The Sopranos Proshai, Livushka

This episode begins with Tony Soprano greeting his daughter Meadow and her boyfriend from college Noah Tannenbaum at home. Briefly, Noah and Tony talk about Tony's favorite movie The Public Enemy. Then, Tony questions Noah about his ethnicity and if he had to fill out his ethnicity for college. Noah replies that college isn't allowed to ask about ethnicity and then confirms that he is half Jewish and half African-American. Being against interracial relationships, Tony tells Noah that he must stay away from his daughter Meadow. Noah replies to Tony's racism by swearing at him. Here is the video of the interaction in this episode between Tony and Noah.

Then, Meadow comes down the stairs to get ready to leave with Noah. When Meadow and Noah leave, Tony goes into the kitchen to unwrap some cold cuts. Seeing a box of Uncle Ben's Rice, Tony's anxiety about Meadow having a relationship with Noah gets triggered causing him to suffer a panic attack causing him to faint. Then, Carmela comes into the kitchen and gets worried seeing a fainted Tony on the floor after suffering a panic attack. Feeling worried about Tony, she kneels down to the floor and asks him if he is alright. Carmela helps Tony get up and then once Tony gets up, he starts angrily yelling about his bigotry against Noah and how his father would have reacted if one of his sisters brought home a boyfriend of mixed race. Carmela warns Tony to let her handle the relationship between Noah and Meadow and that if he does anything else, she will be pissed.

Then, Tony goes to visit his mother Livia Soprano in her home in an unsuccessful attempt to set things straight. When Tony visits, the first thing that Livia says is "Look who calls." Tony then replies by telling her that he is actually standing in front of her. When Tony asks her how things are going, she replies "What do you care? Out of sight? Out of mind?" Tony then replies by telling her that he brought her some books to read since she is struggling to concentrate. Livia responds with her catchphrase "I wish the Lord would take me now." Shortly afterwards, Livia's maid Svetlana comes and brings the journals that Carmela gave to Livia to write about her memories with her grandchildren A.J. Soprano and Meadow. Svetlana tells Tony that she is going to have Livia write down her memories with her grandchildren in her journal because it will be good for her. When Tony sees nothing written in the journals for 20 years, he angrily yells at her mother Livia about this. Livia replies to this by saying another one of her catchphrases: "Now look here, I don't like that kind of talk, now just stop it upsets me." Ignoring another one of her catchphrases, Tony no longer raises his voice but his tone is still angry and he still lets her know how angry he is that Livia will return those journals to Carmela with nothing filled out. To this, Livia says "It's none of anybody's business." Tony says "Too busy feeling sorry for yourself."

Then, the conversation switches to being about the stolen airline tickets that Tony gave Livia in Season 2 so that she could leave the country to finally stay out of Tony's life. Tony tells his mother Livia to tell the FBI that she never said that the airline tickets were stolen. Seizing the opportunity to make Tony's visit at her home all about herself, Livia says "I suppose I should have kept my mouth shut like I'm mute." Tony warns her saying that any kind of deal the FBI makes with her, she better keep her mouth shut. As Livia keeps on stonewalling him, Tony says "You know for a year, I didn't speak to you. Maybe I should have kept it that way." Once again, Livia dismissively waves her hankey at him. Exasperated, Tony tells her to do what she wants and then proceeds to leave.

The scene then transitions to Tony at home with Carmela coming to him to tell him some grim news. A.J. and Meadow come with Carmela. Then, Carmela reveals to Tony that his mother has just died. Carmela tells Tony that she received the news from a phone call with Svetlana. Svetlana told Carmela that after dinner, Livia went upstairs to get ready for bed. When Svetlana came upstairs to check on Livia, she saw Livia in her night gown under the covers. Mistakenly, Svetlana thought that Livia was sleeping. In shock, Tony sits down. Meadow and A.J. express their condolences to Tony about Livia's tragic death. Shortly after this, the scene transitions to Carmela and Tony visiting Livia's house to talk to Svetlana about the circumstances surrounding Livia's death. The first thing Svetlana does is attempt to comfort Tony by telling him that she was in no pain. When Carmela asks Svetlana about the cause of Livia's death, Svetlana confirms that Livia died of a massive stroke. Feeling like she broke her promise to Tony about Livia finishing her journals, Svetlana says to Tony that now because Livia has died, she will not be finishing her journals. Carmela asks "A journal?" Tony reveals to Carmela that Livia never touched the journals that Carmela brought for her to fill out. Then, they go into Livia's kitchen where Svetlana is smoking a cigarette with the 3 of them holding drinking glasses which Svetlana fills with an alcohol beverage. In Livia's memory, Svetlana says "Proshai, Livushka." When Tony asks what that means, Svetlana replies "Goodbye Little Livia."

As people begin to gather at the Sopranos residence, Tony's sister Barbara calls him on the phone hysterically crying. While hysterically crying, Barbara tells Tony that their sister Janice will not be coming to Livia's funeral. Furious, Tony calls Janice and demands Janice to be on the next plane to New Jersey. Initially, Janice makes excuses to stay in Seattle saying that Livia's funeral would be a stressful event for her and that nobody does well at funerals. Tony reminds her that nobody does well at funerals and dismisses her excuses. Then, Janice says that she will come to New Jersey only if Tony pays for her plane ride. Tony agrees to pay for the airplane ride so that Janice comes to New Jersey to attend her mother's funeral. Then, Ralph Cifaretto (A member of Richie's crew) arrives at Tony's house along with Patsy, Vito Spatafore, Gigi Cesterone and Albert Barese. Tony takes Ralph and Albert outside to confront them about the escalating sanitation dispute. Ralph says "his crew" is in line for a business contract and that he has been acting as their capo. Tony angrily warns Ralph, saying that he will be capo only when Tony says so and then orders Albert and Ralph to end their conflict. Instead of following Tony's orders, Ralph goes against Tony and has his men attack a man with baseball bats for interfering in his garbage business.

Because of the complicated grief that Tony is suffering, Tony discusses about Livia's death in a therapy session with Dr. Jennifer Melfi. Tony reveals to Dr. Jennifer Melfi that he is glad that his mother Livia is dead. But at the same time, Tony suffers immense guilty for feeling happiness about Livia's death. Tony feels like he was a bad son to his mother Livia because of the fact that he wished for her death while she was still alive and says that no son should wish for their mother's death. Then, he proceeds to ask Dr. Jennifer Melfi if her son Jason is a good son and that if he isn't a good son, then he deserves to be dead. Then, Tony says that he is happy that he wasn't a good son to his mother because she was nothing but a miserable old woman who even ruined her husband's life. Dr. Jennifer Melfi reminds Tony that his father wasn't her son and that he should be focusing more on how his mother hurt him. Annoyed, Tony claims that what Livia did to Tony is just a matter of public record. When Dr. Jennifer Melfi implies that he doesn't like to talk about it, Tony lets Livia off by claiming that she didn't even know what she was doing and that his Uncle Junior denies that Livia was involved with the attempt to assassinate him, even though it was Livia who manipulated Junior to attempt to assassinate her own son in the first place. Then, Dr. Jennifer Melfi says that his Uncle Junior loves him. Dr. Jennifer Melfi tells Tony that even though Tony's wish for his mother's death is taboo, it is normal that he feels this way and says that most people secretly wish for their parents to be dead when they lose all capacity for joy and are miserable like Livia was who treat their children the way Livia treated Tony.

Tony and his sisters Barbara and Janice gather at the funeral home. Going against Livia's wishes, Janice insists that her mother should be given a lavish funeral. Barbara gives a look to Tony implying that she agrees with Janice. Exasperated, Tony decides to go with his sister's wishes of their mother being given a lavish funeral to just get it over with. Later, Janice breaks into Livia's house in an attempt to get Livia's money that was left in the house. When Tony comes in, Janice scrambles. Janice shows Tony the mementos that Livia kept of her 3 children and tells Tony that she kept no memory of Janice, barely anything of Barbara and only kept her mementos of Tony. This implies that despite how much Livia and Tony mutually hated each other and that Livia even at one point wanted her own son dead, secretly she still loved him but could not allow herself to feel it. The immense guilt that Tony suffers feeling happy that Livia is dead also implies that Tony loved his mother deep down inside, but because of how much they mutually hated each other, his love for his mother was internal. Then, Tony tells Livia that Dr. Melfi told him that Livia just wasn't cut out to be a mother. When Janice asks him if his therapist is blaming Livia's 3 children, they affectionately bond with each other as brother and sister and Janice even gets affectionately teased by Tony with Tony joking that it was Janice's fault that Livia was the way she was.

Then, Livia's wake is attended by Christopher Moltisanti, Furio Giunta, Silvio Dante, and Adriana La Cerva. While everybody who has attended Livia's wake is gathered around Livia's grave, Janice asks Svetlana about Livia's record collection. Svetlana reveals to Janice that Livia left her records to her. Disrespecting her mother's wishes, Janice asks Svetlana for her records back. Svetlana refuses to give Janice the record collection, saying that she must respect Livia's wishes. While on the outside it appears that Janice is hurt because Livia refused to give her record collection to her own daughter, this is just one of the prime examples of how manipulative Janice is and how far she will go to get money. In reality, Janice wants her mother's record collection so that she could sell it and make money. Livia was a smart woman who knew that this would happen and because of this, she left the records to her maid instead of Janice knowing that her maid would protect the records from getting sold by Janice. 

Back at the Soprano residence, Janice has everybody come into the living room to conduct a remembrance for Livia against Tony's wishes. Livia got eulogized by Hesh Rabkin, her friend Fanny and a drunk Christopher. With his arm around his girlfriend Adriana La Cerva, Christopher says the obvious: That there are no two people on Earth exactly the same, no two faces, no two sets of fingerprints. But then Christopher's speech while drunk starts to get unique: He says that it is impossible to confirm this to be true because even with computers, it is still impossible to get every single human being that has ever lived in the same room. Because Christopher says that in order to see if there were a human being similar to Livia Soprano, not only would we have to get people who are still alive but people from the future and the people that were alive before Livia Soprano. Because according to Christopher, perhaps there was a woman that came before Livia that was just like her. Maybe not with her fears or paranoia, but still just the same.

To take a break from the remembrance, Tony goes outside in his backyard. But Tony can't even catch a break in his own backyard. Having a flashback to when Livia told him about Tony burning down his restaurant, Artie storms outside to Tony's backyard and angrily confronts Tony. Drunk, Artie takes the garbage cans in Tony's backyard and makes a mess. Tony tells Artie to clean up his mess, but he doesn't listen. Then, Tony and Artie go back inside where Artie is ready to expose the truth that Tony burned down his restaurant.  From my interpretation, as Artie is about to do this, we see Tony hovering in over Artie's shoulders, ready to whack him if he dares expose the fact that Tony burned down his restaurant.

However, Artie gets saved by the bell when a drunk Carmela interrupts Artie. Despite being drunk, finally for the first time since Livia's death, the truth about Livia gets exposed. Carmela talks about how Livia didn't want a funeral because she knew that she was so unlikable that she inaccurately thought nobody would want to come. Feeling that her own daughter is disrespecting the deceased Livia Soprano, Carmela gets angry and tells her to stop it. However, Carmela responds that this is her house and that she will do as she pleases. Offended, Carmela's mother gets up to leave. But just as she is about to leave, Carmela's father angrily sits her down and tells her to let Carmela speak, feeling angry at the deceased Livia for having them estranged from their own daughter Carmela. With the exception of Carmela's mother and Janice, everybody else in the room agrees with Carmela.

At the end of the episode when everybody who attended Livia's remembrance goes home, Tony sits in the living room by himself in front of the television with a glass of liquor and watches a scene from his favorite film The Public Enemy featuring the main character's mother joyfully preparing her new home for her son's arrival from the hospital. Feeling immense grief not only about Livia's death but about not being able to have the relationship with his mother that the main character in The Public Enemy had with his mother, Tony becomes teary and starts to cry and the episode ends.

To emphasize on what Carmela said about Livia and this whole post about Livia, I am going to talk about the first time we meet Livia Soprano. Arriving at his mother's house with a Sharp LCD TV as a gift for her, Tony knocks on the door repeatedly. Livia asks who is it and Tony replies that it is him. Stonewalling him, Livia asks him "Who are you?" Frustrated, Tony tells Livia to open the door. Livia replies "Anthony?" Tony says once again in frustration "Yeah it's me, ma. Open the door." Finally, Livia opens the door allowing Tony to come in. Livia asks him if he locked the door behind him. Tony goes to lock the door behind him. Livia tells him that somebody called on the phone last night, but she didn't answer because it was dark. Tony implies that it was him who called his mother, saying that she cannot understand that since the phone is an auditory device. Sarcastically, Livia says "Oh look at him, he knows everything." Then, Livia asks him if he wants lunch. Tony says that he will not eat since he is not hungry physically. Tony proceeds to tell Livia that he ran into Uncle Junior. 

Being manipulative attempting to manipulate Uncle Junior and Tony against each other, Livia complains about how he doesn't ever take the time to see his sister in law. Then, Tony asks Livia if she remembers his best buddy Artie Bucco. Livia confirms that she does remember Artie and then tells Tony to his face that Artie is a better son to his mother than Tony is to her since he calls his mother everyday, according to Artie's mother. Tony responds to this by deciding to confide in his mother by saying that Uncle Junior is going to make a problem for Artie that could impact Artie's livelihood. Then, Tony tells Livia that he also got her a CD player as a gift. Livia replies by telling Tony that she does not want the CD Player. Getting extremely stressed, Tony reminds her that the CD Player has CDs of the music that Livia loves such as Connie Francis. In an unsuccessful attempt to cheer Livia up, Tony plays the song Who's Sorry Now by Connie Francis and then attempts to dance with his mother, but his mother tells him to stop it as she does not want to dance with him. 

Tony reminds Livia that she needs to do things to occupy herself, but then Livia angrily tells him to stop telling her how to live her life and even tells her only son to shut up. Tony tells Livia that he is just worried about her, to which Livia replies by telling him to not start about the nursing home. Losing his patience, Tony angrily tells Livia that it is not a nursing home. When Tony drops the topic and just simply tells Livia to speak to Uncle Junior about Artie since Livia is special to Uncle Junior, Livia tells him that if his uncle does business then he knows what he is doing. Tony asks "And I don't?" Livia gets off topic and says "Well, all I know is that daughters take better care of their mothers than sons." Having had enough, Tony angrily says "Yeah and I brought a CD Player for a broken record" and then as he proceeds to leave, he reminds his mother that he expects to see her tonight at Anthony Junior's birthday party with her baked ziti. Livia says that she will come only if she is picked up and dropped off at home. Tony tells her that she should drive since she is a healthy girl and then says that he has to go back to work and kisses her hand. Livia has the last word by saying "Sure, run off" and then closes the door.