Soprano crime family associates Matthew Bevilacqua and Sean Gismonte have settled into a routine of accompanying Christopher on regular jewelry store heists, which primarily consist of Matthew busting the safe open while Chris tells stories and Sean evacuates his bowels on the floor due to adrenaline. In one anecdote, Chris mentions that Big Pussy did similar jobs in The '80s, until the Unrest of '83 provided him with an opportunity to prove himself.
As Meadow applies to colleges, she shows an interest in UC Berkeley, a troubling prospect for Tony and Carmella, who would prefer she stay close to home. When chatting with next-door neighbor Jean Cusamano, Carmella remembers that her twin sister, Joan, is an alumna of Georgetown, which she would prefer Meadow attend. Carmella convinces Jean to contact Joan and ask her to write a letter of recommendation, but Joan is uninterested.
Meadow receives a letter from Berkeley warning that she must re-submit her application. Carmella finds this letter and throws it away, but later has a change of heart and removes it from the garbage. Meadow finds the letter and is suspicious that it is stained with dirt, but doesn't press the issue.
Chris confronts Adriana, who is staying with her mother after their falling out, and proposes to her. Despite her mother's suspicion, Adriana says yes.
Tony demands that Richie have a ramp built on the home of Beansie Gaeta, who is a paraplegic after Richie ran him down with his car. When Richie sends his nephews Vito and Bryan Spatafore to build the ramp, Beansie's wife tells them to leave. They build the ramp regardless but leave the job half-finished. Tony is unsatisfied with this, but Richie assures him they will finish the job later, and offers Tony a gift of a leather jacket he stole from a mobster named Rocco DiMeo. Tony politely accepts, but quickly pawns the jacket off on his maid's husband. Richie visits the Soprano house and sees the man wearing it, which irks him.
Carmella visits Joan Cusamano-O'Connell personally, offering her a ricotta pie and insisting that she write Meadow's letter to Georgetown. Joan suspects that she is being implicitly threatened, but Carmella denies this. Joan caves and writes the letter, and Jean returns the pie tray to Carmella later.
Sean and Matthew encounter Tony at the Bada Bing, but Sean fucks up by explicitly referencing their criminal connection, angering Tony. The two visit Richie at his office, where the disgruntled Richie suggests his hostility towards Tony, and specifically mentions Chris, who he resents for hitting Adriana (Richie's niece). Later, Furio comes to Sean and Matt's shared apartment to collect their kick-up. He disrespects them, suggesting they are homosexual lovers because of the state of undress he found them in and squeezes them for an extra thousand dollars on top of kick-up they owe. Feeling they are getting nowhere, Matthew suggests they take more drastic measures to climb the ranks of the Soprano crew. They carry out a drive-by shooting on Chris outside of a diner, shooting him multiple times. Sean is killed when Chris returns fire, and Matthew escapes, leaving Chris bleeding and unconscious on the pavement. Matthew goes to Richie, hoping for protection because he misinterpreted that Richie wanted Christopher shot. Richie chases him off, infuriated that Tony is likely to blame him for the shooting.
Tony is shown sitting by a comatose Chris in the hospital, completely blindsided by this turn of events.
Tropes
- Actor Allusion: Played With and yet Subverted to a very real degree. Lillo Brancato Jr. plays Matthew Bevilaqua here, and Calogero in A Bronx Tale. A key arc for both characters is that both aspire to rise up in the local mobs in their respective tales. And yet there are substantial differences to the point that the characters could have ended up as foils to each other had they both been in the same universe. Calogero instantly earns respect and opportunity from the local boss, Sonny, without even really trying. All he had to do was refuse to rat out Sonny to the police, and Sonny opened the door for him. Matt Bevilaqua, on the other hand, invests enormous energy into kissing Tony's and Richie's asses, and trying to impress them. But it gets him nowhere. Calogero is a decent-hearted kid who struggles between admiring Sonny, and his own conscience over the moral implications of being involved with Sonny's work. Matt is a Hate Sink and Sociopath willing to do anything to anybody to try and rise up in the Jersey mob. And it's not hard to guess who gets a happy ending in his story, and who doesn't.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Despite Christopher being a physically abusive and unfaithful partner, Adriana ecstatically gets back together with him when he proposes to her.
- Badass Boast: Richie brags at Satriale's that Rocco DiMeo used to be the toughest mobster in Essex County, but didn't come back after Richie "was through with him." It might also suggest that Richie's gift of Rocco's leather jacket also doubles as a Creepy Souvenir. Tony's not impressed.
- Batter Up!: Richie, incensed that Matthew and Sean's ill-advised actions might get him in deep with Tony, chases Matthew down with a baseball bat, throwing it after him when he runs away.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Richie decides to take up Matthew and Sean on their offer, and tells them, "If there's anything you want to do for me, let me know." Little did he know that the duo would focus on the first few words of that line, and ignore the last three words, in the worst way possible.
- Big "WHAT?!": Richie lets one out when Matthew tells him and that he and Sean tried to kill Chris.
- Boom, Headshot!: Chris gets a fairly impressive headshot on Sean Gismonte, considering he was on the ground riddled with bullets himself at the time and shooting with his non-dominant hand.
- Butt-Monkey: Matthew and Sean every scene that they're in.
- Their lame efforts to suck up to either Richie and especially Tony go nowhere.
- Furio openly treats them with contempt by demanding an extra grand for himself in addition to the usual kick upstairs to Tony, and then mocks them for being Gayngsters.
- Even their attempted hit on Chris (while effective in putting him in critical condition) goes poorly for them, as Chris manages to kill Sean before losing consciousness (forcing Matthew to run before he could make sure Chris was dead) and Matthew's subsequent attempt to seek protection with Richie falls flat on its face when Richie chases him off with a baseball bat after realizing Tony will probably blame him for the attack on Chris' life.
- Call-Back: Sean Gismonte is killed by Christopher because Sean was restrained in the car by a seatbelt. This is similar to Livia's story to A.J. of how seatbelts can kill, from the previous episode.
- Cliffhanger: A very rare instance. Also unique in that it ends with the diegetic sound of Christopher's heart monitor over the ending credits, rather than a song.
- Dating What Mommy Hates: Adriana's mom tries to talk Adriana out of it when Chris shows up with a ring and a proposal, warning her that she'll only get hurt. She even tries to invoke I Have No Daughter should Adriana accept Chris' offer. Adriana, however, can't help herself.
- Continuity Nod: Dr. Melfi ties Tony's testing of Meadow's potential to his fascination with the family of ducks during the pilot.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Tony all but admits to Dr. Melfi that he may have been obvious about gifting Eric's SUV to Meadow because he sees her as a potential asset to the family business, and wanted to see how she would react.
- Death Glare: Richie gives Matthew a truly terrifying one once the implications of Matthew's and Sean's attempted hit on Chris sink in. Although Richie armed himself with a handy baseball bat for emphasis, just the glare itself would probably have been enough to send Matthew running.
- Didn't Think This Through: Richie points out the obvious flaw in Matthew's and Sean's plan to take out Chris when Matthew the survivor shows up at his club seeking shelter. Richie is not in any position to openly challenge Tony, and therefore certainly not in any position to protect Matthew from Tony's inevitable retribution. Richie is himself now rightly worried that Tony might cast suspicion on himself for the attempt on Chris' life.
- Do Wrong, Right: As stated above, this is why Richie turns on Matthew when the latter comes to him for sanctuary. Richie does, in fact, dislike Chris for his association with Tony and his treatment of Adriana, but the fact that Matthew and Sean jumped Chris without provocation thinking they were doing Richie a favor and the fact that Richie is already on thin ice with Tony means that he will now get drawn into this fiasco as well, against his will.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Matthew and Sean feel increasingly marginalized as outsiders to the Soprano syndicate, and make a very rash decision as a result.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Tony really breaks down at the sight of Chris lying comatose in a hospital bed.
- Extreme Doormat: Joan Cusamano accuses her sister, Jean of this, even using the word "doormat" itself, for not blowing off Carmela's request for a reference letter for Meadow out of hand.
- Gag Nose: Richie makes fun of Chris' "camel nose" to Matthew and Sean. It ends up a significant plot point as it clues Matthew and Sean in on Richie's resentment towards Chris, leading to Chris almost getting fatally shot.
- False Friend: Richie shows up at Tony's, combining a willingness to build the ramp for Beansie with a gift of DiMeo's leather jacket for Tony. He wears a Stepford Smile the whole way through, and at the subsequent family dinner. Anybody who's watched the previous episodes, including Tony's and Richie's prior interactions, will have little trouble figuring out that Richie is starting a long game against Tony.
- Fatal Family Photo: When he suddenly wins Adriana back by impulsively proposing to her at the beginning of the episode, Chris is practically begging for a sudden disaster to befall him by the end of the hour. Subverted in that it doesn't actually wind up being fatal.
- Foreshadowing:
- Matthew and Sean's move on Chris in an ill-advised attempt to do something to gain the attention and respect of the rest of the crime family won't be the last time somebody makes a dumb move that backfires (i.e. Jackie Aprile Jr. in season 3).
- Tony testing Meadow with Eric's SUV also hints at Meadow's long-term Character Development by the end of the series.
- Gayngster: Furio mocks Matthew and Sean with his conclusion that they blow each other on the basis of them standing around their apartment with naught but their shorts on, and other underwear lying around their apartment.
- Gilligan Cut: Tony tells A.J. at the dinner table that he can't even dream of going to Harvard or West Point unless he "cracks the books". Cue the next scene with a security guard knocked out cold, with the sounds of Chris, Matthew, and Sean cracking a safe open by force.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Matthew and Sean, had they lived, could have been made Academy instructors based on their display in this episode. Sean, despite getting the drop on Chris, only manages to graze him with two non-fatal shots, one of them in the arm. Sean of course finds himself unable to finish the job because he forgot to undo his seatbelt beforehand. And that allows Chris to kill him instantly with a shot to the head. And that's to say nothing of Matt's generous use of More Dakka where not a single bullet comes even close to hitting Chris before running away.
- Ironic Echo:
- In the previous episode, Livia mentioned a news story in which a group of teenagers burned to death after a car crash because their seatbelts trapped them in the wreck. During the shootout at the end of this episode, Sean Gismonte gets a bullet in the head while struggling with his seatbelt.
- Sean remarks, while Chris and Matthew are working on a safe, that back in the old days "you did something, you got recognized." The desire to do something to move up the ladder shows up again in the conversation between Matthew and Sean when they decide to see through their plan of taking out Chris. It also Foreshadows another similar arc in season 3.
- It Was a Gift: Richie plays up that the leather jacket was once worn by a legendary DiMeo mobster in order to convince Tony to accept it as a gift.
- Jammed Seatbelts: Sean Gismonte and Matthew Bevilaqua try to kill Christopher by shooting him from a car. When Christopher starts shooting back, Matthew exits the car and gets away, but Sean gets tangled up in his seatbelt. Unfortunately for him, this makes him a pretty easy target.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Tony makes it obvious he isn't buying Richie's False Friend act, and states this trope to Carmela almost word for word when they're both out of earshot during a family dinner. "I want him where I can see him."
- Mama Bear: Adriana's mother acts as this when Chris barges into her house where Adriana is staying, even threatening to call the police; she threatens to cut off Adriana if she agrees to marry Chris though.
- My New Gift Is Lame: How Tony regards Richie's gift of the leather jacket. Punctuated by Tony giving it to his maid's husband. Richie is naturally offended when he sees the maid's husband wearing it during a visit to Carmela.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Carmella very subtly makes Joan O'Connell an offer she can't refuse in the form of a very symbolically loaded gift of a ricotta pie.
- Oh, Crap!: Richie has one when the repercussions of Matthew and Sean shooting Chris sink in.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Where Jean Cusamano is a bubbly housewife, her twin sister Joan is a no-nonsense professional woman.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Meadow tries to justify wanting to go to Berkeley on the basis that more Nobel Prize winners come from the San Francisco Bay area than anywhere else. Tony can't resist the opportunity to take a dig at San Francisco's reputation for its homosexual scene by asking if the Nobel prizes are for "packing fudge".
- Potty Emergency: Sean takes a dump on the store floor whenever Chris and Matthew are working a safe. Matthew lampshades that the stress of a job always brings out that reaction from Sean.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Sean and Matthew more than once.
- Chris indicates that Tony wasn't exactly overwhelmed with gratitude for getting his previous cut of the safe score that Matthew and Sean helped with. So how do the latter two respond? Switch their butt-kissing efforts to Richie Aprile.
- They try again with Tony in the washroom of the Bada Bing. Sean mentioning out loud their Safecracking jobs turns it into an Epic Fail since it causes Tony to immediately become angry about the indiscretion possibly being heard on an FBI wiretap of the Bing.
- Pet the Dog: Tony is sympathetic to Beansie's injuries and tries to help him out by forcing Richie to have a ramp built for him.
- Reverse Psychology: Carmela pulls this on Meadow by finally telling her she can go to Berkeley if she wants. Meadow contemplates it and realizes that she'll end up homesick. Carmela thereby obtains her original objective, getting Meadow to enroll in a college closer to home.
- Safecracking: Chris, Matthew, and Sean do this more than once in the episode.
- Seeking Sanctuary: What Matthew desperately hopes for from Richie after surviving the shootout with Chris. Richie promptly rebuffs him and chases him off with a baseball bat.
- Stupid Evil: Matthew and Sean have lived up to this trope for all of season two. They take it to a whole new level by trying to whack Chris without any authorization from anyone.
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: From the Villain-Protagonist side. Tony loses it verbally on Sean for mentioning the safecracking jobs because the FBI could have wiretaps on the Bing.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Richie already feels this way about Tony, but gets even worse when he notices that Tony rejected his gift of the leather jacket by giving it to his maid's husband. He even calls Tony a "two-faced ungrateful fuck" to Matthew.
- Unwanted Assistance: How Beansie's wife responds to Vito and Brian when they come to install the ramp.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Both Richie and Furio unintentionally contribute to Matthew's and Sean's Stupid Evil decision to try and take out Chris. Richie because he lets on his resentment of Chris, planting the seed for the idea in their heads. Furio because making the duo his Butt-Monkeys by shaking them down for an extra grand and mocking them as Gayngsters contributes to their rash decision to force a move up the hierarchy any way they can. Averted in that Chris ultimately survives the attempt on his life.
- Wham Episode: After what had been a fairly low-key season up to this point, mostly just following characters around on little vignettes, Chris getting critically wounded at the end signals that things are kicking into gear.
