Bob's house. He opens the door to find Carmela, and she's got her tongue halfway down his throat before he can manage much more than a quick hello. She shoves him down on the couch, and I don't think we've ever seen Sexually Aggressive Carmela before. I definitely like her a lot better than Passively Aggressive Carmela, that's for damn sure.

Later on, Carmela and Bob are lying in bed and staring up at his ceiling. She suggests painting it (insert your own masturbation joke here, or just use the one from this week's episode of The O.C.), but Bob would rather have a glow-in-the-dark solar system. Hmm. Is that a shout-out? ["Could be. Kim has one on the ceiling in her guest room." -- Wing Chun] Because I totally had one of those. And just out of curiosity, was I the only person on Earth actually geeky enough to get out the star charts and a tape measure to make sure the constellations were accurate? Yeah. That's what I thought. Bob just wants to engage in some mindless post-coital chit chat about the Caribbean or maybe the size of his penis, but, as usual, Carmela can think of nothing but AJ. And when you consider the fact that she's naked in the bed of a man who is not the kid's father, that's a little creepy. And Bob would seem to agree, because he acts all annoyed, and then gets up to use the bathroom.

When he comes back, he's looking pissy and wearing one of the ugliest robes I've ever seen. It's so solidly below average, in fact, that I had to add five hundred points to this week's StR, which explains the B grade I gave to the episode. Bob thinks for a moment, and then suddenly announces that maybe they should take a time-out, leaving Carmela completely flabbergasted. "Every time I think about putting the arm on [AJ's English teacher]," he explains, "I want to poke my eyes out with a knitting needle." Yeah, well maybe you should put those needles to work making yourself a better bathrobe, you moron. "I don't know any other way to put this," he continues. "I've been thinking, and...I don't know. I think you're a user, Carmela. Maybe you saw an opportunity in me and just took what you needed." Carmela is totally shocked (I can tell because I happened to freeze-frame this scene while her mouth is open in a perfect O of surprise. It's a hilarious image), and she insists that she's only there because she likes him as a person and the sex is "wonderful." And by "wonderful," by the way, she means better than being crushed under her tub-of-lard husband for three and a half minutes once every other week. "How could asking someone you're with for help be using?" she wonders. "That's what people do." And there, I think, lies the crux of this entire scene, because that's all she knows about relationships. It's easy to see why Bob believes that she was just using him, because the sequence of events supports it, and it certainly does play to what he knows about her husband and her history. But at the same time, Carmela hasn't been on a date for probably thirty years or more ["more like twenty; I doubt the character is supposed to be fifty, and one assumes she did go on dates in high school" -- Wing Chun], and I don't think it ever would have occurred to her that she could use sex as a motivational tool like that. At least not in this context, anyway. And if Bob had even a whiff of empathy about him, he probably could have figured that out. Instead, he just sanctimoniously announces that Carmela used the only weapon she had: "[her] pussy." Then he mocks her for pretending that she doesn't know what he's talking about. "I don't," she insists. "Of course, I don't have a fucking Master's degree." Bob also seems unwilling to acknowledge that he waited until after they had sex one last time to make his little announcement. Carmela angrily pulls on her clothes, and even manages to knock a lamp off the nightstand as she gathers her belongings. "Believe it or not," she snarls, "I thought you cared about me." Then, just for good measure, she adds a quick "you better watch your step" on the way out the door. Bob tries to laugh at that one, but ends up just looking scared. And that, my friends, is probably the last time we'll ever see the man. Unless Furio comes after him, of course.