The Sopranos, "Boca": Why the big secret?

My review/recap of the March 7, 1999 episode after I yap worse than six barbers.

Secrets, and what happens when other people learn about those secrets, are at the forefront of this episode. Tony, Uncle Junior, and Coach Hauser all have secrets that will destroy their own lives if people find out about them, and of course, people do in this episode.

Tony is still worried that people will find out that he goes to a psychiatrist. He knows that people are following him, from the police to Mikey's own private investigators. He knows that they don't think they will be able to trust him if people find out.

Junior's secret hurts his respect to other gangsters if it is found out. To escape the thought of the upcoming indictments, Junior takes his girlfriend of 16 years, Bobbi (Robyn Peterson) to Boca Raton. There we learn that Junior likes to perform oral sex on Bobbi. He tells her that she can't tell anyone about that because it will damage his reputation. Bobbi talks about it at her salon, and the rumors get all the way to Carmela. She tells Tony, and on a golfing trip, Tony makes jokes implied at Junior liking to give oral sex. Junior responds by refering to Tony going to therapy and eventually telling Mikey that Tony does in fact go to a psychiatrist in the locker room.

Meadow's soccer coach, Don Hauser (Kevin O'Rourke) has the worst secret of all, namely because it is illegal. At the beginning of the episode, all of the fathers (Tony, Silvio, Artie) love the coach because they think he will be able to get their daughters college scholarships. When they learn that he is taking a coaching position at the University of Rhode Island, Tony attempts to bribe him into staying (first by having Paulie drop off a big-screen television at his house, and then having Christopher kidnap his dog and returning it later in the night). When Meadow's friend and teammate, Ally (Cara Jedell) cuts herself, Tony and everyone else thinks it's because her parents are getting divorced. However, when Meadow says that she is quitting the team, she tells Tony and Carmela that it is because she doesn't like the coach. When Tony tells her that many players don't like their coaches, Meadow tells them that Coach Hauser had sex. Tony is outraged and has Silvio get ready to do "something" to the coach. After thinking about it, Artie warns Tony not to do anything and to let the police handle it. Tony calls Silvio off and at the end of the episode Coach Hauser is arrested and Tony comes home drunk and says that he "didn't hurt nobody."

When Tony is deciding on whether or not to do "something" to the coach, both Melfi and Artie ask him why he thinks it has to be him providing the justice. This is an essential question of The Sopranos. Is Tony a good guy, because he helps his friends and does what he thinks is right, or a bad guy, because of the way he goes about doing things and in the end he is participating in illegal activities?

One note:

• The title of the episode refers to Boca Raton, but it could also refer to the Italian word for mouth, bocca, which is what causes Junior his problems.

Funniest part of the episode was when Silvio is arguing with the referee at the soccer game and gets kicked out.

Overall it was a good episode where we get to see Junior start to lose respect and be looked down upon. We also get to see how the crew is doing business while the indictments are about to come out. Junior and Mikey do their business in their lawyer's office, while the other captains are bring their mothers to Livia's retirement community, so that they can talk business there thinking that the government won't think to bug the place.