Walk Like A Man (The Sopranos) - Episode Recap

Episode Recap

A.J. struggles with depression over his breakup with Blanca. He quits his job at the pizza parlor, sulks around the house, and disturbs Meadow with suicidal comments that remind her of a girl from college who threw herself out of a window. Tony and Carmela have disagreements about how to help A.J. but for lack of better options, assign him to a therapist who prescribes an anti-depressant. Through his father's orders (and to the chagrin of his mother), A.J. goes to a party with fraternity members who are his age and relatives of fellow mobsters. He begins to associate with the sports betting business they are running at school, from which they are profiting considerably. At a frat party, they use A.J.'s SUV to take a gambler who fails to pay into the woods to beat and torture him by pouring sulfuric acid on his toes.

Meanwhile, Al Lombardo (Kelli Moltisanti's father) is the unwilling catalyst of a new feud between Christopher Moltisanti and Paulie Gualtieri when Paulie's nephew, Little Paulie Germani begins breaking into Al's hardware store along with Jason Molinaro and boosting power tools. After Al gets upset and Christopher has to deal with it, he warns Paulie about flouting his authority. When Jason and Little Paulie take advantage of the elderly employees at Al's store and continue their dealings with the power tools, Chris finds out and beats Little Paulie before throwing him out a window. Although he is badly hurt, Little Paulie survives the incident but suffers six broken vertebrae. In retaliation, a visibly very irate Paulie destroys Chris's front yard by running over flower beds, crushing bushes and doing burnouts in the grass in his Cadillac CTS. Kelli Moltisanti is shaken and scared by the ordeal.

Christopher and Kelli have a BBQ party, where several family members attend. In his backyard Christopher sees Bobby Baccalieri and Tony talking privately (a conversation which concerns Chris, thinking Tony is now favoring Bobby). As Chris and Tony talk, Tony tells Chris how his absence and lack of attitude from family business is causing friction amongst the associates. Christopher states that he inherited his addiction from his parents and his absence from the strip club and Satriale's is what keeps his sobriety. Tony disagrees with this but Chris insists that Dickie Moltisanti (Tony's hero) was nothing more than a junkie and a drunk. Tony stays silent.

Tony tells Christopher that his frequent disappearances are alienating him from the family and making large problems out of simple ones. Christopher vents his frustration about Tony's ingratitude and insensitivity at an AA meeting. The money situation is worked out between Chris and Paulie and the two reconcile their differences over at the Bada Bing. The two go to toast and Paulie orders a club soda for Chris, but Chris decides to have whatever Paulie is having. Throughout the night at Bada Bing, Chris becomes drunk and begins to ramble about his daughter, causing Paulie to make some off-color remarks about her, including joking about Caitlin's working at the Bing in twenty years. Christopher (in his drunken state), believes the group is mocking him, and he leaves to see J.T. Dolan, whom he originally met in AA. He makes veiled references to the sacrifices he has made for the sake of the family, and implies that he knows sufficient information to bring down the entire mob family if he wanted to. He attempts to tell J.T. about Adriana La Cerva and Ralph Cifaretto, but Dolan does not want to hear the details, and requests that he be kept in the dark because "you are in the Mafia". After hearing this remark, Christopher decides to leave the apartment, but he shoots J.T. in the head before he departs.

Tony and A.J. return home at the same time to find Carmela and Meadow bonding over a late night snack, which they join. The episode ends with Christopher arriving home, propping up one of the partially destroyed trees in his yard, and then staggering into his house.