Just finished this show today. Never watched it before. Here's something interesting I picked up on. The psychiatrist is the audience stand-in. Like us, she can only watch Tony, she can never be part of it. That is why they never hook up, that is why she never says anything about the rape. A TV character cannot affect your life, that is why her world and his world never really connect. When her psychiatrist sees him in the car garage, he describes the person as a worker/handyman (despite Tony being dressed in a nice overcoat at the time), it is because she imagined he saw Tony. We always see two perspectives in the show. Her perspective and Tony's perspective. Tony is an unreliable narrator, we see that in the way he lies to everyone around him with ease. That is why we are sucked into his world, because that's what crafty and adept sociopaths do. Despite all the violence you see, you still root for him. In the penultimate episode the psychiatrist shuts him out, we no longer have her perspective. The last episode opens up with him waking up, we are now seeing his perspective only. Everything is great, optimistic. He puts on "Don't Stop Believing", he finally lets his guard down, he finally thinks he can stop to smell the roses and enjoy "normalcy". He isn't aware that his paranoia and mistrust and scheming is what made him survive that long. In one of the first meetings with the psychologist he says he doesn't like the Machiavellian stuff, but that's a lie. He's Machiavellian as fuck. A guy we've never seen before obviously cases Tony out. Tony even notices him, several times, but he decides not to worry. He thinks he has won. Bam. Black. Who sent the guy to kill him? PAULIE. To understand why Paulie killed Tony, we must understand who Tony is. Tony is the Devil, or the Devil's incarnation on Earth. He is evil. He lies and he corrupts. When he found out that Bobby never killed a person, he orchestrates the fight and loses on purpose so that Bobby will feel obliged to do it when the opportunity comes up. Tony jumps on the opportunity to offer to kill some random dude who wants custody of his child (innocent victim). He is the purveyor of sin: alcohol, gluttony, greed, lust, gambling, murder. That's where he thrives, where he feels the most at home. Who is Paulie? He's an instrument of God's justice. It is undeniable that God and the Catholic Church is a huge element in the show. Paulie kills, but he doesn't kill innocents. When they're chasing the Russian, we are made to think that it could have been the Russian who stole the car and there's a danger of revenge against Paulie, but that doesn't happen, because Paulie only kills people who deserve to die. He saw the virgin mary in the strip club, Tony laughs this off. When Paulie sees the cat he wants to get rid of it, which is his superstitious belief that they are evil. Tony says "he's a good guy". There's a myth that Catholic Church declared cats friends of Satan or something, but since Paulie complains about the cat, they are clearly referencing the myth. Paulie says the cat keeps looking at Christopher's picture. Even when he moved it he said the cat went over to the new spot. The cat indicates in one way or another that Tony killed Christopher. Paulie has a visible epiphany in the last episode in front of the pork store. He realises that everyone is dead because of Tony, that he is the source of evil and bad luck. Tony even says how after Christopher has been gone that his luck did a 180. Paulie realises that Tony is a demonic presence, he feeds off death. When people die, Tony does well. Paulie then decides to kill him. Throughout the show, the only person we see going "outside of the family" on his own (and not to the FBI) is Paulie. Paulie is the only one who could hire an outsider and not have it go back to him. We see a pattern in the show that when someone orders a hit it always comes back to them. Not Paulie though. Tony suspected Paulie of telling Johnny Sacks about Ralph's joke, but Paulie successfully evades the accusation. The only one who could order such a hit and not have it come back to him is Paulie.