The Weight (''The Sopranos'')

"The Weight"
The Sopranos episode
Episode no. Season 4
Episode 4
Directed by Jack Bender
Written by Terence Winter
Cinematography by Phil Abraham
Production code 404
Original air date October 6, 2002
Running time 58 minutes
Guest appearance(s)

see below

"The Weight" is the 43rd episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the fourth episode of the show's fourth season. Written by Terence Winter and directed by Jack Bender, it originally aired on October 6, 2002. This episode marks the halfway point (43rd out of 86) of the series.

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

Episode recap

In a bar in Little Italy, Johnny spots a member of Ralphie's crew, Donny K., and is infuriated to see him laughing and joking with the bartender. As Donny K. gets up to leave, Johnny follows him outside, beats him into unconsciousness, and urinates on him. Tony learns of the incident and is deeply troubled that Johnny inappropriately lashed out. Johnny informs Tony about Ralphie's joke regarding his wife's weight. Tony feigns sympathy with Johnny, but feels he has to protect his capos, and Ralphie is his highest earner. Johnny tries to convince Carmine to allow a hit on Ralphie. Carmine refuses, citing Ralphie's key role in the warehouse project, and instead suggests putting a crippling "tax" on Ralphie.

When Johnny rejects the idea, Carmine convenes a series of sit-downs involving Johnny, Ralphie, Tony, Silvio, and Junior to keep the situation from escalating. Johnny decides to act without Carmine's blessing and orders a hitman to kill Ralphie in Miami; Carmine, who has determined that Johnny's uncompromising conduct is a threat to the warehouse project, makes a veiled suggestion to Tony to have Johnny killed. Junior recommends an experienced longtime crew of hitmen from Rhode Island led by Lou "DiMaggio" Gallina. Silvio and Christopher find the crew to now be elderly, but still ready to take the contract. They task Gallina with making Johnny "disappear" while he is visiting his father in Boston. In Miami, however, events are already well in motion, as a hitman arrives at Ralphie's hotel.

Johnny leaves for Boston, but immediately returns home to retrieve a sweater. In the laundry room, he catches Ginny eating from a secret stash of junk food behind his back. After having a heart-to-heart with his wife, Johnny's anger subsides and he calls off the hit on Ralphie at the last second. Johnny approaches Tony and offers reconciliation, allowing a relieved Tony to cancel the contract on Johnny. In sessions with her psychotherapist Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, Dr. Melfi discusses her son Jason's loss of interest in education and his unwillingness to talk to his father, which Elliot attributes to Jason's feeling of helplessness following Melfi's rape. Melfi says she feels like "a fraud" giving advice on parenting to Tony, when her own son is not acting well.

Meadow is urged by Kupferberg's daughter, Saskia, to join a law firm representing underprivileged clients in the South Bronx. Tony is not impressed and feels dismayed that Meadow is drifting away from her interest in becoming a pediatrician. Meadow disagrees with her father's advice and continues to volunteer. Meanwhile, Carmela is hurt by Tony's reluctance to engage in financial planning with her cousin, a financial advisor named Brian Cammarata. She is drawn emotionally closer to Furio and takes along a discontented A.J. as a chaperone when she visits Furio to advise him on land zoning regulations. Later, when Furio throws a housewarming party to celebrate his new home, the pair dance together to sensual Italian music.

The evening after the party, as Carmela lies in bed, Tony presents her with flowers and a slim designer dress from Saks Fifth Avenue. Carmela puts on the dress and Tony compliments her figure. They begin to kiss and, as they are about to have sex, Meadow blares the Italian music from Furio's housewarming party in the next room. This causes Carmela to interrupt Tony's advances, bang on Meadow's bedroom door, and tell her to turn the music down. After Meadow complies, Tony and Carmela resume making love, but Furio's party music is still playing in Carmela's head.

First appearances

Title reference

  • The title refers to the joke Ralph Cifaretto made about Ginny Sacrimoni's weight in "No Show", which Johnny Sack eventually learned about from Paulie Gualtieri; this joke almost cost two arguing mobsters their lives.
  • The title could also refer to the emotional weight Carmela is feeling when she is caught between her responsibilities as a wife and mother, and her burgeoning desire for Furio.
  • "The Weight" is the title of The Band's most famous song, and this episode's title could be a nod to Martin Scorsese's rockumentary about The Band, titled The Last Waltz, given Chase's many references to Scorsese's body of work.

References to other episodes

  • Ralph told the joke about Ginny's weight in "No Show"
  • When Ralph calls Johnny Sack to deny he told the "mole joke", Johnny says that he "should have let Tony cut off [Ralph's] head a year ago", referring to when Ralph and Tony were on the outs, and Tony was considering killing Ralph in the season 3 episode, "He Is Risen".
  • While visiting Meadow's dorm, Tony sees Meadow's graduation picture taken in the episode "Funhouse".

Other cultural references

  • When Tony was visiting Uncle Junior at his home, Junior was watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on television, commenting about a contestant (Sal Mecca) who used up all his lifelines before the fifth question.
  • Godfather references abound. For example:
    • One of the elderly hit men Silvio and Christopher meet is Frank Crisci. Crisci is played by Richard Bright, who also played Al Neri, a Corleone family member and assassin, in all three Godfather movies.
    • In the episode, Crisci talks about killing a "Tommy Neri", who was Al Neri's nephew in The Godfather.
    • When Tony comes to visit Ralphie, he is offered a bag of Florida oranges ("Florida's finest"). In The Godfather, oranges are present whenever characters are murdered or die. Part of the episode revolves around an attempted hit on Ralphie in Florida.
  • The beginning of Tony's seduction of Carmela in front of the mirror, in the episode's final scene, strongly evokes a similar image in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Music

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.