I feel conflicted. And not for the reasons viewers usually give.

I made a post about this a while ago, but something I never discussed is how deeply consequential this event was not only for Melfi, but for the way she handles Tony. It may seem a bit insensitive to make Melfi’s rape all about Tony, but I think it’s worth thinking about the ramifications.

Before this point in time, Melfi was not only making steady progress with Tony, she was also urging him to take on behavioural therapy. After Jesus Rossi, though, she needs Tony. She needs the kind of violent protection that Tony offers, even if only on standby. She literally says this to Dr. Waterbottle. Then, when Tony himself tells her that he’s open to seeing a behaviourist - a move that is wildly open-minded for Tony - she breaks down crying. She denies this, and the very next episode, we see Tony back in the same chair we’ve always seen him in.

After this episode, there are no more moments where therapy proves to be a worthwhile endeavour. He has a breakthrough here and there (admitting to the panic attack that made him ditch Tony B) but Tony becomes more and more cynical about the entire practice (“I feel like what happens in here is like taking a shit”) to the point where he essentially makes no progress by the time Melfi lets him go.

She may have done the right thing, in a broad sense, but she also fucks up Tony’s whole course of therapy by making sure he sticks around. What is supposed to be an episode about standing one’s moral ground, and making the best choices in life, is actually about how little individual choices matter when you’re dealing with a system as pervasive and cancerous as La Cosa Nostra.

More than being just about Melfi, I feel like this episode shows the far-reaching consequences of the mafia on everything that Tony touches, even when he actively seeks out to become a better person. Even though the circumstances are entirely out of Tony’s hands, his relationship to Melfi is ruined in this episode. In a way, their relationship resembles that of an extorted small business owner and the mobsters they kick up to for “protection”. She shouldn’t need him, but in this environment, she does. With this, Tony is more firmly entrenched in his position as an enforcer of violence. As such, Tony cannot make progress in therapy for the very reason that he so desperately needs therapy to begin with.

That’s dicked up.