Cold Stones

"Cold Stones"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no. Season 6
Episode 11
Directed by Tim Van Patten
Written by Diane Frolov
Andrew Schneider
David Chase
Cinematography by Phil Abraham
Production code 611
Original air date May 21, 2006
Running time 56 minutes
Guest appearance(s)

see below

"Cold Stones" is the 76th episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the 11th of the show's sixth season. Written by Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, and David Chase, and directed by Tim Van Patten, it originally aired on May 21, 2006.

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

Episode recap

Carmela discovers that A.J. was fired from his job and has kept this a secret for three weeks. During the heated argument that ensues, A.J. complains that the job did not pay enough to sustain his regular nights out in expensive New York nightclubs. Tony observes, and is disgusted by, A.J.'s lazy behavior. In therapy with Dr. Melfi, Tony discloses that he has been feeling hatred towards A.J. and states that if Carmela had not been so protective of his son, he would be a better person. Melfi sees A.J.'s life as a product of his father's own brutality, taking his anger out on others and having a desperate need to dominate and control. She points out that Carmela's supposed protectiveness is exactly what Tony used to mention in their sessions that he wanted from his own mother, but never received.

A.J. invites over Hernan and Rhiannon to play video games. Tony asks A.J. to join him in the garage, where he reveals he has provided him with a construction job. Tony threatens to take away his possessions and kick him out if he refuses. When A.J. rolls his eyes, Tony smashes A.J.'s windshield with a football helmet and threatens to destroy the car entirely. Tony then warns his son, "Don't put me to the test." The next morning, A.J. gets up early to leave for work at the construction site. Elsewhere, Meadow talks to her parents about following Finn to California. Meadow bristles and dismisses Carmela's musings about what she had perceived as mounting friction between the couple.

Carmela takes a trip to Paris that she won at the silent auction during the Feast of St. Elzear, taking along Rosalie. There, Carmela reacts to the surroundings with emotional intensity and philosophy, while Rosalie exchanges telephone numbers with a much younger local man named Michel. Over dinner, Carmela brings up Rosalie's grief over the loss of her husband and son. Rosalie becomes angry at Carmela for bringing up such memories during their vacation, but does reveal that she feels her grief is futile. Rosalie invites Carmela to go along on her date with Michel. However, Carmela decides she will walk along the Seine instead. Later, Carmela dreams of Adriana walking her dog by the Eiffel Tower. In the dream, a gendarme with an American accent asks Carmela to tell Adriana that she is dead.

Vito approaches Tony at a mall and tries to convince him he is not really homosexual, claiming that his blood pressure medication temporarily confused him; Tony is unimpressed by this explanation. Vito asks to buy his way back into the crew, proposing to run a business in Atlantic City involving prostitution and meth trafficking. Tony brings up the offer with Silvio, Christopher, and Paulie. Silvio recommends abandoning Vito, while Paulie silently leaves the room. Vito has a reunion dinner out with his family in Rockefeller Center, where he tells his children that he has been working as an undercover spy in Afghanistan and demands that they keep quiet about his return. As Vito and Marie watch their kids ice skate, she asks if he will seek therapy and speak with a priest. Vito scoffs at this and recommends they have another child.

Later, Vito calls an upset Jim, who doesn't buy Vito's excuse that he missed his family and tells him it was the life of self-indulgence that he missed. Vito admits that he didn't want to drag Jim into his lifestyle. Jim tells Vito never to call him again and hangs up. Meanwhile, Tony and Phil, now the acting boss of the Lupertazzi crime family, disagree over "no-show" jobs on a new construction project. When they meet later in Paterson, Phil is extremely angry that Vito is back in town and confronts Tony about the matter. After arguing with Phil, Tony walks away from the meeting. Tony later decides Vito must be killed in order to appease Phil, who might otherwise harm their business and possibly start a gang war. Tony and Silvio agree that Carlo would be the best choice for the job, due to Carlo's apparent homophobia.

Phil and his wife, Patty, discuss Vito's sexuality. Patty expresses her resentment for having a homosexual in the family, telling Phil that Vito "has to be made to face his problems squarely." Meanwhile, Vito phones Tony, who arranges a meeting at the mall the following morning, planning for Carlo to lie in wait for him. However, when Vito arrives at his motel, he is ambushed by New York mobsters "Fat Dom" and Gerry Torciano, who knock him down and duct tape his mouth. Vito tearfully pleads to spare him as Phil appears and watches Dom and Gerry beat Vito to death with batons.

The Soprano family learns from Bobby that Vito has been found dead with a pool cue inserted in his rectum. The room falls silent as Tony deduces it was likely Phil who killed his capo. Carlo comes in and states that "you have to admire Phil — it's not all talk with him." Patsy remarks that he wishes he had borrowed money from Vito as Terry subtly smiles to himself. Tony takes Silvio aside and tells him that the murder is not about Vito but about Phil sending the family a message that he can kill one of Tony's capos and Tony cannot do anything about it. Tony tells Silvio he does not want a war with Phil, as it would likely be protracted and cripple their earning capacity. He decides to hit back at Phil financially, noting that Phil has "a wire room in Sheepshead Bay."

Phil and Patty console Marie over her husband's death. She tearfully insists Vito was a good husband and father. Patty maintains that homosexuality is a sin but adds one has to "hate the sin and love the sinner," quoting her parish priest. Phil, on the other hand, remains firm and tells Marie that, although he loved Vito "like a brother-in-law," it may be for the benefit of her children not to have their father as their role model. However, Phil is later seen being unable to sleep that night.

While Silvio and Carlo are preparing a meal at Satriale's, Dom arrives to make a payment to Silvio and starts making crude jokes about Vito's death. When he insults the entire Soprano family and jokes that Carlo was involved with Vito sexually, Silvio starts a fight by hitting him over the head with a dustbuster. Carlo stabs Dom to death with a chef's knife while Silvio holds him. Silvio tells Carlo to call the others and say dinner is canceled; they then devise a plan on how to dispose of the body and evidence. As they wait for night to fall and play cards, Tony enters despite Silvio's warnings not to. When Tony sees what has happened, he wordlessly exits the store with his hands up, letting Silvio and Carlo deal with it. Silvio, likewise exasperated, promises to take care of the body and shouts blame at Vito for the unplanned incident.

At the Spatafore home, Francesca and Vito, Jr. read the news article about their father's death late one evening and realize that he was a mobster. Elsewhere, Vito's Thin Club photographer recognizes his picture in the paper. He finds an album of his work and shows his assistant the cover photo he shot of Vito.

Deceased

  • Vito Spatafore: Beaten to death with batons by Dominic "Fat Dom" Gamiello and Gerry Torciano on orders from Phil Leotardo. His body is also reportedly mutilated.
  • Dominic "Fat Dom" Gamiello: Stabbed multiple times to death by Carlo Gervasi while being held by Silvio Dante in the back room of Satriale's.

Title reference

  • The title "Cold Stones" could refer to the Parisian statues, old stone buildings, and ruins Carmela sees on her trip to the city.
  • Carmela admires an ancient necklace made from precious stones.
  • The title could refer to a play on the "stone-cold" concept and "stones" (testicles) as applied to Phil's audacious killing of Vito.
  • The title could refer to a gravestone and death (Vito's). Carmela philosophizes that people get "washed away" and only structures and history remains.

Production

  • During the shoot in Paris, Edie Falco had the flu which rendered her voice almost inaudible. Sharon Angela had difficulty reacting to Carmela's dialogue when filming the scenes, and Carmela's lines had to be replaced in post-production with Falco recording them only once she had gotten well, already back in the US.[1]
  • The motel where Vito is beaten to death was filmed on location at the former Howard Johnson's motor lodge in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
  • This episode continues the trend of sleeping characters realizing a truth they had been avoiding (Carmela's dream suggests to her that Adriana is dead). In Seasons 2 and 5, Tony's dreams tell him truths about Big Pussy working with the FBI and the need to kill his cousin, Tony Blundetto, respectively.
  • The Star-Ledger article reporting Vito's death being read by the photographer, contains more text than was read out by Vito Jr. to his sister. DVD freeze frame reveals that the same paragraphs are just repeated over and over with the exception of the last. The final paragraph is unique and mentions that the owner of the Fort Lee Motel where Vito is murdered is a Fort Lee resident named Miriam Shapiro who was unavailable for comment.
  • Former series regular member Drea de Matteo reprises her role as Adriana La Cerva in this episode. This is her last appearance on the show.

References to prior episodes

  • Carmela mentions the time A.J. was being nihilistic and denying God's existence at the time of his confirmation, which happened in the season 2 episode "D-Girl."
  • Carmela mentions the time she and Rosalie planned to travel to Italy ("The Knight in White Satin Armor").
  • Carmela reads about Abelard and Heloise in her Paris guidebook and then thinks for a second. Robert Wegler prominently talked to Carmela about a book about Abelard and Heloise in the season 5 episode "Sentimental Education."
  • Carmela remembers what Tony spoke immediately after he woke up from his coma: "Who am I? Where am I going?" ("Join the Club").
  • In Carmela's dream, Adriana tells her that she found her dog Cosette (in the afterlife). Cosette was accidentally killed in the season 4 episode "The Strong, Silent Type."

Other cultural references

  • Carmela says she went to Blockbuster to rent Cinderella Man.
  • A.J. mentions Forbes magazine.
  • A.J. says the promotional item for Wallace & Gromit cost many trees their lives.
  • When he and his crew are in the Bing, Tony points out Mickey Rooney on TV as a very hyper band leader in the movie Strike Up the Band.
  • In the same scene above, Paulie mentions how ashamed "Salvatore Lucania" would probably be of him and his cohorts. Lucania was the birth name of iconic Mafia boss Charles Lucky Luciano.
  • The Star-Ledger that Tony is reading in the mall contains the headline "The Corzine Era Begins".
  • Vito is wearing a University of Notre Dame hat when he meets with Tony.
  • When Carmela tells Tony about her plans to visit Paris, he is watching Is Paris Burning? (1966) on television. Later, when Carmela calls from Paris, Tony jokes, "Is Paris burning?" When he hears it's been raining over there, he replies "When it drizzles!", a line from the 1953 Cole Porter song "I Love Paris".
  • Tony presents Carmela with a Louis Vuitton purse.
  • The sights seen in Paris besides the Eiffel Tower: The taxi is driving Carmela and Rosalie on the Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe. Later, Notre Dame Cathedral is shown in the background. The Palais-Royal gardens and the Pont Alexandre III bridge are visited. The church where the candles were lit is St. Eustache. The women have dinner at Le Grand Véfour restaurant. Rosalie consoles Carmela at the Thermes de Cluny. Additionally, Carmela says they should visit the Louvre.
  • Rosalie Aprile sees a ferry in the Seine and says "Look! Just like Charade!"
  • Leaving the hotel, Rosalie remembers she forgot her Toulouse-Lautrec placemats.
  • Silvio Dante reacts to the repeated news of Vito's death by responding that Carlo Gervasi is a "regular Jimmy Olsen", a reference to Superman's photographer friend at the Daily Planet.
  • Tony tells Silvio that "Joe Bananas" fought a Mafia war with Carlo Gambino of retribution killings for seven or so years.
  • As Silvio and Carlo wait for nightfall after killing "Fat Dom," New York's popular sports radio talk show, Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN, can be heard. A brief snippet of a discussion about the "Clemente" book is heard, which would refer to the late baseball Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente, whose biography was published around the time of the original airing of the episode, entitled Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero and written by David Maraniss.

Music

  • "Summer Rain" by Gritty Kitty plays as Vito and Marie Spatafore talk while their kids skate at the Rockefeller Center.
  • "Ouvre Les Yeux" by PM (from their 2000 album "Les Petits Chefs"), a French rap group from the Paris suburbs, plays during the first scene in Paris.
  • "Knights in White Satin" by Giorgio Moroder is played while Tony is in the Bada Bing!
  • "Back In Black" by AC/DC is playing on the car radio while Tony is receiving fellatio from a stripper while driving. That song was followed immediately by Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" as Tony speaks to Vito on the phone.
  • The melody to "La Vie En Rose" is hummed by Rosalie as she consoles Carmela at the Gallo-Roman baths.
  • The ringtone of "Fat Dom"'s phone is Für Elise by Ludwig van Beethoven.
  • "Home" by Persephone's Bees plays in the beginning of the credits.
  • "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca plays through the rest of the closing credits. The city of Paris plays an important role in both Casablanca and this episode. This particular rendition is sung by Dooley Wilson.

References

  1. ↑ Martin, Brett (2007-10-30). "Welcome to New Jersey: A Sense of Place". The Sopranos: The Complete Book. New York: Time. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-933821-18-4.
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