Remember When (S06E15)
Airdate: April 22nd 2007
Written by: Terence Winter
Directed by: Phil Abraham
Running Time: 58 minutes
As The Sopranos barrelled towards its conclusion, the spectre of mortality loomed over its sprawling cast. David Chase’s unflinching realism—a hallmark of the series—meant that few characters were safe, particularly as the episode count dwindled. The abrupt, almost perfunctory demise of Johnny Sack in Stage 5 had already signalled Chase’s refusal to romanticise mob exits: death here was neither grand nor redemptive. With the endgame approaching, viewers braced for further bloodshed. Yet Remember When, episode of the second part of Season 6, defies expectations. Instead of delivering another shock fatality, it trains its lens on two figures already marooned in irrelevance: Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri and Corrado “Junior” Soprano. Both men, relics of a bygone era, embody the show’s central theme—the corrosive weight of the past—while underscoring Chase’s unsentimental ethos. Their stories, steeped in pathos and dark humour, reflect not just personal decline, but the slow death of the mob’s mythic stature.
The episode’s title, Remember When, is a masterclass in thematic economy. It evokes both wistfulness and irony, framing the characters’ futile attempts to recapture past glories. The title’s nostalgic veneer masks a darker truth—these men are prisoners of their histories, incapable of evolving beyond them. Paulie’s reminiscing about Willie Overall’s murder—Tony’s first kill—becomes a morbid refrain, a reminder that their bond is forged in blood, not brotherhood. Even the road trip’s camaraderie curdles into resentment, as Tony’s irritation at Paulie’s verbosity exposes the hollow core of their relationship.
Paulie’s storyline, triggered by Larry Boy Barese’s FBI cooperation, lays bare his existential precariousness. Larry Boy, a once-feared capo now rotting in prison, trades the location of Willie Overall’s remains—a 1982 murder ordered by Johnny Boy Soprano—for reduced charges. The revelation forces Tony and Paulie to confront their shared guilt, but also their diverging trajectories. Tony, now a seasoned patriarch, views the past with pragmatic detachment; Paulie, ever the foot soldier, clings to it as validation. Their flight to Florida—a farcical pantomime of aliases and paranoia—descends into a power struggle. Paulie’s nostalgia for their mentor-protegé dynamic grates on Tony, who sees him as a liability.
The episode’s most tension-laden sequence—a boat trip echoing Pussy Bonpensiero’s execution—teases Paulie’s demise. Tony’s hesitation, however, is revealing. Sparing Paulie isn’t an act of mercy, but cold calculus: Paulie, with no family or allies, remains tethered to Tony alone. Their relationship, stripped of sentiment, becomes a microcosm of mob loyalty—a transactional bond sustained by mutual need. Paulie’s subsequent hallucination of Pussy—Vincent Pastore’s final, ghostly cameo—underscores his isolation, a man haunted by the ghosts of those he’s outlived.
If Paulie’s decline is tragicomic, Junior’s is outright grotesque. Confined to a mental institution, he weaponises his dementia to resurrect his former persona. Bribing orderlies and orchestrating card games, Junior transforms the asylum into a perverse facsimile of his criminal empire. His alliance with Carter Chong—a volatile trust-fund patient—initially suggests a twisted mentorship, but Carter’s eventual betrayal reduces Junior to a catatonic shell. The final shot of him, blank-eyed and wheelchair-bound, is a brutal metaphor for the mob’s senescence: the once-cunning schemer is now a hollow figure, his mind and agency obliterated.
Junior’s subplot also serves as sly political satire. His letter to Dick Cheney—comparing their “accidental” shootings—mocks the arrogance of Bush-era political establishment. Yet even this gag underscores the episode’s central irony: Junior’s delusions of relevance mirror the mob’s broader decline, its power eroded by time, law, and internal rot.
In New York, Phil Leotardo’s ascent to power feels less like a narrative crescendo than a retread. His assassination of Doc Santoro—a brazen hit evoking Paul Castellano’s 1985 murder—is visually striking but thematically hollow. While Phil’s ruthless consolidation of power aligns with his character, the sequence lacks the psychological nuance that defined earlier mob hits (e.g., Ralphie’s death). It’s spectacle over substance, a concession to genre tropes that The Sopranos had hitherto subverted.
Terence Winter’s script indulges in nostalgia, peppering the episode with callbacks (e.g., Beansie’s cameo, Pussy’s spectral presence) and in-jokes. While these moments delight long-time fans, they risk veering into self-parody. The fan service peaks with Junior’s Cheney gag—a timely yet tonally jarring nod to contemporary politics—and Paulie’s Ralphie vision, which feels more like a farewell to Pastore’s character than an organic story beat.
Yet the episode’s deeper flaw lies in its contrived stakes. Tony’s sudden financial ruin—a result of reckless sports betting—strains credulity. This is a man who spent six seasons meticulously balancing dual identities; to have him jeopardise his empire over gambling debts (a subplot introduced late in the game) feels unearned, a lazy narrative shortcut to raise tension. Similarly, Doc Santoro’s murder, while visceral, lacks the moral complexity of earlier hits, relying on real-world mafia lore rather than the show’s signature psychological depth.
Remember When is a fitting, if flawed, meditation on legacy and decay. Its focus on Paulie and Junior—characters long past their sell-by dates—offers a poignant critique of the mob’s corrosive nostalgia. Yet the episode’s strengths are undermined by moments of creative exhaustion, as if the writers, sensing the end, opted for spectacle over subtlety. The Doc Santoro hit and Tony’s gambling woes feel like vestiges of a lesser show, one content to trade in familiar tropes rather than challenge its audience.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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