Well, I just watched it. Interesting. Quite suspenseful. I thought for a while that Paulie was going to perish, but discarded the notion after thinking about everything he and Tony had been through together and about how his being killed would be completely out of the blue, in all the wrong ways. The thing with Junior and the Asian guy in the mental ward was weird, and surreal. I gather there was supposed to be some kind of parallel between their relationship and the one between Tony and Paulie, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.
I liked David Essex’s Rock On in the background while they were driving in that dowdy minivan.
Can anyone tell from the credits if the end title music was the original “Swing” with Gene Krupa? My S.O. (with an admittedly better ear) thinks it might be a rerecording.
Over at TWOP someone said the closing music was “Sing Sing Sing”. I’m not familiar with that era at all.
I liked this episode a lot. So much character development, and so late in the game. Or maybe it wasn’t development so much as a reminder of little things we’ve seen before.
Paulie and Tony are both acting a bit paranoid. That can’t be good. Anybody see Paulie making a pre-emptive strike on Tony? Does Paulie always live in the past like that or was he reminding Tony of all they’ve been through together?
I thought all the stuff with Junior was interesting, even if it doesn’t really forward the main plot much. Jun is going to stay in the nursing home, which is where he belongs, and he knows it.
I guess that body they found was no one we’ve ever heard of before. So much for it being Adrianna.
Who was in the car that drove away from shooting? I felt like I was supposed to recognize him, but they are all starting to look the same to me.
Tony is having gambling problems, I gathered from his conversation with Hesh. From the preview:
Carmela seemed pissed about Tony WRT selling the spec house… I think it’s connected to the gambling
Was that supposed to provide a foil to the Tony/Paulie situation? Phil offed Doc for the incident with Silvio in the restaurant, I’m assuming. Paulie would certainly be dead now if Tony were whacking people for stuff like that.
I liked this episode with Junior in the nursing home. It was like watching the old Junior, but I could have done without drugged up Junior petting the cat at the end. It would have been a riot if his old buddies broke him out.
The Tony/Paulie roadtrip was predictable and blah.
I think Phil took Doc out because he wanted to be the boss instead of Doc, plus Doc insulted him by eating out of his plate (maybe that was the last straw). I don’t think it really had anything to do with the Silvio hit.
What happened to change Phil’s mind? Last week he was making noises like he was tired of it all, and this week he’s asserting himself. Is it because he doesn’t trust the younger guys to get it right?
Six episodes left? Things are moving right along, aren’t they?
OK, I have to come back and say that after thinking about it a little, I loved this episode. I loved it because it was really great to have some background on Paulie. He has always been one of my favorite characters, even though he’s kind of a comic relief figure, but the show never got into his past at all like it did with other characters. He’s such an old curmudgeon that it’s hard to imagine him ever being young, so I really loved seeing the picture of him as a young goombah showing off his panther tattoo and his biceps. (Do you think that was an actual picture of Tony Sirico?)
With the character of Paulie it’s really emphasized that the guy has been a wiseguy forever - that he has it in his blood, and that the mob family is the only family he has. It was actually a kind of sad and moving portrayal. So I guess I liked the episode for that.
I might be smokin’ a rope here, but there is a flash of a white shoe getting in the car with the hit guys. Flashing back to Paulie packing all those white shoes for the trip, I got the idea that maybe Paulie was part of the hit squad. Given Paulie has tried to cozy up to the NY group before (with Johnny), maybe? Then again, it was probably Phil. What is it with these guys and their white shoes?
Overall, found the episode disturbing, but satisfying.
I wondered about that last week. In the previews (last week) they showed Tony telling Paulie that they should take a boat ride/fishing. Reminded me of Fredo getting killed.
The version of “Sing, Sing, Sing” sounded like the Benny Goodman original (with Gene Krupa on drums). I have the version that Goodman did at Carnegie Hall. It didn’t sound like that one. Was there a studio version of that by Goodman?
I think the thing on the boat was Tony trying to get Paulie to tell the truth about snitching to Johnny Sack about Ralphie making the joke about Ginny. If Paulie confessed, then Tony would probably have let it go. Although the flashback to Big Pussy was pretty obvious. I’d be nervous getting on a boat with Tony myself. And I agree Tony won’t actually have Paulie whacked with all the history between Paulie and Tony (and Tony’s father). I can’t help but feel that Tony is going to set Paulie up for a fall, though, the way he set up Bobby B. Paulie is too wise to screw up a hit, but he ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, either. I know Tony’s going to send Paulie into something that’s over his head.
Totally. Flipped out Asian guy in a mental ward – pissed off that the world, coming from the tech college. Really weird coincidence.
I really liked this episode.
This is at least the second time this season that they’ve mentioned that Tony is having big gambling losses. He’s borrowing cash from another guy, now? It could just be another Russian in the Pine Barrens but I’m keeping an eye on it.