The Sopranos 3.09

The Telltale Moozadell

Carmella's family surprises her on her birthday. Tony gets her an expensive ring with a big stone. AJ gets her the DVD of the Matrix. Meadow gets her a gift certificate for a spa. There is a party at the house in her honor that night. Her parents and Janice are also there. Jackie Aprile, Jr. shows up. He's really there to pick up Meadow but he brought a bottle of wine as a present for her mother.

Christopher and Furio take over a nightclub. Chris turns it over to Adriana to run. She is very happy. A young drug dealer gets kicked out on opening night. He goes to his friend who in turn goes to Jackie Jr. for help. Jackie Jr. agrees to help him out.

AJ goes out with some friends after the birthday party. They break into their school and vandalize the swimming pool. The police find a pizza box which leads them back to a pizzeria which traces it back to AJ. Tony and Carmella are very angry with AJ. They are stunned when after meeting with the principal they learn that the school is not going to punish him. He won't even be kicked off the freshman football team.

Tony has a talk with Jackie Jr. He impresses on him the fact that he needs to work harder at school and stay out of trouble if he wants to continue dating Meadow. Jackie tells Tony about the A he got on a paper he did on Edgar Allan Poe. Tony is impressed. He doesn't tell Tony that Meadow is the one who wrote the paper for him.

Tony goes to see Gloria Trillo again. He wants to take her out but she is busy. He is persistent and she finally agrees to leave work early but only if he takes her to the zoo. He finds out that she practices buddhism, like Janice. It bothers him but Gloria knows how to turn him on.

Jackie Jr. tries to talk to Christopher at the Bing about the drug dealer but Christopher is unwilling to budge. He is too worried about the Feds shutting the place down. Jackie quickly leaves when he sees Tony walk in.

Dr. Melfi is pleasantly surprised to see that things are going well for Gloria. She asks Gloria about her personal life. Gloria lies to Dr. Melfi and then gets angry when Dr. Melfi asks some more questions.

Tony sees Gloria again before his next appointment with Dr. Melfi, who also asks him about how things are going and why he is in such a good mood. She gets suspicious when Tony says something that sounds like it comes from an Eastern tradition, something that Gloria said to him. He plays it off as being something he read in Sun Tzu's the Art of War.

Jackie tells the drug dealer to sell outside of the club. He will be okay if he does that. He follows Jackie's instructions and gets badly beaten by Furio and a couple of the bouncers. Jackie tries joking with the drug dealer but the man fails to see the humor. Jackie turns to Ralph for help. He says he needs a gun for protection without going into details. Ralph gives him a .38.

Tony is at one of his illegal gambling joints when he spots Jackie Jr. He gives him a hard time and then kicks him out of the joint. The next morning he is having a bite to eat at home while talking to Carmella. She seems to be coming around to the idea of Meadow dating Jackie Jr. Tony doesn't tell her about where he saw their daughter's boyfriend the night before.

Thoughts

There were a lot of threads going through this episode but the through line seems to be Jackie Jr.'s story. He is almost certainly about to start spiraling downward.

Tony's relationship with Gloria may have hit its highpoint but I'm not sure. I am still certain that she will be out of the story by the end of the season. There is some mention of her being suicidal in her meeting with Dr. Melfi. I don't think Tony knows that at this point.

There are a lot of people in this episode but the central relationships seem to be Jackie Jr.'s relationship with Tony and Tony's relationship with Gloria.

This was a very good episode. I really like how the various elements were layered together.