The Sopranos season 4, episode 9
Original air date: November 10, 2002

Ralph's chatting with a couple guys from his crew about who got him in trouble with Tony over the Ginny Sack comment. Ralphie concludes that it must have been Paulie's nephew telling Paulie (which it was), and that Paulie must have told Johnny, because Paulie's always been jealous of Ralphie's success (true). As revenge, Ralph calls Paulie's mother at the nursing home and claims to be a police officer in Pennsylvania, who's just caught Paulie molesting a Cub Scout in a public bathroom with a gerbil up his ass. She says she can't believe it, but Ralph takes it a step further and says he needs insurance information because the police department won't cover the emergency surgery to remove the gerbil. She's so upset, she has to be taken to the hopital wing of the nursing home and put on Xanax.

Paulie's furious and warns Tony that if he finds any proof that Ralph was the one who placed the call, he'll kill Ralph. Tony very sternly tells him that Ralph's not to be messed with. Ralph's, meanwhile, in the middle of a personal tragedy - his son, Justin, was playing with a bow and arrow (playing a Lord of the Rings game with a friend in the backyard) and was shot with an arrow through his right shoulder. He's rushed to the hospital, but there were five minutes that they couldn't get oxygen into his lungs, so his brain is seriously oxygen-depleted.

Uncle Junior's at the hospital, too, as it turns out, because he was knocked down the courthouse steps by a boom microphone by a member of the press coming out of court. He suffered a concussion, and the doctor warns that he might lapse into dementia, because he's rather disoriented and confused. Junior seems to be alright, given some time to recover, but Tony decides to use the concussion as a way to claim diminished mental capacity and get a mistrial declared. They find an RN, a friend of Svetlana's (Tony's mother's former nurse), who's willing to play along, and Junior undergoes some psychological testing ordered by the prosecution. He hams it up, but the psychologist doesn't seem to catch on.

Ralphie goes to see the priest, at Rosalie Aprile's suggestion, after he asks her to marry him. She turns him down, but he goes to the priest anyway. He tells the priest that God's punishing Justin for the sins that Ralphie's committed. The priest encourages him to confess and absolve himself of the guilt, but Ralphie says he's not ready.

Tony's with Valentina again when Lois, the horse trainer, calls to say that there's been a fire at the stables - Pie Oh My survived the fire, but she was so badly burned that she had to be destroyed. Tony goes to see her before her body is carted away, and Lois tells him that the fire investigators believe it was an accident. There was a burned out light bulb that sparked some hay, and the whole place went up quickly.

Tony's got his own suspicions, though, and visits Ralph to tell him the bad news. Ralph's not all that concerned about the horse, especially considering that he's gotten some good news about his son - the doctor's think the main thing that will need rehabilitation will be his speech, but that he should be able to recover. Tony accuses Ralph of setting the fire, which Ralph denies. Ralph does point out, though, that it's not really a bad thing that the horse is dead, considering that she was colicky and having trouble recovering after each race. Tony presses Ralph about the last time he talked with the guy who set the Vesuvio fire several years ago for Silvio. Ralph loses it and yells back at Tony, at which point Tony punches him in the face.

They wrestle around in Ralph's kitchen, Ralph first grabbing a knife, which Tony's able to knock out of his hands, and then a can of Raid, which he sprays in Tony's eyes. Tony tackles Ralph and begins pounding his head on the floor and beating the crap out of his face. He finally chokes Ralph to death, all the while sobbing about how Pie Oh My was a beautiful, innocent animal.

Tony calls Christopher to help him dispose of the body. Christopher's just been shooting up, so it takes him awhile to pull himself together. They carve Ralph up, douse his place with bleach, throw most of him in the river, bury his head and hands out on a farm, and then burn their clothes at Bada Bing. Christopher warns Tony that the other captains might worry that the same kind of thing might happen to them, without the protection of the boss, but Tony keeps insisting he doesn't know what happened, that he came upon Ralph in that condition and there was nothing he could do to save him. Tony falls asleep on a couch in the Bing, and when he wakes up, Christopher's gone and it's bright, bright daylight again.