This episode has lots going on in it, but I am going to focus on just one aspect - Paulie Walnuts' interesting version of religion.
Christopher awakes from his coma and says that he has been in hell, met his father there, and that he is going there when his time comes. And he has a message from beyond the grave for both Tony and Paulie with no further explanation - 3 o'clock.
We don't see Tony giving this matter any further thought. Throughout the series Tony is a practical guy, all about the earthly and what he can touch and see, seemingly just paying lip service to religion to humor Carmela. But Paulie - he has a bit of the peasant in him. He is very superstitious. He starts waking from nightmares - at 3AM.
His girlfriend tells him to go see a medium. He does that, and the guy the psychic was talking to before he gets to Paulie smacks of a "cold reading" - The psychic mentions vague details and causes the "mark" to reveal specifics that the psychic then plays off of to look realistic. After that the medium appears to see all of the people Paulie killed and gives details he could not have otherwise known. Unless your remember Paulie's girlfriend told him to go there and could have furnished the details and be working a con with the medium.
But any potential scam doesn't work out as Paulie gets scared, thinks the medium is legit, and storms out. He then goes to his priest and gives a hilarious speech where he indicates he will no longer be donating to the church since it has "left me unprotected". He apparently sees religion as a supernatural protection racket, and by his observation it has been "slacking off". This theme of fearful superstition is a recurring one for Paulie, but he missed one little detail - three o'clock can be a position as well as a time. And you'll need to watch four more seasons to get what I mean by that.
Christopher awakes from his coma and says that he has been in hell, met his father there, and that he is going there when his time comes. And he has a message from beyond the grave for both Tony and Paulie with no further explanation - 3 o'clock.
We don't see Tony giving this matter any further thought. Throughout the series Tony is a practical guy, all about the earthly and what he can touch and see, seemingly just paying lip service to religion to humor Carmela. But Paulie - he has a bit of the peasant in him. He is very superstitious. He starts waking from nightmares - at 3AM.
His girlfriend tells him to go see a medium. He does that, and the guy the psychic was talking to before he gets to Paulie smacks of a "cold reading" - The psychic mentions vague details and causes the "mark" to reveal specifics that the psychic then plays off of to look realistic. After that the medium appears to see all of the people Paulie killed and gives details he could not have otherwise known. Unless your remember Paulie's girlfriend told him to go there and could have furnished the details and be working a con with the medium.
But any potential scam doesn't work out as Paulie gets scared, thinks the medium is legit, and storms out. He then goes to his priest and gives a hilarious speech where he indicates he will no longer be donating to the church since it has "left me unprotected". He apparently sees religion as a supernatural protection racket, and by his observation it has been "slacking off". This theme of fearful superstition is a recurring one for Paulie, but he missed one little detail - three o'clock can be a position as well as a time. And you'll need to watch four more seasons to get what I mean by that.