What do you guys believe Pie-O-My meant to Tony, and what caused him to adore it so fiercely?

I think what attracts Tony to animals in general and Pie-O-My in particular is their loyalty. Sure, the ducks left him, but only through the family tie they held within their own unit, which he admired (their flying off induced an unconscious fear for loss of his own family).

Tony yearns for loyalty; he did before, and particularly after, Pussy's betrayal. His first real rant in the show is to Melfi, about how people take the easy road out now and become federal witness and all that. With animals, you get loyalty, and somebody to talk to even. They may not talk back, but then that's an advantage, because when somebody talks back to Tony, it's usually to nag at him (Carmela) or add to his general stress levels (be it Janice, Junior, AJ, Meadow, Chris or Paulie at that time).

There is perhaps more to it; that Tony admires the animal's physical finess, its structure and how graceful it is and how beautiful it is. The horse can at times be very ferocious, but only when it isn't treat right--like Tony himself, perhaps?

Thanks for reading,
Mick

I agree with Capo. Although it's been a long time since I've seen Season 4, I remember Tony was enraged when he found out Chris sat on Adriana's dog due to drugs in the intervention.

yea i've begun to notice this sort of strange mental connection Tony seems to share with animals throughout the series.

Season 1 - The ducks obviously, Tony becomes deeply saddened when they leave, has dreams about them symbolically taking his manhood.

Season 4 - The horse, as previously mentioned. Tony literally beating Ralph to death b/c he thinks he had the horse killed.

Season 5 - The bear metaphor, Tony invading Carmella's privacy mentally and also coming into her home near the end. And also the Fran Felstein (sp?) episode when Tony becomes very upset when he finds out that his dog was given to Fran by his father years ago.

I've been meaning to look into this further, see if there's anything for seasons 2 and 3.

I'm really gonna make sure I look for any animals in season 6, it must mean something.

SC and I were recently discussing this episode. I happened to see it again several weeks ago and noticed something.

Obviously Tony has a soft spot and deep love for animals. But he also has a hidden compassion for people, which can be a big problem when one is trying to run a mob family.

Ralphie killed a stripper, put Paulies mother in a hospital, dissed Johnny Sacs wife, beat the poor guy in the Bada Bing while playing with that roman warrior toy. And Tony refused to do anything to Ralphie and orderd his boys NOT to touch him.

Then the horse dies at the hands of Ralphie. The horse is the final straw for Tony and is the catylyst for Tony killing Ralphie.

But in a scene right before Tony goes to confront Ralphie, I notice Tony looking at pictures on the wall in the Bada Bing of the dancers. And Tony zeros in on the dancer that Ralphie killed.

When Tony is strangling Ralhie, he yells out " Why did you do it, why did you kill her?"

I felt that there was a double message from Tony in that scene, one that went deeper than just the horse. " why did you do it to the horse, why did you kill the stripper." Tony put the two together in his rage.

I think that Ralhie's killing of the stripper was what really bothered him all along, and then the Horse thing was the final straw that brought it out.


Don Cardi

DC, maybe you are correct. However, I disagree with you about the compassion thing. Throughout the series, it seems that Tony and his crew could have more compassion for a horse than for whores - pun intended.

Even from the third season, we all knew that Tony would eventually find a good reason to kill Ralph because he deeply disliked him. The horse incident provided a good excuse and the timing was perfect: Ralph's jokes about Ginny allowed Tony to blame it on the NY crew. Don't forget that Tony, even when acting by his instincts, is much more calculating that he seems at first.

But MC, this is one of the reasons that he goes to a shrink. First it was because of his childhood and his mother, and then it was because of his inner feelings and his guilt about what he does to people.

No question that David Chase throws us the reality curvball every few episodes by showing us what cold hearted bastards that these guys really are. But overall the irony of the whole show is that we have a boss of a crime family, who does evil and horrible things to people, but then needs to go to a shrink because what he does to people really bothers him deep down inside.

But it's true that his feelings for animals is much sincere than his feelings for people.

If you ever get a chance to see that episode again, watch closley when Tony is in the his office and he is looking at those pictures and tell me what you get out of it.

I've noticed through the years of watching this show that when I've watched a replay of a show, I've picked up many different things the second time than when watching an episode for the first time.


Don Cardi

DC, if you put it this way, I agree one hundred percent. It is just one of the many contradictions in this complicated character that David Chase has created.

Exactly.


Don Cardi

I too picked up on the Tracy/Pie-O-My double meaning. Irony at its most Sopranoesque: Ralphie is a pain in the ass to Tony, wanting to be captain, killing a stripper, and getting away with it. Ralphie is Tony's best earner, is a captain, and there's no actual evidence that he killed Pie-O-My. But he is brutally murdered anyway.

Would Ralphie have been killed had he not reacted the way he did to Tony's suggestions? My thinking is not necessarily, but he was a dead man anyway, with Tracy (so clearly) on Tony's mind.

I don't know if his love for animals is more sincere than for humans, but he certainly feels more comfortable expressing such compassion about the creatures who do't talk back to him. Through caring for animals, it seems, he can evoke all of his "human-related" emotions out. And thus, Pie-O-My was a catalyst or direct excuse for avenging Tracy's brutal murder.

Mick

IMO, Ralph is not dead because of Tracy. With his erratic behavior, he was a liability to Tony's organization and had to go, one way or another. Meanwhile, he made a lot of money for everybody and, as far as Mafia codes go, he did nothing wrong. One had to kill him in such a way that the NJ and NY organizations did not protest, or dispose of him at a time when it would not be clear who was responsible.

In view of this, Tony spent quite some time building a case against Ralph in his own head and waited for the right moment to come. During that time, the murder of Tracy, the problems with Johnny Sack and Paulie as well as Ralph's sexual perversions supported Tony's thoughts. By then, he needed a good excuse to kill him and the arson thing came right on time.

Or, was it a way for David Chase to show us how really twisted Tony is? Showing us that Tony would let Ralph get away with killing a stripper. Then showing us that he didn't let him get away with killing an animal.


Don Cardi

I'm tending to agree with DC, here; Tony can be calculating, but rarely has he been coherent in mind for seasons four and five. It's what I love about the show the most; how he just keeps descending into states of depression and irrationality.

Mick

Well, you have a point in that Tony's thoughts about various situations seem to be unclear. However, in the end, all things work out a lot better than expected. It cannot be pure luck. It may be that Tony is accustomed to thinking about things in a certain way before he takes action.

Season 4: Ralph does anything he can to cause trouble and Tony wants to kill him. His crew doesn't like even Tony's beating of Ralph and so Tony has to wait. When Johnny Sack hears about the Ginny joke, Tony can dispose of Ralph without him even getting involved. Instead he chooses "not to give up his captain". Eventually he does it himself in such a way that no one can be blamed for sure.

Season 5: Although Tony B has already done a job for Carmine Jr without Tony's approval, Tony does not admit that, with the danger of being directly involved into the war between Johnny Sack and Carmine Jr. In the meantime, he favors Tony B over other members of the crew and especially Chris. When Tony B kills Leotardo's brother, he refuses to hand him to Johnny Sack, bringing more heat to his crew who protest all the time. Again, he takes care of the matter himself without having to be pushed around by the NY crew.

Do you see a pattern? I see one. Tony likes to push situations to extremes in order to assess everybody's reactions and to gather useful information to be used later. In the end, he does the obvious thing and emerges as the one that is in complete control of the situation.

After all, we all have seen people in real life who, despite the fact that their thoughts and actions seem totally incoherent, get exactly what they want in the end.