Tony runs into Agents Harris and Goddard at Satriale's. Agent Harris lets on that he despises Phil Leotardo, who years ago tried to set up a rookie female FBI agent for a rape and beating. Tony asks what he can get in return for information. Agent Harris promises a letter recommending reduced sentencing should Tony ever be convicted. Tony describes to the Agents how Ahmed and Muhammad have completely disappeared from the Bing, and have taken up with other Muslims who are dressed in far more traditional garb. He also provides Ahmed's cell phone number, which Agent Goddard acknowledges as "a real prize".
A.J. is devastated after getting dumped by Blanca. He becomes more depressed and listless than ever, quitting his job at the pizzeria and spending all of his time sulking around the house. Tony and Carmela try to comfort and motivate him, but get nowhere on their own. A worried Meadow warns both Tony and Carmela that A.J. has been expressing suicidal thoughts. Tony has another session with Dr. Melfi and is truly at a loss for what to do about his own son. He also starts to blame himself for how A.J. is turning out.
Tony goes to the Bing and sees Jason Gervasi and Jason Parisi, the sons of Carlo and Patsy respectively. He gets the idea of having A.J. hang around with them to get his son out of his depression. A.J. is at first reluctant, but then quickly takes up with the pair. It turns out that the two Jasons run a sports betting racket on a college campus, and a student named Victor has become indebted to them. The Jasons threaten a nervous Victor with their acquaintanceship with A.J., "the son of Tony Soprano", if he fails to cough up what he owes them. When they later encounter Victor at another party, the Jasons have A.J. and a couple of their other friends drag Victor from the party and drive him to the woods in A.J.'s car. There they proceed hold Victor down, and pour sulfuric acid on his toes, as a punishment for failing to pay them. A.J. helps with holding the student down, but has an aghast look on his face all the while.
Chris' father-in-law, Al Lombardo, sells the stolen tools provided by Paulie at a discount at his hardware store, with the two of them dividing the take. The venture is paying off big time, and Paulie invites Chris over to celebrate their success, but he is offended when Chris refuses to toast with him in alcohol and even starts to berate him for what he sees as weakness in handling addictive substances, causing Chris to angrily walk away from the meeting. Later, at a family barbecue at Chris' new house, Tony tells Chris how his frequent absence from the business meetings at the Bing could be seen as a lack of commitment to the gang. Chris reminds him that he has to avoid such a place to keep his sobriety, referring to how both his parents struggled with substance addictions. Tony voices his disagreement on the idea that Chris' addiction was inherited, but Chris insists that for all Tony likes to talk up Dickie Moltisanti like some sort of hero, his father was a really just a junkie and a drunk.
Al Lombardo later catches Little Paulie and an associate of his trying to steal some of the tools out of his shop. Little Paulie shuts down Al's protests with a bit of Blatant Lies, claiming to having left a message with Chris asking to take some of the tools, and tells him to not make "problem where there isn't one". Al complains about the event to Chris, who in turn demands compensation for the blatant act of disrespect from Paulie, but Paulie just dismisses him with contempt. Chris attempts to escalate his complaint to Tony afterward, but Tony coldly fobs him off with the excuse that he will hear him out later, though Chris can plainly tell that it won't get him anywhere and gives up.
Little Paulie and his associate later returns to Al's hardware store, and pretends to receive over the phone permission from Al in order to trick the elderly store employee and rip off the store a second time. A furious Chris retaliates by confronting Little Paulie at a poker game, savagely beating him up as he screams "I thought you were my friend!" before throwing him out of the second-floor apartment window onto his back. Little Paulie survives the incident, but is left with six broken vertebrae. An angry Paulie retaliates by using his car to thoroughly trash Chris' front lawn. Chris' wife Kelli is shaken by the ordeal.
Tony reams Chris out and demands that he and Paulie bury the hatchet, telling Chris to offset his theft claims on account of Paulie now having to pay for Little Paulie's hospital bills. Chris in turn becomes enraged when he finds out what Paulie did to his front lawn, but nonetheless decides to acquiesce to Tony's demands. Paulie and Chris reconcile their differences at the Bing, seemingly admirably, and Chris lets himself be talked into sharing a toast with Paulie as a way of showing that there are no hard feelings left between them. Chris, however, immediately goes back to old habits and quickly gets thoroughly plastered, at which point Paulie begins to humiliate him in his drunk state in front of the rest of the present mobsters by pelting him with mean-spirited and off-color jokes about him and his daughter. To his mounting horror, Chris sees that even Tony is laughing heartily at his expense and leaves in a hurry, feeling dejected and outcast.
A drunk Chris tries to turn to J.T. Dolan for emotional support during his relapse, as his sponsor is out of town. But Dolan is very unenthusiastic about listening to Chris and is offended when he mentions that he "let" him write Cleaver. Chris then starts to drunkenly confess that he knows what really happened to Adriana and Ralphie, but a fearful Dolan quickly shuts him down, not wanting to learn Mafia secrets that could put him in danger. Chris, feeling angry and rebuffed by Dolan, moves to leave, but suddenly turns around, shoots Dolan in the head, and quickly makes his escape from the scene.
Tony arrives home and hears a speeding car. Fearing an attack, he quickly grabs a shotgun from his SUV and prepares for the worst. He lets out a visible sigh of relief when he realizes it's just A.J. in his own SUV. Meadow has a "mystery date" that A.J. teases her about, causing Tony and Carmela to exchange an appreciative look about A.J.'s improved mood.
Tropes:
- 555: The first three numbers in Ahmed's cellphone number (after the area code) are '555'.
- Agony of the Feet: The Jasons pour sulfuric acid on Victor's toes while A.J. helps hold him down.
- All the Other Reindeer: Chris definitely now feels this way after getting humiliated by Paulie at the party.
- Alone Among the Couples: How A.J. feels whenever he sees another couple. And indeed he feels bitten by the Green-Eyed Monster when he learns Meadow has a "mystery date".
- Ambiguous Situation: Did Chris kill J.T. because he was angry and hurt regarding J.T.'s refusal to listen to him, or because J.T. made the mistake of saying the word "Mafia" out loud to a guy in the Mafia?
- Bait the Dog: Christopher's positive interactions at AA (especially with the sales guy, in whom he privately confides his thoughts and feelings about where it all went wrong with Tony) are sadly not enough to keep him sober in the face of his work. When he does fall off the wagon again, he instead turns to a former friend who'd long ago come to resent him, and it goes From Bad to Worse.
- Big "WHAT?!": Chris, when he's hit by the first of Paulie's jokes.
- Black Market: Chris' father-in-law sells the power tools the mobsters steal for him at a discount. It becomes a focus for a lot of the drama that plays out over the episode.
- Blatant Lies: Trying to save face on his son's behalf, Tony tells the two Jasons that A.J. broke it off with Bianca because he didn't want to get too serious with her.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Chris ends J.T. Dolan's life.
- Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Played straight, but then ultimately subverted. Chris and Paulie, after their lengthy and destructive feuding, look like they're about to patch things up. But Paulie ends up pulling another Kick the Dog with jokes about Chris' daughter and Chris himself. The other mobsters all laugh at Chris, prompting Chris to leave feeling utterly outcasted.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Chris now views his own legendary father as having been little more than an Addled Addict.
- And Tony has become one for him as well. "We used to be so tight".
- Bullet Time: The episode goes into this mode as Chris surveys literally every other mobster splitting their sides laughing at him after Paulie mocks his daughter.
- The Bus Came Back: Georgie the bartender of Bada Bing! returns in this episode for a brief final appearance, despite having been severely abused by Tony in "Cold Cuts", which led to Georgie's resignation, and his insistence for Tony to stay away from him. He was apparently later reasoned with and convinced to come back after a pay-off from Tony.
- Call-Back:
- The scene where Christopher observes mobsters laughing in slow-motion and looks for Tony's reaction, in particular, is similar to the scene from "All Happy Families..." where Tony observes the slowly laughing Mafiosi and gives most attention to Feech La Manna's reaction. Both Tony and Christopher seem to look for how these important people genuinely value them in the difficult-to-fake situation of immediate laughter.
- Carlo, by way of Exposition, confirms Tony's fears about how the ease with which mobsters can smuggle illegal goods also means it's easy for Middle Eastern Terrorists to perform an act of terrorism.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The two Jasons nab Victor from a party, drive him out to the woods, hold him down, and then pour sulfuric acid on his bare toes as punishment for missing out on payments for a gambling loan.
- Continuity Nod: Tony turns down Dr. Melfi's offer to recommend a therapist for A.J., saying her previous referral for Meadow was "incompetent", referring to the psychotherapist who encouraged her to take a gap year in college and go on a trip to Europe in "No Show".
- Country Matters: Chris calls Little Paulie one.
- Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Deconstructed.
- Chris' emotional state in this episode could not be at a further distance from the ambitious, confident, and eager Social Climber we saw in the first season. He's truly become a broken and disillusioned man.
- Tony was not expecting a newly invigorated A.J. to be coming up the driveway so fast in his SUV, so Tony pulls out his shotgun and prepares for the worst. He lets out a visible sigh of relief when he realizes it's just A.J.
- Destination Defenestration: When Little Paulie steals again from the hardware store, Chris tracks him down and throws him out of a third-floor window. He survives, but with six broken vertebrae.
- Double-Meaning Title:
- The episode's title refers to the song "Walk Like a Man" by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, which is about a father telling his son to get over a woman who left him. Tony tries to pull A.J. out of his depression over the breakup with Blanca. Frankie Valli himself formerly had a role in the series as New York capo Rusty Millio, and "Big Girls Don't Cry") was also named after a Valli song.
- The phrase alludes to the belief that a man should be tough. A.J. should get over Blanca, Chris should get over his weaknesses for drink and drugs. In the previous episode, both Phil and Tony tell the rebellious and troubled Vito Jr. to step up and be the man in his family.
- Enemy Mine: Tony describes how Ahmed and Muhammad use to hang out at the Bing, but have likely taken up with fundamentalists. He also provides them with Ahmed's cell phone number, which Agent Goddard describes as "a real prize". Agent Harris promises a letter recommending more lenient sentencing should Tony ever be convicted before a judge.
- Et Tu, Brute?:
- Chris to Little Paulie, while giving him the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, "You were my friend!"
- And as the episode progresses, he feels betrayed by the rest of the mobsters. Especially Paulie and Tony.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Tony seeing the Jasons at the Bing gives him the idea of having A.J. hang around them to help with his son's emotional issues.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Tony comforts his son after he's dumped by Blanca and tries to put an end to A.J.'s depression by forcing him to socialize with people his own age. His deep-rooted fear for his son's wellbeing and future, and his own personal feelings of having failed to impart to A.J. anything but poisoned genes, are particularly important at this juncture, as it balances with Tony's more despicable behavior in the latter half of this season.
- Evil Is Petty: Chris kills J.T. Dolan for not offering a shoulder to cry on.
- Feud Episode: Chris and Paulie.
- Chris' father-in-law catches Little Paulie (Paulie's nephew) trying to rob his shop and Little Paulie makes off with the tools anyway.
- Paulie rebuffs Chris when he tries to demand compensation.
- Tony likewise pays little heed to Chris' complaints about the matter.
- Little Paulie pretends to receive over-the-phone permission from the father-in-law in order to trick the store employee and rip off the store a second time.
- Chris then gives Little Paulie a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and then throws him out the window, resulting in six broken vertebrae for Little Paulie.
- Paulie in turn retaliates by using his car to thoroughly trash Chris' front lawn.
- They appear to patch things up. But then Paulie humiliates Chris in front of the other mobsters with several jokes about Chris and his daughter. Chris leaves feeling totally "ostrfied"... er, ostracized.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: A.J. is really struggling after getting dumped by Blanca.
- Foreshadowing:
- Agent Harris lets on to Tony that he has no love for Phil Leotardo, who in the past tried to set up a female rookie FBI agent for a rape and beating.
- A.J. is watching the movie called Annapolis when Tony comes downstairs.
- Tony on A.J., "Yet he could die in Iraq".
- Meadow has had a "mystery date".
- Generation Xerox:
- Jason Gervasi promises to be every bit the xenophobic, violent thug with a Hair-Trigger Temper that his father is.
- Jason Parisi promises to become The Smart Guy among his generation of mobsters, just like Patsy.
- And A.J. himself, after joining the two Jasons in torturing a debtor, is following in the footsteps of his own dad.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Agent Harris loves those veal-parm sandwiches at Satriale's.
- Half-Truth: Chris tells another AA member that Adriana "fell out of his life".
- It's All My Fault: Tony really starts to blame himself for how A.J. is turning out, "My rotten fucking putrid genes have infected my kid's soul. That's my gift to my son".
- It's Personal: Agent Harris makes it clear that he has a passionate dislike for Phil Leotardo, due to a past instance when the mobster attempted to have another FBI agent raped and beaten.
- Jerkass: Paulie, Tony, and the other guys are very cruel to Chris regarding his drug addiction.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Carmela is in stunned silence and at a loss for rebuttal when Tony points out that stripper club parties are pretty normal for college-age kids, and his idea is to try and inject some of that into A.J.'s life to snap him out of things.
- He also has one about Chris needing to spend more time at Satriale's and the Bing to be an effective mobster, since more digital forms of communication risk police surveillance.
- Kick the Dog:
- Chris is on the receiving end many times in this episode, mostly at the hands of Paulie and Tony.
- Chris in turn when he beats the shit out of Little Paulie and pitches him out of the apartment window.
- Paulie trashing Chris and Kelli's front lawn merits special mention.
- The two Jasons, when they pour sulfuric acid on Victor's toes.
- Chris, when he murders J.T. Dolan.
- Loan Shark: The two Jasons run a sports betting racket on a college campus. A student named Victor ends up owing them large, so they nab him from a party and force him into A.J.'s car. They then take him out to the woods, hold him down, and pour sulfuric acid on his toes.
- Malaproper: Chris bemoans that he has been "ostrified" by the other mobsters.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Chris, while trying to get sympathy from J.T. Dolan, entertains the idea of running to Witness Protection to get back at the rest of the Jersey mobsters. Also doubles as Foreshadowing for a crucial turn between Tony and himself.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Chris gives Little Paulie one, and then pitches him out the apartment window, resulting in six broken vertebrae for Little Paulie.
- No Sympathy:
- Tony, Silvio, and Bobby really don't give a hoot about Chris' complaints with respect to the two Paulies.
- And to take it further, nobody really cares about Chris' honest efforts to keep himself off the bottle and the drugs.
- Chris also feels J.T. Dolan is adopting this attitude towards him, ignoring that Dolan has valid points for refusing further discussion with Chris.
- Off the Wagon: Chris, yet again.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Victor, when he sees the two Jasons enter the party.
- Dolan has this reaction when a drunk and distraught Chris arrives on his doorstep at 11 p.m.
- Benny's reaction when he realizes that Chris is about to throw Little Paulie out of a window.
- Papa Wolf: Chris breaking several of Little Paulie's vertebrae really sets off his uncle Paulie, who responds by using his car to thoroughly trash Chris' front yard.
- Passed-Over Promotion: Chris becomes concerned when it appears that Bobby has taken over the Number Two position from him.
- Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Subverted. A.J. helps hold down Victor, but the expression on his face conveys that he's really uncomfortable with what the Jasons are doing to the young man.
- Pet the Dog: Tony sees A.J. is really hurting after Blanca dumped him. And although he thinks A.J. is being too obsessive and immature about it, he still tries his best to comfort his son and help him out of his funk.
- Phoney Call: Little Paulie pretends to get authorization from the father-in-law over the phone in order to trick the store employee into giving up the tools.
- Prelude to Suicide: Meadow warns Tony and Carmela that A.J. has been expressing self-pity and despair to a point that it's indicative of contemplating suicide.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Carl Capotorto (Little Paulie Germani) is promoted to the main cast and billed in the opening credits but only for this episode.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Agent Harris' mentioning that Phil Leotardo once tried to set up a female rookie FBI agent for a brutal rape serves to further galvanize Phil's Hate Sink status.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Tony was actually fair to both Chris and Paulie when things between them got out of hand.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Chris has been successful at being a Recovered Addict for some time now. But to keep it up requires spending less time at places like the Bing, and fewer toasts and other forms of social drinking. That draws mockery from the other mobsters, especially Paulie. And yet he'd be just as on the outs with them if he did fall Off the Wagon again.
- Rule of Symbolism: As Christopher staggers back home, he takes a moment to fix up one of the trees uprooted by Paulie's rampage. Shoved back into its soil, the tree more or less resembles its proper state... but its moorings are irreparably broken.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: While Paulie was being a total Jerkass to Chris, you have to admit his jokes at Chris' expense were pretty witty, and Chris had no chance of keeping up with him.
- So Proud of You: Patsy lets on rather jubilantly in front of Tony that his son, Jason, is learning newer and newer ways to make money off the internet.
- Stealing from the Till: Little Paulie can't help himself when it comes to the shop owned by Chris' father-in-law.
- Straw Nihilist: Both Tony and especially A.J. veer into this territory, as both ask if there's any point to existence or living.
- Suppressed Rage: Paulie, when he's using his car to thoroughly decimate Chris' front lawn.
- Titled After the Song: The title comes from a song by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
- Tough Love: Tony forces A.J. to begin hanging around with the Jasons in an effort to get him out of his despair.
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: Poor Victor.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: Chris attends a meeting onscreen, and really vents his anger at Tony.
- Ungrateful Bastard:
- Chris feels Tony has never been properly appreciative of him giving up Adriana as The Mole.
- Chris and J.T. Dolan throw this accusation at each other. Chris feels Dolan didn't appreciate being brought onto "Cleaver" and giving Dolan script writing ideas. Dolan in return well remembers Chris stiffing him out of a writing credit.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Jersey mobsters, Paulie and Tony especially, pick on Chris which leads to another fall Off the Wagon. That in turn leads to Chris' murder of J.T. Dolan.
- Wham Episode: Not as much as the next one, but this episode marks a major turning point in several ways, especially for Christopher. His rough, but enduring friendship with Paulie is smashed to pieces, never to recover. After being mocked and judged for his sobriety, he relapses into drink and gets smashed. The disrespect and bullying he's subjected to by his "friends" make him completely disillusioned in the men and life he gave up everything for, to the point where he drunkenly betrays the temptation to turn state's witness and bring the whole castle down. Most damningly of all, his pointless, remorseless murder of Dolan makes it clearer than ever that he is beyond redemption. And sure enough, in the next episode...
- What the Hell, Hero?: Carmela really doesn't like the idea of Tony putting A.J. together with the Jasons at a strip club party.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Tony and Paulie constantly grilling Chris about staying clean inevitably leads to another fall Off the Wagon, and the murder of J.T. Dolan.
- You Do Not Want To Know: J.T. Dolan tries to shut down Chris' efforts to say more for fear that it may lead to Too Much Information about real-life crimes committed by the Jersey mob.
