Previously on The Sopranos:

Junior: Can I have some ice cream?
Melfi: You loomed!
Furio: [Sniffle]
Foreshadowing: Tony's going to die! Did you hear me? Did you? I said HE'S GOING TO DIE!

Previously, in the recaps:

David Chase: I'd like to introduce you all to our new mole.
Daniel: Oh, the shame!
Sars: You're fired.
Foreshadowing: This is gonna end badly. Trust me.

Woke up this morning, and got myself a Pop Tart. Mmmmm, Pop Tarts. And now I'm ready to recap! Let's see how far I can get before the Steeler game starts, shall we?

The dream is always the same. Or, at the very least, always at the same point in the season. Yep, that's right, people. It's time for the fourth annual pre-season-finale hallucination episode. This time it's brought to you by the fine people at Outback Steakhouse, America Online (a division of AOL Time Warner Inc.), and Chef Boy-R-Dee's new Chicken Vindaloo In A Box meal, available at fine convenience stores everywhere. We fade up on a silver crucifix, complete with rosary beads, as if to provide us with ample warning that this week's imagery will be religious rather than Rolling Stones-based. We then cut to the back of Joey Pants's hairless head, which is not only re-attached to his body, but also has a large blue caterpillar creeping along its skin. I should point out now that all this is occurring in a vintage, fifties-era Cadillac, as we cruise down an empty Midwestern highway. Joey leans over from the passenger seat to fiddle with the radio, and finally comes to rest on a station when we hear a man announce, "And now the news." This is rapidly followed by the sounds of gunshots and screaming, as a siren wails in the background. Tony sits in the backseat of this bizarre car, and his impassive expression is broken only when Gloria Trillo speaks up from the seat beside him. "Want to take it for a test drive?" she asks, as Carmela looks back from the driver's seat. And then, as if to indicate the ever-accelerating passage of time in Tony's life, the caterpillar becomes a moth, Gloria becomes a smiling Svetlana, and Carmela's hair switches from the old-school style to her new shorter 'do. And with that, Tony jerks awake in bed, rubbing the sweat from his forehead.