Scene: Carmela's Safe House
Carmela: Are you being careful.
[AJ and Rhiannon come down the stairs]
Carmela is inquiring whether or not Tony is being sufficiently precautious and before he has a chance to answer,
AJ and Rhiannon interrupt. This is important symbolism. The two are injecting themselves into the question of
Tony's precaution.
Carmela: And this kinda bothers me.
AJ: Call me when you get home, okay?
Rhiannon: Okay. Thanks.
Tony: Who is she going to tell?
Tony's asking a seemingly innocuous rhetorical question. However, this is ironic in that she will eventually
divulge the whereabouts of the Soprano family and in so doing unwittingly bring about their demise.
Tony: But you should use the back door.
Tony: I wouldn't kick her out of bed for purging cookies.
For the longest time, I thought this line was "fudge and cookies." In fact, it is "purging cookies," which
makes the line infinitely more important. The phrase ostensibly refers to Rhiannon's "food issues" - the problem
that landed her in the treatment center where she was reunited with AJ. However, "purging cookies" is a
well-known internet phrase that refers to the practice of deleting internet cookies - unique values that are
passed from webservers to client browsers in order to track user activity. Purging cookies is a security
precaution that some people take in order to reduce the extent to which they can be tracked.
The question that this duality naturally raises is: who in The Sopranos' cast of characters has
nontrivial experience and/or expertise with the internet? The answer: Jason Parisi. This small bit of dramatic
irony is establishing an association that conveys the mechanism by which Patsy Parisi will eventually orchestrate
his betrayal. I believe the association is intended to be completely abstract; in other words, the phrase is
intended to make the connection between the two, but it is not intended to suggest computers, internet security,
etc. were involved in Jason Parisi obtaining information from Rhiannon.
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