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in: The Sopranos episodes, Season Six, Episodes

Mayham

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"Mayham" is the 3rd episode of Part 1 of Season 6 of the HBO original series The Sopranos. It is the 68th overall episode in the series. Written by Matthew Weiner and directed by Jack Bender, it originally aired on March 26, 2006.

Starring[]

* = credit only

Guest starring[]

Episode recap[]

On a tip from Vito, Paulie and a member of his crew, Cary DiBartolo, attempt to burglarize an apartment belonging to Colombian drug dealers. However, they find the apartment is not empty as expected, and a fierce fight ensues. The building superintendent is killed, and Paulie and Cary also manage to shoot the two drug dealers. Paulie's groin is injured in the melee. The mobsters find a large amount of money hidden in a dishwasher. Meanwhile, Christopher and Bobby confront A.J. about his attempt to purchase a gun and try to dissuade him from going after Junior, who is in custody. They assure him that Tony would not want him involved. Afterwards, A.J. accuses Carmela of putting the two up to the talk, though she has no idea what he is talking about.

Tony's dream sequence from the previous episode continues: at his hotel room he receives a court summons from the Buddhist monks addressed to Kevin Finnerty, and he begins to question his actual identity. He seeks answers from the bartender as well as from the monks who initiated the summons, but does not get any answers.

Tension surges within the DiMeo family. Silvio makes rulings on how Bobby and Vito are to split Eugene's former revenue and on Tony's cut from Paulie and Vito's Colombian score. None of the parties involved like his decisions. Paulie and Vito delay giving the $200,000 to Carmela, since they do not want to part with it in the event Tony does not recover. Vito quietly starts a campaign to position himself as a potential new leader, pointing to his recent weight loss as a sign of better health and maintaining a cordial relationship with the Lupertazzi acting boss Phil Leotardo, who is a second cousin of Vito's wife Marie. He also happens to be in the hospital when Meadow's fiancé Finn turns up, and makes a threatening pass at him.

Carmela bumps into Dr. Melfi at the supermarket, and receives an offer of help - which she at that point refuses. Carmela later becomes livid when she sees a TV special about the shooting, in which there are clips of A.J. speaking to the press after she explicitly forbade it. Carmela drags A.J. out of bed, berating him for putting the entire affair on national television and embarrassing the family. She tells him that he is "a cross the rest of his family has to bear." The next day, Carmela decides to have a session with Dr. Melfi after all, during which she tearfully regrets insulting A.J., and reminisces on her attraction to Tony since the two first met. She goes on to acknowledge that she had a choice in picking a husband, but that children had no option in choosing their parents.

Chris' passion about entering the movie industry is reborn. He has Benny Fazio and Murmur rough up screenwriter J.T. Dolan, and orders him to write a script for a slasher mob film he wants to produce. Chris later arranges a meeting with potential investors for the production, their chief adviser and partner being Little Carmine. J.T. comes up with the title, Cleaver, and explains the premise, but the investors, which include Silvio, Vito and Larry Boy Barese, seem confused about its plot. Nevertheless, Chris assures them the film is a guaranteed win, citing profitable films with tangentially related subject matter.

Despite orders to allow only family to see Tony, Silvio and Paulie are smuggled in by Carmela and Meadow. Left alone with Tony, Paulie proceeds to treat his unconscious boss with an interminable and profanity-laden update of his current state of affairs. Tony's heart-rate escalates steadily, but Paulie does not notice it until he goes into cardiac arrest. Hospital staff rush in and attempt to revive him.

In Tony's dream, Paulie's voice appears as a muffled voice from an adjoining room at his hotel, prompting him to bang on the wall while yelling at whoever it is to 'shut up'. Having found a flier for the Finnerty family reunion in his briefcase, he is greeted outside the venue by a man who looks like his cousin Tony Blundetto. The man tries to get Tony to enter the light-festooned house, assuring him that "everyone's here" and that he is "going home"; but he also tells Tony that he must first let go of his "business" and hand over his briefcase. Tony is reluctant, replying that he has already given away a briefcase which had "his whole life inside" and does not want to do the same with the one he has now. Standing at the steps of the house, Tony hesitates for some time. With the figure of someone similar to his mother Livia standing by the doorway in front of him, and the faint voice of a little girl coming from the trees behind him pleading with him not to go (in the hospital Meadow is calling to her father), Tony chooses not to enter the house and awakes in the hospital. His first words, after beckoning Carmela to come closer, are "I'm dead, right?"

Later, heavily sedated and still largely unable to talk, Tony sits in a chair at the foot of his bed and listens to an excited Christopher explain his movie venture to him; his nephew says he left a position for Tony to become a major investor in the project. Christopher then notices an Ojibwe saying taped onto the wall: "Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky."

With Tony now conscious, Paulie and Vito anxiously rush to get their cuts to Carmela. In the hospital lobby, when they hand over the cash, Carmela is initially grateful. However, before the elevator doors close, she turns around in time to see their facial expressions turn sour. Carmela then returns to Tony's room saying to him "I don't know how you do it", while looking at the package Paulie and Vito just handed her (she will warn Tony in a later episode to keep an eye on them - particularly Vito, remarking that he is 'ambitious').

The episode fades out to a 50's sounding cover of 'Over the Rainbow' while Carmela lovingly dabs Tony's chapped lips with a water soaked cotton bud saying "That must feel good huh? The little things..".

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • This is now the third time that Paulie Gualtieri has been kicked in the groin throughout the shows history, the first time was by the Russian Valery in the episode "Pine Barrens." The second being by Minn Matrone in the episode "Eloise."
  • Sil quotes Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility."
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