After losing the asset of informant Pussy Bonpensiero, the FBI sets up a sting to bug the interior of the Soprano home, specifically the basement, where Tony feels safe discussing business. On subsequent Tuesdays when the house is empty for an hour-long period, agents disguised as electricians break into the home while other agents monitor members of the Soprano household to ensure that they don't unexpectedly return home in the middle of an operation.
One agent trails Meadow to Columbia University, where she is shown to be losing patience with her roommate Caitlin's excessive drinking and rambunctious behavior. Another agent trails AJ to school and to the convenience store where he skips class with his skater friends. Two others monitor Carmela at a tennis lesson with Adriana, the latter of which they take perverse pleasure in watching. Another agent monitors the Sopranos' Polish maid and her husband, who is taking English lessons to obtain US citizenship. During the first mission, the agents at the house acquire footage of an old lamp in the basement, which they consider ideal to replace with a bugged replica.
It is the birthday of Patsy Parisi, as well as that of his deceased twin brother, Philly, killed last year for running his mouth about Tony's issues with his mother. Patsy is somber on the occasion, grieving the loss of his brother. Gigi Cestone, who pulled the trigger on Philly, expresses concern to Tony that Patsy seems to know who killed Philly and wants revenge. Tony considers his options.
The FBI agents' first attempt to replace the lamp are foiled when a water heater bursts in the Soprano basement. However, the following week they are able to successfully plant their microphone. As they monitor the Sopranos' backyard, two agents witness Patsy approach the house and wave a gun at the oblivious Tony through the window, before opting to simply urinate in his pool instead. Tony later calls Patsy to meet with him, ensuring there are no lasting grudges between them and reminding Patsy of the healthy profit he's made working for Tony.
As Tony returns home and begins running on his elliptical machine, he has a low-key conversation with Carmela, unaware that they are being recorded by the lamp nearby.
Tropes:
- Angsty Surviving Twin: Patsy spends his birthday grieving his dead twin Philly. He continues to grieve by frequently Drowning His Sorrows.
- Ascended Extra: Dan Grimaldi, who was previously limited to cameos as either slain twin Phil Parisi, or surviving twin Patsy Parisi, begins to take on a larger role from this point onwards as Patsy.
- Awful Wedded Life: The maid's husband, who was an engineer in their native Poland, is angry about having to drive a cab in America and take English classes to earn his citizenship. It leads to several really awful arguments between them. In fact, it almost created an additional Outside-Context Problem for the FBI agents trying to plant a bug in the Sopranos' house.
- Bland-Name Product: Some of the FBI agents disguise themselves as utility maintenance men from "New Jersey Gas and Electric"—which is clearly based on the real electric and gas utility in North Jersey,note Public Service Electric and Gas
(PSEG). - Brick Joke: Patsy drops off Carmela's fur coat after having some repairs made to it. Given what Carmela was up to when last we saw it, it's not surprising that it may have suffered some damage.
- A Day in the Limelight: For the FBI, as well as Patsy Parisi and Gigi Cestone to an extent.
- Evil Gloating: Tony and Furio mock the agents posted just outside his driveway for not being able to get anything on him, and wasting their time.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Patsy Parisi is still in mourning over the death of his brother, Philly, and hates Tony for ordering his death.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Implied when the tennis instructor gives special attention to Adriana, and at Carmela's expense.
- Fanservice: Adriana's tennis outfit (and the periodic upskirt shots), and Meadow's roommate drunkenly singing "New York, New York" in her underwear.
- Flipping the Bird: Tony does this to Agent Harris while driving by.
- Foreshadowing:
- The agents notice through the remote camera that Tony's water heater is inevitably going to blow and cause a basement flooding. It ends up causing an Outside-Context Problem for them.
- Meadow's roommate, Caitlin, is high as a kite while drinking and smoking, but a real downer when sober. Caitlin's hard Descent into Addiction is going to come up again in the future.
- Forgiveness: Tony demands this from Patsy in relation to his twin brother's death, combined with a simultaneous demand for Undying Loyalty. Patsy at least on the surface agrees. Whether he truly lived up to the demands remained a Riddle for the Ages for the fandom well after the series ended.
- Hands-On Approach: The lesbian tennis coach showed blatant favoritism towards Adriana when she and Carmella took up tennis. The reason why is all but spelled out, but Adriana herself doesn't get it.
- The Help Helping Themselves: The family housekeeper Lilliana admits to her husband that she frequently steals items she guesses won't be missed, like steak knives and champagne glasses, from the Sopranos' household.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Tony justifies keeping Patsy around, despite being the Angsty Surviving Twin and despite having been on Uncle Junior's losing side during the civil war that ended season 1, on this basis.
- Kick the Dog:
- Tony realizes that Patsy is sullen over his birthday, which he shared with his murdered twin, Phil. So Tony motions to Gigi, the same hitman who murdered Phil, to be the first to say happy birthday to Patsy. Also serves as a Continuity Nod.
- The lunch continues with Patsy still in full Angsty Surviving Twin mode. So Tony cracks an insensitive go ahead and commit suicide joke at Patsy's expense.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The episode starts by having a particularly unremarkable day for the titular family shown through the eyes of the rarely-seen FBI. Overlaps with Villain Episode.
- Male Gaze: The FBI agents assigned to Carmela's tennis lesson spend the whole time watching Adriana through their binoculars.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: How Silvio suggests they handle Patsy.
- The Nicknamer: Probably some nameless FBI official came up with the various code names for the Soprano family, but it's not hard to imagine that Agent Harris coined Der Bingle on his own.
- Outside-Context Problem:
- The agents knew the water heater in the basement was going to blow. They just didn't expect it to happen the very day they were going to sneak the bugged lamp into the basement.
- Also when Patsy shows up unexpectedly while the FBI are watching the "Meat Factory" through binoculars. The agents are completely taken aback.
- The Polish maid almost creates a third one for the agents by wanting to go back to the Sopranos' house after an argument with her husband. It gets averted by a distraction.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: A.J. and his friends are clearly this.
- Putting the Pee in Pool: Patsy goes for this instead of shooting his boss.
- Shout-Out:
- To Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, obviously.
- Also, the F.B.I. agents' efforts to place a bug in Tony's basement unfold while the Peter Gunn theme is playing.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Brilliantly subverted; with the death of actress Nancy Marchand, the audience had every reason to expect the rash of phone calls and subsequent urgent race back to the house midway through the episode to be the family finding out Livia had died, but it was the foreshadowed death of the water heater instead.
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: A major focus for the episode, as the F.B.I. weighs all their options and possibilities for planting a bug that maximizes the chances of Tony, who thus far has been too smart to their usual tricks, giving them something solid. The episode also gives a lot of attention to the agents' struggles to actually get their bug into what they estimate will be Tony's blind spot, a lamp in his basement.
- Terrified of Germs: Paulie invokes this as a justification for constantly washing his hands during the lunch at Satriale's, even after tying his shoelaces. He actually starts to make a convincing enough case to prompt a Too Much Information reaction from Silvio.
- Title Drop: When discussing Tony's plumber, one agent mentions that his sister used to live nearby and used him as her plumber, too. Agent Harris simply replies, "It's Mister Ruggerio's neighborhood."
- To Be Lawful or Good: The FBI agents watching the Sopranos' backyard feel this kind of dilemma thrust on them as they notice Patsy Parisi approaching the house with a gun. Do they enforce the law and protect Tony from Patsy, but completely blow their wiretap operation? Or do they let Patsy go ahead and take out a notorious Mafia boss, but with the dereliction of their own oaths as law enforcement officers? It quickly passes once Patsy starts taking a piss in Tony's pool.
- Twin Telepathy: Some of the guys speculate that Patsy and Philly had this. That Patsy suggests he knows 'exactly' who killed his brother is cause for speculation.
- Villain Episode: Inverted. The show's notable FBI agents enjoy decent focus in this episode, and the implementation of their gambit drives its plot.
- Villains Out Shopping: None of the Sopranos get up to much this episode.
- We Need a Distraction: The Polish maid almost creates another Outside-Context Problem of her own by trying to go back to the Sopranos' house after an argument with her husband. The agent watching her delays her by asking her and her husband questions about the second language school in order to buy the agents at the house enough time to plant the Hidden Wire in the lamp.
- Your Cheating Heart: While Carmela's marriage was apparently stable at the end of last season, she's introduced this season as having a steady routine of flirting heavily with her attractive male tennis instructor. And while it's clear he's been encouraging her advances, he reveals that he's actually been married the whole time too, and is only bringing it up now because he's now moving away and will never be instructing her again. What either of their spouses would think if they witnessed them would likely not be pleasant.
