A really good episode; not a classic, but really solid overall.

Johnny Sack is what made this one. The guy is such a nefarious snake, it's incredible. First, he subtly plays both Carmine and Little Carmine so that the peace overtures from the Miami meeting are shot (the golf course scene).

Then, he has that sit-down with Tony and Silvio where New York refuses to budge on the 40% share of the HUD scam. Who else thinks Carmine had NO IDEA about that sit-down? Johnny's intent was to keep fanning the flames of the cold war between Carmine and Tony, further vilifying Carmine in Tony's eyes.

Johnny encourages Carmine to "break Tony's back", subtly infuencing Mr Lupertazzi to call in the union and halt the riverfront esplanade project.

THEN, after that, he secretly meets with Tony and puts all the blame for the bad feelings on the old man, Carmine. And on top of that, he now wants to assassinate his boss with Tony's help!

Wow. John Sacrimoni is a master manipulator... but there's a possible monkeywrench in the works now: Paulie.

Paulie, by a chance encounter with Carmine, now realizes that Johnny has been playing him like a fiddle. Paulie now realizes who his real friends are, which may be the fly in the ointment for Johnny's master plan, whatever that may be...

As for other highlights of the show: Furio almost killing Tony was remarkable. But he put the brakes on at the last second, and realized he had to get away. Not quite the way we thought the Furio-Carmela thing would go...

Paulie killing Minn was nuts, but so typical of Paulie. He wanted to get back on Tony's good side by any means necessary, so he certainly wasn't above stealing the old biddy's stash. Minn was a creepy-looking corpse, wasn't she?

AJ's line was funny: FART! "Oh, dude! Meeting over!"

And Brian, the accountant, may have had one of the most subtly funny lines ever. When he finds out his drunk ass is gonna be lifted home in a chopper, he starts drunkenly singing the melody to a song in "Apocalypse Now", when the US soldiers fly in by helicopter!

It was a good one, and I can't wait for next week...