I rank the 86 episodes of The Sopranos. #29 is From Where to Eternity, the 9th episode of Season 2. The first — and highest-ranking — episode written by Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher. The hour picks up immediately after the events of Full Leather Jacket (S2E8).
INFLUENCES
- This weekend — the very same weekend I began to write this writeup — I had the most unforgettable dance of my life so far. I was playing Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul (1966) from the speakers and simply had to ask for her hand, when My Lover’s Prayer came on.
She gave it to me.
Michael Imperioli, along with obviously being the main writer of this episode, also came up with the title of it. The genesis of this episode was an idea that Christopher would overdose, and along with it Imperioli presented his ideas and outlines to David Chase, who said he did have plans of Christopher getting shot this season — that Imperioli’s ideas would work there.
Michael didn’t – as writer of this show usually would – come onto the set as a producer yet. On the later four episodes that he wrote, he did do that job, but not here. He told this in Talking Sopranos.
The song Angel Baby by Rosie & the Originals, was Michael’s own idea for a music-cue. David Chase made the decision to include the Otis Redding song here instead. On Talking Sopranos, Imperioli concurred that David had made the right choice.
So here we are! Imperioli’s writing-contributions to the show were something that, summized together, should be called well-flowing above everything else. I knew right from first seeing this episode, for the purpose of taking writeup-notes, that this would be his top-entry. His first job as a writer among this incredible alum of writers, was also his emergence in other ways. There’s things here — themes, allusions, callbacks — which remain strong all the way to the final season of the series. They remain a memory all the way up until that time.
From Where to Eternity is nothing, if not memorable.
Here’s how all Imperioli-penned episodes ranked in The Soprano Onceover:
- From Where to Eternity (S2E9) [#29]
- The Telltale Moozadell (S3E9) [#44]
- Everybody Hurts (S4E6) [#49]
- Marco Polo (S5E8) [#62]
- Christopher (S4E3) [#85]
It was in the Talking Sopranos-episode for Marco Polo that Steve Schirripa asked Michael why he didn’t continue writing for the show in its’ sixth and seventh seasons. Michael refused to elaborate or answer.
To be honest, I like that. Not every bit of personal information has to be public knowledge for public consumption.
My blog wouldn’t gain anything by me knowing the answer to that question anyway. Point is, Michael’s a great writer who had total command of The Sopranos‘ complex set of tones, and did an amazing job writing five episodes for the series.
Alright so the thing that has become most-immediately identifiable with From Where to Eternity, is that it opens up with an immersive shot of the insides of the hospital — where the last episode left us; which is kind of a rare thing for episodes of The Sopranos to do — and of course the immaculate soundtrack to it that is Otis Redding’s My Lover’s Prayer from his 1966 masterpiece Complete & Unbelievable. I really can’t say enough nice things about Otis. He’s my favorite soul-singer of all time. At the same time as I write and post these Sopranos-articles, I’m also doing another series of my top 100 personal greatest albums of the 1960, (cleverly) titled Jani’s 60s-List. Otis has three entries in that list, making him one of few artists to score that much. Complete & Unbelievable is his second one, and will appear somewhere in the top-20 of that countdown. The way these timelines align, I’ll probably put out this writeup before that one but still, the interconnectivity between my two projects feels important to note here. Especially since it is 2022 as I’m writing this from notes that I took in 2020, and this is the year when both of these series’ will end.
In my humble view, From Where to Eternity successfully pulled off what is nothing short of impossible; immortalizing a song that had already became immortal, decades ago. Re-immortalizing. My Lover’s Prayer was one of Otis’ most-famous before this and had its share of usage in the medias, but the way this episode becomes scored by it, made it impossible for any fan of the show to hear this amazing ballad and not link it to the strong feelings of worry and affection, closeness in times of turmoil, that this episode offers in its very intimate way.
Such a sentimental thing it is
Help me make this– no, Jani, you’re gonna sing the whole song if you keep up.
By the way, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the writeup for another special feature by Ryan Wilson from Ryan Wilson Sopranosposting! I last featured one of his magnificent shitposts back in my writeup for Meadowlands (S1E4).
The first thing to point out, since it’s seen so early in the episode, is that yes indeed the show has a different actress playing Christopher’s mother than they eventually would have. Maria Leone‘s Joan Moltisanti first appeared over a season later in For All Debts Public and Private (S4E1) and yes, indeed, this is a different woman playing Christopher’s mother, screeching that she wants her son’s shooters to fooken’ suffer.
A lot of people probably expected my writeup of this episode to very quickly address that little fact about this episode. Now I have. How did I do?
CUE MY LOVER’S PRAYER
Silvio telling Adriana, “if anybody can make it through something like this, it’s Christopher”, is a brooding bit of foreshadowing, for what is to become Adriana’s fate late in this show, Silvio is gonna say basically the exact same thing to Adriana in Long Term Parking as he’s tricking her with him to the woods.
Paulie stone-walls some Federal agents who try to fish for some information about who it was that manuged the get the drip on Christopher.
This bit in the episode’s early moments made me reflect back on just how well this show picks their extras. The entirety of the interaction that is had between these Feds and Tony, Pussy and Paulie, is immaculately well-performed, down to the last hue. The expressions’re so real, so credible that you kinda don’t give a second thought to them, but if you stop and think about it, The Sopranos rarely if ever misses in this area either.
I mean, that faintly guilty look in Pussy’s eyes, coloring his expression more for us who know how close he really is with the Federal Government at this point of the story… that’s how particular it gets. Ya gotta love it.
Janice and Richie arrive at the waiting room, and Janice has to immediately start going on about something in order to seem like the most important person in the room.
“Hey! You gotta pray!!”
“We are! Jesus…”
Janice & AJ Soprano
Devastation is all up in the air, as all key members of the family and famiglia are there at Christopher’s side. Richie Aprile, however, has promised that he only come around if he finds out something about Bevilaqua’s whereabouts. Yes, it is finally that time of the season where Matthew Bevilaqua got what he wanted, ever since his first outing in Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist’s Office… (S2E1). He’s finally become important.
“Start talking!” Paulie gemands in the middle of Richie lighting a ciggie. “Back the fuck off” says Richie as if Paulie didn’t matter at all.
Oh an. Oh man. I’ve seen this show my share of times by now, and at this point I don’t spend too much time anymore, longing for alternate realities where certain fights and other confrontations could’ve happened just for the sake of being more entertaining in that moment… but man, how cool would it have been to see Richie and Paulie actually get mad at each other here and start fighting? Two of the most hard-headed old-school mobsters. I bet the other three would wanna see it too, they wouldn’t even try to stop them because they’re sure Paulie would win, until Richie pulls a wine-bottle opener from his jacket or something like that.
It would have been nothing short of a spectacle!
Richie does know somebody who knows where Matthew’s hiding. Turns out the kid wasn’t very good at keeping a secret when he chose his hideout. Who would’ve thunk it?
A guy named Quickie G is who they’ll have to see, for the lowdown on Chip Matthew.
Before the first hospital-sequence wraps up, Carmela talks with Gabriela Dante. Mr. Soprano hears a troubling story she’d heard from somebody. About a married man whose goumar had gotten pregnant with his kid, and decided to keep it. This upsets Carmela so much that she just can’t read Memoirs of a Geisha at-peace the following night.
The following night:
Carmela confronts Tony about what possible consequences his extramarital affairs — the couple’s one-sided polyamorous relationship — could entail. What harm it could do to the family, what shame an unwanted child could bring.
She brings up Tony’s Russian whoowah who she still knows he’s seeing. She knew about this all the way back in this season’s beginning, which was only shown through expressions and little hues through scenes that the married couple shared together.
Tony’s peeved at the mere suggestion that he should get snipped if he wants to keep seeing Irina. It’s scary, yes, and seems like an unnecessary risky operation to go through.
Not to mention, Tony has been careful! He quickly proclaims that!
“Hey I had her tested for AIDS! What do ya think I am?!”
Tony Soprano
Man, it’s operatic how the first act of this episode plays out. Redding’s heart-wrenching ballad being the score to major dramatic events going on, is so delicious I’m glad they used it as much as they did. It totally separates this episode from all the rest. There is nothing else like this. It’s a similar effect that Tindersticks’ Tiny Tears had on Isabella (S1E12), and what Living on a Thin Line by The Kinks will have in University (S3E6). A moment where this becomes especially potent, is the scene where Carmela first brings up the vasectomy-idea to Tony. My Lover’s Prayer starts playing again in the middle of the scene, just as we are shown Carmela storming out of bed… we’re then shown the waiting room of the hospital where Adriana is finally getting some rest amidst her worrying, and we’re kinda guided in our expectations to think that what’s gonna follow is just a bunch of moodboard shots that go together with the classic Soul-song and make a lingering dramatic atmosphere.
But it doesn’t.
Half a minute into the camera scrolling through the room, we see the biggest dramatic event of the whole hour. Christopher’s heart stops and everyone gets in his room quickly. Amazing dramatic usage of music. Unparalleled by pretty much anything I’ve seen on TV or movies. And a lot of things that come close to it in that regard, can honestly be found in The Sopranos itself. There’s just so much to it, that could be picket apart.
Tony and Carmela get a call about what had happened.
Tony and Carmela make it back to the hospital in the middle of the night and hear that Christopher survived, but was clinically dead for a minute there.
Adriana’s the one in-need of consolation the most out here:
“Positive vibes only.”
Pussy Bonpensiero
I don’t know if you knew this or not, but this episode is actually where that popular phrase was born in.
Carmela goes into a silent room to pray in desperation. For her family, for the ones she loves, for all the misguided ways of living. It weighs heavily on her in this scene. Alone, where nobody could see, is where she needs to be. God is who she needs to reach out to in her most urgent need for salvation from the ramifications of a sinister life.
And some people still walk around with the impression that Carmela is “only religious when it suits her“… Here’s a hint: just because Tony Soprano says it, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Her concerned prayer is now the score of muted scenes around the hopsital’s halls where Christopher is being operated-on, and everybody visiting there is staying awake, consoling those that need it.
From one Lover’s Prayer to another, this episode changes soundtracks .
The next morning Hesh Rabkin is there and when he speaks in detail about last night’s operation with a doctor, Paulie listens and presents an astute question:
“What the fuck are you two talkin’ about?”
Paulie Gualtieri
Christopher, in the meantime, has woken up. He’s requested specifically that he see Tony Soprano and Paulie Gualtieri, and tell them about something.
A vision of hell that he had in his near-death experience.
The conversation here where Christopher tells Tony and Paulie about his hell-experience, and outright-mentions the 3 o’clock thing, is the most blatant usage of the 3 o’clock motif we see. Now, I don’t know what 3 o’clock actually means. Well, Michael Imperioli has explained the genesis of it, that it came from a real-life encounter with a spirit that predicted he would play a killer on TV and become famous and successful… it was a great story, and the way he recounted it in the podcast was chilling. Also rewarding, because the podcast is over on the day I’m writing this article and I really got a lot of information and behind-the-scenes factoids from it that I otherwise wouldn’t have. And light-tone’d listening for walks and washin’ dishes. Good times, all in all. Although Steve Schirripa thinks he is WAY more interesting than he really is.
But this is far from the only time that 3 o’clock has meant something significant. This is far from the only time that this specific set of circumstances has meant something significant. David Chase knows what 3 o’clock means for The Sopranos in the grand scheme of things. Early into Talking Sopranos, Michael said that he knows what it means from David’s side, but will never say it. A popular belief about the meaning is that it’s a preminition of how Tony will get killed in the final scene of Made in America (S6E21). The guy in a Members Only-jacket could be coming out of the bathroom to Tony’s right — at Tony’s 3 o’clock — in the very same moment when the screen goes black.
That is what people believe about the ending.
That’s all I’ll say about this episode’s connectivity to Made in America, though. The series-finale will rank very highly in The Soprano Onceover and I’ll say what I have to say about it, when it’s time.
For now though, Paulie is already morbidly curious about what this Hell-vision was all about. He goes to the hallway, asking Silvio what time the Mikey-hit was.
Poison Ivy was the name of the #5-entry of me and Aki’s list of Top 110 Funniest Things to Happen on The Sopranos (2015). That video contained clips from I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano (S1E13) and then these scenes of Paulie getting paranoid… which ended in one of the most bizarre sequences this show’d ever had.
You’ll see what I’m talking about very soon, I won’t even have to announce it when we get to the scene that I consider to be this episode’s peak of strangeness. What makes it even more perfect than it already is, is that what finally sets Paulie off at the end of this brilliantly strange storyline, is an unwittingly-provocatively said line, “Poison ivy?… He wants to know if it still itches…”
This episode is the first real Paulie-showcase of any degree that this show ever did, Michael Imperioli was eager to get to write a major story for Paulie and it really shows. I’m especially giddy about this episode because of that particular reason. Paulie is my favorite character.
ONE OOF MADONN SCENE
Tony and Melfi on Hell
This scene.
This speech.
This dialogue.
All this leads to Tony finally letting out his real feelings about the severity of Christopher’s situation.
This scene has been dissected to death, repeated on YouTube countless times by countless people who’ve created montages and tributes. Fans who can’t get enough of The Sopranos years after they’ve finished watching it (go figure). But it reveals an interesting dynamic, actually. Tony is very believable when he says that Christopher isn’t the type that deserves hell. There’s a kind of comfort in that. Matter of fact, he’s so believable in his stating that, that we don’t even spend the majority of this scene discussing the validity of this statement he so sternly believes. Most of it is spent on Tony justifying his own being, his own actions and lifestyle. But Tony is honest here, for how honest he can be.
An interesting angle to think about this from is also Tony is the one guiding Christopher into this path of sin. Decadence and decay. Big Nothing. So Christopher won’t be the one going to hell. This is just a reflection of Tony’s own world-view that he can’t shake, that the world revolves around him. In Season 5 Christopher famously says that Tony is “the guy I’m going to hell for”. And of course they will have gone through a lot more by that point of the story, but it’s interesting how subtly this conversation, and the things Tony says in it, show us how deep his center-of-the-world-attitude runs. Christopher is so close to him that he doesn’t see his decisions as his decisions on even this deep level where this confessional comes from. He sees his son-figure’s path of life as an extension of his own and it’s really fascinating to me, how apparent that becomes just from listening to Tony talk about Christopehr when he’s reall concerned about him.
Even as he likens himself and Christopher to soldiers in any loosely-defined meaning of the word, he is subconsciously excusing himself from fully acknowledging Christopher’s free will (Tony’s determinism, which this one lovely Sopranos-video-essay dove into and I dove deeper into in my Join the Club (S6E2)-writeup).
Why doesn’t Tony — deep down — want to fully acknowledge Christopher’s free will?
I believe he — on the same very real level where this speech came from — is afraid of such a thing existing at all.
“That might all be true. But what do poor Italian immigrants have to do with you?”
Jennifer Melfi
The runtime-mark of this episode went from 18:18 to 18:19 right at the same second as Paulie’s little clock — which he was staying awake to hold in his hand — went from 2:59 to 3:00.
This is a preminition! The number 18 is so prominent in the episode’s runtime at this second because it was predicting that some day, somebody will write a blog-post about the episode! Somebody who lives in a country where 18 is the legal drinking-age!
In case you didn’t notice, I was being ironic!
a.
Paranoid, Paulie hears a sound outside and jumps up.
Michelle the goumar wakes up — fun fact: Paulie will actually still mention this groumar in To Save Us All from Satan’s Power (S3E10) indicating that their affair was long! — and this has to be handled now. It’s built heavy into the scene that Paulie has been doing quirky shit like this for days and working himself up.
Even his wings are messed up.
Michelle goes into a story about a strange three o’clock occurrence. I love the way the next cut just happens, right after Paulie hears the boring and overly-detailed story of Michelle’s 3 o’clock wedding mishap. Giving a few seconds of screen-time to Paulie taking it in, we’re cutting to see him come up to Christopher’s room at the hopsital. And I’m pretty sure this succession of events was close to being in real-time*. Paulie didn’t waste a second. He needed to get to the bottom of this paranormal event ASAP.
*I exaggerated. Of course Paulie took due time to get the wings right before going out.
At Christopher’s room, he rattles the hospital-bed, waking him up and transparently lying that he was tidying up the place right in the middle of the night. What’s even funnier than the lie itself here, is that Paulie gets away with it because Christopher is so drug-addled. The lie didn’t even have to make sense.
Paulie must know more!
“You didn’t go to Hell! You went to purgatory, my friend!”
Paulie Gualtieri
“The heat would’ve been the first thing you noticed! Hell is hot. That’s never been disputed by anyone!”
Paulie Gualtieri
Melfi and Elliot have a therapy-session, where Melfi is distraught by heavy emotions from having suddenly taken a stance against Tony, with this vulnerable state her patient is in and everything.
And now that she mentions it, it was kind of distasteful. If not, at least un-professional. Nobody goes to a therapist to get confronted when they’re fearing for the life of a relative.
“I’m living in a moral never-never-land with this patient!”
Jennifer Melfi
Puthy and Thkip meet at a parking lot in a secluded place.
It’s observable how “business as usual” this has become for Pussy by this point.
After Pussy leaves the conversation with Thkip at that empty parking lot, we’re treated to a wide shot which a bridge takes a big portion of. This of course continues the show’s habit of bridges symbolizing death or disaster that is looming. The bridge also looks shadow-drenched, working in-contrast with hwo bright and sunny the whole scene otherwise looks.
And look. Even if this choice of setting, scenery and time of day from the production-department, didn’t have that overt symbolic meaning to it… the way it looks is still undeniably effective.
I have no segue for this point, but–
There’s a mention of a peppers & eggs sandwich in this episode — the second one of the series. Third time will be at Another Toothpick (S3E5), and the first time was in Boca (S1E9). I don’t know if this is a favorite sandwich of Chase’s, but apparently something about this type of sandwich was important enough to name a soundtrack-CD after it (My Lover’s Prayer obviously made it to the CD). Boca is ranked higher than this episode by me and that was the first time, chronologically, that such a sandwich was mentioned.
–I have no segue out of this point either.
Christopher’s mom comes to see him, after which enters Carmela, who’s so happy that Christopher had a vision of heaven and prayed and has decided to change his ways.
But it turns out what Tony had told her last night, was a total lie. It was Hell Christopher saw. At first, yes this makes Carmela look a little bit naïve but I think that takeaway’s quicky squashed when you sympathize for what a vulnerable state she is in. We just saw it in her prayer.
What this whole dialogue shows, is just how easy lying to his wife, comes to Tony. Carmela’s concerns were right. Tony’s pathological tendencies — which only begin with how easily he lies — are something that her husband is absolutely not careful enough with. This lie, that Tony had told Carmela off-camera, that Christopher saw Heaven instead of Hell, was just a lie of convenience. Tony must’ve known that Carmela would find out that it was a lie. He just lied to her so he could keep sleeping tidy.
As if it wasn’t enough that these two main-stories intertwined this-handily here, there’s also a hilarious tie-in to the Poison Ivy-storyline in this scene: Carmela nevertheless quickly accepts that Tony just lied to her because that’s what Tony will do. But then the last line of this was “or maybe it was purgatory, I don’t know.” It’s like one last reference to the Paulie-hilarity that’s been going on. Like this episode was being aware in this moment of what a goldmine it was dealing with by giving Paulie Gualtieri this-much airtime. It always makes me crack up.
This Paulie-storyline works for such comedic effect, and adds lots of levity but not as much as to deviate from the major tensions of the hour. It’s still consistent to the story being told. This is also the first time that Paulie is this-prominent in a single episode, which is a good thing that will start happening more often. I think Paulie’s character, with his old age and such, was a perfect communicator for the Christian guilt-side of this gangster story, which makes sense for the world that all these characters live in — being Catholics, the bulk of them. I believe Paulie is the only one of the mobsters that believes in God. But more about that, and his religiosity and him acting as the “Catholic heart” of the mob-world… in my upcoming writeup for The Ride (S6E9). That episode’s coming up three entries from now, actually.
Carmela comes home.
He and Tony have one more heated conversation about the vasectomy-idea.
“Isn’t it a sin, to undo the good work He’s done?”
“You should know, you make a living of it.”
Tony & Carmela Soprano
It’s understandable. Carmela’s still affected by that last example of how easy it is for Tony to lie.
What isn’t understandable, is the thing Tony does when AJ walks in and just happens to drop a dish on the floor.
Being that the theme of who is wrong, who is right runs almost as deep in From Where to Eternity as does faith and faithfulness, it’s only fitting that potentially the most irredeemable thing Tony ever does, happens in the episode too. And I’m not talking about the Bevilaqua-murder. I’m talking about when he says “I’m supposed to get a vasectomy when this is my male heir?”
Tony can go sit on a cactus for saying that — doing that — to his son. You never ever ever say to your child that they’re un-wanted. That is how mental disorders begin.
Paulie wakes up in the middle of the night again, waking up Michelle’s kids. He still hasn’t found his peace with his friend’s paranormal event.
Michelle recommends that Paulie go see a psychic.
Let me just say, thank you Michelle. That was a great thing you did.
Pussy meets with Quickie G, the source Richie Aprile told them about. He says Matthew is up near the place where George Washington once lived.
Paulie sees the psychic!
Pictures of this scene alone will do more justice to it in this recap, than my own words could~
“Poison Ivy?… He wants to know if it still itches…”
Psychic
FUCKING QUEERS!
You know what’s most-incredible about this absolute historic meltdown Paulie has?
This took me a number of viewings to notice.
He didn’t scream that one last thing to the people attending the psychic-session. The people he tried to rally against this satanic black magic and sick shit(!) He didn’t scream to them that they’re fucking queers(!)
He screamed that at those ghosts behind his back, that the psychic was talking to.
Fun fact. Henry Bronchtein (assistant director of every episode of the show, main director of this one and three others) said in this episode’s audio-commentary that the psychic’s house was a house that the set-department built. They’d used that set many many times, sometimes as a hotel room. He didn’t remember all the things that place had been.
And for good measure, here’s Paulie at the psychic but with Laura Palmer’s Theme from Twin Peaks.
Paulie and Tony talk at the backroom of the Bing. Paulie has to pour up a drink — that he can’t even bring himself to drink — he’s so anxious.
“There’s no denying it. I’m dragging a bunch of fucking ghouls around me.”
Paulie Gualtieri
Tony has a refreshing stance about Paulie’s whole recent superstition/paranoia-bit. He really sees no point in it. Where the fuck was this psychic when they could’ve used him to find out this Bevilaqua-kid’s whereabouts, all-last-week?
“…He deals only with the dead.”
Paulie Gualtieri
That was such a great quote squarely for the way Tony Sirico delivered it, that’s the whole reason I wanted to do that walk-up to it and put it in quotes.
“If you were in India you’d go to Hell for [eating steak]”
“I’m not in India. What do I give a fuck?”
Tony Soprano & Paulie Gualtieri
It’s clear to everybody probably, but I must iterate it once: Tony Sirico is thjis episode’s MVP in my opinion.
Tony brings an apology-pizza to AJ’s room, and the gesture works and cheers up the boy. It was extremely called-for, and the speech that Tony gives to the boy, isn’t “perfect” but it’s abundantly clear that he has thought a lot about what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say. That he does care. And this says — more than any explanation of why he said what he said; no explanation will ever justify that — that he really did not mean it. Healing can begin. Carmela comes to the door to watch the wholesome moment.
It’s a beautiful scene.
After it’s over, Tony hears from the phone that Quickie G’s information is good and they have a definitive location on Matt Bevilaqua.
Tony’s also delighted to point out that oh it’s close to the house where George Washington once lived.
I think that the actual point in time, when Tony changed his mind about the vasectomy-issue, was when he was preparing to leave, to kill Bevilaqua. This one lingering shot where he’s putting a shirt on and stops to visibly think. This episode does a great job in extending the length of certain shots, expressions and such that will become more important. I think what lulled us into that particular visual messaging From Where to Eternity is so good at, was all those lingering shots of people in the hospital during the opening-minutes. After those cinematic moments you kind of expect this episode to tell a lot of its’ story just visually.
Tony looked Carmela right in the face, when in the middle of the night a fateful work-call came, and he had to go kill Dale. He had to lie straight to Carmela’s face when she asked what was going on, not because he was going to go cheat on her, but because he doesn’t want to let her know he’s about to murder somebody. Tony knows Carmela can’t be sure what to make of this, and Tony’s face is shown an extra second here as his lie is more transparent than his lying for Carmela tends to usually be — this is a particularly emotional issue to him, to get this right. Whereas his goumars, really are not.
There’s a guilt Tony feels from that; not lying itself, but the fact that Carmela has to live with a kind of uncertainty regarding Tony, in large part because of his long-running habit of cheating… which is what made her bring up the vasectomy-issue in the first place. I think that’s what Tony’s agreeing to the proposition (a little later) means. I think he’s noticing the fragility of all this double-life business, even if it comes naturally to him. Also, Carmela has to deal with thoughts and hypotheticals day-to-day that are far more scary than a vasectomy would be to Tony.
“Cut Furio loose, three’s a crowd.” Tony says to Pussy. He wants to do this.
They go and do this.
For these first moments of Matt Bevilaqua’s death-scene, in a way it passes us sufficiently, that in this scene Pussy is actually looking at his own future, when he has to step up and shoot the pleadin’ and explanatin’ Matthew too, along with Tony. It’s quite potent.
I love how that wraps up the earlier Pussy-scene’s concerns.
I love how that connects to Carmela’s line about how Tony makes a living…
…How that connects to people in this episode praying for life, undoing life, seeking reassurance for their life, living through moments where a prayer is all they could depend on.
And then there’s this little squeek’s little begging for “mommy!” Something that will ring in Tony’s head in the next episode, Bust Out (S2E10).
It is all just incredibly gripping drama to behold.
One of the best tension-extensions this show has ever pulled off is in the Bevilaqua urder-scene, where they go on a whole diatribe about what kind of Fanta there’s available in the Snack Bar. It’s so good that you assume it out of the scene, but it really turned into the stuff of legend. Mob movies of the past were famous for extending their murder-scenes, and the sensibility for that has definitely been taken, by this show, from the great works of the genre that preceded it. But no other bit of Gangster Media could’ve pulled off this big a bit of dialogue right before a murder. Dialogue that is so trivial that it becomes important for being so memorable. Again, Sopranos didn’t pioneer moves like this in scenes like this, but sure as shit perfected it.
ALSO, cool cut from the image of Matthew dead, to the outside-view of the parrish Paulie is visiting. Their compositions highlight each other in a match-cut-kinda way, speaking out From Where to Eternity‘s symbolic language.
Faith and decay.
Paulie sees a priest, reporting his spiritual disappointments of late. His religiosity has been dutifully stricken by this voodoo nonsense Hell-magic sick shit, and these fucking queers. He demands an explanation for why he wasn’t protected.
“But irregardless… I should have immunity to all this shit.”
Paulie Gualtieri
“It’s too late,” Paulie has to conclude before leaving. Priest-man’s answers to his pressing questions have left him even more dissatisfied than he was when he started. “You left me defenseless.
On his way out Paulie looks at Jesus who looks on with his eyes closed.
Tony and Pussy are out having steaks after murdering Matthew.
Not likely a coincidence that Tony and Pussy’s restaurant scene is filmed in the actual Duke’s Stockyard Inn in New Jersey, which is an Irish bar. Christopher’s near-death experience also happened in an Irish bar. If it’s not a case of this episode referencing itself, it’s at least a tasteful choice of filming location.
“Rich man and a poor man, they both got they same wedding-anniversary. Every year they meet on Madison Avenue when they’re shopping for their wives. So the poor man asks the rich man, “what did you buy your wife this year?” He says “I bought her a diamond ring, and a brand-new Mercedes.” Poor man says, “why’d you get her both for?” Rich man says, “if she doesn’t like the diamond ring, she can bring it back the Mercedes and still be happy”. Rich man says, “what’d you get your wife this year?” He says, “I got her a pair of slippers and a dildo.” Rich man says “why’d you get her a pair of slippers and a dildo for?” “‘Cause if she doesn’t like the slippers, she can go fuck herself!”
Tony Soprano
Pussy regaining his credibility in Tony’s eyes by participating in a murder with him, is the start of a really shameful, dark, slippery downward-slope for his character and anyone who was a fan of his before this. For the rest of his arc in Season 2, we see him lose pretty much any and all honor he once had, in front of our eyes, trafically fast. And while no one catches him or holds him accountable for his pathological lies which are told via excellent storytelling to spin completely out of control… he still kinda gets what is coming to him. But the audience will definitely see the worst of him for the rest of Season 2. And I’m actually excluding Funhouse (S2E13) from that statement. The things he does in that episode before his inevitable dead, are all probably not excusable but regular anyway. No, the peak of Pussy losing all possibility for redemption will be in this season’s penultimate episode The Night in White Satin Armor (S2E12). But more on that will be in that episode’s writeup, later when I’ll discuss that. Spineless will be a good word to use, I suppose, with Pussy’s back-problems and whatnot.
I was being ironic again!
Tony comes home and sits at the bed next to Carmela. He says he’ll agree to the vasectomy-bit.
He also says he’s not gonna continue cheating on her.
“If you’re not gonna believe me… then fine.” That line’s delivery from Gandolfini has some kind of a magic to it. It rings in my head from time to time, just the way he pronounces it.
Tony and Carmela proceed then, to make love.
I said this episode was rich with symbolism, didn’t I?
This is the very very last image of it.
CUE MY LOVER’S PRAYER
Season 2’s endings are habitually brilliant, and the show absolutely peaked in that regard in the year 2000. This episode’s no exception. The ending-scene — love-scene between Tony and Carmela — bookends the operatic episode by bringing Otis back for another go-round.
Fun fact: this is the first time Tony and Carmela have sex in the show.
The loving hands of the married couple, locking into one another as the camera smoothly pans just an inch to the right to give us a full view of Virgin Mary on the nightstand… adds up to a nice visual connector to help elevate this irregular cliffhanger that is thematically climactic in the episode. It also connects Carmela and Tony’s domestic dispute to the absolutely most hilarious storyline of the whole season. Paulie’s. Some could even say it’s the funniest, and I wouldn’t disagree.
I mentioned something about this episode’s way of giving some extra hanging-time for images that are important for scene-to-scene connections. Well that happened when Paulie exited that parrish-man’s office and on the hallway took his sweet time to look at the Jesus and Mary-statues at the vestibule. In terms of symbolism, it just gives this last bit of reassurance of a feeling, that there is something watching over all that is happening in this world. These lives in their regularness. That something might be abstract, might be outright hilarious, insensible, concerning, but I believe it will be loving if we choose the way of love.
My lover’s prayer.
I have been Jani Ojala, and this has been an incredibly rewarding episode to write about.
CHRISTOPHER’S PARANORMAL EVENT
Artistic interpretation by Ryan Wilson
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REFERENCES
- In Tony and Melfi’s discussion over whether or not Christopher or Tony deserves hell, Tony’s two examples of people that do, are Adolf Hitler the Nazi Party leader and Pol Pot the leading member of the Cambodian communist movement, the Khmer Rouge, from 1963 to 1997 who made the country a one-party rule and had a history of doing heinous acts as leader.
- Tony also references the Italian diaspora the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy, which has occurred twice in history, around 1880 and at the turn of the next century. It really only ended in the 1940s, and the unification of Italy was a big reason for it happening. He says that the Carnegie and Rockefeller families needed them as ”worker bees” to build their cities etc.
- Carmela is seen reading Memoirs of a Geisha, the historical fiction novel by Arthur Golden, in bed in this and several succeeding episodes.
Thanks to Mike Joseph Czulinski from Twin Peaks Logposting for the edit of Paulie with Laura Palmer’s Theme
and Ryan Wilson from Ryan Wilson Sopranosposting, once again.
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