Paulie would become the head boss of the family.

Who here believes that Paulie would become acting boss after Junior Soprano passed away and Tony was murdered?

pretty much which would signal the end of that family because paulie would be an awful boss. I mean tony wasnt a great boss either but he would be much better than paulie

I disagree.

I respect your opinion but Paulie seems to emotional, paranoid, and doesnt seem to be the smartest guy in the wolrd. also he almost betrayed the family in season 4

I understand your view on this.

Do you agree though that he would be next in line to take over the family?

Yes without question. with silvio bobby and chris gone there is nobody else

This is the problem, the characters that end the series are very different from the ones that started the series. Some call it and evolution of a character, or a character arch, others think David Chase wanted to punish these characters.

If it were Paulie from season 1, i think there is potential for him as a decent boss. Paulie from season 3-6.2 would be a disaster. The family would be eaten alive by New York, if they don't rot from the inside first.

Yea Paulie would obviously be next in line but I agree with Crusher that he would be a horrible boss

I disagree with this Wilson. Paulie wasn't much of a planner guy and more of a violent man, He wasn't good at keeping low key in murders and would leave his victims shot in the street.

Plus he would have been arrested or illed withing a year of his reign. I mean even Tony should have been arrested more but that why its a tv show lol

Paulie as boss? It'd be a disaster! Some guys are just born to be nothing but enforcers their whole lives, and he is one of them. Not much in the brains department to be honest. He was too insecure also. He had this childlike idolization with Tony. He wanted his every approval and kind words every time.

Must've been hard for Paulie to know how his aunt, (who turned out to be his mom) got knocked up by a guy named Russ. In some ways I even think he saw a father figure in Tony even though Tony was old enough to be his son.

I agree, Paulie would have made a bad boss..

Well if Tony died, which is what I believe. There's no doubt Paulie would've been a bad boss, he would've most likely ended up dead. Sil was in a coma, there's no telling if he would've ever recovered. Paulie would've took over the family, but before the fate of Tony he handed Paulie control of the Aprile crew, the Aprile crew was plagued with bad luck with all the bosses dying early into their reign. Janice killed Ritchie, what's his face died on the toilet, Tony killed Ralph. There's no reason to believe Paulie would've been the one to break that chain.

If Sil made a full recovery, I think he woulda made an excellent boss, prob better than Tony



How come you dont think Tony was a good boss? What do you think his flaws were? I dont think he was a GREAT boss, but I do think he was a good boss IMO

I don't think Tony was a good boss either imo there's lots of reasons i can't be bothered listing them right now but for one he passed up his biggest earner (Ralphie) for capo.

To be fair, Ralphie was scum. And had his homosexual tendencies been made public, a war with NY would've come a lot sooner. Tony was a good boss in the beginning, insulating himself from the law, and making Junior the front boss (though Junior didn't know it). He handled the civil war between he and Junior well. But it pretty much all started to crumble from there. His first mistake was whacking the wrong guy when he ordered for Jimmy Altieri to be clipped. He had suspicion that Pussy was the rat all along, but due to his undying friendship, he didn't want to make a move until he got some god given sign or some shit. A good boss would've listened to the cop on the payroll the first time he mentioned Pussy being a rat. He got comfortable after killing Jimmy, Pussy just continued to feed information to the feds.

He killed Ritchie Aprile. Ritchie came home, and all his complaints were valid, to me anyway, he just wanted what he was entitled to, but with Jackie dying, everything fell under Tony & Juniors control, and Junior just being a front, Tony was too greedy to give Ritchie what belonged to him. On the other hand, Ritchie was too smart for his own good. But still..

He always made his most trusted guys feel like they were lesser people than him. Bobby, Chris, even Furio. Furio could've killed Tony, but he didn't, he was too loyal, he was one of Tony's best enforcers, you suspect the guy has feelings for your wife, which Furio never acted on, you make an example of him. Not run him off back to Italy, or whatever they did to him.

Killing his own cousin. He basically did too much to try to appease to NY. Which in all actuality proved to be his downfall. I mean, I'm sure there were other NY families other than the Lupertazzi's. Like Butch said, you cut the head off the snake and do business with whatever's left. But not Tony, he bent over backwards for NY.

Basically, I don't think he could ever handle the power.

What homosexual tendencies did Ralph have? Am i forgetting something or did you mean Vito ?

Jimmy Altieri WAS a rat. Remember he got picked up with pussy at the social club and the FBI found all those guns in the pool table? And Janice shot richie aprile after richie slapped her around.. Jus pointing that out.. I agree that Paulie would have been a horrible boss... Too needy and he relied on others thoughts wayy to much. If anyone I would think maybe Larry Barese would be a good boss.Allot of prison time and he ran the biggest crew in the family. He was also supposedly a huge earner and when he WAS out of jail he was always at high ranking meetings. I know he gave the FBI mis-information on a few old murders but he took the heat off the living guys cause he blamed it on ackie aprile sr.

Ralph liked to have his girls put objects in his ass and enflict pain on him to get him off. I know they showed Janice doin him in the ass and Rosalie Aprile and the Cuban Goomah Tony Stole from him both mentioned this at one point on the show.

That's right, i forgot all about that.

Jimmy wasn't a rat. At least to my knowledge, He got picked up along with Pussy, he had a gun rap. But he would've gotten less time, Pussy was wrapped up in a heroine charge, and he couldn't take the time because of his kids. I forget the cops name but the cop told Tony it was Pussy the first time. Tony didn't believe it, he knew Jimmy got arrested along with Pussy and asked the cop was he sure, then the cop began to question himself because all he knew was that the rat was a heavyset Italian with black hair. The cop said he'll get the files and find out if it was Pussy or Jimmy. Then he got arrested in the cathouse along with Raymond, and a couple of hookers. Before the cop could get the file, it was suspected he had ties to Tony's crew due to the arrest, thus losing his job and he took a header off the bridge, killing himself.

Tony never really found out who it was. But he assumed it was Jimmy due to his trust in Pussy and Jimmy asking questions about the Espanade (I think it was). The producers never really implied Jimmy was a rat, other than his snooping, but that was him being greedy and wanting a bigger cut of whatever operation they were working out, as opposed to wearing a wire. Pussy had been the rat all along.

yes but would be awful. out of pride and greed he would not let any1 else become boss. would of liked to see bobby survive. def turns into boss material towards the end of the programme. cool calm collective, can murder, strong enough to punch up tony, hold his own with internal beefs with paulie always going on the offensive in confrontations. and a likeable guy in the family which is needed, unlike paulie. i do love paulie though probably my favourite character.

Benny should have been made boss

1. JIMMY ALTIERI WAS A RAT BECAUSE JUNIOR SAID HE WAS A RAT

2. Patsy probably rose up to head of Raymonds crew making his extortion in North Ward so here's my reckoning Patsy would have took over

and when did rosalie aprile mention that?

For the third time, Jimmy wasn't a rat. Junior didn't call Jimmy a rat until Season two when Jimmy was already dead. He wouldn't of known anyway, as he wasn't the real boss, and information went through Tony first before it even got to Junior. They simply got it wrong, like I said before "two fat fucks with black hair", the cop told Tony it was Pussy all along, but killed himself before he could confirm it. Sil told Tony the cop was in debt to Pussy, which could be reason why he'd lie, which influenced Tony's decision. He didn't want to believe his best friend was a snitch and told the feds everything.

The confirmation that Jimmy wasn't a rat came in the very first or second episode of Season Two. When Pussy's handler is driving him home after his back operation and he's asking Pussy if Tony knows he's back yet and Pussy lies and says he hadn't seen him yet, even though he showed up to Tony's house. His handler is coming down on Pussy telling Pussy that he needs to gather some real info on Tony and not bullcrap, and telling Pussy not to feel sorry for Tony because he tried killed his own mother and doesn't even trust Pussy like he used to and he passed Pussy over for Underboss. The guy then says "Jimmy Alteri ate the pill for you". Meaning, Jimmy was sacrificed for the sake of Pussy staying alive and being able to gather more information.

That doesn't exactly prove that Jimmy wasn't a rat. All that implies is that Pussy's handler knew that Tony and the rest were suspecting a rat especially when both of them got out easy, but figured Tony assumed when Jimmy went that they had got the rat and there was no need to keep fishing.

The thing is, Jimmy was asking a lot of questions about operations and not just to get in on them, he wanted very in depth details of what was going down.

that 1st part was me quoting al pacino from donnie brasco as a joke just for your info

It was never shown that Jimmy was not a rat... but he also was never shown to definitely be one either... I got the feeling that he was.

Didn't Tony Soprano say in one episode that they had mistaken the info that" a fat guy" was talking to law, r cooperating, and that it was what made them think it was Jimmy, when it turned out to be the Vince Pastore character Pussy?

Yes. That's actually the first thing I mentioned when I started this whole thing, seems like most overlooked that. If you've watched the season's thoroughly, from the first season about the time to when Pussy got whacked, it's obvious Jimmy wasn't the rat they were talking about and he wasn't cooperating at all. Pussy had been cooperating long before Jimmy even came onto the scene. Tony finally remembered this in a flashback scene about a Christmas party where Pussy was late and he was playing Santa for the children and they kept poking fun at him in the suit and kept touching him and he kept getting angry and telling them to stop. Tony then realized, long after the fact, that Pussy was wired.

What? "eating/ate the pill" is a term that directly implies sacrifice. Jimmy wasn't a rat.

The only questions Jimmy were asking had to do with money, he felt that he should be given more of what the operation was, which was when they took the money from the drug dealing cubans, Jimmy wanted in on that but felt he wasn't being fed his share of the pie, that's why he was asking questions.

I know what "eating the pill" means. Jimmy was asking for information on stuff he already knew about in detail. To say "jimmy ate the pill for you" could also imply that Pussy's FBI handler knew Jimmy was a rat as well and knew Tony would suspect one so when Jimmy turned up dead he figured that Pussy wouldn't have to worry.

It's however you interpret it. In my view he was a rat. He didn't even try to deny it when Silvio said "Why don't you call for help on your radio mike?". He just says "Mother of God".

It's never verified whether he was a rat or not. But come on, his stupid questions and info seeking really gives him away I believe.