Episode no. Season 3
Episode 1 Written by David Chase Production code 302 | Directed by Allen Coulter Cinematography by Alik Sakharov Original air date March 4, 2001 | |
 | ||
"Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood" is the twenty-seventh episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and is the first of the show's third season. It was written by David Chase, directed by Allen Coulter and originally aired on March 4, 2001.
Contents
Starring
* = credit only
Guest starring
Episode recap
FBI agents are listening to recorded conversations between FBI informant Big Pussy Bonpensiero and Tony. Agent Skip Lipari and his colleagues agree that Pussy is likely dead; without his court testimony, several of their more promising cases against Tony are now unprosecutable. As the agents discuss the possibility of wiretapping Tony's conversations, Lipari recalls that Tony takes his associates down to his basement to discuss private matters that cannot be discussed away from home, counting on the noise of the vast 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) home's five central air conditioning units to mask any conversation. If the FBI were to obtain a search warrant and plant a listening device in the basement near where Tony's conversations take place, they would be able to maintain a high level of surveillance on the Soprano home. Chief Frank Cubitoso goes to obtain the court order but is warned by the judge not to linger there for too long. The FBI identify a one-hour-and-forty-five-minute period each Tuesday when nobody is home. When the Sopranos leave for their activities on Tuesday and the maid goes to English lessons and a picnic with her husband, the FBI "breaks into" the Soprano home to look around the basement and discover an old reading lamp which could serve as a decoy for a hidden microphone. They take several pictures of the lamp and plan to create an exact replica of it with an embedded listening device, then return the following Tuesday to plant it. However, the FBI's plans are temporarily foiled when the house's 120-gallon water heater explodes and the basement is flooded. The maid discovers the mess and calls Tony and Carmela, who return home and gather old relics and boxes before they are destroyed by the water. Tony then calls on his plumber, Mr. Ruggerio to ask him to fix the mess. The following week, after the water heater is fixed and the basement is put back in order, the FBI agents plant the new lamp and quickly leave before the maid returns from lunch.
Meanwhile, Meadow is adjusting to life at Columbia University, where she meets her very energetic but homesick roommate, Caitlin Rucker. A.J. is cutting classes to smoke cigarettes with friends. Carmela begins taking Adriana La Cerva with her to her tennis lessons. She is soon upset when she discovers her coach is moving away (and is married) and has been replaced with a woman who has more of an interest in Adriana.
Tony is still running his crew and is concerned about a possible garbage war involving his company, Barone Sanitation. He gathers with his friends at Satriale's, where he finds a still-distraught Patsy Parisi mourning over his deceased twin brother (Phillip "Philly Spoons" Parisi) on their birthday. Tony acts as if he does not know what actually happened, but Patsy suspects Tony had something to do with it. The following day, while the FBI watches, a drunken Patsy aims a gun at Tony from his pool patio. However, he then puts the gun down and urinates in the pool instead, none of it seen by Tony. However, some days later, when Tony brings up to Patsy his favorable position in Tony's crew and all the money he has been earning which enables him to provide for his family and then inquisitively quizzes him whether he is still held back by his brothers death, Patsy seems to have settled his mind and pleads his allegiance to Tony.