“You know what they say—‘Revenge is like serving cold cuts.'”
Episode 62 – Originally aired May 9, 2004
Written by Green and Burgess
Directed by Mike Figgis
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The Sopranos can be faulted for sometimes making its points a little too relentlessly, and I think “Cold Cuts” is guilty of this. I feel like the script (or was it the direction?) almost turns James Gandolfini into a dancing bear—Tony’s rages here are so sudden and overwhelming that they feel a bit gimmicky to me. But it’s nevertheless a fine hour, examining how those emotions that rise out of the darker side of human nature—rage, anger and jealousy—affect various SopranoWorld characters. These emotions have been essential ingredients throughout the series, but “Cold Cuts” investigates them in a more pointed and revealing way. These dark emotions also serve to amplify tensions as we enter the endgame of the season. For example, Johnny Sac’s fury over the murder of Joey Peeps heightens the tension between the NJ and NY famiglias. And Christopher’s jealousy over rising star Blundetto sets up some tense questions. Will Christopher’s jealousy, perhaps still inflamed from the imagined blowjob in 5.05, spill over into violence against his cousin(s)? And will Adriana reveal her collusion with the FBI when Chris tells her how dissatisfied he is with the mob?
Janice’s rage erupts at stepdaughter Sophia’s soccer game. She throws a couple of good punches at an overenthusiastic soccer-mom. Tony’s anger grows as he watches the story on the evening news. Psychologist Bela Kakuk (whose name I suspected for a long time to be some kind of clever anagram) says during a TV interview, “Psychologists are finding that certain individuals are particularly prone to rage. Almost any frustration, inconvenience or perceived inconsideration will set them off.” Chase cuts to a shot of Tony that confirms Kakuk’s words:
Tony rushes over to Janice’s house in a rage and warns Bobby to get his wife under control. Bobby tells Janice that he likes “the spitfire-type” but nevertheless insists that she must make a change if their marriage is to continue. We’ve known Janice to be two-faced ever since she entered SopranoWorld as “Parvati” in Season 2, and the mirror in which we now see her make excuses for her behavior reflects her Janus-face:
She tells Bobby that the reason she is so combative is because, “at my house, it was dog-eat-dog.” The dog-eat-dog mentality pervades la famiglia as well. Paulie has sometimes felt threatened by up-and-coming Chris, and Chris is now in turn envious of Blundetto’s ascent within the family (and of all the dough Blundetto rakes in running the Bloomfield Avenue casino). Christopher’s belief that Tony was closer to Blundetto than himself when they were all youngsters gives his jealousy even more bite. Old grievances die hard.
Tony is enraged to come back to the house and find that Carmela has emptied the pool. The Soprano swimming pool is an object loaded with long-running associations to home and family (see my previous write-up for a run-down) and so we can symbolically read Carmela’s emptying of the pool as an attempt to distance herself from Tony and prevent the reunification of their household. She is trying to escape Fate, which seems to perpetually push her and Tony together. A low camera-angle from within the drained pool gives this scene some menace, but we know—as does Carm—that Tony is not going to physically hurt her here.
Janice joins an anger management group, and comes very close to lashing out at a black woman during one of their sessions (in an exchange that one of the class participants, like us, finds “fuckin’ priceless”). But we later see that Janice actually is learning to govern her emotions and behavior. Tony mocks her newfound coping skills, calling her “Mahatma Gandhi.” Of course, Tony feels threatened by her personal growth because it reflects poorly on himself: if Janice—who was spawned by Johnny Boy and Livia just as he was—can develop as a person, then why can’t he? Tony tries to be happy for his sister, but as he sits in the kitchen, the intensifying sounds of a police siren and a yapping dog underscore his intensifying frustration:
The barking dog also recalls Janice’s earlier excuse to Bobby—“at my house, it was dog-eat-dog.” Janice is learning to transcend the damage inflicted on her as a child in Livia’s house, but Tony is not. The main reason I included this video clip, however, is to highlight the edit: the magnified sounds of the siren and the dog seem to build towards some momentous explosion, but Chase instead cuts to a slow-panning shot of the quiet, pastoral countryside. Paying attention to the edit helps us understand why the pastoral scenes at Uncle Pat’s farm in this episode are so powerfully evocative: the peaceful scenes at the upstate farm are made doubly serene in juxtaposition to the scenes of rage and frustration back in mob-land. The farm is a bucolic retreat, where you can sit in the breeze and play lazy games of pinochle while the gentle sounds of crickets, birdsong and rustling leaves waft through the air. Just try not to think too much about the bloody secrets that lay in the dark earth beneath you. The men have come to the farm to move the remains of Emil Kolar, Christopher’s first murder victim. (We saw Chris and Georgie move the body previously in episode 1.08.) The remains of the Johnson brothers, God rest their souls whoever they are, must also be redistributed to another location.
At the farm, Blundetto demonstrates once again that he is top-management material. He is able to adroitly smooth Christopher’s ruffled feathers and reestablish their friendship. But at a restaurant, Chris gets ruffled again. The two Tonys are in top form, beboppin’ and scattin’, making a word-game out of the litany of playful put-downs that they aim at Chris. Through a series of puns, the Tonys reduce Christopher’s Hummer (that vehicle which embodied “tough guy” masculinity, at least in some circles back in those days) to a blowjob joke. And they mock his sobriety, his unwillingness to share a drink with them. Chris lashes back—clumsily—at Tony S (“That joke he made was about you, the zeppole content”) and at Tony B (“I could’ve called you Ichabod Crane”). Unsurprisingly, all of this happens at a restaurant—ill feelings and angry acts are often found in the context of food on The Sopranos. (In earlier episodes, for example, there was Chris launching a sandwich at Vito in the backroom of the pork store, or Tony causing Phil to crash into the back of a Boar’s Head delivery truck). The episode title, “Cold Cuts,” highlights this long-running connection between food, resentment and revenge.
The next morning, Chris skips hunting with his cousins in order to head back home early. As he kisses Uncle Pat goodbye, the old man calls him “tough guy.” Chase makes an ironic cut here:
Chris wants to be a tough guy in his tough-guy Hummer, but he can barely keep from crying, his eyes are full of tears. His anger at his cousins has transmuted into sadness. It is true what Dr. Melfi says: “Depression is rage turned inwards.” Melfi’s words to Tony in her office strongly echo Bela Kakuk’s earlier sentiments. She notes that Tony thinks he is “above all of it, certainly above any inconvenience or annoyance. And if things don’t go your way, instead of being merely disappointed or inconvenienced, you blow.”
It’s not just minor inconveniences and annoyances that agitate Tony, there are big issues as well. At the time that this episode aired—about two-and-a-half years after 9/11—much of the country still felt a muted but ever-present fear that another terror attack was imminent, and that fear particularly throbbed in the NY/NJ area. NYC is my hometown and I have many friends and relatives up there, and for years after 9/11 I felt a persistent unease that it was only a matter of time before the city would be hit again. At Pat’s farm, Tony is so upset by a TV program outlining the poor security at the ports that he has nightmares. The stakes are especially high for Tony because he has a daughter living in target-rich Manhattan. He is still feeling anxious about Al-Qaeda when he leaves the farm and returns to the Bada Bing. As a mobster, Tony is pleased that the security at the ports is so paltry because it is a windfall for his illegal imports business, but as an American, he is outraged. Paulie makes a sympathetic excuse for the Bush government’s inaction: “…the administration is busy handing out non-competitive building contracts to their friends. Hell, we can relate to that.” (This line is arguably Chase’s strongest criticism of George “Dubya” Bush this season, comparing his administration to a gang of mafia thugs.) Poor Georgie (the bartender, not Dubya) wants to contribute to the conversation and makes one of those commonplace comments—“Ya gotta live for today”—that people make all the time. But the comment rubs Tony the wrong way. Tony brutally unloads his anger on the long-suffering man. (It was in the second episode of the series that we first saw Georgie take a beating, and we most recently saw him get beat-down in Season Four’s “Christopher.”) After learning that he will suffer from some permanent hearing loss, Georgie decides to quit the Bing. When Tony is told of the damage to Georgie’s hearing, an expression of genuine remorse passes across his face.
Despite whatever compassion or remorse Tony Soprano is capable of feeling, we see in the final scene of the hour just what a miserable prick he can be. He cruelly baits Janice during dinner, playing on the guilt she feels over her troubled son Harpo. Tony utterly smashes any sense of self-control and tranquility that Janice had built up over the last few days. Armed with a fork, she chases Tony around the dinner table. Tony saunters out of her house while she weeps and curses, smugly satisfied with himself. He has proven that Janice is no better than him despite her recent successes. Chase pumps The Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Anybody Else” over these final moments of the hour and then through the credits. Chase’s decision to use the live version of the song is truly clever. In an interview with Martha Nochimson, Chase notes the irony generated by the live version: Ray Davies calls out to the crowd, “What are you?” and 3000 people yell back en masse, “I’m not like anybody else!” This irony—thousands of fans each declaring that they are totally unique, but that very declaration proves that they’re not—echoes the irony of the final scene: Tony believes himself to be above the rules that other people must adhere to, but when he abandons certain rules of restraint and decency in order to shit on his sister, he proves that he is in no way above the multitude.
Many viewers, justifiably, found Tony to be particularly petty and despicable in this hour. It is horrible how he undermines both Janice’s attempt at anger management and Christopher’s attempt at sobriety. And Tony’s bashing of Georgie would be abhorrent even if it wasn’t over such a trivial comment. However, I believe that all these characters are victims of themselves more than they are of Tony Soprano. Janice abandons anger management too easily, she doesn’t build on the progress that she had made before Tony baited her. Chris eventually abandons sobriety with disastrous consequences for himself. And perennial punching-bag Georgie should have quit the strip club years ago. (I guess he’s been sticking around for the “fringe benefits.” Although he says he is leaving now, we will see Georgie working at the Bing again late in Season 6.) Tony can be an awful man—yes, this is true enough. But the greater truth of SopranoWorld is that its inhabitants cannot, or will not, muster the discipline and courage needed to break out of the self-limiting, self-destructive patterns in their lives. We can’t lay all the blame at Tony’s feet.
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT…
Exhibit ‘A’ of “Characters who will not break out of self-limiting patterns” is Carmela Soprano. She makes an effort to find a good local divorce attorney, but when that proves to be too difficult, she doesn’t redouble her efforts. Instead, she makes only a symbolic attempt to keep Tony out of her life: she drains the swimming pool. Like so many characters in SopranoWorld, Carmela gets derailed when her attempt to improve her life hits a hiccup. (They could learn a thing or two from Uncle Pat, who refused to give up or commit suicide while suffering from hiccup after hiccup—literally—for a year.) Immediately after a chance encounter with Mr. Wegler, Carmela voices a thought that is lurking in her subconscious: she will return to Tony. Just when she thought she was out, she pulls herself back in.
Her quick little scene with Wegler here has drawn much attention because of the way that it was edited. The scene ends with a number of cheesy gimmicks: slo-mo, freeze-frame and then a wipe-cut. Someone (I don’t know if it was David Chase or the editor or director Mike Figgis) makes a total ham-n-cheese sandwich of the scene:
There is no doubt that this is a moment pregnant with consequence for Carmela. But The Sopranos doesn’t normally highlight its important moments with so many bells-and-whistles. On the DVD commentary track, Figgis says over the scene, “That’s a really interesting transition, and it wasn’t the way I’d expected the scene to look at the end,” leading me to believe that he isn’t the primary culprit. On the other hand, each of the other directors who recorded DVD commentaries for this season—Garcia, Bogdanovich and Buscemi—all mentioned how straightforward and invisible the editing of The Sopranos is, but I don’t recall Figgis saying anything like this. Perhaps he never noticed how straightforward and invisible the editing of The Sopranos usually is. Perhaps he was just trying to do something new and different here. Figgis is a gutsy filmmaker, willing to take chances and push the envelope. His film Timecode, for example, projects four unedited streams onto four quadrants of the screen simultaneously for the duration of the movie. (But not all experiments go well. Someone with the handle “TweeterFlix” gives a devastating synopsis of Timecode on YouTube: “Figgis divides up the screen to tell 4 stories at the same time. They’re all boring.”)
I’m not trying to pick on Mike Figgis though, I think he did a phenomenal job here. “Cold Cuts” focuses on a subject that hasn’t been explicitly explored on The Sopranos very much, but one that is crucial to understanding the mobster mentality: the relationship between anger, pain and revenge. The hour also deftly performs the role that an “episode #10” should traditionally perform: escalate tensions as we enter the final stage of the season. (Of course, Chase does seem to veer away—at first blush, anyway—from some of these escalating tensions in the next episode, the wild-and-woolly “Test Dream.”) I feel that the second half of Season 5 gives us the strongest run of episodes in the entire series, and “Cold Cuts” easily pulls its weight in this run.
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HARPO’S BLUES
While Tony’s baiting of Janice at the end of the hour is indefensible, he does bring up a valid point: Janice was a pretty horrible mother to Harpo, and her deficiencies as a parent probably did contribute to the difficult life that he’s had. We learn here that he was named after the Phoebe Snow song “Harpo’s Blues,” not after the clownish Marx brother as I had always assumed. It’s easy to imagine Harpo going through life being bullied or dismissed because of his clownish name. Janice arguably hobbled her son right from birth by christening him “Harpo.” And things just seem to have gotten worse from there. Though we never meet Harpo, we can assume from the fact that he goes by the name “Hal” now that he is not very proud of his birthname. And we can assume from the fact that he has been homeless that he has suffered terribly in his life. Janice is severely lacking in the mothering department, and her son has had to pay a price for it. The parallel here is that Janice’s own mother was severely ill-equipped to be a mom, and her children, including Janice, were forced to pay a price for it.
The parallel is overtly made in this hour: Valerie Palmer-Mehta notes in her essay, “Disciplining the Masculine,” that Janice lunges for Tony with a fork here, calling to mind the flashback in “Down Neck” (1.07) in which we saw Livia yell at young Tony, “I could stick this fork in your eye!” Almost everyone in SopranoWorld is stuck in self-defeating patterns of behavior, patterns that often pass from one generation to the next…
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ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- Chris and Adriana are looking at wedding cakes, they’re going forward with their wedding—which makes his betrayal and her fate all the more heartbreaking two episodes from now.
- If the attractive woman that comes down Tony’s staircase looks familiar, it’s because we saw her in 5.05. She was sort of cold towards Tony at the dermatologist’s office, but apparently she has warmed up to him:
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Sopranos Autopsy 
Ron! I love reading these autopsies and am eager that you are getting near the series’ endgame. When you say in this write-up, “I feel that the second half of Season 5 gives us the strongest run of episodes in the entire series,” I somewhat agree, though I would connect it to season 6 (and I suspect David Chase would not mind such connectivity). I would argue that from “The Test Dream” through “Mayham” is the best consecutive six-episode stretch of the entire series.
I cannot wait for you to get to the final three episodes of this season (including “Long Term Parking,” the series’ greatest episode in my mind) and the symbolism-laden season 6 — and yes, I know you hate that word!
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I haven’t given this much thought but if we’re stretching across the seasons, I think my favorite six-episode run would be very similar to yours: “Long Term Parking” to “The Fleshy Part of the Thigh.”
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So you would switch out “Test Dream” for “Fleshy Part.” I can’t argue with that. Suffice it to say the end of season 5 and beginning of season 6 were incredible. Looking through the episode titles in this six-consecutive idea, I might mention the second half of season 3 as well. I know many do not care for the Jackie Jr. storyline, but I think from “University” through “The Army of One” was just one excellent episode after another.
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Have to agree on Season 3. That would probably be my pick as well.
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This one gets bonus points for the ‘dancing bear’ reference.
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haha
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Some stray thoughts on this one:
– Interesting that Tony visits Janice’s house twice in this episode, and both end in similar ways. The first time, he chases her around the dinner table. The second, she chases him.
– I love how Janice always has to get the last word. Even when Tony comes over to shout at her about controlling her temper (oh, the irony), she just has to get the last word in.
– Sad that Christopher finally gets invited to shoot guns with Tony and Tony up on Uncle Pat’s farm, only to realize that he wouldn’t want to be there anyway.
– I’ve always felt bad for Chris in this episode, but at the same time, the joking and razzing seemed like good natured ribbing between cousins, for the most part. Was he being a bit too sensitive? Tony B took a crack at Tony S at the breakfast table as well (‘knocked the hell right off your appetite…’), but Soprano didn’t take it to heart the way Chris took his barbs.
– Christopher’s delusions of male modeling never fail to crack me up.
– “I dress up nice when I come here.” Such a deceptively simple line, that says so much about Tony.
– “I try hard to care very much.” Oh, Janice.
– As usual, Tony’s relating of information gets jumbled in hilarious ways. Every time he talks about the documentary he saw, he seems to embellish the story a bit more, presumably trying to draw the same horrified/outraged reaction from his indifferent listeners that he felt. By the time he tells it at the Bing, a would-be terrorist was caught smuggling himself into the country. Not having him discuss this documentary with AJ seems like a huge missed opportunity in the comedy department.
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A very late reply to this post. Regarding Chris probably being a little too sensitive to his cousins supposedly good natured ribbing, it could be that newly sober people don’t immediately find their equilibrium and become well adjusted overnight. Alcoholic drug addicts are used to self-medicating their feelings away, and aren’t accustomed to dealing with them without the usual “crutches”. Also a lot of old suppressed emotions tend to bubble up to the surface.
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Ask anyone who was bullied in life if they think Chris is “too sensitive” other than that co-sign all this. Great breakdowns and comments! Cannot get enough
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Re: that bizarre freeze frame scene. The first time I saw it I thought there was a problem with the video player, it’s just jarring and extremely weird. After a few re-watches, IMO it’s sort of symbolic of “the end” of Carm’s pathetic attempt to “break free” of Tony and by extension, “the life”. That look on her face is kind of indicative of the fact that she knows and is somewhat embarrassed by how that brief and ineffective part of her life just “petered out…died on the vine”. She’s not going anywhere, she’ll never “move on”, she’ll never escape “the life” and even if she somehow did she’s woefully unprepared to live as a “normal” after so many years as Tony’s enabler. Carmela is all about putting up fronts, pretending she’s someone she isn’t, dutifully keeping herself busy and staying involved with her kid’s lives to reassure herself that in spite of everything she’s still on some level a “good person” even though she’s well aware that’s not exactly true.
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I like to draw Sopranos parallels and I see a bit of that in Carmela and Christopher’s stories here. While Carm deals with the reality that she’s not leaving Tony (probably ever), Chris is dealing with the fact that his dreams of fast-tracking his way to the top of the Mafia food chain have been dealt a serious and maybe fatal blow thanks to his “indiscretions”. He knows he’s lost status and blown a huge chance to be Tony’s “right hand”, he’s lost credibility with the guys, he feels just like he did when he was just a kid at the mercy of his older idols. Of course, very soon he’ll drive the final nail in his own coffin when he chooses Tony over Ade but during this episode he’s at the nadir of his post-rehab run, realizing (much as Carmela is) that nothing’s really changed.
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It’s remarkable how much of a cancer Tony is this episode. A lot of it feels like a case study, or even like an episode of Doctor Phil (in content, not form) in how it examines and explores just what a shitty person Tony is to those around him. Janice, Chris, and to a lesser extent Tony B all start getting a grasp on their problems and working through them, only for Tony to come crashing in and ruin it. The false/temporary reconciliations that occur here are interesting. Chris thinks he resents Tony B, but the guys actually bond and get along once they’re alone together. But that’s the thing: Chris doesn’t resent Tony B for being favored, he resents Tony S for favoring him. In Janice’s case it’s not like Tony was the original cause of her rage, but he’s a lingering reminder of her past, a part of the family that believes he knows her “true”, irredeemable self and will never let her escape from it.
But while it’s easy to look at Cold Cuts as just a “Tony sucks” episode, it’s also worth remembering the context of all these interactions. Even without Tony needling her, could Janice ever really move past her rage problems when she’s married back into the same murderous environment that she grew up in? How can Chris and Tony B’s reconciliation, or even Tony’s decompression, really have lasting impact when their mini-vacation at Uncle Pat’s farm is dedicated to the business of concealing the remains of murder victims? Of course it’s easy for Chris to reconcile with Tony B but have trouble doing so with Tony S, because Tony S literally almost murdered him four weeks ago, and it was Tony B who stopped this. This episode is not overtly about Tony’s struggle with the guilt and immorality of committing murder (this is actually a theme that’s only brought to the surface a couple of times throughout the whole series), but as it peels back the layers of everything stressing Tony out and causing these cruel outbursts, the business at Uncle Pat’s farm gives us a reminder that bodies are buried underneath those layers. These people live in the very definition of a toxic environment, and it will hound them to their dying days.
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The argument at the end of this episode between Tony and Janice has got to be one of my favourite if not my favourite scene of the series; just so much is going on there!! Ron you’ve really covered the bases in this review. If I may make one observation of the ending concerning Janice’s son harpo; whilst being a terrible mother to him which she obviously feels great regret and guilt for, ironically enough the best thing Janice has probably ever done for her son is to bring him back into her life in New Jersey. Harpo would probably be extremely vulnerable and one way or another end up under the wing of his uncle Tony, and we’ve all seen what happens to the surrogate sons of this surrogate dad.
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Christopher, Jackie Jr…. Harpo might be better off living on the street than having Tony as a surrogate dad…
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… and returning to his mommy. 😣
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great blog , i discovered it around season 4 a few days back (first time Sopranos viewer here) and i read all your reviews right after seeing an episode
i see that 5.10 is the last one you reviewed , a bummer since i get that from now the series really starts to boil but we will not have your insightful reviews and i can not stop watching it now 🙂
anyway , thanx for all these insightful reviews , much enjoyed and appreciated
A sopranos viewer from Greece
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I watched this series a few years ago and decided to give it a re-watch. I’m learning a lot more on my second viewing and your in-depth analysis of these episodes is really helping me enjoy some of the themes and character moments I just never noticed. Thank you for helping me appreciate this show more!
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Bela Kakuk = Bukkake LA
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Solved!
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“Chris eventually abandons sobriety with disastrous consequences for himself.”
Okay. Thanks for the spoiler.
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I know I’m no Harold Bloom, but I wonder if anyone ever gave Bloom a hard time about spoilers when he was doing deep dives into Shakespeare’s work…
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Ron, I have been addicted to your work for the past few weeks and treating it as a companion to the series so far. I have to admit…I am annoyed for you! Between everyone mad about spoilers (lol, watch the show and then come back and complain), those that want you to keep your opinion out of your own analysis (hmmmm…write your own and see how impossible it is pleasing everyone!) and those breaking your balls about when you’re gonna complete your writing on season 6 (major eyeroll…these things take time!), it’s a wonder you even want to come back! With that said, I thank you for doing so and I tip my hat to you kind sir! (Slow clap)
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hahaha thank you and God bless you (although I’ll admit I have been taking too damn long to finish this up…)
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I for one would prefer for you to take your time and do your admirably thoughtful and thorough job than try to rush it and compromise the quality. (Also my attitude throughout those long waits between the last several seasons!)
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I almost started cutting myself waiting for season 6 but I’m so glad Chase took his time with it
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To his eternal credit, James Gandolfini always played Tony unsympathetically, but in contrast the scripts often venerated him, establishing him as a a supportive boss and popular head of his famil(ies) ; and so the character inevitably ( and wrongly) developed cult status.
For me in this episode Tony was not a dancing bear but was instead believable; so like his sister and parents.
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I always thought that Christopher was very sensitive. This is belied by the fact that he kills without a thought, but he obviously wants a different life for himself, we see that with his Acting for Writers. I always hated being teased, and even today it brings back bad memories. I think Christopher is doomed right from the beginning, and like Carmela doesn’t have the strength of character to pull himself out and start over. I agree with Dude, they have free will and choose to stay mired in that life. I think Janice lost custody of Harpo, and if he is homeless, what happened to the father who got custody? FYI: I once threw a steak knife at my sister because she got me so angry..and I was an adult! She didn’t even blink… that’s how common losing our temper was in my family. Its not easy to break out of. Sounds crazy now, but it made perfect sense to me then. Janice is phony, Tony punctured her with that Harpo thing. Sheesh, what a family!! I love them.
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After several rewatches of this episode, I’m now wondering if the reason Tony decided to so cruelly put Janice’s anger management to the test is that he could see a family setting at that table that resembled his own, before the separation. Janice brings up a “did you know” about home computers (in 2004) being more powerful than computers NASA used for the first moon mission. Such dinner table trivia is right out of the Carmela playbook, especially in seasons 1 and 2, when Meadow and AJ were children. It’s right after Janice starts this conversation that Tony gets a sour look.
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Man, you really nailed it!
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Not the most nuanced or elloquently delivered observation, but I did find hilarious how at the bing (near the end of the episode), we see Vito facing the strippers, and then we get a shot of what would be his PoV, which starts from the stripper but lowers and focuses on Georgie. It could just be a way to establish that Georgie will play a role here, but it could also mean that hes actually gazing at Georgie, who doesn’t look too dissimilar from the guy getting the BJ in the previous episode.
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hmm interesting observation..
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Rewatching the sopranos now, and I feel like Tony baited Janice at the end because he knew she was full of sh*t beginning when she first came to him talking about all the things she had learned at anger management. He’d been doing therapy since season 1 and knew how hard it was to really change because he hadn’t changed one bit. So he knew no way she could change her ways that quick
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Good point
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I think he baited her because he was annoyed that she was trying to be a better person, and it seemed to be working, while he doesn’t even try. But his resentment of her is so deep, he knows she’s phony and can’t stand that she is trying to better herself. We know shes really a terrible person, and the anger management is because she doesn’t want to lose Bobby…not because she cares for the kids. I found it telling and sad the way Sofia covered her eyes when they started screaming at each other. A very well made scene showing the effect histrionics has on a family when they aren’t used to it. AND….naming her son HARPO is all about drawing attention to herself as a hip mother… in one of the last scenes of the show, we see her complete transition into Livia when she won’t have her son come and live with her after Bobby’s death because he changed his name…like she did to annoy her mother all those years ago.
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It’s also Tony both wanting to believe that change isn’t as easy as Janice seems to be making it look and not wanting to really change at the same time – he’s tried it himself and whilst he makes a show of change, he either gets bored with the kind of person he would have to be or isn’t willing to make the emotional leaps or efforts to really go through with it. Is David Chase making a wider point about people in general / society / America or just these characters here with the way they keep falling back into old ways? Nature vs nurture? “They fuck you up, your mum and dad”?
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A few of the location scenes at Uncle Pats farm semi resemble the painting with the “rotted out” tree and red barn. Two scenes specifically, one showing a red barn-like shed by the lake, and the red barn peeking above the trees behind Tony when he arrives.
To quote your literal statement , “the bloody secrets that lay in the dark earth beneath”, perhaps exactly why Chase picked a farm location for this episode, to further emphasis the farms connection with that “rotted out tree”.
I see that its even more obviously shown in a couple episodes that I failed to pick up on from my past watchings.
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I think it works extremely well specifically for this episode, as its all about that rotted Soprano family tree.
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Also it reflects the way that Tony sees life – in any normal situation he focuses on the darkness, including not being able to believe that Janice has left her anger behind her. The connection to the Happy Wanderer someone commented below is a good reference.
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What really strikes me about this episode is the fact that it explores a wide range of emotions, from negative childhood experience affecting us as adults, to anger, rage, depression, jealousy and self-doubt. Although, most would not like to admit it, I think most of us suffer from all these emotions. We may not brutally beat up a bartender (Tony), or a soccer mom (Janice), but we sometimes feel like we would like to. It was be safe to assume that 99 plus percent of the viewers do not have lives like the characters in the Sopranos, yet through the exploration of the emotions most of us can relate to every character, no matter how different we actually are from them.
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Absolutely, I think the reason why so many of us keep coming back to this show for re-watches is because it’s so easy to see ourselves in these characters…and nothing captures our attention better than ourselves…
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Janice is forced into restraint mode the first time Tony baits her in this episode. While almost pridefully declaring “that bitch is lucky I didn’t kill her” in reference to the soccer mom she beat up, Tony very smugly responds “Well we know that!”, which raises the curiosity of Bacala. A quick look at the two men, followed by a brief silence leads her to end the conversation by yelling “get out.” Connectivity back to Richie Aprile that she does not want revealed to her husband.
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Maybe Bobby would be turned on to learn Janice has killed someone…after all, he likes “the spitfire type” 😉
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Maybe, maybe not. As we find out in Soprano Home Movies 6:13, Bobby has not yet “popped his cherry” in that regard.
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You over think this
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Hits and tits.
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Lol
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I would want to remain anonymous too if I was all about those hits & tits
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You under think this
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In case anyone doesn’t know or it hasn’t been mentioned, Frank Albanese (Uncle Pat) has a brief moment in GoodFellas as young Henry Hill’s lawyer when he first gets arrested.
For fun, besides, Bush and Bill Clinton, here are some other random presidential references on the show. They don’t amount to anything, just thought I’d point them out. If anyone thinks of more, feel free to add.
– Uncle Pat’s farm is in Kinderhook, birthplace (and nickname) of Martin Van Buren.
– Matthew Bevilaqua is hiding out near the George Washington Slept Here house in New Jersey before he’s killed.
– Vito Spatafore stays in the Franklin Pierce room at the B&B in New Hampshire. Pierce was from New Hampshire.
– “Teddy Roosevelt gave an entire speech once with a bullet lodged in his chest.” – Junior
– Junior and Tony are both fans of John F. Kennedy. Junior’s oncologist is Dr. John Kennedy.
Two U.S. presidents are from New Jersey (Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson) but as far as I know, get no mention on the series. Of course, Donald Trump’s name comes up at least once (AJ wants to be his helicopter pilot).
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– Carmela’s Lincoln log sandwiches in season 6
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Ha! I was trying to think of a Lincoln reference other than the car…
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Lol There’s also a documentary about Lincoln playing on the TV in “Kaisha”
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Gigi gets whacked by a stubborn Lincoln log, too.
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😂
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“The two Tonys are in top form, beboppin’ and scattin’…”
I meant to ask: Seinfeld reference?
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Absolutely!
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I think I got the Bela Kakuk thing figured out, a typical David Chase-ian wordplay that reflects on the events in the episode.
The name Bela Kakuk is Hungarian. Kakuk (actually, kakukk, but more on this later) is the Hungarian name of the cuckoo bird. Cuckoos are brood parasites, they lay their eggs in other birds nests – this is a well-known fact to the average Hungarian since we have an idiom: kakukktojás. This literally means cuckoo’s egg, and we use this word to describe something that is the odd one out.
This episode has three people that are the odd ones out, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this wordplay was intentional:
– Janice doesn’t really fit in the Baccalieri household
– Christopher doesn’t fit in with his cousins
– Tony doesn’t fit in (or at least he thinks he doesn’t) society as you have mentioned
I’m no conspiracy theorist, but one other weird coincidence: as I have mentioned, kakuk (with a single k at the end) is an uncommon way to spell the word, but there is one notable fictional character in Hungarian literature with this surname: Marci Kakuk, who has gown up without a mother (or a father. He becomes a drifter basically). Harpo, anyone?
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Thank you, that’s very interesting…
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Age Mishap or retcon? In the pilot, Christopher is described by Tony as a “26 year old kid who just bought himself a sixty thousand dollar lexus.” Yet here Chris relates a story to Aide about being bullied by the two Tony’s on Uncle Pat’s farm. At that time, Chris was 11 and the Tony’s “were like 19” according to christopher. That 8 year age gap would have made Tony Uncle Johnny only 34 during the pilot, but I think it is expressed or at least implied that he is 40 at the show’s beginning. We know he is 47 by season 6, part II. Can this just be explained away as pilot episode inconsistency? (there are many). What is Chris’s rea; age as related to Tony. In season 5 I assume Chris is in his early 30s )I think a 30th birthday party of his was referenced briefly, and Tony is about 44-45.
That seems like a nitpick, maybe it is, I just don’t think Tony and Chris began the show with only an eight year age gap. I welcome answers or speculation.
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Good observation. According to Christopher’s wiki page, he’d have been about 30 when the Pilot aired. But the Pilot was actually shot two years earlier which would put him closer to Tony’s claim that he’s 26. To me, he seems too immature for even 26 in that first season. I’d guess the discrepancy is a bit of a continuity error…
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I always got the impression that they stayed pretty close to Gandolfini’s actual age as it related to Tony. I believe Gandolfini was 36 when they shot the pilot in 1997. An eight year gap would make Chris 28 at that time. Also, Wikipedia lists Christopher Moltisanti as being born in 1969. By 2007 Tony would be 46 and Chris 38.
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I’ve also always wanted to know that a “bull shot” is, as the type of shot Tony told Chris to order to keep from driving everyone crazy with the “sweets and the key lime pies.” I’ve never heard it before, maybe it’s like the “steak san” Tony orders in “For All Debts” even though he clearly orders a steak with fries, not a sandwich, as I though a “san” was, like Meadow’s tuna san.
Anyone know?
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If you’ve ever seen Caddyshack, you’d hear Rodney Dangerfield ask the Italian-American teen caddy (DeNunzio) while he’s tending bar, “Can you make a bull shot?” The teen answers, “Can you make a shoe smell?”
I’ve seen different recipes, but usually a bull shot combines a large amount of vodka, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. Quite a drink!
Now that you’ve asked and I’ve answered, I do wonder if Chase was connecting that famous Caddyshack scene. The caddy is Italian, smokes, and is always in some sort of conflict. Rodney Dangerfield is similar to Tony B., always cracking one liners. He even asks DeNunzio, “Yeah, you’re real funny, when are you due back at Boy’s Town?” which is the massive village for home boys in Omaha.
I’m probably reaching, but the bull shot comment seems too specific.
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I think this episode (or at least Tony’s attitude and actions) is directly correlated with the season 2 episode ‘Happy Wanderer’. From that episode(thank you Springfield scripts):
“I don’t know who the fuck I’m angry at. I’m just angry, okay… I got the world by the balls and I can’t stop feeling like I’m a fucking loser.”
Cut to Tony B and Christofuh discussing Tony in this episode:
“It’s a shame, you know. He was the funnest guy in the world… He’s got the world by the balls and he acts like everything’s an imposition.”
Jumping back to the same therapy session in S2’s ‘Happy Wanderer’:
“It’s everything and everybody. I see some guy walking down the street, you know, with a clear head. You know the type. He’s always fucking whistling like the happy fucking wanderer. I just want to go up to him and I just want to rip his throat open.
I want to fucking grab him and pummel him right there for no reason.”
There it is. Tony is an unhappy, selfish and petty person and like a child who sees another kid playing with his toy that didn’t interest him 2 seconds earlier, he gets upset when other people are making steps to better themselves/become happier people through self improvement.
1. Christopher is clean and sober. Tony yells at him to “have a drink”
2. Georgie says ‘you gotta live for the moment’ while Tony is discussing terrorism. Tony beats the shit out of him
3. Janice is improving her issues with anger management classes. Tony provokes her to violence then walks home almost whistling and skipping
If Livia, I mean Tony! (forgot who we were talking about sorry) is not happy, no one should be allowed to be happy
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Good connection between the episodes
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At about 28:30 Christopher holds “Email’s” skull in his hand and stares at it briefly before smashing it to bits. I think this pose is deliberately reminiscent of Hamlet’s “Alas,, poor Yorick…” Or the famous Ape Looks at Skull statue. Chase was so good at sneaking little things like that in.
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Still love this episode, one of my favorites. Even if it is a little too obvious as you pointed out.
I also agree that the second half of season 5 is great & could arguably have the best final episodes in a season of the series. Cold Cuts, Test Dream, Long Term & All Due Respect. Season 6 part 2 comes pretty close with Walk Like a Man, Kennedy & Heidi, Second Coming, Blue Comet & Made in America.
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WAY too many spoilers in this one. And they weren’t even necessary (they don’t do anything for the “Autopsy”). Otherwise, another good write-up!
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Some connective/intertextual echoes I noticed:
The celebratory dinner scene builds up to Chris’s being belittled, as usual. First, this is a little “arc” for Chris. He is reminded that he is the outsider. He leaves Uncle Pat’s alone, the odd man out.
Second, the Johnson brothers (“whoever the fuck they were”) mirror Tony B and Tony S in the eyes of Chris. Like Tony S says of Livia, “she’s dead to me,” Chris would think of the Two Tonys: “they’re dead to me,” amid the constant undermining.
Also interesting is the fact that Tony B and Chris joke about Tony S while smashing the Johnson brothers’ remains. It could very well be Tony S they just killed and are burying. Tony S arrives unexpectedly, altering the geometry. If the three of them form a triangle, Tony is the top (or bottom) point, but the two points are stronger. Then things revert: it isn’t hard to imagine Chris wants to take revenge on the Two Tonys after the trip. But there are more than two. For the sake of analysis, consider that Tony B has two sides, and Tony S has two sides. That’s four Tonys. I think Chase was being provocative with the “Two Tonys” season opening title – everyone understands Tony S has two sides, but with Tony B, that’s another two, and their renewed friendship spawns various combinations. We see this here: together, the two Tonys, with their own doubles, can form at least four unique pairs. If Chris wanted revenge, he would be killing eight Tonys, if not countless more. Chris’s singularity qualifies him as an everyman necessarily lacking an “arc.”
There also seems to be a sort of conspiratorial type of attention paid to combinations and numbers in this episode: Uncle Pat, Chris, and Tony B; or Pat, Tony S, Tony B, and Chris; or Chris, Tony S, Tony B; or Pat, Louise, Chris, Tony B, etc.
The slow fade-out of Pat, Chris, Tony and Louise having lunch in the meadow reminds me of something from Tarkovsky. This is a very good episode.
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Connected to what you’re saying—or maybe you meant it like this?—is that the pinochle games they’re playing is all about combinations and numbers
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yeah the pinochle game is interesting too – a complicated game and complex players
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Love the reviews but they’re are a lot of spoilers in this and some of us are reading it as we watch through the show for the first time! Would appreciate a spoiler alert.
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Pretty sure he told you not to do that.
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Probably my favourite visual of the entire series: Chris and Tony B with their lanterns digging up bones in the apple orchard under a star-lit sky
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Additionally: I can’t help but come to your defense here re: the ruffled feathers over spoilers. May I quote from your homepage, “It should go without saying that every page will have spoilers galore.”
To each their own, but it’s probably best to complete a watch-through without reference to aides, guides or analysis, and then really dive into it on watch through #2 through infinite, and beyond
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👍
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In this episode, Chase brilliantly goes out of his way to show Tony for being the degenerate instigator that he is.
Ultimately, he will literally and figuratively have blood on his hands regarding Christopher’s death.
Chase has been candid regarding his own battles with depression. One wonders if any other creator, who lacked a mental health history, would have created such a complex television character.
Ron – your exemplary work is beyond reproach. Thank you for giving fans such a resource.
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Thank God for people like David Chase, who try to work out their mental and emotional issues through their art…
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Tony is so vile in this episode. Although the final scene with Janice takes the cake in terms of cruelty, I hate too how Janice backs away from Tony in fear when he shows up at the house to yell at her, because he is perfectly capable of being violent towards his sister.
As a side note, I did love how Janice was clutching her wrist in this scene – falling back on the carpel tunnel/nerve damage schtick as a play for sympathy.
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Anybody notice that during Janice’s anger management group therapy the character played by Chandra Wilson calls Bradley’s partner his roommate even after Bradley clearly called his “roommate” his partner? I love how Chase adds these little nuanced text within even the smallest of characters.
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Great little touch
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Hi Ron! Good job like always… I hadn’t never noticed that Tony, in that terrible ending scene, is doubly bad because he mocks Harpo for grew up without a mother, exactly what is happening with Bobby Jr e Sophia. That poor kids 😦
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👍
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The Carmela transition out of the run-in with Wegler is so bizarre. I came immediately to this blog hoping to find some clue of an explanation. So strange.
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I think this is one of the clearest times where we see quite that Tony doesn’t *actually* take after his father, but that he truly is Livia’s inheritor. Janice comes in at season 2 and the audience expects her to take Livia’s place, and in many ways she does, but Tony’s particular characterological traits take after the sadististic, borderline tendencies of Livia. He slowly grows more miserable at himself, and lashes out at the personal growth of others. Even his obsession with negative news stories is a direct link between the two of them.
The real irony and tragedy of Tony Soprano is that despite his attempts to escape his loveless, hateful mother, he becomes his mother.
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I saw in Chris’s later scenes he’s also reflecting on the seed that Ade planted, leaving SopranosWorld for a fresh start. After time in the country, feeling relieved for a brief moment, he’s smacked right back into reality. He’s reflecting on the obvious – his rank and relationships and future with the mob – but also contemplating what what Ade said, both at the end of the restaurant scene, then the breakfast table and ride home. I think Michael conveys that without saying a word and I’m sure the direction and editing created that sense for me too. That early scene with Chris and Ade was a fucking regular conversation that we needed to hear. The Tonys wouldn’t even think Chrissy is considering another option. It lends itself to building the tension and varying dynamics throughout the canned peach job.
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Poor Georgie….always seems to bring out the “bear” in Tony, even with a harmless comment like, “That’s why you gotta live for today.”
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Did you ever notice that Tony B is constantly looking at his watch while on the uncle Pat’s Farm? Especially happens when they’re talking about how idyllic and serene the surroundings are in which they find themselves. Almost serves as a visual cue letting us know that however idyllic the surroundings, the real world is encroaching into their thoughts, ie: what lies beneath the rich soil.
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Others have touched on the concept of change and pointed out Tony baiting Janice to test the idea of if she was capable. Ron wrote:
“But the greater truth of SopranoWorld is that its inhabitants cannot, or will not, muster the discipline and courage needed to break out of the self-limiting, self-destructive patterns in their lives. We can’t lay all the blame at Tony’s feet.” – Ron
And after viewing the entire run 3 or 4 times (and I’ve posted about it elsewhere), I think the central theme to the entire thing is that “People DON’T Change” – or CAN’T. Or that it’s incredibly difficult at a minimum. No one really, truly changes in this series though many, MANY characters try and we “Don’t Stop Believing”. Chris tries to beat his addiction. Janice tries to combat her temper, Carmela tries to change her domestic situation, Vito considers a new life outside the mob in New Hampshire, Tony B attempts to go straight and legit, AJ dabbles half heartedly into a few different things, Artie makes an attempt to “break bad” before ultimately returning to the kitchen and/or his old recipe book…
Meadow dabbles in empty liberal platitudes and altruism but always returns to her spoiled existence and rationalization of her family’s behavior. Big Pussy thinks he can walk a tightrope between informant and mob capo while becoming and FBI double agent. Paulie goes back to his “mom”. Sil can’t handle the “change” to leading mob boss. Melphi doesn’t change much until her final scene. Father Phil still has his food fetish. There’s lots more.
Tony tries to change constantly. “Every day is a gift”, no more fucking around, etc. etc. and even goes to therapy for it. He doesn’t change for shit.
In six and a half seasons, NOBODY truly changes – most notably those that make an actual effort. Maybe Angie I suppose. And of course Corrado, but both of those characters’ (d)evolution are beyond their control and not even personal GOALS. The only real changes people make are ones that are forced upon them. Real life is a lot like that.
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Herb – There’s one more possibility about change; sometimes people don’t WANT to change. After all, even though you might hate your life situation, it’s ‘safe’ because you know exactly what to expect or what you know will inevitably happen. Maybe Carmela wants Tony to continue cheating/killing because his actions absolve her from feeling the need to make any real changes to her life (i.e., independence). And why would Tony want to change? He’s the head of 2 famiglias (wife/kids & crew) and doesn’t have to work too hard for his money. Chris is too drugged-out to even consider changing his own life. Poor Adriana; she thinks that taking up the FBI’s offer to go into witness protection would ‘save’ Chris (and maybe end his beatings), but she seals her own fate instead. You are correct in saying that nobody changes, but remember – they could if they really wanted to!
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“And why would Tony want to change? He’s the head of 2 famiglias (wife/kids & crew) and doesn’t have to work too hard for his money.”
Possibly because he suffers from panic attacks and clinical depression? And views his work as extremely hard, and dealing with his family as possibly even harder? I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that a large percentage of the series is Tony thinking he has it very rough, and trying to change at least his own ability to deal with the circumstances.
Significant change has taken place in the sense that by the end of this series, this mobster’s daughter has agency in the world and will work in a more noble profession, and AJ will be, at least, not a professional criminal. Tony was partially stuck “becoming” his parents, but his children, it seems, will be much less limited by this. The characters cannot rewrite themselves completely, no—but their actions and relationships do make a difference in the long run.
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I was watching this episode (for the laughs), and really paid attention to it this time. Chris and Tony B are in upstate NY at a Uncle Pat’s house because Tony asked them to find three bodies. When Chris finds the first body, he tells Tony B, “This is my first (victim) – the Czechoslovakian guy (‘interior decorator’)”. But the first person we see him kill is Emil (‘Email’) Kolar in season three! I’m surprised that this slipped by the writers!
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I think it is Email’s body
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Yes. Email is a Czech. The Interior decorator is the Russian, Valerie.
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Ron – Yes, you’re right. But why did Chris say that it was the Czechoslovakian? Was he in denial about the guy? He and Paulie were so incompetent in that episode!
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Email was a Czech. “In the Czech Republic too, we like our pork.”
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Email aka Emil Kolar is a Czech. From Czechoslovakia. Val is a Russky. From Russia. Chris is not in denial. He knows who he killed, why he killed them and where he buried them. And reburied them.
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OMG HOW EMBARRASSING! Well, at least I’m not the first person to mis-see/mis-understand something that coulda smacked me upside the head!
Sorry everybody! 🐴
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Easy to confuse the two, especially after Paulie’s ‘Lost in Translation’ warning to Chris, “He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians, Guy was an interior decorator!”
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Ron, I agree there is indeed a strong connection between food, resentment and revenge, as well as food and firearms.
But, really, food is such an integral part of The Sopranos, isn’t food strongly connected with every theme? Religion, violence, love, commitment, betrayal, reconciliation, separation, death, it goes on and on…
Perhaps the connection to all of these isn’t emphasized as much, though.
I can’t imagine ever doing another rewatch without going to your excellent website after each episode. I can’t thank you enough for the time, effort, and considerable talent you’ve put into this thing of ours.
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Thanks. True, food is part of everything in SopranoWorld..
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R.I.P. Frank Albanese (‘Uncle Pat’, last appeared s6 e21, also on ‘Goodfellas’), 2015
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I always felt so bad for Georgie. He has a bad habit of opening his mouth to switch feet, so to speak. However, we can’t pity him too much – after all, he always told the dancers that admission to the ‘back room’ (where they’d be paid for sex) would cost them $50 ‘plus a blow job’. 😷
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Pingback: The Soprano Onceover: #23 “Cold Cuts” (S5E10) [featuring questionnaire w/ Charlie Riley] | janiojala
It was interesting the timing of the barking dog as well. It was while Janice was suppressing her rage, trying to ignore the fact that it was still there while talking to Tony. To me, it is reminiscent of the same exact thing happening when Tony was trying to sit at his desk at Barone sanitation trying to be a good boy. Outside there was a large dog barking, representative of him trying to suppress the same urges. Interestingly as well, Janice’s dog has a higher pitch, sounds like a smaller dog, more bark than bite. Tony’s was a large and ferocious, baring it’s teeth, ready to rip someone apart. Very consistent with their personalities.
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I have to wonder in retrospect how much of this episode was informed by Chase’s growing discontent with his own fans, as the episode (and for that matter, most of season 5) really seems to be Chase holding a mirror up to viewers’ faces with regards to how they perceive Tony and those around him — Carmela and Janice getting the spotlight. Nobody in their right mind would call Carmela or Janice good people, but there’s a disturbing trend which Chase surely recognized by this point the two of them are judged far more harshly than Tony, for much more benign activities.
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That was indeed a strange transition. Slow-mo to freeze-frame setup makes for a… cold-cut?
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I find it interesting how the shot at ~27:39 bears much resemblance to the Radiohead music video for the song “Karma Police”
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Another year, another rewatch. And the Autopsy is very much a part of that tradition. Thanks, Ron, for the amazing work here.
Might’ve missed it mentioned here, but I just noticed Melfi quotes Yeats’ The Second Coming in this episode.
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Thanks
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I don’t want to defend Janice Soprano too much but in regards to her son Harpo, what do we know about the kid’s father Eugene (I assume he and Janice were married but maybe not)?. Could it be that he was even worse for the kid than Janice? If he is living on the streets in Montreal, did Eugene fail Harpo? Let’s face it her taste in men are Richie Aprile and Ralph Cifaretto…twisted sadistic murderers. Then when she decides she needs a better class of man she turns to Bobby Baccalieri: a mere murderer and thief. Like Livia, who gets virtually all the scorn while dead Johnny Boy is largely untouched, Janice is a favorite target. She deserves criticism but maybe not all of it.
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I’m so glad this forum is still around! I’m watching Cold Cuts and just noticed a bit of poetry in motion. It’s the scene set in the Bing, where Tony stops by with apples from Uncle Pat’s farm. Tony and Sil are seated together at the bar. George and Tony B. are working the bar. Tony B. poured Sil and Tony a drink and they both drink and put down their glasses at the same time. Meanwhile, Tony B. and George are standing next to each other, both in a slightly bent over posture. Immediately after Sil and Tony’s glasses hit the bar, the camera moves to Tony B. and George, who move backwards in unison. I love it.
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Mobster ballet
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