12 Best Paulie Walnuts Episodes Of The Sopranos, Ranked - /Film (2023)

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ByKyle Milner/May 6, 2023 1:15 pm EST

Punditsfrequently cite"The Sopranos" as one of the greatest television series of all time, and that reputation is warranted. From the very first episode to the eternally controversial series finale in 2007, David Chase's crime drama cemented HBO as a prime destination for "prestige" television, ushering in a new era of television storytelling along the way. Italian-American Mafia boss Tony Soprano's struggle to hold his family and livelihood together remains as compelling and impactful as it did nearly two decades ago, thanks to top-notch writing and an EmmyAward-winning cast.

It's tough to pick favorites from such a legendary roster of characters, but Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri ranks among the best.The late Tony Sirico (who passed away in July 2022), transformed Paulie into one of the show's biggest personalities. His wisecracking and neurotic nature brings much comedic relief, but beneath that larger-than-life exterior is an emotionally complex man whose paranoia and competitive streak often puts him at odds with the rest of the Soprano crime family. From landscaping feuds to encounters with the supernatural, here are our picks for the 12 best Paulie Walnuts episodes.

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Their bond as mother and son wasn't perfect — a recurring theme in "The Sopranos" — but we still adored Nucci and Paulie's relationship. Season 4's "Mergers and Acquisitions" showed the lengths to which Paulie would go to ensure his mother's happiness, taking the strong-arm tactics of the mafia to Green Grove's retirement community.

Nucci's problems with fitting in at Green Grove would be explored further later in the season, but Paulie is quick to defend his mother when he learns that the other residents — including Cookie Cirillo and Minn Matrone — don't like her. For the most part, Paulie is charming with Nucci in earshot, although we can't help but laugh when he tells Cookie and Minn that, "When I was a kid, you two were old ladies. Now I'm old, and you two are still old!"

In a show like "The Sopranos," using the threat of violence to get what you want feels as common as Tony eating cold cuts straight out of the fridge. But few men would do it quite like Paulie Walnuts, who tracks down Cookie's son and gives him an ultimatum: tell your ma to be nice ... or else. Chuckie Cirillo's inaction lands him a beating from Little Paulie and Benny, proving that you're never too old to be a momma's boy.

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Paulie loves and respects Tony Soprano as much as the next wise guy, but no matter how deep that love runs, his Achilles heel is always money. With Tony left in a coma after Junior shot him in the explosive Season 6 opener, the Soprano family must consider what comes next if things go south. Naturally, Paulie's mind goes straight to his wallet, and "Mayham" brought out the ugliness of his greed at the worst possible time.

This episode opens, quite purposefully, with Paulie and Vito discussing Carmela's devotion to Tony in his time of need. "The Sopranos" fills the screen with hypocrites, and that's why it's no surprise when the pair quickly begin scheming behind her back. If a mafia boss dies, his crew's supposed to financially support the surviving family. But when Paulie gets shorted on a heist, he resents those obligations and considers holding back the payments to Carmela for his financial benefit.

It would do the episode no justice to leave out a classic moment of Paulie comedy when his bedside griping to Tony about his own health sends the comatose boss into cardiac arrest. It's a genius bit of bleak humor that also echoes Paulie's temptation to betray Carmela and the Soprano kids. With Tony's emergence from his coma at the end of the episode, Paulie reluctantly hands over the cash, but — much like Carmella — the audience won't quickly forget it.

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As "Pine Barrens" proved, Paulie isn't the easiest guy to be stuck in an enclosed space with. In "Remember When," the FBI unearths the remains of Tony's first-ever hit, forcing him and Paulie to hide in Florida. It's the rare episode where we see Paulie through another character's eyes, and what Tony sees in his old friend truly vexes him. This episode served as an edge-of-your-seat culmination of ongoing friction between Paulie and Tony, reflecting how serious the stakes have become by the final season.

Tony could never prove it, but ever since the Ginny Sack joke leaked out, he's held (correct) suspicions about Paulie's culpability. The trip to Florida isn't just to lay low, but also an opportunity to extract the truth from Paulie once and for all. Tony has forgiven a lot over the years they've known each other, but with the families at war, Paulie's big mouth is more than annoying, it's a liability. When Paulie keeps bragging about the family's past exploits to strangers, you can hardly blame Tony for reaching the end of his tether.

The murder of Pussy at sea back in Season 2 was one of the show's most heartbreaking moments, and the choice to call back to that moment as Tony weighs up whacking Paulie on a boat opens up those wounds all over again. We were as relieved as Paulie that he ultimately passed the test.

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Christopher Moltisanti's initiation as a made man in Season 3 marks a major turning point for the character. It provides a chance to prove his capability to the family, but it also puts him directly in Paulie's crosshairs as a target for hazing and exploitation. Of all the grief Paulie puts Christopher through, the pettiest has got to be the antics in "Second Opinion."

While Tony finds a credible doctor to treat Junior's cancer, and Carmela weighs up the morality of her marriage, Paulie and Christopher lock horns like a pair of Italian stags. Paulie maintains the upper hand thanks to his seniority in the family, and he puts Chrissie through the wringer with earnings. It's not merely about making the latest made man prove himself; Paulie enjoys having a subordinate, especially if he can squeeze some passive income out of the situation.

Their tension reaches a fever pitch after Paulie subjects Christopher to a humiliating strip search at the Bing, followed by an impromptu apartment inspection in the middle of the night, during which Paulie sniffs Adriana's underwear. With Tony refusing to mediate, things look dicey, until Paulie pulls out an expected symbol of cease-fire: a Big Mouth Billy Bass. Sure, it didn't defuse the pair's feud long-term, but the laughs they share are a moment of goofy levity that everyone — audience included — desperately needed.

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Some of the best Paulie episodes of "The Sopranos" are the ones in which he's got a bone to pick with Christopher (or vice versa), and we rate this one highly. Paulie's long-running disrespect for Chris reaches an all-time high in "Walk Like a Man," leading to a minor war of attrition with dire consequences for the young man.

With Chris's father-in-law as the middle-man, he and Paulie set up a lucrative side hustle selling stolen power tools. A great arrangement for all parties involved; but when Little Paulie starts skimming the product, Chris demands a resolution from Paulie and Tony. Their refusal to play ball is the inciting incident in a brutal back-and-forth between Paulie and Chris, which lands Little Paulie in the hospital and even sees Paulie tearing up Christopher's front lawn with his car.

To directly blame Paulie for Christopher's falling off the wagon in this episode wouldn't be quite fair. Tony already played a major role in that earlier in the season, and it was arguably an inevitability in their line of work. But we think it's also reasonable to point out that Paulie's recurring position as the antagonist in their relationship certainly helped lay the groundwork. Paulie's roasting of a drunken Christopher is more than a tipping point for the young Capo; it represents a tragic indictment of a man who could've helped steer Chris away from the darkness.

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The made men of "The Sopranos" take great pride in their Italian heritage, especially Paulie. When Tony arranges a trip to Naples with Christopher and Paulie, it's more than business. It's as if they're going home for the very first time. But their romanticized beliefs about the ancestral homeland face scrutiny, as Tony clashes with the head of the local crime family boss, Christopher spends most of his time getting high, and Paulie receives the cold shoulder from the locals.

It's a sobering experience for the trio, and Paulie's fish-out-of-water antics are among his most memorable. Tony handles the business during their time in Italy, negotiating a car-smuggling operation with a local crime family distantly related to his own. While Christopher explores the world of high-quality heroin from his hotel bed, Paulie hits the streets and tries desperately to blend in using the few Italian phrases he knows. Despite his earnest exclamations of "commendatori," the Neapolitan people can spot the foreigner from a mile away, and he's either ignored or rebuffed.

As the opening scene of the Soprano crew trying (and failing) to watch a bootleg copy of "The Godfather Part II" so poetically suggests, there's a gaping chasm between the Paulie Walnuts of the world and his European counterparts. His expression of relief on the drive home through New Jersey says it all.

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By Season 4, Paulie's relationship with Tony becomes strained. After a stint in prison, Paulie returns home to find himself outmatched by Ralphie's earnings and feeling increasingly irrelevant. He finds an ally in Johnny Sack, but after the Ginny Sack joke leaks out, Tony becomes suspicious of their bond. "Eloise" finds Paulie at one of his lowest points in the series, as he comes to a crossroads in his loyalties and stands up for his mother to deadly results.

At the club, Silvio raises the issue of Paulie's performance, hinting that it may impact his standing with the family. Despite pleading to the contrary, Paulie is genuinely concerned, and his allegiance with Johnny seems more crucial than ever. That house of cards comes tumbling down when Paulie bumps into Carmine Sr. at a wedding, only to learn that the New Jersey crew's knowledge of him starts and ends with Johnny.

This all leads to one of Paulie's most woeful on-screen acts: the robbery and murder of an elderly woman. After Nucci gets into a minor fender-bender with friends Cookie and Minn, Paulie pitches in as a temporary chauffeur and begins to notice how poorly they treat her. Paulie's efforts to stand up for his mother are as lovely as they are hilarious, but we'd say that good will gets canceled out by smothering Minn to death when she catches him robbing her house.

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Season 5's "Where's Johnny?" is jam-packed with iconic moments amidst its heavier plot developments. There's Junior mistaking an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" for footage of himself and Bobby Bacala, and the oft-quoted line: "He never had the makings of a varsity athlete." But we've also got to give credit to the ridiculous landscaping feud between Paulie and Feech La Manna.

Anyone who's seen Robert Loggia as Mr. Eddy in David Lynch's "Lost Highway" knows how terrifying the late actor was in an onscreen fit of rage, and he brought that same intensity to the role of Feech. Newly released from prison and ready to make up for lost time, Feech kicked off an absurd territory war with Paulie after finding gardener Sal Vitro working in a neighborhood he wanted for his nephews. Both sides end up with casualties as the aging mobsters clash.

You're probably thinking the entire premise is ridiculous, and you'd be correct. To men like Paulie and Feech, the Sal Vitros of the world are disposable pawns in a broader game. As long as they get their cut, it doesn't matter who gets hurt. It's hard to choose which scene is funnier: Paulie nodding along to Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" before attacking the La Manna brothers, or his insistence to Tony that it was an act of self-defense: "He jumped out of the tree and come at me with a chainsaw!"

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"The Ride" offers some of the season's biggest developments: Christopher learns that he and Kelli have a baby on the way and he proposes to her, only to end up breaking his sobriety in a big way after Tony pressures him into a toast. For Paulie, it's a point where his personality quirks have become a thorn in the side of his friends and family, and it's beginning to turn everyone against him.

Every year, the family chips in to fund the Feast of Saint Elzear, a Catholic festival celebrated with a local fair. Among other responsibilities, Paulie is in charge of the safety and working conditions of fairground rides; a duty he skimps on to reduce his bottom line. Predictably, there's a major accident when one of the rides malfunctions, leaving several riders (including a child) with serious injuries. Bobby and Janice's daughter Domenica is among the attendees who were nearly injured, and it's satisfying to see typically timid Bobby confront Paulie about how irresponsible and dangerous his frugality has become: "Everybody wants to get rich, but you don't scrimp on safety."

He's not wrong; nor is Nucci, who Paulie angrily rebuffs when she pleads with him to reconsider his attitude. As frustrating as Paulie is in this episode, we think it's all worth it for two unforgettable scenes: Paulie's vision of the Virgin Mary at the Bing and the beautiful conclusion with mother and son watching television as an evening breeze blows through the window.

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As much as we love Paulie's comedic side, the times he couldn't wisecrack or shoot out of a situation are equally as memorable. The mobster's persistent worries about death and family came to fruition with the passing of his aunt Dottie, leading to revelations about his heritage and fueling one of Tony Sirico's best performances.

In "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh," Paulie visits Dottie after learning that she's in her final days. Her deathbed confession hits Paulie harder than any bullet could: she's his birth mother. A war-time fling with a soldier led to Dottie falling pregnant; facing shame from their family, Nucci adopted Paulie as her own. Understandably, Paulie is shaken to the core, and Sirico carries the weight of that inner turmoil to heartbreaking effect. As he puts it: "The worst thing is, I'm not who I am."

After watching how important his bond with Nucci has been over the years, it's impossible for us not to feel for Paulie as he's torn back and forth across the emotional spectrum. Although Tony convinces him to forgive Nucci, in light of all the love she's given over the years, it's not an easy decision. He's even brought to tears by Jason Barone's mother pleading for her son's life; a sight you'd never expect from a stone-cold killer. And that's why this episode's final scene, in which Paulie savagely beats Jason to extort retirement home funding for Nucci, delivers the perfect punchline.

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Paulie Walnuts is a superstitious man, the inevitable result of an old-school Catholic upbringing and a life of sin. It's no surprise that he takes matters of the afterlife seriously, and "FromWhere to Eternity" explores Paulie's superstitious anxieties in a subplot as hilarious as it is revealing. With Christopher in critical condition after Matt and Sean's attempt on his life, Paulie and the rest of the family gather to pay their respects and comfort Adriana. Despite a close call during which he's clinically dead for over a minute, Christopher recovers and shares a cryptic vision of the great beyond that leaves Paulie haunted: "Tell Tony and Paulie, three o'clock."

Tony might be able to shrug off Christopher's near-death experience as a dream, but it's not so simple for a guy like Paulie. He's not getting any younger, plenty of skeletons sit in his closet, and the uncertainty of whether Christopher really saw purgatory (or Hell) is just too much to bear. After experiencing severe nightmares, Paulie violates his religious instincts by visiting a medium, only to throw a chair and storm out when the psychic appears to channel the spirits of Paulie's past victims."That's what this is, you know," he says. "Satanic black magic. Sick s***!"

It's undeniably some of Paulie's funniest material. But the episode also reminds us that underneath all the horrific violence, dirty jokes, and tough-guy posturing, everybody in "The Sopranos" has skeletons in their closet.

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If we could pick a single episode to recommend to anybody on the fence about starting "The Sopranos," it would have to be "Pine Barrens." Directed by actor Steve Buscemi — who would later join the show's cast as Tony's cousin — it's a comedy of errors sparked by Paulie's impulsivity and accelerated by Christopher's hot head.

At Tony's request, Paulie and Christopher make a collection visit to Russian associate Valery. Arriving on the scene in a foul mood, Paulie antagonizes Valery so much that a clumsy brawl breaks out, and it takes both Paulie and Christopher to put the Russian down. They're too busy bickering to check if he's really dead, so when they drive his body out to the freezing Pine Barrens of New Jersey, Valery bursts out of the car and flees into the wilderness. The ensuing wild goose chase has Paulie and Christopher braving the elements and at each other's throats before you can say "gabagool."

It's "The Sopranos" with the dial turned all the way to black comedy. Paulie and Christopher are capable soldiers in their own right, but from the bungled murder to mishearing Tony's directions ("The guy was an interior decorator!") to fighting over Tic-Tacs, they prove themselves to be no better than Abbott and Costello.