Meadowlands

Revelations mark this fourth episode of the series, involving a schoolyard fight brewing between Anthony Soprano Jr. (Robert Iler) and a bully who unexpectedly backs down. Anthony Jr. fails to understand the boy's fear, so his sister Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) explains that their father, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), is not really a "waste management consultant" but a New Jersey mob kingpin. After he begins having erotic dreams about his psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), Tony hires a crooked cop, Vin Makazian (John Heard) to investigate Melfi's background, and the detective accidentally ruins her romance with a lawyer. Frantic after the mock execution he suffered, Soprano soldier Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) believes that his cousin and boss, Tony, ordered the incident because he gave Tony's daughter, Meadow, some crystal methamphetamines; however, after Christopher and his girlfriend, Adriana (Drea de Matteo), discover the corpse of his murdered friend, Brendan Filone (Anthony de Sando), he realizes that his uncle, Junior (Dominic Chianese), ordered the slaying in retaliation for a botched truck hijacking. Exacerbated by Junior's bloodthirsty soldier, Mikey (Al Sapienza), tensions rise between Tony and Junior when their boss and head of the family, Jackie Aprile (Michael Rispoli), passes away from cancer. Tony is left to decide whether he will make a play for the top job in the family or concede control to his uncle. "Meadowlands" first aired on January 31, 1999.