Originally posted by: jemcam
What happened on this weeks episode????!!!!
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
(this is all from my recollection, but I think I have covered the major points)
Silvio took over as acting boss. Paulie took down a $1M score from some Columbians, and Sil had to dictate who would get a taste, and how much. He gave large shares to Vito and Carmela (effectively standing in for the still-comatose Tony). Paulie was pissed and complaining about having to give Carmela money. Vito started talking about how he might be a good candidate for boss, if Tony died.
Silvio didn't like being boss, and started having asthma attacks.
Christopher confronted AJ after finding out that AJ tried to buy a gun to kill Uncle Junior, and tried to get him to calm down.
There was a reappearance by the gambling-addicted screenwriter we last saw several seasons ago. Christopher and his crew grabbed him from a writing class he was teaching, and demanded that he write a screenplay for them to clear his outstanding debts (he had apparently been gambling again). Chris had developed the ridiculous premise, which he called a cross between Saw and Godfather II (essentially, a young mob soldier, presumably based on Chris, is killed and chopped up by his boss, but his parts reconstitute themselves in the dump, and he rises from the undead to get revenge). A group of mob investors met to discuss the proposed project.
Carmela ran into Dr. Melfi in the grocery store, and later sat in a therapy session with her. No major disclosures that I can recall.
Tony was in dreamland for most of the episode. His dream character is served with a summons for a lawsuit between the angry Buddhist monks and Kevin Finerty. He went and talked to the monks. He then found an invitation to a Finerty family reunion in Kevin Finerty's briefcase, and decided to go, to find and talk to Finerty. When he got to the reunion, Tony B (aka Steve Buscemi) invited him to go inside.
Meanwhile, Paulie was sitting in the real-life Tony's hospital room. As Paulie bitched about his own personal problems, Tony's heart beat faster and faster, until he had a heart attack and died.
We cut back to dream Tony. I don't recall how, exactly, but dream Tony sees a bright light and voices saying, "we love you; wake up, Dad."
Cut back to the hospital room. The docs gave Tony a shock, to no avail. Then, after a couple of seconds, he woke back up. His eyes opened. He appeared to recognize Carmela and Meadow. The docs gave him an initial test of his cognitive ability, which he passed.
Paulie was frantic, thinking he'd better give Carmela her money after all, now that Tony was awake. He gave it to her. Vito was obviously pissed at losing a possible opportunity to become boss.
Silvio was taken out of his home on a stretcher after a severe asthma attack.
Tony was sitting up and appeared to understand what was going on, but couldn't talk (we were told this was because of the tube he had had down his throat). He had a dopey look on his face. Christopher chose this moment to invite Tony to invest in his stupid movie project, even saying that Tony owed it to him because Chris had told him about Adriana's talking to the FBI.
The upshot: Tony is up, but seems significantly impaired. He doesn't appear to be able to leave the hospital, much less run the family, anytime soon. We may see serious, violent conflict within the family (especially between Vito and Paulie) if the power vacuum continues.