Tony goes home and returns to business, perhaps with a new frame of mind. Paulie receives a shock about his mother.
Plot
Tony is awake and recovering in the hospital. He is weak and in pain but conscious. His room becomes a gathering point. Paulie Gualtieri comes, brings food, and rambles about his own anxieties, which Tony endures with the patience of someone who does not have the energy to push back. Bobby Baccalieri is attentive and quiet in the way Bobby has always been. Carmela is present continuously, managing the room and the visitors.
Tony shares his hospital wing with a diverse group of patients. One of them, a former gang member played by Michael Kenneth Williams, has his own perspective on violence, survival, and what it means to be near death. Another is a rapper who is also recovering from a shooting. These conversations give Tony access to perspectives outside his normal world, and the episode treats these exchanges with genuine seriousness.
Tony's near-death experience has loosened something in him, temporarily. He is more open, more willing to examine things without immediately deflecting. He asks questions about other people's lives that Tony Soprano would normally not bother to ask. His doctors tell him the recovery will be long and that he needs to fundamentally change his relationship to stress. Tony listens to this advice with the specific attentiveness of someone who has just looked at whatever was on the other side of the window.
Credits
Written by: Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
Directed by: Alan Taylor