Long Term Parking

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"Long Term Parking"
The Sopranos episode
300px
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 12
Directed by Tim Van Patten
Written by Terence Winter
Cinematography by Alik Sakharov
Production code 512
Original air date May 23, 2004
Running time 56 minutes
Guest actors

see below
Episode chronology
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"All Due Respect"
Episode chronology

"Long Term Parking" is the sixty-fourth episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the twelfth of the show's fifth season. It was written by Terence Winter, directed by Tim Van Patten and originally aired on May 23, 2004.

Starring

* = credit only

Guest starring

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2

Episode recap

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Adriana La Cerva visits a doctor with her mother Liz and learns that her gastrointestinal problems have further escalated as she is diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. When the physician prescribes her glucocorticoids, her mother protests as she says their side-effects (such as facial swelling) would jeopardize her daughter's upcoming wedding.

Following the murder of Billy Leotardo by Tony Blundetto, the Soprano family is forced to have a sitdown with Johnny Sack and the Lupertazzi family. Tony expresses his condolences to Phil Leotardo and assures him that his cousin acted alone, without his authorization, and that he does not know his whereabouts, as he is in hiding. The New York contingent is not satisfied. Phil is unable to control himself. He insults Tony, threatening to kill one of Tony's own family, and has to be led away from the table. Johnny Sack also offers threats, suggesting another of Tony's cousins could be substituted for Blundetto, at which Christopher takes offense and protests. Before the meeting ends, Sack warns Tony to deliver Blundetto "on a spit."

The murders of Angelo Garepe and Billy Leotardo get Little Carmine spooked about the retaliation killings. He loses his nerve and announces his withdrawal from the confrontation with Johnny Sack to his associates, who are openly disappointed.

Christopher has begun to openly drink alcohol with increasing frequency, and he is punished by Tony for bungling a smuggled cigarette distribution operation he oversees. Back home, in front of Adriana, he explodes into an impassioned rant about his unjust treatment by Tony. He is upset about being continually humiliated by his boss and even put in grave danger by what he claims to be Tony's hypocritical protection of his cousin Tony B. Adriana is in tears.

Some schoolchildren on an educational trip along the Jersey shore find a dead body washed ashore from the ocean.

During their surveillance of Adriana's nightclub, the FBI notice that she is behaving oddly. They observe her carrying a garbage bag out of her club, which she throws into a dumpster, only to retrieve it and place it in her car trunk a few seconds later. They also learn the Crazy Horse was recently investigated by local detectives and decide to bring Adriana in for questioning.

Tony approaches Carmela with the intention of moving back in. They eat dinner at Nuovo Vesuvio, where he promises that his "indiscretions" won't affect Carmela, but she seems reluctant and hesitant, and asks for more. She wants Tony to front her $600,000 to begin building a "spec house" on a piece of real estate which she believes will be a good investment. Tony agrees, and he says he'll come back home. He then visits his girlfriend Valentina and breaks up with her. Still in the hospital from the burn injuries she sustained while cooking for Tony, she has her head wrapped in a scarf to cover the hair loss and scarring. After Tony breaks up with her, she threatens to kill herself. Tony also starts getting phone calls in which the caller stays silent, and he suspects they are from his cousin Tony B.

When Tony goes back to the house with his luggage, he is greeted by A.J. Tony hands Carmela a gift - a Hermès scarf. At dinner, the three of them have champagne to celebrate the reunion and Tony proposes a toast to the people he loves. After dinner, when they're alone in their room, Carmela volunteers to iron Tony's shirts, saying she "kind of missed" doing chores for her husband. The two of them end the day by having sex.

Tony receives a phone call from Tony B, and they finally speak. Tony B apologizes for putting Tony in a predicament with the New York family. Tony agrees to look after Blundetto's two sons and admits to him the truth about the night Blundetto got arrested all those years ago - Tony S had previously claimed to have been mugged by a couple of unidentified black males, but in reality he had passed out from a panic attack after an argument with his mother. Tony B seems unfazed by the revelation, but he seems alarmed when he asks his cousin if everything Tony S did for him was because of his guilt over the fainting incident. After the call, Tony learns of his cousin's whereabouts via a tracer placed on his phone. Tony B called him from a business near their Uncle Pat's farm near Kinderhook, New York, and further, after speaking with Uncle Pat (who had recently retired to Florida), Tony learns the house is sitting empty, as it is pending sale following some bureaucratic hurdles. Tony is later seen sitting on a lawn chair, drinking and remembering times growing up with his cousin.

The FBI confronts Adriana with the suspected murder of Gilbert Nieves (the man found dead on the Jersey shore) at her club. Adriana crumbles and confesses she knew about the homicide. She then tells the story of how a drug dealer Matush (previously associated with Jackie Aprile Jr.) and his partner were using her office to fax some documents when they were attacked by a disgruntled customer (Nieves) who pulled a knife on them and demanded his money back for the purchase of cocaine which, he claimed, turned out to be primarily baby powder. The drug dealers overpowered him and wrestled him to the ground, and Matush stabbed him to death with Nieves's own knife. Adriana, who earlier had taken some ecstasy, came upon the shocking scene, but Matush assured her nobody would learn of the murder. She then helped Matush and his friend, who removed the body, get rid of evidence by disposing the blood-soaked rags used to clean up the scene.

The FBI threatens Adriana with a 25-year prison sentence for obstructing a homicide investigation, but she asks for a lawyer. Using the tactic of delaying the public defender's assignment for her, the FBI hold her for almost eight hours before Agent Sanseverino is finally able to convince her to cooperate. Although she refuses to "wear a wire," Adriana asks them to let her talk to Christopher to try to convince him to turn informant and let the FBI place them in the Witness Protection Program. Chief Cubitoso allows Sanseverino to pursue this but comments that the Bureau would not be able to provide Adriana with any protection when she attempts to approach Christopher, as she would be without any covert listening devices.

File:Sopranos512screen.jpg
Silvio executes Adriana

Adriana comes home and tearfully tells Christopher that she has been cooperating with the FBI; he reacts violently, nearly strangling her to death but then starts wailing. After he calms down, they talk and he seems to agree with her suggestions to move away. He tells her he loves her and is leaving to buy some cigarettes; however, while at a gas station pumping fuel to his Hummer H2, he has second thoughts as he watches a poor man and his family squeeze into a crowded, beat-up Chevrolet Citation and drive away. Adriana later gets a call from Tony, who says Christopher tried to commit suicide and that Silvio is on his way to pick her up and take her to the hospital. Adriana wakes up from her daydream, in which she was leaving Jersey in her own car with her things packed; instead, she is now in Silvio's car, and she begins to cry. Noticing her grief, Silvio reassures her that Christopher is okay, and everything will be alright. It then becomes apparent that the story about Christopher trying to commit suicide was a lie, as Silvio drives deep into the woods and turns onto a dirt road. She struggles to escape in the car, but Silvio grabs her and throws her to the ground. As Adriana struggles desperately to crawl away on the forest floor, Silvio pulls out a pistol and shoots her twice.

Soon afterwards, Christopher finishes packing Adriana's clothing and personal items into a suitcase (which she almost completed doing herself), tosses it into an industrial marshland in Newark, then drives her Ford Thunderbird to Newark Liberty International Airport, where he leaves it in the "Long Term Parking" area, and walks away.

After word gets to New Jersey that Johnny Sack has become the unquestioned successor to Carmine Lupertazzi, Tony meets the new Boss at a vacant lot by the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, as is their custom. Tony asks that he be given the chance to kill his cousin Tony B so that he does not suffer, but Sack does not accept his offer. He tells Tony that Phil Leotardo is going to do it "his way". Upon hearing this, Tony withdraws his offer by cursing at Sack, stating that nothing will happen to his cousin, and angrily leaves.

Later, Tony goes to the Bada Bing and finds Christopher watching ¡Three Amigos! in the back room. He quickly realizes Christopher is high. Christopher admits to snorting some heroin because he cannot take the pain of losing Adriana, telling Tony he loved her. Tony loses his composure and gives Christopher a severe beating.

Agent Sanseverino meets with Chief Cubitoso and Agent Harris to discuss Adriana's disappearance. She tells her boss she believes Adriana could have fled, but Chief Cubitoso is much less convinced about such prospects. Sanseverino realizes the futility of her statement and storms out of the office. After her departure, Cubitoso and Harris resignedly attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of this operation. Agent Harris asks Cubitoso about the Nieves murder case; Cubitoso tells him that since Matush is sending money home to Pakistan that he should pull the counter-terrorism card and take the case from the Long Branch police.

Carmela and Tony survey the land on which Carmela plans to build her spec house, which coincidentally looks similar to the area in which Adriana was killed. Tony, lost in thought, sits on a tree stump, with Carmela standing at his side.

Deceased

  • Gilbert Nieves: stabbed to death by Matush Giomana.
  • Adriana La Cerva: shot by Silvio Dante for being an informant to the FBI.

Additionally, Billy Leotardo's murder by Tony Blundetto, previously mentioned only, is shown in Phil Leotardo's flashback.

Title reference

  • Christopher parks Adriana's car in the "Long Term Parking" section at the airport.
  • "Long term parking" could refer to a long-term decision, or putting oneself in a lasting or binding situation: Adriana suggesting she and Christopher join the Witness Protection Program, Carmela and Tony moving back in together, Tony B.'s attempts to disappear, and Christopher's and Tony's guilt over the death of Adriana.
  • Death can be viewed as a "long term parking" of the human body.

Production

  • Many fans speculated that Adriana had survived because her death was not shown on-screen. However, Drea de Matteo confirmed in her 2005 DVD commentary that Adriana was indeed killed. De Matteo quotes Van Zandt as saying: "Do [the fans] think I was shooting squirrels?" Later in the DVD commentary, de Matteo talks about the strong fan reaction to Adriana's death.
  • In 2014, during an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit, de Matteo stated: "All of us had known already that my character was dying - [Steven] Van Zandt was actually the most pissed off about it, he didn't want to do it, he just didn't want to do it. And I had to talk him into how awesome it was gonna be and how important it was, he didn't want to pull me out of that car, he didn't want to call me a c-word, he didn't want to shoot me in the head, but David [Chase] made a specific point not to show my character actually getting the bullet to her head. I'm not sure if that was for cliffhangers reasons, but he said it was from respect for the character."[1]
  • Steven Van Zandt and Drea De Matteo asked David Chase to cut out the scene where Christopher tells Tony about Adriana in order to keep her death at the hands of Silvio a surprise. The scene was later aired in the sixth season episode "The Ride," as a flashback.

References to other media

  • Christopher's line "The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive" is from Bruce Springsteen's song "Born to Run", a pop culture reference made more apropos by the presence of Steven Van Zandt (as Silvio Dante), longtime guitarist in Springsteen's E Street Band. Van Zandt also sings backing vocals on the "Born To Run" track.
  • The scene with Christopher and Adriana where both of them are crying over the consequences of Adriana being an informant, including Chris' strangled wail of "Oh, God, what are we gonna do?!' mirror a very similar scene in the 1990 film Goodfellas where Henry and Karen Hill are falling apart at the realization they are in mortal danger from Paulie Cicero and his crew after Henry's narcotics bust.
  • The scene with Tony Soprano sitting alone in his backyard reminiscing about his cousin closely resembles the ending scene of The Godfather Part II, in which Michael Corleone sits alone at his Lake Tahoe compound remembering a moment shared with his family.
  • Tony watches the film It's a Gift on the TV after he moves back in with Carmela.

References to past episodes

  • The Crazy Horse club and the character Matush were both introduced in "The Telltale Moozadell" in a storyline in which Matush was repeatedly kicked out of the club for dealing drugs on the premises.
  • Christopher dumps Adriana's suitcase in the same location where Tony had almost killed him in "Irregular Around the Margins".
  • Christopher and Adriana reunited after his release from rehab in the Season 4 finale, "Whitecaps", the same episode in which Tony and Carmela separate. In an interesting parallel, Tony and Carmela rekindle their relationship in this episode, as Christopher's and Adriana's relationship falls apart.

Music

  • Lou Christie's song "Summer Snow" is playing in Phil Leotardo's flashback of his brother Billy's murder.
  • The song playing when Tony enters his Bada Bing office near the end of the episode is "Super Bon Bon" by Soul Coughing.
  • The Shawn Smith song, "Leaving California", plays in the background while Silvio drives with Adriana.
  • The song playing in Silvio's car when he parks in the woods is "Barracuda" by Heart.
  • The song played over the end credits is another song by Shawn Smith,"Wrapped in My Memory", from Shield of Thorns.

Awards

References

  1. ↑ Drea de Matteo AMA, 2014
  2. ↑ http://www.goldderby.com/forum/topics/view/2076
  3. ↑ http://www.goldderby.com/forum/topics/view/2076
  4. ↑ http://www.empireonline.com/50greatesttv/default.asp?tv=3
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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