Probably Super Obvious To Others But I Hadnt Thought Of It Prior - Tumblr Posts

So this may come out of nowhere but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I’ve see a lot of different ideas about what made Salieri lean towards Tom and then change to Sam. Personally I’ve felt like it’s a mix of reasons, but thoughts come down to this: when did Salieri find out about Frank?

I know that’s a boring reason, but I think it feeds into the others. Tommy, let’s be fair, is hyper-competent for a cabbie. After 8 years of being with the group, he managed to get made very quickly and then raised to capo within five years. I’d probably say that we see the only three times Tommy has spared someone/hesitated in all of that time (Billy, Michelle, Frank). Tommy has skills, Tommy is (as far as Salieri knows) totally loyal, and Tommy has ambition. While I do think Frank’s conversation with Tommy was him projecting, I think some of those ideas came from talks with Salieri as well. After all, Frank goes out of his way to inform the bank that Tommy is the one coming for him. The Don had to have been speaking in such a ways that indicates he would send Tommy of all people, so this was probably a test for Tommy to move forward, and then later Tommy is the one that speaks for Salieri at the whiskey deal despite the fact that Sam, someone who is already a capo, is there.

So I think Salieri may have been considering Tommy for underboss and/or to be his successor. He has him do increasingly high risk/high reward jobs during the war with Morello and odds are that he continued to show some favoritism to Tommy after. So at some point, something had to have happened that caused Salieri to switch gears.

My interpretation of Sam’s line “Don Salieri really liked you” has always been equal parts Sam trying not to show regret and that he liked Tom, acknowledgement that for a while the Don favored Tommy over everyone including him, reflecting on the anger Salieri must have shown once he found out about all of this, and fear that Sam, now the favorite, could also end up on the other end of Salieri’s wrath should he make a similar mistake. He comments on Frank several times through the fight, showing that he clearly reflecting on it, and mentions Tommy being smart enough to disappear at the end. I don’t believe that Sam wanted to kill either of his friends, but the event happened recently enough that it would be something Salieri would be hung up on, maybe even rant about in front of Sam about the consequences of something like that.

I think that Salieri found out between Election Campaign and Just for Relaxation, because in the former he is still trying to manipulate Tommy. He has Tommy pulling a high risk/high reward job that he is trusting him with (note that he gives him the details privately, away from Paulie and Sam) and he still triea to separate Tommy and Paulie with the drowning story. Then, all of the sudden in Just for Relaxation, he’s communicating with one of his capos about the heist and not the other. I do believe that Sam didn’t know about the drugs bc I think he would have protested otherwise, but Salieri went out of his way to “give Sam information” the others wouldn’t have. had Tommy not been so suspicious, Salieri wouldn’t have said anything. (I know he didn’t in the original and that it was actually diamonds there but this felt more deliberate). He asked Sam to drive him home when his number one wheelman is RIGHT THERE. It’s such a stark change from just the previous chapter that means something had to have happened. Maybe other people knew this already, but it was never stated explicitly so there it is.

I think Salieri would have continued working with Tommy until either died and pushed for Tommy being his second (even not giving up on separating him from the member of the trio he could have seen as a threat to his business/weak link depending on the day). I also think that had there been other circumstances, it was very possible that he would have confronted Tommy after Moonlighting rather than sending Sam, as Salieri initially tried to do when he suspected Frank (maybe even sent Tommy after Paulie instead depending on how the conversation went). Instead, the bank job is just another show of disloyalty and unreliability from Tommy and it makes Salieri pissed. So, he sends Sam after them as a show of Sam’s loyalty. Sam has just seen what Salieri thinks of disloyalty and how Tommy’s act of sparing Frank made him act and he’s not about to ask the Don to send someone else. You don’t do that. So he goes and kills Paulie and tries to kill Tommy, scared that disobeying means all three of them die anyway when the next guy comes for them. I don’t think it even occurs to Sam that they could retaliate or take down Salieri (the “lack of vision” that Frank mentioned). Not to say that he’s dumb, but he’s been in the business for nearly two decades and has seen how Salieri has killed his way to the top; the man probably functioned as a father to him.

Anyways. All this to say that I think the tipping point was Salieri finding out about Frank and the bank job was just icing on the cake.