Guest starring:
Written by: Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess
Directed by: Tim Van Patten
FIRST AIRED: November 10, 2002
Ralph decides it had to be Paulie who told Johnny Sack about his joke, so to get revenge he places a prank call to Paulie's mother. He pretends to be a police officer and upsets her greatly by stating that her son was found performing sex acts involving a gerbil and a boy scout. Shortly after this happens Justin (Ralph's son) is accidently shot with an arrow and things look pretty bad for the poor kid. Rosalie even shows up at the hospital to comfort him and he realizes how unsympathetic he was when Jackie Jr. was murdered. Ralph has a lot of guilt about the whole incident and tries to make things right with God. He talks to Father Phil and starts a scholarship at Rutgers in Jackie's name. He even asks Rosalie to marry him, but she says no.
Tony proudly introduces Carmela to Pie-O-My, the one creature he truly seems to care about. He has a hard time showing affection to his family, but after Justin gets hurt he tries, not too successfully, but he made the effort. Tony also tells Ralph he is seeing Valentina, but Ralph is so worried about his kid it doesn't seem to register, or does it? He refers to someone as a "miserable twat" but was he speaking of Valentina, his ex-wife or even Pie-O-My? Leaving the Bing he hugs Chris and Silvio, but ignores Paulie, who wants to wack him for the incident with his mother. Tony puts his foot down and says no, which leads to the biggest shock of the season.
After finding out that Pie was burned in a stable fire and had to be put down, Tony heads to Ralph's house to tell him. Instead of being as saddened as he is, Ralph is happy that Justin's condition is improving, and then comments that while it's tragic it was just an animal. Tony thinks about the insurance policy on the horse and the fact that the fire looked accidental and wonders out loud if Ralph didn't have something to do with it. He denies it, and calls it a blessing in disguise since Pie was always sick. A brutal, horrible fight ensues. Cooking utensils fly, Tony gets Raid sprayed in his eyes, but, as he says something about that "beautiful, innocent creature," he pounds Ralph's head on the floor and finally chokes the life out of him.
Chris has just shot up when Tony calls, and falls asleep for half an hour before coming over to clean up the mess. Tony claims to have found Ralph in this condition, but even through his druggy haze Chris is not buying the story. Tony notices he's acting weird and eventually Chris cops to doing some heroin, to which Tony replies he's done drugs too and then warns him not to throw his life away. They dump the body, and then proceed to bury Ralph's head and hands in a bowling bag. Back at the Bing they clean up and once again Chris seems to question Tony's decision to make Ralph "disappear." He thinks the other guys may worry it could happen to them, but Tony reminds him that he's the only other person who knows what really occurred.
Leaving court, Uncle Junior gets knocked down the steps by a wayward boom mike and ends up in the hospital. He appears a bit disoriented and is milking for all it's worth when Tony realizes they could get a mistrial if Junior suffers from reduced mental capacity. They decide to fake it since their only other plan is to take out a juror. Svetlana shows up with the in-home care nurse and shuns Janice who tries to appologize for stealing her leg. With some practice Junior puts on a great act for the Feds, but when he goes to get the morning paper and ends up at the neighbor's asking for ice cream you have to wonder is he crazy like a fox or really having problems.