it would be devastating for Adriana herself, Chris, and others as well. But it overlaps with Pragmatic Villainy as well, since the negative repercussions for the family business are part of his equation too.
- Food Slap: Chris throws his sandwich at Vito.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Adriana drops and picks up the darts, she ends up in an almost perfect position to blow Tony then and there.
- When Agent Sanseverino throws out the Armor-Piercing Question: "But what if Christopher found out?"
- And Adriana's answer is that she and Chris are going to leave the state of New Jersey.
- Friend to All Living Things: Implied when Tony crashes his car to avoid running over a Raccoon.
- Gaslighting: Tony was planning on starting an affair with Adriana, but when Christopher confronts him about this, he goes the extra mile beyond hypocrisy by claiming that he never so much as thought about it and treats Christopher like a paranoid Crazy Jealous Guy who is in the wrong for calling him out.
- Gilligan Cut: Adriana has to make a run to avert a near Potty Emergency, and the next scene is of Tony having a cancerous mole removed via Meatgrinder Surgery.
- Gossip Evolution: The rumor of Tony and Adriana doing each other really makes the rounds, and gets predictably worse and worse with each retelling. In particular, Paulie suffers yet another instance of Lost in Transmission when he relays Adriana's 'blow to the head' that he hears as blowing Tony when passing it on to Silvio. And you know it's gotten really bad when even the FBI concludes that Adriana blew Tony.
- Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: Legal Inversion with Adriana. The stress and paranoia of being an active FBI informant has recently led to her IBS. It's getting to the point where she's been suggested Prozac by her doctor.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Dr. Melfi spells it out to Tony that he's just entered one by showing restraint when it came to Adriana. It's up to him where the door leads him.
- Honey Trap: Agent Sanseverino seems to encourage Adriana to set one for Tony to get him to spill more info. Adriana is duly offended, but that in itself becomes Foreshadowing.
- Implied Death Threat: It's possible that Tony B was making one when he asked the doctor if his ER ward had any gunshot wounds or kneecaps that night, in order to coerce the doctor into helping out. The Stepford smile that Tony B is wearing leaves it an open question of whether he was being serious or not about the threat.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Tony and Adriana are about to kiss when Joey Peeps and Phil knock on the office door. And Phil has a Gut Feeling about what was going on behind the closed door before he knocked.
- Innocently Insensitive: Genuinely curious about his health concerns, Tony asks the hospital doctor if he was thorough enough in his post-accident examinations and says he's willing to pay for extra tests just in case. The doctor gets defensive and sensitive about his qualifications as an African-American doctor and goes on a tangent about the contributions his family has made to medicine. Tony realizes he's touched a nerve and drops the subject.
- Kubrick Stare: Chris has one going on when he shoots up Tony's car outside the Bing, and again when Tony makes threats upon his life.
- Lazy Bum: A.J., as always.
- Liquid Courage: Possibly. Chris may have thought he'd need to fall Off the Wagon to finally grow a big enough pair to confront Tony for using him like a fool his whole life. Or maybe Chris being enraged over the rumors of Tony helping himself to Adriana was enough to push Chris over the edge, with or without alcohol.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: Downplayed. Tony having his mole removed comes across this way, since the anesthetic isn't too strong and they're simply cutting off a mole on his forehead.
- Metaphorically True: At the therapy session, Tony claims he was able to avoid starting another affair with Adriana due to self-control. They did manage to avoid doing anything intimate, but only because Phil Leotardo and his guys knocked on the door at the last second.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- Adriana and Tony have their faces mere inches apart before Phil Leotardo and his goons walk into the Crazy Horse's office. They manage to clean things up before it looks worse, though it's clear from the expression on Phil's face that he thinks something was going on.
- The fact that Tony and Adriana crashed in a car together leads to unreal amounts of gossip and innuendo. Both really get run through the wringers having to maintain their innocence that they didn't cheat with each other.
- Off the Wagon: The stress of hearing the rumors about Adriana and Tony has Chris searching Ade's purse for drugs, and then downing some vodka out of the fridge.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played with when Chris confronts Tony.
- The case for the trope being played straight is that his constant need for Tony's approval and constant "I'm sorry T" apologies get replaced with paranoia and recklessly threatening to kill Tony.
- The case for it being subverted is that the confrontation itself came about through a combination of Chris falling breaking sobriety and going hard into Crazy Jealous Guy mode. Both of those factors are very much IN character for Chris.
- Pet the Dog:
- It's possible Paulie, being the other half of Those Two Guys from Chris, was trying to save Chris' life by mentioning that Chris knew his gun was empty. Chris reacts like an Ungrateful Bastard though.
- Tony B calls on his knowledge of medical injuries to save Chris' life when Tony S was about to pull the plug for good.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Tony had ethical and moral reasons not to get involved with Adriana. But he was also aware of significant practical fallouts as well, such as giving Carmela a trump card for purposes of a Divorce Assets Conflict, and unraveling Chris' capacity as the Number Two to eventually succeed him.
- Privacy by Distraction: This is what Chris begins to think near the end of the episode; Tony sent him across states for a job so he could try to get with Adriana.
- Really Gets Around: Chris has trouble believing Tony and shaking himself out of Crazy Jealous Guy mode, because of Tony's reputation for being a 'cooze hound'. Carmela holds it against him as well.
- Replacement Goldfish: Tony briefly fantasizes about the idea of starting over with Adriana as his actual wife and mother to his children as part of a new family.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: Tony to Carmela when they confront the rumors of him and Ade. You really need to ask, Tony?Tony: You really think I'm that horrible?
- Sarcasm Mode: As the other FBI agents are astounded that Adriana has considered romantic feelings for Tony, Agent Sanseverino claims Ade definitely has a point because "he listens!".
- Shout-Out: When the FBI agents are discussing Adriana's attraction to Tony, one expresses his surprise by comparing Tony to "Barney Rubble".
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Played with for Tony and Adriana, as Tony likes the idea on some level. And they hit it off with definite chemistry. But he just as quickly realizes that there are concrete reasons why he just can't, many of them having to do with his responsibilities as the Boss of the crime family.
- Stress Vomit: Not vomit per se, but it's heavily implied that Adriana is developing Irritable Bowel Syndrome in response to the stresses of being The Mole and caught tight in a Morton's Fork forced on her by the FBI.
- Take a Third Option: With the tension between Tony and Chris about to come to a head, Tony B suggests that they simply ask the doctor who treated Adriana about her injuries and whether they indicate she was giving Tony oral sex at the time of the wreck.
- Temporary Divorce: Tony and Carmela are still in the middle of one, and things between them have only gone From Bad to Worse since the rumors about Tony and Adriana have been making the rounds.
- Tempting Fate: Chris drawing an emptied gun on Tony in the Bing, with all of Tony's soldiers and captains there to stop him, definitely qualifies.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Tony finds that being ethical and not cheating with Adriana certainly didn't make his life easier. It's implied that he has stepped out of the Heel–Face Revolving Door constructed for him by Dr. Melfi in a certain way.Tony: You know what? I may as well have fucked her. Thanks.
- They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason:
- Chris is confused as to why Adriana has built up a lot of stress recently, especially since she's developed IBS and was recommended Prozac due to it. She tries to deflect her worries onto public happenings since she obviously can't admit she's reporting to the FBI.
- Both Adriana and Tony are afraid to let their conditions (Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Squamous Skin Cell Cancer respectively) become public knowledge, fearful that the knowledge would diminish their status in front of the rest of the family.
- Too Dumb to Live: When Chris is on his knees and on the verge of getting shot, Paulie intervenes for Chris by saying that as Chris emptied his pistol into Tony's empty car before entering the Bing to confront him, he likely didn't intend to do fatal harm to Tony. But the agitated Chris completely misunderstands Paulie's intent and verbally attacks him.
- Too Much Information: Chris really doesn't like hearing the nitty-gritty details of Adriana's Irritable Bowel Syndrome, especially when it comes to providing a stool sample.
- Tough Leader Façade:
- Tony doesn't tell anybody the real reason he got a bandage on his forehead is because he recently had to get treated for squamous skin cell cancer, instead lying about it being a random injury. Him letting this down around Adriana becomes the start of an almost-affair.
- Aside from the fact that Christopher gets violently obsessive and possessive when it comes to Adriana, he's also worried that gossip about Tony getting it on with Adriana will lead to a very real level of emasculation for himself within the Jersey Mob.
- Trauma Conga Line: Things aren't getting any better for Adriana. Another round of Domestic Abuse, stress-induced intestinal illness, a traumatizing car crash, rumors of being a slut for Tony, and the FBI being more coercive than ever, all in the same episode.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Tony lets Chris know in no uncertain terms that he lucked out getting a knockout like Adriana, who would otherwise be out of his league.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between Tony and Adriana, and arguably the central narrative arc of this episode.
- What Does She See in Him?: The various FBI agents express extreme disbelief that Adriana (whom at least the male agents classify as a "10") could possibly be attracted to the portly, balding Tony, whom one likens to Barney Rubble from The Flintstones.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: In the scene after Chris' confrontation at the Bing, twice.
- Paulie tries to defend Chris by saying he only went inside to confront Tony after he emptied out his bullets. Chris angrily tries to Defy this idea.
- Tony becomes so desperate to put the drama down for good that he takes out a revolver and tells Chris to stop believing the rumors and move on. Chris' only response from then on is a Death Glare.
