Line #48 Recap/TheSopranosS2E9FromWhereToEternity


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mv5bodvmmdewzgyty2e1yy00zwm2ltgzmmmtn2e4ymq2mmixztizxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvyndiynja2mtk_v1.jpg]]
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3	->''"What? Hell? You've been listening to me? No, for the same reasons. We're soldiers; soldiers don't go to hell. It's war, soldiers kill other soldiers. We're in a situation where everybody involved knows the stakes, and if you're going to accept those stakes, you've got to do certain things. It's business, we're soldiers."''
4	-->-- '''Tony Soprano'''
5
6	Picking up where the previous episode left off, the Soprano family and crew wait at the hospital, where Christopher remains in critical condition. Richie arrives at the hospital with some information on Matthew Bevilacqua, the surviving shooter, but other members of the crew are wary of his presence. Carmella prays to God to help Christopher see the light so he can get into heaven.
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8	At home, Carmella brings up the topic of a vasectomy to Tony, referencing an acquaintance who impregnated his goomah with a bastard child. Tony bristles at the suggestion of getting his tubes tied.
9
10	After a close call in which Christopher's heart stops for two minutes, he recovers and his condition stabilizes. After gaining consciousness, he asks to see Paulie and Tony specifically. He says that he saw his father and Mikey Palmice in Hell, which took the form of an Irish bar, and Mikey asked him to relay a message: "Three o'clock". Tony dismisses this story, but Paulie is shaken. He suffers from night terrors and visits a psychic under a false name. The psychic claims to see the spirits of the men Paulie murdered following him around. Paulie, frightened, throws a tantrum and leaves.
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12	Carmella visits Christopher under the false belief that he saw Heaven rather than Hell, as this was what Tony told her. Christopher reveals the truth and Carmella sees it as an opportunity for him to repent, but Christopher is not receptive and ups his morphine dosage, passing out. At home, Carmella gets into an argument with Tony about the vasectomy, and he berates AJ for dropping a plate of food, shaming him for overeating, and disparaging him as an unsatisfactory "male heir".
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14	In therapy, Dr. Melfi tries to broach the subject of Tony's morality as a mobster. Tony iterates that he believes mobsters are exempt from going to Hell for murder, comparing them to soldiers and claiming Hell is reserved for child molesters and people like Adolph Hitler. When Melfi presses the issue, Tony has an outburst and asks why she would bring that up when his nephew is in the hospital - he claims Christopher "might not get out", although this is no longer a danger.
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16	Agent Lipari demands that Big Pussy get closer to Tony, in order to provide more information to the FBI. A low-level associate of the Soprano crew approaches Big Pussy, asking to speak to Tony and saying he has information on Matthew Bevilacqua. Pussy demands that he tell it to him instead of going to Tony directly, seeing an opportunity to get closer to Tony as Lipari demanded.
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18	Feeling remorse over his cruel treatment of AJ, Tony attempts to bond with him, bringing him a pizza as an olive branch and speaking candidly and with a great deal of self-awareness about his own anger issues. This conversation is interrupted by a call from Pussy, who now has Matthew's location. Tony leaves AJ to eat the pizza by himself. He accompanies Pussy to personally kill Matthew. They beat him severely and take him to a garage, where Tony torments him, then feigns forgiveness, giving Matthew a moment of hope just before sadistically executing him. Tony and Pussy fire multiple rounds into Matthew's head and body. Afterward, they get dinner at a steak house, the same place they had eaten after Tony committed his first murder. Tony asks Pussy if he believes in God, which he says he does.
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20	Tony returns home to find Carmella in bed. Following the brutal killing of Matthew, he seems more open to the idea of getting a vasectomy. Carmella tells him he doesn't have to and asks instead that he simply remain faithful to her. They then make love.
21	----
22	!!Tropes:
23	* AintTooProudToBeg: Matthew Bevilaqua cries and begs for his life up until Tony shoots him.
24	* AssholeVictim: After all the crap he's pulled over the second season, nobody in-universe or among the audience is going to shed a tear for Matthew.
25	* BaitTheDog: Tony gets a remarkably sympathetic scene when he speaks honestly to AJ, only for it to be cut short when he gets word of Matthew Bevilaqua's location and heads off to torture and kill him.
26	* BastardBastard: Carmela's motivation for suggesting a vasectomy to Tony. She doesn't mind him enjoying [[TheMistress Goomahs]] on the side, [[{{Foreshadowing}} at least not yet]]. She just doesn't want him to have bastard children that she thinks will likely amount to no good, and bring shame to the family.
27	* BlackAndGreyMorality: Tony invokes his rationalizations of his lifestyle when he has a therapy session with Dr. Melfi following Chris' [[NearDeathExperience Neath-Death Experience]].
28	-->'''Melfi:''' ''[on Christopher]'' Do you think he'll go to hell?\
29	'''Tony:''' No. He's not the type that deserves hell.\
30	'''Melfi:''' Who do you think does?\
31	'''Tony:''' The worst people. The twisted and demented psychos who kill people for pleasure, the cannibals, the degenerate bastards that molest and torture little kids. They kill babies. The Hitlers. The Pol Pots. Those are the evil fucks that deserve to die, not my nephew.\
32	'''Melfi:''' What about you?\
33	'''Tony:''' What? Hell? You been listening to me? No, for the same reasons. We're soldiers. Soldiers don't go to hell. It's war. Soldiers, they kill other soldiers. We're in a situation where everyone involved knows the stakes and if your gonna accept those stakes you gotta do certain things. It's business. Soldiers. We follow codes, orders.
34	* BringMyBrownPants: Matthew wets himself after he is captured by Tony and Pussy.
35	* CharacterCatchphrase: "I'm sorry T" is the very first thing the audience hears from Chris after he wakes. If there were any doubts that it was going to solidify as his catchphrase for the series, they were definitely removed afterward.
36	* ContinuityNod: Paulie's visit to the psychic has the spirit of Mikey Palmice mocking Paulie by asking if the poison ivy still itches.
37	* CulturalPosturing: Christopher is so fiercely proud of his Italian-American culture that he considers being in an Irish bar where it is Saint Patrick's Day every day to be Hell.
38	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Tony and Big Pussy reduce Matthew to a collection of cuts and bruises through an [[GoryDiscretionShot offscreen]] [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown No Holds Barred Beatdown]] combined with [[{{JackBauerInterrogationTechnique}} Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]]. Tony then manufactures the [[HopeSpot Hope Spot]] noted below, refrains from pulling the trigger for a few moments to [[{{Sadist}} savor]] Matthew's terror before he and Big Pussy finally fill him up with bullets.
39	* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: Matthew desperately tries to talk his way out of his pending execution by placing all the blame for shooting Chris on the now-dead Sean. It goes without saying that it doesn't work.
40	* DescentIntoAddiction: Dr. Melfi admits to Dr. Kauffenberg that she's been taking her prescriptions and drinking more than she should in response to the stress of treating Tony.
41	* DivineIntervention: Carmela believes that her [[PrayerIsALastResort desperate prayer]] lead to Chris' recovery and his subsequent [[NearDeathExperience Near-Death Experience]]. Chris isn't convinced.
42	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
43	** Chris' [[NearDeathExperience Near-Death Experience]] and vision of a [[MundaneAfterlife Mundane Afterlife]] after getting shot will resonate with Tony going through very similar things in a future season when he gets shot.
44	** When Chris wakes up from his coma, the first person he asks to see is Tony (and Paulie), not Adriana.
45	* FreezeFrameBonus: Carmela is seen holding a copy of the book ''Literature/MemoirsOfAGeisha'', before she reconciles with Tony and drops the demand for a vasectomy. It indicates a resigned acceptance that Tony is inevitably going to cheat on her.
46	* TheFriendNobodyLikes: How the other mobsters view Richie when he visits the hospital. Also has shades of ConvictedByPublicOpinion as they also to one degree or another suspect Richie of having something to do with Chris' shooting.
47	* FromBadToWorse: Played with when Chris' heart stops and we see a team of doctors and nurses performing emergency surgery on him. Subverted in that Chris recovers soon thereafter. But while it lasted, it did keep the audience anxious about Chris' fate, and also acted as a setup for his [[NearDeathExperience Near-Death Experience]] and view of a [[MundaneAfterlife Mundane Afterlife]].
48	* GetOut: The psychic makes it clear that Paulie isn't welcome after he gets an impression that the many ghosts following Paulie are murder victims, and Paulie angrily grabs the psychic out of fear about the knowledge he has.
49	--> '''Psychic:''' I'm asking you to leave, sir.
50	* HopeSpot: Tony deliberately orchestrates a hope spot where he seems willing to hear out Matthew's side of the story, all just to make the despair hit harder when he kills him after all.
51	* {{Hypocrite}}: Tony and Carmela accused each other of hypocrisy during their argument. Tony accused Carmela of being religious only when it's convenient for her. Carmela in turn calls Tony out on trying to justify avoiding a vasectomy by invoking Catholicism's prohibition against birth control measures (condoms included).
52	* IWantMyMommy: Once it's clear that Tony and Pussy are going to kill him, Matthew begins to break down and cry for his mother before desperately begging to Tony one more futile time.
53	* InadequateInheritor: Tony holds out AJ as this, along with a YouAreFat dig at AJ, as an additional argument against getting a vasectomy.
54	* InnBetweenTheWorlds: Chris dreams that Hell or Purgatory is an Irish bar where it is Saint Patrick's Day every day and he'll spend eternity getting beaten in card games.
55	* IronicEcho: Silvio tries to comfort Adriana by assuring her that Chris is a tough kid, and he'll be able to pull through it. He repeats his words almost word for word in a future conversation with Adriana, but with far different intentions.
56	* ItsPersonal: Tony could easily assign any of his underlings to the task of whacking Matthew. Big Pussy even lampshades that fact to Tony, suggesting he and Furio could take care of it. However, given that it was [[LikeASonToMe Chris]] who was almost murdered by Matt, he insists on seeing to it personally.
57	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Matthew didn't have a hope in hell of coming out of that concession stand alive. But Tony still grabs the opportunity to combine the [[{{NoHoldsBarredBeatdown}} beating]] of Matthew with questions as to whether or not anybody else was involved with shooting up Chris. Tony is particularly curious as to whether [[{{BigBad}} Richie]] was involved.
58	* {{Leitmotif}}: "My Lover's Prayer" by Music/OtisRedding recurs three times throughout the episode, twice at the beginning during Christopher's ordeal in the hospital, and again over the closing credits.
59	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
60	** Did Christopher really see the afterlife, or was it just a DyingDream?
61	** A lot of viewers believe that the psychic scene confirms the existence of the supernatural in the ''Sopranos'' world, but the psychic could be using [[https://www.thrillist.com/culture/7-tricks-psychics-and-mediums-use-how-psychics-use-cold-reading-the-forer-effect simple techniques]] to get information out of Paulie. It wouldn't be hard to assume, from Paulie's effect and general bearing, that he was connected to the mob, especially in Jersey. Also, note how the psychic pivots from talking about a son to someone named "Sonny" based on Paulie's reactions. And while knowing the detail about the poison ivy Paulie contracted seems like the most convincing argument for the Magic side, poison ivy can leave scars on people's skin after the initial rash heals, sometimes for months. Particularly if they scratch it a lot, and Paulie isn't known for his restraint. The psychic might have noticed the scarring and brought it up to see how Paulie would react.
62	* MundaneAfterlife: Christopher's vision of Hell is an Irish bar where it is Saint Patrick's Day every day and Italian mobsters lose every card game. His description of the afterlife amuses Tony more than anything else.
63	* NearDeathExperience: Chris has one during his heart attack and is technically dead. The description of a tunnel of white light before seeing not-so-pleasant visions of the afterlife is actually a pretty common theme in several documented Near-Death Experiences.
64	* NotSoPhonyPsychic: The psychic Paulie visits has some uncanny details about some of the men Paulie has killed.
65	* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Tony really is unaffected by the warnings of Mikey's spirit (through Chris) that he'll haunt Paulie and Tony at 3:00 a.m. each night. He also invokes this on Paulie, who really is spooked out by the 3:00 a.m. thing, to try and get him to focus on the task of tracking down Matthew.
66	* PetTheDog:
67	** Pussy, Silvio, and Paulie do this when they console Adriana over Chris getting hospitalized.
68	** Paulie also comforts his goomah's children when they are awakened by his night terrors.
69	* PlotArmor: After his fate being the center of the previous episode's {{Cliffhanger}}, Christopher stabilizes and regains consciousness within the first twenty minutes of this episode.
70	* PragmaticVillainy: Tony manages to combine [[{{CruelAndUnusualDeath}} brutal revenge]] for Chris, and a test of UndyingLoyalty for Big Pussy all in the same action. That's efficiency.
71	* PrayerIsALastResort: Carmela does this, genuinely fearful that emergency care in the hospital won't be enough to save Chris' life.
72	* PreMortemOneLiner: One of the most memorable ones ever from Tony to Matthew. "'Cause that sugarless motherfucker, it's the last fucking drink you're ever gonna have."
73	* PriceOnTheirHead: Tony puts one out on Matthew. If anyone can bring in Matthew within five days, they'll earn points that can mean promotion in the Jersey mob.
74	* RedemptionRejection: Carmela tries to convince Chris that his recovery and NearDeathExperience were DivineIntervention to give him a chance for redemption. She takes it further by stressing the need for Chris to come back to Christ and inviting him to join her in prayer to begin his redemption. Chris, who still [[{{DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster}} likes being a Mafiaso]] [[{{DeconstructedTrope}} even after getting shot up]], responds by taking another hit of morphine to make himself pass out.
75	* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: In retribution for the attempt on Christopher's life, Matthew Bevilaqua is shot over ''twenty times'' by Tony and Big Pussy.
76	* UnbrokenVigil: Adriana is the one character who never leaves the hospital while Chris is in a coma. Underscored by her frequently crying at his side.
77	* UndignifiedDeath: Matthew pisses himself and cries "Mommy" just before he is killed
78	* UndyingLoyalty: Tony can't shake his [[{{ProperlyParanoid}} suspicions]] that Big Pussy is TheMole, so Tony has him come along for the slaying of Matthew, something an undercover mole would be forbidden to do. Big Pussy obliges, but it gets him in hot water with his FBI handlers later on.
79	* UnfinishedBusiness: If the psychic is to be believed, Paulie has a small army of murder victims following him around.

Context Recap / TheSopranosS2E9FromWhereToEternity