Why did Paulie didn't get whacked ! I mean he was greedy and never paid his full tribute to Tony .

I don't think Tony saw him as a threat. Paulie always pissed him off with his neurotic personality but never enough to kill him. Plus he probably realized that most of his crew was already dead and it didn't make sense to kill another one.

I think that Tony considered Paulie to be fiercely loyal to him,and willing to follow his orders regardless of the consequences.

Even though Tony was a very smart,street wise Boss,
he vastly underestimated Paulie. Part of it was Tony's ego. He felt that Paulie was basically stupid,and that without Tony,he couldn't make it in the Mob world.

As we saw,Paulie was treacherous enough to try to ingratiate himself with Carmine Luppertazzi. In his mind,after Tony was gone,Carmine would support him as the new Soprano Boss.

When his plan fell apart,he must have been quaking in his boots,waiting for a bullet in the head.
The fact that Tony never found out is very unusual,given the nature of the Mob grapevine.

Remember,Paulie almost did get whacked by Tony,when they were on the boat in Florida. If Paulie would have been a little less cautious,and maybe more drunk,he might have figured,"What the heck,Tony's my best friend,and the Ginny Sack thing was so long ago,I'll just come clean.We can both have a laugh,and it'll be forgotten.

Lucky for him,Paulie was so paranoid and distrustful,that his gut told him not to admit anything. Had he copped out to Tony,Paulie might never have left that boat alive.

I think Paulie was the only member of the crew that Tony really loved as a family member even though he wasn't blood. When they are at dinner in FL and Beansie pulls out the old pix Tony says something along the lines of how he wished Paulie was his father.
Add in the loyalty factor and that explains it to me.

Probably kept him around because he was one of those from his fathers generation that he idolized growing up, loyalty factor like others say.

Although he came very close to getting whacked in the later episodes because Tony realized it was him who likely relayed the Ralphie/Ginny Sack joke to Johnny Sack.

Paulie the orphan... loll his real momma was a bad girl... and irresponsible

There's a theory that Paulie was the one who sold Tony out in the finale. I think even David Chase said in an interview "The Walrus is Paul"
There are some clues about this...
-Paulie is supposed to go and meet Butchie along with Carlo but we learned that Carlo has flipped, so Paulie went alone.
-He comes back with a box of scissors. Butchie and/or Albie of NY own a hair salon.
-This might be a bit of a reach as my memory is hazy, but at the sit-down Paulie seems to be patted down rather quickly and just as a formality.
-He refuses Tony at first but then he changes his mind about the position after T tells him Patsy will get it. I think the reason he accepted it was because he knew Tony would get whacked so he didn't want to make Tony suspicious by being uncooperative.

Personally, I don't agree 100% with this, but I think it's plausible. Makes much more sense than the Patsy theory.

I wonder if they kept the black cat?

Paulie wasn't smart enough to be a boss...let alone brave enough to whack T

I think he wudda whacked T mo?

No. After lamming it Florida, he was scared of Tony. I don't think he had the brains to, without immediately getting clipped by the other capos. Look how badly he botched the Festival (The Ride).

He served his purpose.

Paulie Question?

I’m not sure if I ever seen Paulie smokin in any other scene than this.... any one else?

https://youtu.be/1eitzioWyvI

He smokes a few other times in the show. In the first episode he's smoking outside of Satriale's (when it was called Centanni's) when they're discussing the Kolar situation. He smokes when they are in Italy too. There's a few scenes where he has a pack of Marlboro Lights in front of him, he just doesn't smoke on camera for whatever reason. He's a smoker in real life or was anyways. There's a few clips of him being interviewed from the 80's where he's talking about his time before acting and in prison and he's smoking almost the entire time. When him and Pussy were on Hollywood Squares of all things he was smoking backstage. He ashed his smoke in Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's mouth, haha. They were all on at the same time.

I remember the bit with Triumph. Do you remember what Triumph said to him?

With the new discovery of him being an orphan, what does that mean about his made status? What if the sailor wasn't italian?

Great question but I think many guys over the years have been made without 100% confo of their accurate bloodline and as long as they were Loyal and productive or even served at some level , almost any level, they were installed as well as celebrated.

Especially in cities who needed the ranks.

The height of Italian and Irish immigration, among other European countries, unless I'm talking out of my ass, was the late 1800s and early 1900s. So a lot of the mob guys we talk about have to have some blend in their DNA. To believe otherwise you would want to have a lot of snake oil in your bathroom cupboard.

IMO.

Most mob guys probably are close to 100% Italian but a significant amount HAVE to have some other DNA.

Source: I watched Larry David learn about his Native American heritage on George Lopez.

LoL ,and sen. warrens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i3spujOt8Q

Right around the 4:25 mark.

David Chase and the writers probably felt that going into whether Paulie was actually Italian and eligible to be made would be too Godfather-ish, not to mention distracting from the story about Paulie and Nucci.

It was a non issue for someone like the charactor of Paulie, since his real Mother was already a known Italian, it did not matter who his Father was.

Plenty of non full bred Italians have been inducted.

Isn't the rule the father's side? I understand it's only a show. When I seen the episode many years ago, I thought there would be more to it.

I thought they were setting it up for Paulie secret to get out and for him to somehow get kicked out as well. I noticed that his real Ma said she had an encounter with a GI by the name of "Russ" that was Paulie's Dad. I was hoping it wasn't going to be that dick at Hugh's b-day party, Russ Fagoli, haha.

Ive always knew it as to the birth from Mother but if it was not and the blood line came from The Father, who would want to put up a problem to a strong personality of the person sponsoring the inductees. Certainly if it was powerful or huge earners we are talking about. It would just get done.

It got loose and Things Change over the years.

Tony hits two made guys. Ralphie at the Bing after he kills that girl, and stapling that parking ticket to Mikey Palmice's jacket for his fuckface-itus. I think the show's premise is that rule violations these days are frowned upon for good earners, but not necessarily enforced. Some mope who isn't bringing in any real money probably gets tossed into the meat grinder at Satriale's for hitting a made guy. Tony had other reasons that he considered killing Paulie but clearly his lineage was not important enough to raise as an issue. Tony was new school.

" New School" ..... I like that and agree.

if paulie would get whacked that would ruin the show imo
almost everyone loved him
he was funny mean idiot smart weird threatening friendly altogether !
he was like the al bundy of the mob lol
such a special character there is no doubt.

That's pretty much how it is on the street as well, for the most part the all mighty dollar.

Used to be 3 ways to get ur button 1) Loyal Shooter 2) Earner 3) Family relationships

Today shooting is more or less a thing of the past so if your not born into it, you have to $$$$ EARN that button now.

Yes Sir.