Yet another great shot of the Bada Bing sign reflected on a tinted windshield leads us into the next scene. In the back, Tony is discussing the Feds (hey, remember them?) on the phone when Patsy Parisi comes in and informs him that there's a call for him on line two. "It's a woman. I think she's crying," he adds before backing out. Tony breathes deeply for a moment, and then reluctantly switches over to hear a sobbing Gloria, who can't even get out a coherent thought. She finally manages to start babbling in sentence fragments instead of word fragments, and Tony just pulls the phone from his ear and looks disgusted.

Cut to Gloria's house, where she and her black robe answer the door. Tony comes in and stands silently in the center of the living room, waiting for her to speak her piece. "I just want it to be the way it was," she says. "I love you." Tony doesn’t want to hear her crying anymore, and remains emphatic that they're broken up. "You bring it on yourself," he tells her. "You're a beautiful, talented woman, but you push guys away." Gloria tries to convince him that it won't happen again, but Tony repeats that it's over. "We had our mo-fo, or whatever, and it was great. But now it's time to put it to bed." This time, that's not what Gloria wanted to hear, and she starts swearing at him, which prompts Tony to haul off and hit her across the face. "You think my life's a picnic?" he asks, standing over her. "Oh, poor you," she spits back, and I guess there was one other person who pushed Tony's buttons like Gloria does. "I didn't just meet you," he mutters in a rare display of depth. "I've known you my entire life." He goes on to explain how she's just like his mother, and turns to walk out. When she insults Livia, however, he comes back, grabs her arms, and pushes her to the floor. "When you see me," he yells, "you better cross the street, because you're dangerous and I don't want you in my life." He tries to leave again, and this time Gloria actually begs him not to go. Now we all know that violence against women (or anyone for that matter) is wrong, but I don't really think you can dispute that Gloria is goading him on purpose. She's suicidal, and this scenario is precisely what she envisioned when she called him over. As Tony finally gets the front door open, Gloria screams out her last-ditch effort, threatening to call Carmela. Tony goes nuts and throws her around the room, finally ending up on top of her on the floor as he grabs her throat. You know, while all you guys in the forums were going on about the complex psychological motivations and moral implications at work here, all I could think was that as much as I'm loving Annabella Sciorra in this part, I still liked this scene better when it was Patricia Arquette. On the other hand, I'm also still reeling from my film-geek faux pas of not mentioning the Miller's Crossing homage last week. Although, in my defense, I've never really been that much of a Coen Brothers fan. I just find them to be overly pretentious (and believe me, I know from pretentious). Incidentally, here's where Sars gets mad at me: ["When you see me, you better cross the street, because you're pretentious and I don't want you in my life." -- Sars] Anyway, Tony explains in no uncertain terms what will happen if she calls Carmela, but Gloria just wheezes and begs repeatedly for him to kill her now. There's a brief, spittle-spraying shot of Tony attempting to do just that, but then he backs off and makes his way out of the house, leaving a battered and depressed Gloria alone on the floor.