Sopranos "The Blue Comet" Episode: Paulie Walnuts No Rat

The so-called " The Blue Comet" episode of the Sopranos was the second to last installment of the popular HBO series and the big question on everyone's mind outside of what will Tony and/or Phil's fate be after next week's finale is: Whose the Rat?

Many say it is Paulie Walnuts.  We say, that seems highly unlikely thanks to a rare clause in the actor's contract that we will go into more detail shortly.

But here is a cliff notes version of "The Blue Comet" penultimate episode. 

"The Blue Comet", the 85th episode of the HBO original series, was written by Matthew Weiner and David Chase and was directed by Alan Taylor.

In this episode, Paulie Walnuts and Patsy Parisi head Tony's plan for a hit on Phil after Tony learns from an FBI agent that Phil was planning a hit on him, his brother-in-law Bobby and Slyvio.

Corky Caporale arranges the hit but it fails when the "cousins from Italy" hired to do the job kill Phil's comare and her father, mistaking him for Phil.  Silvio and Paulie learn of the mistake from a newspaper article on the murders and its accompanying photos of the victims. Silvio tells Tony that the hit failed and they conclude that Phil has been hiding out in an unknown location ever since ordering the strike on New Jersey.

Phil's plan is put into action when two hitmen enter a hobby shop where Bobby is at a counter, buying a model Blue Comet train for his son. They riddle him with bullets, sending him crashing into a toy train set. After Silvio and Patsy gather up documents from the backroom at the Bada Bing, their car is blocked by two hitmen's car as it pulls into the parking lot. As Sil reaches into a bag for a gun, the assassins shoot, hitting Sil in the side and then again. Patsy fires back and then runs off into a ravine behind the club as one of the hitmen exhausts his clip. Paulie tells Tony that Sil is in a coma from which doctors do not think he will wake.

The "Blue Comet" was a passenger train operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey which ran between Atlantic City and Jersey City from 1929 to 1941.  Bobby is seen buying a "Blue Comet" model train before he is murdered. 

The outcome of the Sopranos finale has to this point been kept tightly under wraps.  Most fans are asking the question: Whose the rat?

While many are speculating the "rat" (assuming there is one) would be Paulie Walnuts, we say not so fast.

Tony Sirico, the Brooklyn born actor who plays Paulie Walnuts, lived a real life of crime back in the 1960's. 

Before becoming an actor, Sirico was a feared shakedown artist who preyed on Manhattan nightclubs and who once gave this description of his own extortion technique: "You hit them over the head with a baseball bat, and they come around." After a dispute with a disco owner, Sirico once warned, "I'm going to come back here and carve my initials in your forehead. You better learn a lesson, you better show me the respect I deserve." A Bellevue Hospital psychiatric report from that period concluded that Sirico suffered from a "character disorder."

He spent a total of 20 months in jails like the famed Sing Sing for holding up a number of night clubs in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While in prison, he became interested in acting from watching a theater group that came to perform.

The so-called politically "far-to-the-right" Sirico, whose brother by the way is a priest, informed producers early on that he would only take the role if promised his character never turned "rat".  Apparently there is a clause in his contract that stipulates this. 

Sirico is someone we can see requiring such a stipulation.  He's every much the fun-loving character portrayed on The Sopranos.  We recount a time when he was playing in the Intercontinental Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico and a patron was on the phone with her mom (a huge Paulie Walnuts fan) saying how he was there playing.  Sirico then grabbed the phone and started talking to the woman's mom.  He is also beloved by friends and family in his Bensonhurst, Brooklyn neighborhood.  We can't see Paulie betraying them. 

Chase has apparently confirmed that Sirico's character will survive the finale.  This is the closest thing we have to a spoiler.

Okay, and Adrianna was never killed. 

We made that one up but it's among the biggest Sopranos conspiracy theories to date.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com

Originally published June 4, 2007 9:56 am ET