#'You're papa never told you about right and wrong...' These lyrics to the opening theme bear a special significance this time 'round, with Tony retreating into a nostalgic (and quite lengthy) haze in Dr Melfi's room to the times when he was roughly the same age as his son: his father chasing down debtors and "having coffee" with them as the man/boy himself might say; his mother being possibly even more dramatic and authoritative than she is now; his sister Janice introduced as a typical big sister; Barbara looking a little chubbier and shorter.
The episode's retreat in time is partly brought about by AJ's bad behaviour at school and deals with Tony's actual father instead of paternal figures like Junior and in a way, Jackie. It turns out 'Johnny Boy' Soprano tells lies to protect the people he loves (including himself) just as Tony does, as well as taking a lot of Livia's black poison in but seems less aggressive and more of a family man (although he did have a comare as we will later discover).
T reminisces of how his mother excused his father's crimes by indicating ethnic prejudice on behalf of the Newark Police Department ("They just pick on the Italians"). That's not the only seed she sows in his mind though, when she dramatically implies smothering her children with a pillow as a favourable alternative to Johnny Boy's pipe-dream of setting up a supper club with pal Rocco DiMeo in Nevada. In the present, Tony confronts his mother on this issue; asking her why she offered no support to his unusually ambitious father. She replies with verbal blackmail ("Well, if it bothers you, maybe you better talk to a psychiatrist") after learning the truth from AJ, which he counters by remarking on her ruthlessness ("If you'd been born after those feminists, you woulda been the real gangster").
This was the first 'flashback episode', in which the flashback is triggered by Tony recalling Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' while he pops his pills in the bathroom mirror. In later seasons these triggers will range from the taste of capicola to the movie 'Beethoven' on TV. This time it is music, but I can't help but feel Jefferson Airplane's other famous track 'Somebody to Love' may have fit just as well.
Tony's antipathy and support for psychiatry are balanced out in this story as his son's fidgeting habit is labelled a symptom of ADD by the school shrink, while at the same time he has one of his best ever appointments with Dr Melfi. In the end, his support beats his antipathy and he chooses to go back to the psychiatrist's after mulling it over with Carmela back home, although his secret won't be safe for long...
The episode's retreat in time is partly brought about by AJ's bad behaviour at school and deals with Tony's actual father instead of paternal figures like Junior and in a way, Jackie. It turns out 'Johnny Boy' Soprano tells lies to protect the people he loves (including himself) just as Tony does, as well as taking a lot of Livia's black poison in but seems less aggressive and more of a family man (although he did have a comare as we will later discover).
T reminisces of how his mother excused his father's crimes by indicating ethnic prejudice on behalf of the Newark Police Department ("They just pick on the Italians"). That's not the only seed she sows in his mind though, when she dramatically implies smothering her children with a pillow as a favourable alternative to Johnny Boy's pipe-dream of setting up a supper club with pal Rocco DiMeo in Nevada. In the present, Tony confronts his mother on this issue; asking her why she offered no support to his unusually ambitious father. She replies with verbal blackmail ("Well, if it bothers you, maybe you better talk to a psychiatrist") after learning the truth from AJ, which he counters by remarking on her ruthlessness ("If you'd been born after those feminists, you woulda been the real gangster").
This was the first 'flashback episode', in which the flashback is triggered by Tony recalling Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' while he pops his pills in the bathroom mirror. In later seasons these triggers will range from the taste of capicola to the movie 'Beethoven' on TV. This time it is music, but I can't help but feel Jefferson Airplane's other famous track 'Somebody to Love' may have fit just as well.
Tony's antipathy and support for psychiatry are balanced out in this story as his son's fidgeting habit is labelled a symptom of ADD by the school shrink, while at the same time he has one of his best ever appointments with Dr Melfi. In the end, his support beats his antipathy and he chooses to go back to the psychiatrist's after mulling it over with Carmela back home, although his secret won't be safe for long...