Sugar and her mother have a fraught relationship, to say the least, and episode 8 "Ice Chips" follows them as they begin to take small, tentative steps toward a mutual understanding, all while Sugar is experiencing contractions for the very first time. The episode is intimate, intense, and packed with exposition that sheds a lot of light on the particular brand of dysfunction that creeps up the Berzatto family tree. As Donna tries her best to comfort her only daughter, she unwittingly works to bring the focus back to her own problems and needs, even prompting Sugar to offer to give her mother a back rub while she's in between contractions. We don't need to guess what role Sugar played in her family: she's an enabler, through and through.

But Sugar has a vested interest in breaking the cycle in her family -- she doesn't want to terrorize her daughter like she was terrorized by her mother. She's well aware of her patterns of behavior, even if she's having trouble shaking those behaviors loose. Throughout the encounter with her mother, she tries her best to assert herself, telling her that she has a specific birth plan and that she doesn't want anything to do with the aggressive, Lamaze-like "HEE HEE HEEEE" breathing that Donna is pushing on her. However, by the end of the episode, each woman shifts a bit to meet the other, with Donna realizing that her daughter is trying to forge a new path, and Sugar realizing that her mother was also the victim of the perpetually spinning wheel of intergenerational trauma.

Much of the episode is a tightly framed two-hander, with Donna sitting by Sugar's side as her contractions increase in intensity and frequency. While the conversation is punctuated by bouts of screaming brought on by the contractions, the two women never really stop communicating. During the contractions, Donna loves on her daughter the only way she knows how -- with knowledge gleaned from the births of her own three children. She offers up the "hee hee hees" as well as a cup of ice chips and a motherly hand as a makeshift cool compress on her daughter's forehead. And then, when the pain passes, she offers up her stories.

First, she tells Mikey's birth story. Mikey, we know, took on the role of mascot and hero of the family. (He was also a secret sixth choice that isn't introduced in Sugar's podcast: the addict.) He was also the oldest child. Two episodes prior, in "Napkins," we learned that he stayed on to take care of the family business when his dad split out of duty to the family. As he tells Tina, he felt like he got "skipped" over when it came to following his dreams, but in reality, his family structure never really gave him a chance to escape. Donna recalls that she had to walk by herself, in the snow, to the hospital when she went into labor for the first time. Where in the hell was Daddy Berzatto during the birth of his firstborn son? It's anyone's guess, but probably nowhere good. We've seen what hell Donna hath wrought on her family in the worst of times in "Fishes", but here we're also reminded that Carmy, Sugar, and Mikey had a father who was often absentee and likely under the influence when he was around.

Honestly? This sounds like a total nightmare, and it's certainly a story that elicits a bit of sympathy for Donna. She then tells Sugar the story about Carmy's birth, and makes sure to mention that Mr. Berzatto was in attendance... but she wishes that he hadn't been. Carmy, the youngest, also took forever to come out, but it was because he kept getting stuck. It's an interesting parallel to where Carmy is at the present moment in his life, and it's also telling that they move past his story so quickly.

It feels pretty clear that, in his childhood, Carmy was the lost child, and even with all his success, he still takes on that role in the family. (See: Carmy telling Syd, "My sister doesn't think I'm a genius," in season 2, Richie's general attitude toward Carmy in season 1 and beyond, literally almost everyone's dismissive attitude toward Carmy at Christmas dinner in "Fishes.") It's difficult for him to cultivate close relationships with anyone, including his family members, and he prefers activities that are solitary in nature -- cooking being very solitary, unless, of course, you need to work and collaborate with a staff full of other people.

Sugar is the middle child, but she is also the eldest (and only) daughter. (Cue "Surface Pressure" from Encanto, amiright?) She was the enabler and the caretaker, a role that often falls to women in dysfunctional family structures. And yet. She chose to marry Pete, a man who is also very clearly a caretaker. Poor Pete gets so much flak from the rest of the Berzatto family for simply being a good and present husband and friend, but his presence in Sugar's life is a strong indicator that she's been trying to work on herself for a long time.