A stripper at the Bada Bing, Tracee, attempts to endear herself to Tony — first by offering him homemade bread as thanks for his advice to take her son to a doctor when he got sick, then showing off her braces to him. Tony tries to dissuade Tracee, reminding her that he is her employer, and she is already dating his fellow made man Ralph. Meanwhile, Ralph is also dating Rosalie Aprile, and frequently visits the Soprano home for dinners. He is shown to be developing an obsession with Gladiator, quoting it and constantly talking about violent scenes.
Meanwhile, at Columbia University, Meadow is increasingly concerned about Caitlin, her emotionally unstable roommate. She also grows closer to Noah Tannenbaum, and the two of them sleep together. They begin a tentative relationship, though they find Caitlin frequently getting in the way, walking in during inopportune moments, and making herself the center of attention with her self-destructive habits and whining. At one point when a hookup is interrupted, Noah mentions out of the blue that he's leaving town for a ski trip the next day, claiming he thought he'd already told Meadow about it.
Ralph's behavior grows more erratic, apparently the result of a cocaine problem. During a VIP party at the Bing, he enters in a belligerent state, mocking everyone around him and recklessly swinging a chained padlock to imitate Russell Crowe in Gladiator. This results in serious damage to Georgie the bouncer's eye, and Ralph is escorted out of the event. Tracee talks with Tony again later, revealing that she is pregnant with Ralph's child and asking for advice. Tony suggests she get an abortion, in light of who the child's father is.
Meadow has a heart-to-heart with Carmela about her relationship with Noah, implying that she lost her virginity to him. Noah takes Meadow to meet his father, a lawyer in show business, and the dinner becomes fairly awkward once the subject of her own father's work comes up, and she claims he's in "waste management". Meanwhile, Caitlin's behavior continues to grate on both Noah and Meadow. She visits Noah's dorm while he is studying and he later complains at length to Meadow when he gets a C- on a test, blaming it on Caitlin asking to study in his room one evening. Shortly after this, Noah reveals to Meadow that in light of the effect on his grades, his father has sent a restraining order against Caitlin. Meadow is put off by the extremity of this response.
Tracee holes up with Ralph over a weekend, claiming to be sick though it seems more like Ralph wanted her company. Silvio, demanding repayment on his loan that paid for her braces, drives to Ralph's house to retrieve her. Ralph stands up to Silvio at first but relents when he learns how much Tracee owes. Silvio slaps Tracee around in the parking lot while Ralph laughs from his window. Later, during another VIP night, Tracee insults Ralph, calling his manhood into question and prompting others — including Christopher, Bobby, and Gigi — to laugh at him. Ralph follows Tracee out to the parking lot to confront her and claims that he intends to raise their child together. When Tracee is convinced of his sincerity he laughs in her face, taunting her and calling her a whore. Tracee slaps Ralph, who for a moment stands stunned at what happened, before he flies into a rage, savagely beating her to death.
When Ralph returns to the club and conspicuously puts his bloodied hand in an ice bucket, his behavior prompts Paulie to ask what is going on. Ralph gives a rambling answer, claiming that Tracee just accidentally tripped and fell and that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, Tony, Silvio, Paulie, and Chris rush outside and find Tracee's dead, brutally beaten body, and stare at it in stunned horror. Silvio is the first to react, ordering Chris to get ready to clean up the body. Tony, on the other hand, tells Paulie, with clear anger in his voice, to bring Ralph to him. Paulie returns with Ralph and the other mobsters in tow. An outraged Tony tells Ralph that with his behavior, he has disrespected the club. But Ralph refuses to take any kind of responsibility, stubbornly maintaining his flimsy story that what happened was an honest accident. This further infuriates Tony, who grabs Ralph, a fellow made man and starts beating him, in violation of the Mafia code, but Silvio and Paulie manage to pull him off him and convince both an angry Tony and an outraged Ralph to go home while they arrange to dispose of Tracee's body.
Noah abruptly breaks up with Meadow one morning while they study together in the library, saying that while he really likes her, he doesn't think that a long-term relationship will work out, as he thinks she has a very cynical mindset. She later throws a tantrum at home when there is no food in the fridge, but Tony, still melancholic over Tracee's death, does not react. During joint therapy with Carmela and Dr. Melfi, Tony remains subdued and claims he feels sad over the death of a young man who worked for him in the garbage business. Later, as strippers prepare to dance at the Bing, one girl voices the rumor that Tracee vanished after going outside with Ralph, and an older stripper advises her to keep those rumors to herself.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Tracee burned her young son with cigarettes and the kid was taken by social services. She implies this was due to her being on the unkind end of this trope, too.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Aside from giving George an undeserved Eye Scream, Ralph just plain made an all-around ass of himself in the VIP lounge of the Bing.
- Always Someone Better: The dinner with Noah's father forces Meadow to confront the fact that, compared to a family like his, the Sopranos are really just upper-middle class outsiders to the wealthy elite.
- Ax-Crazy: Ralph.
- The B Grade: Noah really gets into a funk over getting a C- instead of his expected A on a paper, and of course he blames Caitlin for it.
- Bad Boss: Silvio managing the Bing includes being a violent pimp. The point gets driven home when Silvio won't hear it about Tracee being sick and slaps her into going back to work.
- Bitch Slap: Silvio on Tracee, to force her back into working the Bing and despite her claims of being ill.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: The mobsters, with the exception of Tony, are more upset about a perceived disrespect to the Bing than the fact that Tracee was brutally murdered.
- Blackmail: George extorts fifty bucks and a blowjob from every Bing stripper that wants to turn tricks at the Bing's VIP room.
- Brutal Honesty: Tony flat out tells Tracee she should get an abortion since he views it as doing the child a favor in comparison to having both Ralph and Tracee as parents.
- Bullying a Dragon: Tracee sees fit to insult and smack Ralph, a dangerous gangster. It doesn't end well.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Tony notes that, unlike most strippers at the Bing, Tracee has no need for breast implants.
- Celebrity Paradox: Noah's father, Len, mentions offhand the inconveniences of working with Tim Daly. Guess who subsequently plays J.T. Dolan?
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Everybody else at the dinner table has this reaction when Ralph and A.J. discuss the bloodier parts of the Gladiator film.
- Close to Home: Part of what distresses Tony so much about Tracee's death is that she is almost the same age as Meadow.
- Crazy Homeless People: Meadow, Noah, and Caitlin encounter a homeless woman who wears discarded newspapers as underwear. It has a really adverse effect on Caitlin...
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Ralph beats Tracee and bangs her head against a road fence until she kills her in the parking of the Bing. While being aware she is pregnant with Ralph's child, no less. (Ralph would contest that point later)
- Cryptic Conversation: Meadow drops the hint to Carmela that she and Noah had Their First Time. But once Carmela starts to press, Meadow shuts it down and refuses to discuss it any further.
- Dating What Daddy Hates:
- Meadow takes things further with Noah, and remains defiant towards Tony over it.
- Noah may have eventually broken up with her anyway, but his father apparently forces the issue.
- A Day in the Limelight: For strippers at the Bada Bing in general, rather than an individual character who's been in the background of the show.
- To a lesser extent, Caitlin, who gets a lot of screen time and dialogue.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: Ralph pulls an unusually cruel one on Tracee by baiting her with the hope that he'll marry her and be a father to her as yet unborn child. Then comes his Bait-and-Switch, whereby he taunts Tracee for being stupid enough to think he would ever go there with a whore. Leads to Tracee's death.
- Disposable Sex Worker: The mobsters' apathetic reaction to Tracee's death, with Ralph suffering no immediate consequences, emphasizes that they see all the girls working the Bing as such.
- Distracted by the Sexy: It's implied that Tony could have prevented Ralph from giving George an Eye Scream had he not been receiving a blowjob in another room.
- Domestic Abuse: Ralph to Tracee. First, he stands by and lets Silvio abuse Tracee. To be fair, he did need to respect Silvio's authority as Tony's right-hand man within the Mafia hierarchy. But Ralph laughing at Tracee's plight still plants him in bad boyfriend territory. Then of course he beats her to death.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Meadow is clearly hurt by Noah dumping her.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Tony won't get involved with a girl if it even has a whiff of the appearance of Sexual Extortion (i.e. an employee like Tracee), or if it involves intruding on somebody else's relationship (i.e. Ralph and Tracee).
- Tony is the most outraged over Ralph killing Tracee, a 20-year-old girl and starts an all-out brawl with Ralph that has to be broken up.
- Eye Scream: George suffers one on account of Ralph getting carried away with a Gladiator reenactment.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Meadow is really angry after Noah dumps her.
- Foreshadowing:
- Silvio taps his watch to remind Tracee to start her shift. We see over the course of the episode that Silvio managing the Bing amounts to him being a Bad Boss of the pimp variety.
- Ralph first lets on that he really likes the Gladiator movie while having a family dinner with the Sopranos. It shows up again at various points in the episode.
- Tony going after Ralph with closed fists for beating Tracee to to death heralds the climax to the brewing enmity between them.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The looks on the other mobsters' faces when Ralph enters the VIP lounge of the Bing says it all.
- Gilligan Cut:
- One moment we see Tracee bending over to give a blowjob to a Corrupt Cop, the next moment we see Caitlin rising from a kneeling position and crying her eyes out. The cut highlights that both are deeply troubled characters making desperate and Quiet Cries For Help to anyone nearby.
- Ralph laughing at Silvio's abuse of Tracee cuts to the mobsters and their wives laughing and joking together at a family dinner. Serves to underscore the difference between the work and home lives of the mobsters.
- Heroic B So D: Tony hits one hard after seeing Tracee's dead body. It leaves him in a real funk that impairs his ability to participate in therapy with Carmela and Dr. Melfi or converse with Meadow.
- Holy Ground: Tony's crew, in their own way, regard the Bing as such, even though as a strip joint it profits from vices condemned as sin by Catholicism. That the mobsters, possibly excepting Tony, are more upset about a perceived disrespect to the Bing than that a 20-year-old girl lost her life is a statement on their particular set of values.
- Hollywood Restraining Order: Len Tannenbaum gets one for Caitlin to stay away from Noah, in the wake of the C- paper. Meadow regards it as a harsh first resort.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Zigzagged with Tracee. Tony sees her as an innocent, and she reminds him of Meadow. However, she's also a prostitute, a neglectful mother who leaves her small child (whom she has burned with cigarettes) with her own mother to hang out with her mobster boyfriend for days at a time, and a deadbeat who claims to be sick while not even bothering to call into work for several days. It's ultimately left ambiguous as to whether her clumsy interactions with Tony were naive attempts to be friendly or if she's deliberately trying to climb the goomah ladder.
- Humiliation Conga: Most of Tracee's time onscreen. Trauma Conga Line also applies.
- I Need a Freaking Drink:
- How Caitlin tries to cope with her issues.
- Ralph after beating Tracee to death.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Caitlin walks in on Meadow and Noah as they're making out.
- Ironic Echo: George explains to one stripper that working the VIP Lounge requires a $50 fee and a blowjob for himself. He repeats the terms to another stripper after Tracee's death. It reinforces that its business as usual for the Jersey mob and most of them (except maybe Tony) aren't particularly hung up over her death. Further punctuated by Ralph not suffering any immediate consequence for his actions.
- It's All About Me: Caitlin constantly demands attention from Meadow and Noah, no matter what they're in the middle of.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- When Tony says that Tracy should definitely abort her next kid if it comes from Ralphie as the father, you have no idea how much he means it!
- Ralph conveys it in the cruelest and most unconscionable way, but he's not exactly wrong in telling Tracee that she's insane to want to have his child. Even putting aside how grim the kid's future might be with a sociopathic mobster and his 20-year-old stripper mistress for parents, Tracee herself is already an unfit mother to her son and is in no position, professionally or emotionally, to have another child.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Ralph suffers no immediate consequence for Tracee's death. His luck will eventually run out though.
- Kick the Dog: Ralph killing Tracee, but also Silvio smacking her around. Silvio has generally served as a voice of reason in mob plotlines, and this is the first time he's seen acting his part as the manager of the Bada Bing, which basically amounts to being a violent pimp.
- Leitmotif: The Kinks' "Living on a Thin Line" is one for Tracee.
- The Mistress: Tracee is Ralph's. Technically she is just a sweetheart as Silvio points out since Ralph is divorced and officially involved with Rosalie Aprile.
- Monster Roommate: Meadow definitely feels that Caitlin amounts to one for her.
- My God, You Are Serious!: Meadow's reaction to Len Tannenbaum filing a restraining order against Caitlin.
- National Stereotypes: Len Tannenbaum asks Meadow what her father's line of work is, and in a way that makes it obvious that he suspects her father of being in The Mafia. It hits Meadow like an Armor-Piercing Question, and her reaction has shades of Cultural Cringe.
- Never My Fault:
- Caitlin's issues also include this on a massive scale.
- How Noah regards his C- paper.
- Tracee ''slipped'', according to Ralph.
- Nervous Wreck: Anything and everything that could be remotely suggestive of human suffering, whether it's a horror movie scene or the sight of a homeless woman, never fails to bring out the worst in Caitlin.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Ralph on Tracee, fatally so.
- Passed-Over Promotion: Tony reminds Ralph that it is his thoughtless behavior that led to him getting passed over for capo.
- Pet the Dog: Tony advised Tracee to take her son to the doctor when she feared for the boy and is the only one who is even remotely nice to her.
- Politically Incorrect Villain:
- Tony still can't stand the fact that Meadow has a black boyfriend.
- Ralph cracks a joke that likens Native Americans to animals and casually drops a homophobic slur.
- Post-Sex: Carmela notices that Meadow is chipper and happier, but she can't quite put her finger on why. Meadow is basking in the afterglow of her first time.
- Quiet Cry for Help: A pretty recurrent theme in the episode.
- Caitlin to Meadow and Noah.
- Tracee to Tony, but Tony doesn't pick up on it until it's too late.
- Remember the New Guy?: Tracee is treated like someone we've got some sort of history with, despite never having so much as appeared in the background before.
- Sanity Slippage: Suggested but never fully confirmed. We don't know if Caitlin was always so extreme in her behavior, or if the move from Oklahoma to New York made things worse.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Both Meadow and Noah frequently have this kind of reaction to Caitlin's antics.
- Sex Changes Everything: Plays out in degrees over the course of the episode after Meadow and Noah do the deed. It's an open question of whether the breakup was inevitable, or if it was because of Noah getting the ultimatum from his father.
- Shout-Out: Ralph really likes the Gladiator movie ...
- Sleeping with the Boss: It's implied that Tracee's trying to segue into this with Tony, who is uninterested in, ah, "being friends" with a woman who's barely above Meadow's age and has also been with Ralph.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Played With. Ralph and others consider Tracee a Disposable Sex Worker, but Tony is shaken by her murder and comes to despise Ralph for it, creating a lasting enmity whose consequences will possibly affect the entire crime family—to wit, when Tony murders Ralph after the Pie-O-My incident, the emotional outburst he delivers mid-fight could just as easily be applied to Tracee's death at Ralph's hands. Perhaps to drive the point home, Tony sees her picture at the Bing at the end of that episode. And for the rest of the series, and possibly his life, Tony has to live in fear of getting whacked over killing one of his capos without having a sitdown first (him being The Don or not).
- Suicide Watch: Meadow leaves a clearly troubled Caitlin to herself in their shared dorm room, but not before sneaking a nearby scalpel into her pocket to head off that possibility.
- Suspiciously Apropos Music:
- Tracee's Leitmotif is "Livin' on a Thin Line" by The Kinks, which is not traditional stripper music, and its lyrics all but shout "this character will be dead by the end of the episode."
All the wars that were won and lostSomehow don't seem to matter very much anymore.All the lies we were told,All the lies of the people running round,They're castles have burned.- "Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC playing in the Bing, with shots of strippers at the poles, and other girls pleasuring the men in the backrooms.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Carmela and Dr. Melfi catch on that something is up with Tony, shortly after Ralph beat Tracee to death. Tony couches it as a young man working for Barone Sanitation recently passing away "so young". Carmela and Dr. Melfi aren't exactly convinced.
- "Take That!" Kiss: Ralph gives one to Gigi, resentful of Gigi being promoted to capo over himself. Given that he's doing it in front of everybody else, it also has shades of Refuge in Audacity.
- Their First Time: Meadow and Noah.
- Through His Stomach: Tracee bakes some bread for Tony as thanks for a favor, but seems to want to use it to ingratiate herself to him.
- Uncertain Doom: One stripper speculates that Tracee was never seen again after going out the back door with Ralph. Another stripper tells her to keep quiet, otherwise, she'll be Tempting Fate.
- What The Hell, Villain?: The other mobsters react this way to Ralph beating Tracee to death, although their particular reasons aren't necessarily the best ones. Tony in particular is outraged and starts to beat Ralph until he gets pulled back by his captains.
- With Due Respect: Ralph argues briefly with Silvio about forcing Tracee back to work. But Ralph quickly backs down when Silvio invokes losing money on Tracee's illness, knowing that Tony will side with Silvio on the issue.
- Would Hit a Girl: Ralph beats Tracee to death.
- You Are Fat: Paulie cracks a joke about Vito and Bobby looking like a weight-loss ad, with Vito as the 'before' and Bobby as the 'WAY before'.
