The Sopranos season 4, episode 1
Original air date: September 15, 2002

The new season opens with a new school for AJ - having been kicked out of Verbum Dei - and a new friend for Adriana - an FBI agent who's undercover trying to cozy up to Adriana to get info on the Soprano family operations. Uncle Junior's RICO trial is about to start, and he asks Tony for some money to cover expenses. Tony's initially resistant, because money's tight all around: the capos aren't kicking money up to him the way they used to. Their excuse is the economy, but he's unsatisfied with that answer.

Money is the talk of the day, as Carmela sees Angie Bompansiero in the grocery store handing out samples to make some extra money. Carmela starts pestering Tony about what would happen to their family if anything happened to him, and he just reassures her that arrangements have been made.

At Rosalie's birthday party, Ralphie and Janice share some coke and some lovin' in the upstairs bathroom. Tony quietly notices their extended absence from the table and simply locks the information away for later.

Meanwhile, Paulie's in county jail for a gun charge and calls Johnny Sack (head of one of the NY families) for help rather than relying on Tony. Johnny advises him to sit tight; looks like they're setting up some turf wars between Tony's crew and Johnny's.

Uncle Junior calls Tony to his doctor's office to tell him that he wants Bobby Baccalieri to take over his personal operations from the old guy Uncle Junior had running them. Bobby's thrilled, and he and his wife are there to comfort Uncle Junior when Junior finds out that the feds had an agent in his doctor's office that will be testifying at his trial. They deduce that it's probably the nurse that Uncle Junior used to flirt with, the one whose last day was just that day and told Uncle Junior that she was going back to school.

In the end, Tony honors Uncle Junior's request for money, after talking to the councilman about the Esplanade project - the councilman advises Tony that the area's going to explode with growth when the project takes off, and that there's a lot of money to be made by "a private citizen...[exercising] patriotic entrepreneurism." Turns out Uncle Junior's holding onto a piece of property in the Esplanade area, which Tony offers to buy from him so Uncle Junior will have money for the trial.

Last but not least, Christopher continues to chafe under Tony's tight fist, and Tony's keeping him closer than ever. He's been thinking about the old days when you trusted only blood and only gave orders through family, so that nothing could touch you. Tony tests Christopher's loyalty by ordering a hit on the cop who Tony claims killed Christopher's father. The cop has just come home from his retirement party, and when Christopher confronts him, he swears he doesn't know what Christopher's talking about. Christopher wavers for a moment, not knowing whether to trust Tony or not, but whacks the cop in the end.