From Where to Eternity

From Where to Eternity is the 22nd episode of HBO’s The Sopranos, the ninth of season two. Michael Imperioli wrote it, Henry J. Bronchtein directed, and it aired on March 12, 2000.

After being shot in the prior episode, Christopher Moltisanti lies in the hospital. He is clinically dead for about a minute, loses his spleen, but survives. While heavily sedated with morphine, he tells Tony and Paulie he went to Hell. There he saw Brendan Filone and Mikey Palmice, plus his own father, who gets killed again every night. Filone and Palmice had a message for Tony and Paulie: “Three o’clock.”

Tony comforts Christopher, calling it just a dream. Later, he tells Dr. Melfi he doesn’t believe he or Christopher will go to Hell. “Soldiers don’t go to Hell,” he says. “Everybody involved knows the stakes … You gotta do certain things. It’s business. We’re soldiers.” Paulie, however, is shaken. He tries to convince Christopher it was purgatory, not Hell, but has nightmares. On his girlfriend’s advice, he visits a psychic, who seems to know terrifying details about Paulie’s past—including the name of the first man he killed thirty years earlier. Paulie then complains to his priest that his church donations should have bought him immunity; he won’t donate anymore.

Pussy has a tense meeting with FBI agent Skip Lipari. He gives nothing away but repeats his fear that Tony suspects him. A street informant tells Pussy where Matt Bevilaqua is hiding. Pussy and Tony go there together. Tony questions Matt, confirms Richie had no role in the shooting, then shoots him. Pussy hesitates but also shoots. They empty their guns into the body. Later, they eat at a familiar restaurant, reminiscing about old times.

While Christopher hovers near death, Carmela finds an empty hospital room with a crucifix and prays for him. When he wakes, she tells him he has a second chance. But as they talk, she realizes Tony lied when he said Christopher dreamed of Heaven.

The women gossip about a Soprano associate whose long-term comàre had his child. Dreading that shame for her own family, Carmela asks Tony to get a vasectomy. He refuses. When he assures her he had his girlfriend tested for AIDS, she leaves the bed in disgust. Later, Tony changes his mind and agrees—but Carmela has changed hers. “All I want is you,” she says. “That’s all I have ever wanted.” They make passionate love.

First appearance: Joanne Moltisanti, Christopher’s mother, played by the first of two actresses in the role.

Deceased: Matthew Bevilaqua, shot repeatedly by Tony and Pussy for his role in the attempt on Christopher’s life.

The title plays on the film From Here to Eternity (1953). It also refers to Christopher’s journey to the afterlife and his uncertainty whether it was purgatory or hell. It may also reference the Giorgio Moroder album of that name; a later season-two episode, “Knight In White Satin Armor,” shares a similar name with another Moroder album.

In his dream, Christopher says Mikey Palmice and Brendan Filone claimed the time three o’clock would be important for Tony and Paulie.

This is the second of four episodes Bronchtein directed, and one of two that earned him a Directors Guild of America nomination for best direction.

In his commentary for “The Telltale Moozadell,” Michael Imperioli says the idea for Christopher’s afterlife experience came from a spec script he wrote between seasons one and two, about Christopher overdosing and having a near-death experience. When he discussed it with showrunner David Chase, Chase noted that Christopher would be shot in season two, and the afterlife element could be added.

Cultural references: Tony tells Melfi that Hitlers and Pol Pots deserve hell, not people like Christopher. He mentions America needing Italian immigrants to “build cities and dig subways and to make them richer.” He says the Carnegies and Rockefellers needed “worker bees,” but some immigrants didn’t want to “lose who we were, and preserve the things that meant to us: honor and family and loyalty.” He calls the J. P. Morgans “crooks and killers too, but that’s a business right, the American way.” Carmela reads Memoirs of a Geisha in bed. Tony calls the psychic a Ghostbuster. A.J. plays the Game Boy Color game Pokémon Pinball. Bevilaqua hides in Hacklebarney State Park, near a house claiming “George Washington slept here”—a common, often unsubstantiated claim. One New Jersey building where Washington definitely slept, Dey Mansion, is about 29 miles from Hacklebarney.