that stripper that ralphie beat to death in the back parking lot of the bada bing.
completely unnecessary and caused a lot of headaches.
as for ralph, he had to go sooner or later. as a boss, so what if he is a top earner. how long do you let him sit there and basically do what he wants, screw everybody else over, and just be plain disrespectful and piss off nearly everybody he comes across.
Ralph was changing, people were beginning to like him, both the mobster's and their wives. People felt for him when his son died and after that he was never the same prick Ralph. This was alluded to during Tony's dream in which Ralph is in the front seat with the catepillar on his head. The catepillar turns into a butterfly, is the saying, and Ralph was blossoming into something other than what he'd been in the past. David Chase also said this after the show ended.
In that sense, I don't think he was living on borrowed time, he made his mistakes in past and people acknowledged and moved past it. Once he started becoming likable his relationships with other guys in the family began to change. His soldiers became super loyal to him because of this as well.
Respectfully disagree that Ralph didn't deserve to go. And there are two points from your post to correct. First, Ralphie was not well-liked, neither by the wiseguys or their women. Granted he was treated more sympathetically after his son's accident, but that was it. And there did seem to be some change in him after the accident, but not everyone was buying it. The second correction is that Ralph's son did not die - he was in a coma from the bow & arrow accident.
Did Ralph need to die when he Tony killed him? No. But with Ralph, it was a long accumulation of things that could easily justify him getting whacked: 1) the Ginny Sack insult, 2) killing Tracey in the Bing parking lot, 3) hitting the bouncer with a chain in front of the entire Soprano crew, 4) his overall general demeanor towards others, and 5) his inability to keep Jackie Jr. out of trouble. Ralph was a complete prick to Rosalie, Janice, and every other woman he was with. In "No Show," he even said that part of the reason for dating Janice was to get a better relationship with Tony.
Ralph's "who cares" attitude about Pie-0-Mie's death was the last straw with Tony. Paulie, Sil, Christopher, and many others viewed Ralph as a loose cannon and untrustworthy. Contrast their feelings about Ralph against the strong feelings about Big Pussy. I think an argument could be made that Ralph was only kept alive for as long as he was due to his money making skills. All his other b.s. was overlooked because he was a good earner.
