Long Term Parking

"Long Term Parking"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 12
Directed by Tim Van Patten
Written by Terence Winter
Cinematography by Alik Sakharov
Production code 512
Original air date May 23, 2004
Running time 56 minutes
Guest appearance(s)

see below

"Long Term Parking" is the 64th episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the 12th of the show's fifth season. Written by Terence Winter and directed by Tim Van Patten, it originally aired on May 23, 2004.

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

Episode recap

Adriana learns from a doctor that she has been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Elsewhere, the Soprano family is forced to have a sitdown with Johnny and the Lupertazzi family over the murder of Billy by Tony B. Tony Soprano expresses his condolences to Phil and assures him that his cousin acted alone and that his whereabouts are unknown. Phil angrily threatens to kill one of Tony's own family, which causes him to be led away from the table. Johnny threatens to kill one of Tony's other cousins in Tony B's place, at which Christopher takes offense and protests. Johnny warns Tony to deliver Tony B "on a spit."

The deaths of Billy and Angelo get Little Carmine spooked about the reprisal killings. He announces his withdrawal from the confrontation with Johnny to his associates, who are openly disappointed. Chris descends into alcoholism and is punished by Tony for bungling a cigarette smuggling operation. Back home, he rants about Tony's treatment of him and what he sees as Tony's favoritism towards Tony B. The diatribe leaves Adriana in tears. On the Jersey Shore, schoolchildren on a field trip find a dead body washed ashore; it is later identified as Gilbert Nieves.

FBI agents watching the Crazy Horse observe Adriana behaving suspiciously with a garbage bag. Upon learning that the club was recently investigated, they decide to bring Adriana in for questioning. Later, Tony has dinner with Carmela at Nuovo Vesuvio, where he tries to convince her to allow him back home. Hesitant, Carmela asks Tony to front her $600,000 to begin building a "spec house" on a piece of promising real estate. Tony agrees and is told he can return. Tony then visits his hospitalized girlfriend Valentina and breaks up with her. He starts receiving silent phone calls, which he suspects are from Tony B.

Tony returns home and has dinner with Carmela and A.J.. Shortly afterwards, he receives a call from Tony B, who apologizes for putting him in a predicament with the Lupertazzis. Tony agrees to look after Tony B's sons and admits that he had passed out from a panic attack on the night he was unable to prevent Tony B's arrest. Tony B seems unfazed by the revelation, but asks Tony if everything he did for him was because of guilt over the incident. Tony traces the call from a business near their Uncle Pat's farm near Kinderhook, New York.

Upon being confronted by the FBI, Adriana tells them how Matush and his partner, both drug dealers, used her office to fax some documents when they were held at knifepoint by Nieves over a purchase of cocaine. The dealers overpowered Nieves, and Matush stabbed him to death with his own knife. Adriana, who had been high on ecstasy, stumbled upon the scene and helped the duo remove the body and the evidence. Agent Sanseverino convinces Adriana to cooperate, but she refuses to wear a wire and asks for a chance to persuade Chris to join her in witness protection. Chief Cubitoso allows this, but comments the Bureau will not be able to protect her without a wire.

Silvio executes Adriana

Adriana admits to Chris that she has cooperated with the FBI. He initially reacts violently, but calms down and seems to agree with her plan to move away. However, while getting gas for his Hummer H2, he observes a desperately poor family in the parking lot, their meager possessions strapped to the roof of a run-down car. Adriana later gets a call from Tony, who claims Chris tried to commit suicide and that Silvio is on his way to take her to the hospital. While riding in Silvio's car, it becomes clear that Tony sent Silvio to kill her. After driving into the woods, Silvio shoots Adriana as she tries to crawl away. Afterwards, Chris packs her possessions into a suitcase and tosses it into an industrial marshland in Newark. He drives her Ford Thunderbird to Newark Liberty International Airport, where he leaves it in the long-term parking area and walks away.

After word gets to New Jersey that Johnny has become Carmine's successor as the head of the New York family, Tony meets the new boss in a vacant lot near the Manhattan Bridge and offers to give up Tony B's location, asking that he be killed quickly so that he does not suffer. Johnny does not accept his offer, telling Tony that Phil is going to do it "his way." Upon hearing this, Tony curses at Johnny and says nothing will happen to his cousin. Later, Tony goes to the Bada Bing and finds Chris watching Three Amigos in the back room, quickly realizing that he is high. Chris admits to snorting heroin because he cannot take the pain of losing Adriana, telling Tony he loved her. Tony loses his composure and beats Chris.

Sanseverino meets with Cubitoso and Harris about Adriana's disappearance, believing she could have fled; Cubitoso is not convinced. She storms out of the office. Cubitoso tells Harris that since Matush is sending money home to Pakistan, he should pull the counter-terrorism card and take the case from the local police. Meanwhile, Carmela and Tony survey the land on which Carmela plans to build her spec house, which coincidentally looks similar to the area in which Adriana was killed. Tony, lost in thought, sits on a tree stump, with Carmela standing at his side.

Deceased

  • Gilbert Nieves: stabbed to death by Matush Giomana (in flashback).
  • Adriana La Cerva: shot by Silvio Dante for being an informant to the FBI.

Additionally, Billy Leotardo's murder by Tony Blundetto, previously mentioned only, is shown in Phil Leotardo's flashback.

Title reference

  • Christopher parks Adriana's car in the "Long Term Parking" section at the airport.
  • "Long term parking" could refer to a long-term decision, or putting oneself in a lasting or binding situation: Adriana suggesting she and Christopher join the Witness Protection Program, Carmela and Tony moving back in together, Tony B.'s attempts to disappear, and Christopher's and Tony's guilt over the death of Adriana.
  • Death can be viewed as a "long term parking" of the human body.
  • The title could refer to the state of Christopher's soul, which could be forever damned for his betrayal of Adriana

Production

  • Many fans speculated that Adriana had survived because her death was not shown on-screen. However, Drea de Matteo confirmed in her 2005 DVD commentary that Adriana was indeed killed. De Matteo quotes Van Zandt as saying: "Do [the fans] think I was shooting squirrels?" Later in the DVD commentary, de Matteo talks about the strong fan reaction to Adriana's death.
  • In 2014, during an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit, de Matteo stated: "All of us had known already that my character was dying - [Steven] Van Zandt was actually the most pissed off about it, he didn't want to do it, he just didn't want to do it. And I had to talk him into how awesome it was gonna be and how important it was, he didn't want to pull me out of that car, he didn't want to call me a c-word, he didn't want to shoot me in the head, but David [Chase] made a specific point not to show my character actually getting the bullet to her head. I'm not sure if that was for cliffhangers reasons, but he said it was from respect for the character."[1]
  • Steven Van Zandt and Drea De Matteo asked David Chase to cut out the scene where Christopher tells Tony about Adriana in order to keep her death at the hands of Silvio a surprise. The scene was later aired in the sixth-season episode "The Ride," as a flashback.

References to other media

  • Christopher's line "The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive" is from Bruce Springsteen's song "Born to Run", a pop culture reference made more apropos by the presence of Steven Van Zandt (as Silvio Dante), longtime guitarist in Springsteen's E Street Band. Van Zandt also sings backing vocals on the "Born To Run" track.
  • The scene with Christopher and Adriana where both of them are crying over the consequences of Adriana being an informant, including Chris' strangled wail of "Oh, God, what are we gonna do?!' mirror a very similar scene in the 1990 film Goodfellas where Henry and Karen Hill are falling apart at the realization they are in mortal danger from Paulie Cicero and his crew after Henry's narcotics bust.
  • The scene with Tony Soprano sitting alone in his backyard reminiscing about his cousin closely resembles the ending scene of The Godfather Part II, in which Michael Corleone sits alone at his Lake Tahoe compound remembering a moment shared with his family.
  • Tony watches the film It's a Gift on the TV after he moves back in with Carmela.
  • The film Christopher is watching at the Bada Bing after admitting to Tony "...I snorted a little H" is Three Amigos.

References to past episodes

  • The Crazy Horse club and the character Matush were both introduced in "The Telltale Moozadell" in a storyline in which Matush was repeatedly kicked out of the club for dealing drugs on the premises.
  • Christopher dumps Adriana's suitcase in the same location where Tony had almost killed him in "Irregular Around the Margins".
  • Christopher and Adriana reunited after his release from rehab in the Season 4 finale, "Whitecaps", the same episode in which Tony and Carmela separate. In an interesting parallel, Tony and Carmela rekindle their relationship in this episode, as Christopher's and Adriana's relationship falls apart.

Music

  • Lou Christie's song "Summer Snow" is playing in Phil Leotardo's flashback of his brother Billy's murder.
  • The song playing when Tony enters his Bada Bing office near the end of the episode is "Super Bon Bon" by Soul Coughing.
  • The Shawn Smith song, "Leaving California", plays in the background while Silvio drives with Adriana.
  • The song playing in Silvio's car when he parks in the woods is "Barracuda" by Heart.
  • The song played over the end credits is another song by Shawn Smith,"Wrapped in My Memory", from Shield of Thorns.

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "r/IAmA - I am Drea De Matteo, mom & actress (Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Muthaship) Ask me Anything!". reddit.
  2. 1 2 Beachum, Chris (6 April 2012). "EMMY AWARDS Episode Submissions Previous Years".
  3. ↑ http://www.empireonline.com/50greatesttv/default.asp?tv=3
  4. ↑ TV Guide December 5-11, 2005. pg. 19.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.