i thought it was quite interesting that carmela and dr. melfi had a more revealing talk about tony's life in the short time she was in the chair than tony has had in the 6 years he has been in therapy.

i thought the episode did a good job exposing the fact that tony's blood family is the only group of people who truly care for him (except maybe for sylvio).

paulie's "chin up cup three weeks in a row" monologue was hilarious.

Which is ironic, considering Carmella successfully left him for a time (and is currently questioning whether she ever truly loved him or "the life"), both A.J. and Meadow have done their bits rebelling against his true occupation, his Uncle literally shot him in the stomach and his Mother actually conspired to have him offed.

And people wonder why the man might be, um, a tad depressed.

wow....that hospital is the most uncompassionate place i have ever seen...i mean the nurses were even mean too

I think the scene with Paulie and the other guy killing the drug dealers was edited down. In the season 6 preview trailer, there's a clip that shows Paulie stabbing someone on the ground multiple times. In last night's episode they cut away and it looks like he just stuck the knife in the guy once.

Great episode. I still think AJ's going to find a way to kill Junior.

Well, they do know who they're treating. It is all over the national news, after all.

hmmmmm....never thought of that.

I think Paulie really stole that episode. I loved his reaction when he walked in to see Tony with Meadow, him sitting in his kitchen cutting coupons, and trying to glorify his being in the room when Tony went into VTAC.

Will this the episode be considered the one where Paulie goes from "Paulie Walnuts" to "Paulie Walnut"?

Wonder if Tony Sirico (Paulie) will get some attention in the supporting cats...

BTW, I know there are 12 episodes this year and then 8 next, is this one season?

In my hospital experiences, doctors have no compassion, but the nurses do. I've never been in a Newark hospital though.

That was hilarious. Especially the way it was interweaved with the dream sequance as Tony was yelling at his next door neighbors to shut up.

I didn't take Chris's remark about the boss nailing his girlfriend as a shot at Tony. In fact through the whole thing Chris and Sylvio were the only ones that seemed to give a damn about Tony.

At least we know why the Dream Tony was being harrassed by Hindu's (his doctor was a hindu - the one shining a light in Hospital Tony's eye).

Chris's comment to Tony about Adrianna was not about the car wreck with Tony & Adrianna, but about how he (Chris) went to Tony about Adrianna being an informant to the FBI.

I think they were Buddists, at least i believe it was a Buddha statue that Tony looks at a monestary.
And Syl talking about Jackie mentioning him becoming Boss instead of Tony doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Jackie was only acting boss and everything still went through Tony.

Hindu, Buddist, what's the difference? - Archie Bunker

When it gets right down to it, I don't think the pecking order means a helluva lot in practice. If a vacuum of power were to develop, any one of the "soldiers" willing to step into the breach and defend himself in the position would most likely be the next consigliere. This explains Vito's maneuvering, Syl's delusions of grandeur upon Jackie Sr.'s death, Wings' reluctance to pay tribute from his $1 million score to Carmela, Bacala's pettiness - pretty much everything. When the current power structure folds, it's pretty much every man for himself until a new power structure is forced into place.

Depending on Tony's stomach for continuing - which more and more I believe the bookie's suicide foreshadows - we could see "mayhem" erupt before too long. The dreams made it clear how ambivalent Tony seems to be about making all the wrong choices in his life. Yet at the same time, any hint of weakness or doubt to his crew - even in his weakened condition - and the whole ship sinks . . .

I realize many of you most likely have figured this
out but I couldn't stop thinking about it and finally
came to a realization but I have no one to talk to about
it. We all know Tony was in purgatory while in a
coma. I think that the Monks represent heaven. I
thought it was strange that the Monastery had the
level of security it seemed to have and it makes sense
since they can't let just anybody into heaven. The thing
about the heating problem represents Tony's evil deeds
and if he could not fix the problem they had to file a
lawsuit which basically comes down to protesting his
entrance into heaven. The Inn at Oaks (I'm not
sure if I remember the name correctly) automatically
made me think of The River Sticks. The Inn's front
door was wide open and who does Tony know that would
be waiting for him there, everyone he knows that has
passed is pretty much just as "evil doer" as himself
so that must be hell. So Tony was given a choice, Hell
was more than willing to accept him or he can go back
and maybe redeem himself ie; fix the heating problem.

But why would you not be able to bring your business, ie. Finerty's briefcase, into hell?

Wouldn't hell be the place where you flop that out in the open and revel in the wickedness of it all? Why would Tony/Finnerty be so protective of his "business?"

If you'd care to research that topic a little more, you'll have better luck looking up the River Styx.

we do? I'm pretty sure you have to be dead to be in purgatory....the rest of your post was fun speculation, but I suspect it has little basis in reality.

I think I remember Tony saying that his whole life was in there. So I think the briefcase represented life.

Thanks, I thought that looked funny.

I personally think that the purgatory/business/heaven/hell analogy was interesting. Thanks for the post.

No I should have worded that differently, it was more like a state similar to what purgatory may be.

his doctor was a hindu, the monks were tibetian monks who practice buddhism