4x09 Whoever Did This

Ralphie is dead. Can't say I saw that one coming. I also can't say that I saw how he would be humanized. Few characters on The Sopranos are one-dimensional, but few seem as straightforward as Ralphie. He's a shit. That's kind of his character. He's a guy who gets away with all his bad behavior because he's good at his job. We all know the type. But little-by-little, the show peeled layers away from him that made him more vulnerable, less of a monster, and it culminated here right before he dies.

He has quirks in the bedroom. Like so many others on this show, he has mommy issues. He has a son whom he loves enough to be clearly devastated after an accident leaves the son severely injured on Ralphie's watch. He apologizes to Rosalee for how he acted now that he knows what it's like to have something terrible happen to a child. He donates money in Jackie Jr.'s honor. He proposes. He breaks down in tears. Maybe this isn't the monster we thought.

Or maybe it is. Paulie is clearly jealous of the place Ralphie holds in Tony's inner circle as an earner, even if Tony himself isn't terribly fond of the guy. Ralphie is the man who sends Paulie's mom into hysterics when trying to take out his revenge on Paulie himself. He's a man who beats a young stripper to death. He's a man who, maybe, kills any number of innocent, majestic creatures because it makes financial sense.

I don't know if Ralphie or one of his soldiers set the fire that killed Pie-Oh-My. The scene gives hints that point in either direction. Ralphie denies it, convincingly, but we've seen him lie straightfaced before. He has the motive to do it though, and his comments to Tony could confirm that he did the deed. But in the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Tony believes Ralphie did it. Tony felt a connection to a simple, beautiful animal in a way he struggles to do with his fellow man. He's seen Ralphie murder innocent creatures before, and this time, his anger boils over in private, without his colleagues to calm him down or hold him back.

It's one of the most breathtaking, nervewracking sequences of the show. The way these two oxes struggle with one another, the way two seasons' worth of frustrations and tension finally come to a head. And then, just as quickly, it's all over.

Nearly any other show would have ended the episode there. Instead, the second half of the episode is quiet, meditative, almost boring, but in a good way. When Tony calls Chris to come help him get rid of the body, it's not shocking, or dramatic, it's mundane. It's almost as though the "regularness of life" that Chris once spoke of extends even to the covering up of a brutal murder. Tony and Christopher prepare the body, they watch T.V., they obliquely talk about what happened and what it means. They bond, slowly and without fireworks.

This is an episode where the question of "whoever did this" matters less than the fact that it was done. There's undercurrents of blame when Ralphie's son Justin is injured, from Ralphie to the friend who shot the bow and arrow, from Ralphie's ex-wife who blames Ralphie for the lack of supervision, from Ralphie to the ex-wife for buying Justin the bow and arrow. But at the end of the day, Justin's injured and who did it doesn't really matter. When Junior is hit on the head by a boom mic, it has little to do with the Justice Department (negligence, maybe?) but Tony declares he'll sue them and they use it to get Junior's charges dropped or at least his trial postponed. Ralphie may have had his horse killed, or it may have been an accident, but the possibility is enough for him to take out his anger on Ralphie. And as far as the rest of the mobsters know, Tony may have taken out Ralphie (which, as Chris suggests, could send the wrong message) or it could have been any number of other people who Ralphie has pissed off over the years. (Again as Chris notes, Paulie is a likely suspect.)

"Whoever did this" is ambiguous. It prevents you from laying blame. It's a vague sense of a wrong being committed, and a futile pointing of fingers, when real justice, or real comeuppance, is hard to come by, or at least to understand, in the world of The Sopranos. But one thing is true, at the end of all of this, Tony is alone, in the dark, before he steps into a blinding light and the whole thing ends. Who knows what else is in store for him. Tony is complicated, angry, damaged, and often lonely individual, whoever did that to him.