With three of their moles now dead (Adrianna last season, and Ray Curto and Gene Pontecorvo this season), the FBI needed a new snitch. I’ve been saying all season that I thought Chris was an obvious target, considering his tight relationship with Tony, his own personal history, and the fact that he’s dealing with some shady Middle Eastern dudes, an association that the FBI could potentially use as leverage against him.
Well, I no longer think Chris could be the guy; I think he is the guy. Tony and Chris stole several cases of wine from two members of the Viper motorcycle gang, who were actually in the process of stealing the wine (and an ATM machine) themselves. Later, while enviously watching Tony drink the wine during dinner, Chris mentions that he sometimes misses drinking. Tony pours him a glass, saying they need to toast Chris’ new marriage and baby (out of the blue – I don’t think they even showed Chris’ new girlfriend before tonight, then she walks out of the bedroom and – BOOM – tells him she’s pregnant), and eventually they wind up in the restaurant parking lot with a freshly opened bottle, sloppy drunk. They start gushing about one another, as drunk guys often do, talking about the bond they share and yada-yada-yada. Then, out of nowhere, Chris brings up the Adrianna situation. Again.
Now, I’m not going to go back and watch all the previous episodes, but that’s at least the third or fourth time Chris has mentioned something about Adrianna to Tony this season. It never struck me as odd before tonight – I just figured Chris was still having a hard time coming to grips with it all – but a warning light started flashing tonight. Maybe it was the fact that we saw a flashback of the scene that Chris was talking about, when he broke the news to T that Adrianna was a snitch. They were in Tony’s basement and, after Chris told him, T tore open Chris’ shirt to make sure he wasn’t wired. That seemed off to me; why did we have to actually see the scene again?
Well, because later in the episode, Chris drops by unannounced and finds Tony in the basement, putting his newly acquired bottles of wine on his wine rack. So what did they talk about? Nothing. Chris told Tony that he ended up selling his wine, which prompted Tony to relive some of the events from the night they robbed the Vipers. But that was it. There was no point to the conversation whatsoever. It seemed like a wasted scene. BUT…if you get a chance to watch it again (TiVo, HBO on Demand, whatever), take a close look at Chris’ shirt. There’s a slight bulge just below his collarbone, something that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it (as I was). He was wired. He had to be. Why have that conversation with Tony? He was digging for information, that’s why. Maybe he wanted Tony to talk more about the wine, just like he’s seemingly wanted Tony to talk more about what happened to Adrianna on several occasions this season. And why show that flashback earlier? Because the last time they were in the basement, Tony made sure Chris wasn’t wearing a wire. Talk about symmetry.
Of course, there are a couple of holes in this hypothesis, like why is Chris so excited about buying a house with his new wife if he’s working with the feds and could some day soon have to go into hiding? And during the wine robbery, Chris shot one of the bikers as Tony drove away. Would he be immune to punishment for that if he’s working with the FBI? Still, I’m holding firm: Chris has flipped and we’re going to find out about it soon (only three episodes left, in case you missed the previews for next week). He’s going to destroy Tony’s family from the inside out, but maybe not before he destroys himself, since he’s clearly rolled right off the wagon. Shooting some heroin will do that to a guy.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much space to talk about the rest of tonight’s episode, so I’ll try to quickly wrap this one up. Tony finds himself bored with life (“Every day is a gift, it just doesn’t have to be a pair of socks,” he tells Dr. Melfi), and though we only briefly saw Julianna tonight, I’m sure she’ll have a larger role in upcoming episodes. Trouble ahead for T and Carm. Paulie hasn’t been featured much recently but it looks like he found out at the end of the episode that he’s got Cancer. How’s he going to react to that? For a while there, Paulie looked like a ticking time bomb, and maybe he still is, but in that final scene with his mom/aunt, he just looked defeated and depressed. Meanwhile, Phil Leotardo has started cutting Johnny Sack out of the loop, which will make things that much more interesting when Tony and Phil butt heads over the Vito situation. And speaking of Vito, I don’t even think anyone mentioned his name tonight, which means we should see him and Johnny Cakes go on a picnic or three next week.
