How Supernatural Events Define Paulie's Character In The Sopranos

The Sopranos is far more than a simple crime show in the writing Creator David Chase and his diligent team planted complex Roots deep into the terrain of the psychological metaphysical and perhaps even the Paranormal in my prior videos on the series I've delved into the show's psychological depth by examining the many dreams of Tony Soprano as well as his psychedelic experience one of the typ cast breaking threads that makes The Sopranos unique in its sub genre and one that is spoken of is its occasional for rays into the supernatural these Supernatural occurrences are few and far between and they all seem to center around one particular character one of the show's most beloved characters Paulie galtieri David Chase has a reputation for being very particular and thorough there are very few if any scenes or details in the show that don't serve the overarching narrative in this video we will explore these strange Supernatural occurrences and discover why they are relevant let's begin with Paulie's character on the surface he is the stereotypical wise guy embodying this role literally he's always cracking jokes this is made for some of the show's most memorable moments and it's a primary reason why he's so cherished by the fans the more we see of Paulie away from the crew however the more we see how his sense of humor is more of a defense mechanism than anything he consistently presents a traditionally masculine front and meticulously Grooms His Image but somewhat paradoxically he's actually highly neurotic lonely greedy sycophantic superstitious and even at times insecure in the season 6 episode remember when Tony frustrated with Paulie's incessant yapping to strangers and really to anyone who will listen Vin to beanie who tells him that he's really all that Paulie's got you the guys and His image we can see Paulie's neuroticism plainly with his obsessive cleanliness however we begin seeing his superstitious side in the season 2 episode from where to Eternity in the episode Christopher is in the hospital after being shot in the prior episode he goes into cardiac arrest and is pronounced clinically dead for 1 minute when he wakes up he urgently calls for Tony and Paulie and tells them about the vision of hell he had Christopher's Inferno is an Irish pub called the emerald Piper where St Patrick's Day is celebrated perpetually there his father dicki resides alongside two Roman soldiers Brandon Fon and Mikey palmse Christopher gives them a message for Mikey palmse 3:00 this is an event that Paulie deems paranormal he's alone in that belief the Eerie significance he sees in it is outright dismissed by Tony and can object effectively be written off as a morphine induced dream still through the episode it eats away a Paulie he's plagued by nightmares of being dragged to Hell his girlfriend insists he visits a psychic specializing in communicating with the dead after some protests paully relan and goes to the psychic for answers the ensuing scene one of the most unforgettable in the series in my opinion marks the first time the audience is confronted with an event that appears genuinely objectively paranormal many viewers tend to write this scene off labeling the medium as a charlatan relying on cold reading to deduce details from people's lives he couldn't possibly have known passing it off as a six sense when it comes to real life mediums I would tend to agree but not in this scene although mob ties could possibly be deduced from Paulie's appearance and mannerisms in this Scene It would frankly be a gross stereotype to make that assumption it would be even more egregious to assume that Paulie was a seasoned murderer based solely on his appearance because of this and the references to Paulie's first hit and the poison ivy rash he suffered when whacking Mikey palmse I'm inclined to believe that the medium in this scene is legit this raises the questions why include the supernatural aspect in the show what's the point spirituality is a theme that David Chase was majorly interested in from a young age and it plays a prominent role in this episode namely in the the practice of religion specifically Catholicism and the everpresent conflict between religion as strict Doctrine and religion as a lip service we receive a significant clue to our questions in the very title of the episode from where to Eternity this is a play on words derived from the title of a notable novel and later film From Here to Eternity which itself is derived from a poem by rard Kipling called gentleman rankers both pieces are thematically rooted in a disillusionment with war with the ideals of serving in war souring upon confronting the reality with this deliberate title Chase and the writers allude to the subtle yet burgeoning disillusionment with religious Faith among the so-called faithful the swapping out of here to where introduces a critical element of uncertainty of where exactly the characters of The Sopranos including Paulie stand regarding their connection to the divine in an interview from a few years ago with the National Catholic Reporter David Chase who was brought up as a Baptist said that the Catholicism of the soprano characters quote was always interesting to me and as a Storyteller I'm certainly interested in spirituality he continued my mother made a big facade of being religiously concerned and father always considered himself an atheist but they made me go to Sunday school where I learned among other things things that God doesn't like Catholics because they drink during church services Chase here humorously references a contradiction between actual religious action and empty religious sentiment this isn't meant to knock religious folk or imply a universal hypocrisy among them but anyone who has been in or around any religion can easily identify people like this they project a Pious front yet their actions tell a different tale this is a contrad embodied by Paulie in from where to Eternity if he were truly religious he wouldn't have subjected himself to satanic black magic as he calls it he would have sprinted straight to the church for guidance which he does only after being led further astray spiritually by the medium Paulie accosts the priest when he visits him 23 years of donations to your parish and this is what this guy sees hanging over me he says the priest scolds Paulie for seeing the psychic in the first place telling him it's witchcraft it's the devil they're Heretics and thieves and he should have come to the church with his spiritual issue in the first place Paulie believes that his donations should have given him immunity from the ghosts of his past in his view the church left him unprotected and he cuts off the priest and the church you're never going to see another dime for me he says before walking out this final scene reveals two things about Paulie first he believes firmly in the validity of the medium despite it being in direct conflict with the doctrines and the values of the church second he views his relationship with religion as being purely transactional in the mafia context donating money to them isn't toward the end of being a devout believer or out of the goodness of his heart but rather to be insured against his immoral Deeds like paying for indulgences in the age of Martin Luther I have to credit David Chase and the writers once again for their Mastery of irony here to answer our questions from the significance of the supernatural occurrences in this episode is twofold it provides subtle commentary on the oxymoronic nature of religious mafiosos and exposes the hypocrisy in Paulie's religious beliefs he's only a Catholic as long as the church serves him the second Supernatural occurrence I'm going to cover sees Paulie once again clashing with the church it comes in the season 6 episode The Ride we see Paulie in even more dire financial and spiritual Straits we discover some intimate details concerning Paulie's private life in the few prior episodes he found out that ncci the woman who raised him wasn't his birth mother his birth mother was his aunt a nun who confessed this secret to him on her death bed she also reveals that his father was a World War II GI named Russ who probably is Carmella's father's friend Russ foli the former Diplomat with a PhD from Princeton who was a World War II veteran and a survivor of prostate cancer the confession weighed heavily on Paulie and caused him to cut off his mother he considered it an unforgivable betrayal in the ride Paulie is responsible for organizing the Feast of St elier a neighborhood celebration commemorating the contribution of Italian Americans to the community Paulie naturally sees this Feast as a for-profit venture and is incensed when the new priest shakes him down for a larger slice of the pie unsurprisingly he refuses to pay up and cuts corners on ride safety leading to injuries to make matters worse he receives a prostate cancer scare which he Frets about obsessively tossing and turning one night he crawls out of bed at 3:00 and frantically calls his doctor he's not there and pully's anxiety festers leading him to the Bing and to the second paranormal event Paulie's vision of the Virgin Mary this scene has also been written off as a vision brought on by excessive worry and sleep deprivation the key component that leads me to conclude that the vision is not a subjective Hallucination is that we Glimpse Mary in the mirror right before Paulie turns and sees her also it's not exactly a very sudden Vision he stops for a few seconds right before as if he felt a presence in the room with him the significance of this event comes in Paulie's response to it after some deep thought he reconciles with his mother at the end of the episode what's curious about this event is why exactly is it the Virgin Mary that appears to him it's not meant to show a change in Paulie's religious attitude it's a clever parallel to his own mother she's a nun which serves as a symbol of Purity yet just like Mary she had a son why does this Vision prompt a reconciliation with ncci after his birth mother passed away Paulie cursed her and avoided going to her funeral I believe the vision dredges up a great deal of guilt this may be a reach but knowing the emphasis the show places on music I couldn't help but think of the first verse of the Beatles song let it be when I rewatched the scene in Paulie's hour of Darkness mother Mary literally stood right in front of him she didn't speak any words of wisdom but words didn't seem necessary he got the point he may not have had had a chance to honor his birth mother but he still had a chance to make amends with the woman who raised him as a mother and to do right by her she was after all one of the only people in the show he was really close with he finally comes to understand the pain he inflicted on her by cutting her off it shows us that despite his flaws and evil Deeds Paulie maintains a shred of empathy or at the very least he's not a complete sociopath we get confirmation of this when Paulie expresses guilt over his turbulent relationship with Christopher following his death Paulie keeps his vision of the Virgin Mary close to the chest presumably only telling Paulie about it in the season finale his final scene in the series just like with 3:00 Tony dismisses it turning it into a joke this scene leads us to another aspect of the show that many people consider Supernatural the orange cat that hangs out at satriales there are a plethora of theories about the cat the most prominent of which is that it's Christopher's reincarnation or Christopher's ghost the way the cat perpetually stares at Chris's picture triggers Po's superstitious Tendencies he lobbies to get rid of it but Is vetoed by Tony I don't believe there's anything particularly Supernatural about the cat I see it as being a symbol of death the most obvious reason is that it stares at the picture of that dead kid more subtly I think it's supported by the content of Paulie and Tony's final conversation Tony wants Paulie to take over Ralphie's old crew but despite it being a lucrative position Paulie is surprisingly reluctant because all the past Skippers of that crew wound up dead in the end Tony leverages py to get Paulie to accept after Tony walks away the cat wanders into frame lying down on the sidewalk next to Paulie possibly signifying that Paulie had just signed his own death warrant Tony's Embrace of the cat could support the idea that he's killed after the infamous cut to Black interestingly when Tony walks into holstein's in the finale there's a large image of a tiger on the wall there's one last event that I want to cover it's a dream that Paulie has at the end of the episode remember when it's not exactly a supernatural event but one that is equally as strange and tells us much about Paulie's true character in the dream Paulie arrives home and here's a commotion in the kitchen expecting an intruder he instead finds the ghost of s cooking Paulie asks him when my time comes tell me will I stand up a clear parallel is drawn between the two gangsters in the episode with Paulie nearly meeting his end by Tony's hand on a boat this is a clever reference to the term standup guy right before s is killed in season 2 he's so nervous that he can no longer stand his final words are a plea to Tony to sit down in the end he wasn't a standup guy he was a rat I interpret this rare Peak into Paulie subconscious as a manifestation of his anxiety over his image and insecurity over his position in the soprano crew hierarchy it could also be an indication of guilt for telling Johnny sack about Ralphie's joke what's certain is that the dream rattles Paulie he knows how close he came to death and immediately sets himself towards self-preservation in The Following episode he attempts to ingratiate himself with Tony sending him a lavish espresso maker all in all despite his facade criminal habits and susceptibility to psychics dream messages and dirty toilet seats Paulie was a very human character deserving of His Image as a core Soprano's character a credit to the writers and to Tony Sero for animating him

Channel: Renegade Films

Views: 59,011

Keywords:

Id: 7DpFGmJMFKA

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024