Tony and the rest of the crew are sitting in an office counting piles of money while listening to a former mob associate talking about his career with an interviewer. As the man explains that mobs aren't a real threat anymore, the group snorts derisively.
Later that night, a truck driver is forcefully stopped at gunpoint by Chris and his friend, Brendan, who demand that he relinquish his cargo (DVD players). The driver, fearful about losing his job, begs both of them to beat him up so that it looks like he put up a fight. After a few moments of confusion, they oblige and hit him several times.
The next morning, Tony is doing his usual routine when Carmela tells him that AJ's science teacher, Mr. Miller, had his car stolen. Despite Tony's attempts to disregard it, she asks him to see if he can help locate it. Tony reluctantly says he'll make some calls.
Chris and Brendan deliver the players to the crew at the Bada Bing later on. Despite Brendan's attempts to ingratiate himself, Tony acts dismissively towards him. When asked afterward, Tony tells Chris that he doesn't like Brendan's habit of using methamphetamine.
Tony calls his mother to check in on her, but she's distracted when the mushrooms she was cooking overheat and burst into flames on the stove. As she struggles to comprehend what's happening, a panicked Tony tells her to call 9-1-1, then calls Carmela and tells her to drive over to the house. At the same time, he gets exasperated with multiple people trying to talk to him.
Firefighters arrive and put out the stove fire, and Carmela tells Livia that she can't keep living on her own like that. She half-heartedly offers to have her come live with the family, but she refuses. Carmela then offers to hire a housekeeper to look after her, and she reluctantly agrees.
At Pussy's front operation, an auto body shop, one of the mechanics brings him a report that a vehicle matching Mr. Miller's missing vehicle came into one of the "chop shops". They find the car thieves (a gay couple that work at a Starbucks Expy) and compel them to retrieve a car with the same make and model, have it repainted, then delivered to Miller. Two days later, Miller finds the car parked in the school lot like it never left, albeit with wet paint.
Tony goes to Dr. Melfi's for an appointment, and he tells her that Carmela privately isn't comfortable with having his mother live with them, and his sisters don't want anything to do with her. Melfi probes into the reasons behind his relationship with his mother, but he snaps at her for trying to insinuate that there's animosity between the family.
Later that day, Tony brings a bouquet of flowers to Livia's house. They talk about the housekeeper (Perrilyn) the family just hired for her. She insinuates that the woman is stealing from her. Tony sees right through her lie and tries to tell her that she needs the help. She also reveals that Junior called and wanted to meet with him.
Junior and Tony meet with Jackie Aprile Sr., the acting head of the DiMeo crime family, at Satriale's. Junior tells them that Chris and Brendan robbed the company truck for a transportation business that was paying them protection money. Tony promises that he'll get the duo to repay what was stolen. He also sarcastically greets Junior's right-hand man, Mikey Palmice, as he leaves.
Carmela goes to drop off some food at Livia's but finds the housekeeper leaving in a huff. Inside, Livia feigns innocence and says she doesn't know what happened.
Back at the Soprano house, Tony downs a handful of Prozac before starting his day. He goes to meet with Chris and Brendan and bitches at them for not repaying the shipment immediately. Despite Chris' attempts to argue otherwise, Tony throws Brendan out the door and orders him to pay the amount immediately. Chris hands over the money without a word. Tony orders him not to touch any of Junior's businesses again.
Tony and Meadow have a brief conversation about the missing ducks, and he tells Carmela soon after that he's still proud of his mother for being active at her age. The scene cuts to Livia, who's driving a neighbor home. When she drops the woman off, she accidentally puts the car in drive instead of reverse and goes into the woman, who bounces up onto the windshield.
At Melfi's, Tony tells her about what happened. He says that Livia sprained her wrist, the other woman broke her hip, and the doctors recommend that the former be sent to a nursing home. Melfi suggests following through on the plan and says that it will be a great experience for her.
That night, Christopher, his girlfriend Adriana and Brendan show up high at a nightclub. Inside, the latter suggests robbing a shipment of Italian suits. In his drug-fueled stupor, Chris agrees with the plan and rages against Tony. However, later that night, Brendan goes back to him and he refuses, telling him they have to be unified and not go off to do their own thing. Brendan criticizes him and leaves.
Tony goes back to Livia's and tells her about the plan to move her to the retirement home. She reveals that she gave all of her jewelry away, causing him to blow up at her. He orders her to go to the home, but she continues to refuse, causing him much stress. He and Carmela eventually bring the disgruntled woman to Green Grove and get her to sign the necessary papers.
The next day, Brendan and a pair of gangbangers attempt to rob another delivery truck from the same company. The plan goes awry when one of their guns falls out and fires, striking and killing the driver. The gangbangers panic and run away while Brendan freaks out.
Chris calls Tony and tells him what happened, much to the latter's exasperation. They hold a meeting and he rails at them once again, then orders them to bring the goods back to the company's shipping yard.
Later, Tony packs up the last of the belongings in Livia's home and remembers all the time he spent there as a child. He begins to cry while looking at family photos and suffers from another panic attack. He meets with Melfi later and relates what happened. She tells him that he did the right thing, but tries to get him to admit that he also has feelings of anger that are being redirected towards other people. He eventually storms out in a huff.
Later at the Bada Bing, he beats the bartender who couldn't work the telephone and walks away, proving that Melfi was right about his anger...
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: It's hinted more than once that Tony has a... temperamental relationship with his mother.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Christopher starts snickering at Brendan's disrespectful jab at Jackie Sr.'s grim health... for all of a second, until he sees Tony barrelling down on the guy and demanding Chris open the door so he can toss him out.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Dr. Melfi asks Tony if he can ever remember a moment where Livia was genuinely warm and caring towards him. He stumbles for a bit and lamely comes up with an extended family gathering by the shore. An example where Livia would obviously have to put on the Stepford Smiler and mostly involved laughing at Tony's father falling down some stairs. Dr. Melfi presses for a second example. And Tony can't even begin to think of another one.
- Berserk Button: Brendan pushes Tony's deeply by mocking his dear friend Jackie Sr.'s cancer by referring to him as 'Chemo-sabe', causing Tony to toss Brendan across a room and into a table covered in chopped pig bones.
- Camp Gay: The two car thieves are a couple of effeminate gay lovers.
- Close to Home: The mobsters in Satriale's openly mock the Coincidental Broadcast noted below. But part of the reason why is the prospect of mobsters turning rat to avoid long prison sentences for drug offenses will indeed hit close to home, and more than once.
- Coincidental Broadcast: A documentary broadcast suggests that The Mafia is fading in relevancy both because of increased competition, but also old codes of loyalty are getting strained by new generations of Mafiosi turning rat for fear of long prison sentences for drug-related offenses.
- Cultural Posturing: Paulie feels that the fare served at numerous modern cafes amounts to sacrilege against Italian culture.
- Death Glare: Livia gives a prolonged and disturbing one to the head of Green Grove.
- Defector from Decadence: Vincent Rizzo, the former mob associate being interviewed on TV in the intro.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Tony savagely beats an associate who can't figure out how to work the phone at the Bada Bing.
- Don't Explain the Joke: In the opening scene, Paulie tells Christopher that he went over to Paris "to get a blowjob from his mother". He then proceeds to explain the exact same joke, in further detail, to Silvio (who's sitting right beside them).
- The Dragon: Mikey Palmice, Junior's driver and subordinate.
- Drugs Are Bad: Why Tony views Brendan as a liability.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Tony tosses Brendan like a rag doll for making a tasteless joke about Jackie dying of cancer.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This is the only episode in the series that features a pre-credits teaser sequence. The plot and many scenes of the episode are also much more satirical than most of what follows afterwards.
- Epic Fail: Brendan's plan to rob the delivery truck full of suits. He initially convinces the drug-addled Chris to help him, who then pulls out after getting his bearings back. He attempts to rob the truck with a pair of gangbangers, who not only don't know how to operate a truck, but wind up killing the driver after dropping a gun.
- Establishing Character Moment: Georgie. His inability to operate the telephone system leads to his first-ever run in with Tony.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Jackie Sr. mulls on the idea of naming a successor, Tony sneers at the prospect of taking the big seat in this day and age, and Junior, who'd always coveted it, shifts uncomfortably. Sure enough, both men will end up ascending to the position, but it will cost Junior everything, and acquaint Tony with a long, bitter, and strangling relationship with The Chains of Commanding.
- The Coincidental Broadcast and Tony's dislike of Brendan herald that there will be multiple story arcs of mobsters who become liabilities to the family, by becoming either Addled Addicts or busted drug dealers that law enforcement will recruit to become Moles through the fear of extensive prison time.
- It's obvious that Tony and Mikey can barely stand each other.
- Tony relates to Dr. Melfi that his sisters couldn't get far enough away from Livia.
- Gangsta Style: Brendan berates Special K for holding his gun this way during a truck hijacking. The idiot immediately goes back to holding his gun this way afterward. This is primarily to show them to be Stupid Crooks; the hijacking inevitably goes bad and they end up dead as a result when word gets back to the boss.
- Gilligan Cut: From Tony talking about how happy is to see his mother being active and driving people around... to his mother running over one of her friends after dropping her off.
- Grumpy Old Man: Uncle Junior. Tony even lampshades it by offering him a DVD player so he can watch Grumpy Old Men.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Tony loses it several times, beating a bartender at the Bada Bing who doesn't know how to use a phone correctly, and physically throwing Brendan into a meat cart for making a joke.
- The Help Helping Themselves: Livia suspects that her new maid Perrilyn is stealing household items from her (including, ironically, a plate originally stolen from an Italian restaurant). Tony asks Livia if she didn't just give them away to a relative and forgot about it.
- Hidden Depths: Tony lampshades that Chris hasn't been doing much to shake his reputation for youthful immaturity. He subsequently backs out of the intended second hit on Comley trucking. And his explanation to Brendan, that The Mafia is declining because the next generation who are supposed to pick up the torch isn't playing by the rules anymore, shows a remarkable degree of self-awareness and insight.
- Hit Me, Dammit!: Played for Laughs: The truck driver in the opening begs Chris and Brendan to beat him up so that the robbery looks legitimate, and so he won't lose his job. The duo is only too happy to oblige him.Christopher: What do you think? Scathed?
Brendan: Scathed. - Hypocritical Humor: Paulie calls out the coffee shop he and Pussy are standing in for having the audacity to... make Italian espressos using brewing machines.
- Idiot Ball: Brendan, who stages another delivery truck robbery immediately after being physically thrown out of Tony's office, and screws it up in epic fashion.
- Insistent Terminology: Tony and Livia throw these at each other. Green Grove is a "nursing home" to Livia, but Tony insists on calling it a "retirement community" to try and persuade her that moving there would be a good thing.
- Jerkass: It doesn't matter what Tony can say or how much he tries to reason with her, Livia will always find the meanest and most offensive thing to say in reply.
- Kick the Dog: Tony takes out his anger at his mother by attacking Georgie for failing to work the telephone properly.
- Make It Look Like a Struggle: The truck driver says this to Chris and Brendan in the opening scene.
- Manly Tears: Tony, after looking at photos of his mother and him when they were younger.
- Misplaced Retribution: Tony takes out his unrecognized anger at his mother on those around him, especially Brendan and Georgie. Lampshaded in Georgie's case because his phone-beating at the hands of Tony follows a scene where Dr. Melfi warns Tony about displacing his anger toward Livia.
- No-Respect Guy: Tony makes several disparaging jokes at Mikey's expense, despite the latter being friendly and deferential towards him.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Paulie and Big Pussy oblige the car thieves to retrieve the license plate from the chop shop, and poach an identical Saturn for Mr. Miller.
- Oh, Crap!: Special K, one of Brendan Filone's cohorts in another truck hijacking without Christopher, accidentally drops his gun which fires, killing the driver from the ricochet bullet.
- Politically Incorrect Villain:
- Tony tells Livia's new maid Perrilyn that "ganja" is not allowed in Livia's house, with absolutely no basis to suspect that she's used drugs. To make matters worse, weed use is a Jamaican stereotype, and Perrilyn is Trinidadian.
- Livia makes a point of making working life so unbearable for the maid that she rage quits. Livia afterward refers to her as a 'ditsoon' (Italian for 'charcoal').
- Junior refers to Perrilyn as a "smoke".
- Protection Racket: Uncle Junior has this arrangement with the Comley trucking company.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Jackie. And therefore, the Rule of Drama indicates he must exit the stage through terminal cancer.
- Relationship Upgrade: Chris has begun to see Adriana, previously seen as a hostess.
- Robbing the Mob Bank: Christopher and Brendan start hijacking trucks. Turns out the owner of the trucks pays Junior protection and Junior orders them to stop, but their need to feed their drug addictions forces them to continue. After a driver is accidentally killed, Junior orders retaliation against them. Brendan is later killed in his bathtub while Christopher is subject to a mock execution.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The two gangbangers bail on Brendan once the truck diver gets killed with Friendly Fire.
- Selective Obliviousness: Tony, this early in the series, has his head buried in the sand about what his mother truly is, and his repressed anger towards her. Dr. Melfi's attempts at getting through to him tend to lead to him yelling at her before storming out of her office.
- Shout-Out:
- Silvio does an impression of Michael Corleone at the beginning of the episode.
- When Christopher sees Martin Scorsese being let into the club ahead of him (or, in reality, actor Anthony Case playing Scorsese), he's so starstruck he can only blurt out, "Kundun! I liked it!"
- Pussy expresses his exasperation with being tasked with finding A.J.'s teacher's car with "I'm Rockford over here."
- Spotting the Thread: Melfi immediately questions why Tony's mind went to Livia unconsciously going to kill someone and looks at him suspiciously.
- Tempting Fate: Brendan has already had it explained to him once, and forcefully, that hitting a company under the protection racket of Uncle Junior is not a good idea. He obviously didn't listen.
- That's an Order!: Tony orders Chris and Brendan to make restitution to Uncle Junior, and to leave Uncle Junior's protected trucks alone.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The strippers in the Bada Bing stare at Tony for a few moments after he beats the bartender unconscious, then go right back to dancing without helping the latter.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Christopher brings in an absurdly large sports bag for transporting $15,000. Even if it was in $10 bills, that much money would fit in a large envelope.
- Visual Title Drop: When Silvio tries on a 46' long suit.
- You Owe Me: Tony has Paulie and Big Pussy get another Saturn for A.J.'s teacher in order to obtain a better grade for A.J. the easy way.
