Tony Soprano Took Peyote & Felt Better About Murder

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This week: We assume a spiritual breakthrough makes you a better person…but what if it just makes you more comfortable being who you already are?

“I get it!”

— Tony Soprano, The Sopranos, “Kennedy and Heidi”

The best show ever made was The Sopranos. It’s not even debatable. As a partial Italian man from New Jersey who went to Rutgers, I am clearly biased. But not wrong.

In one of the greatest episodes in TV history, Tony Soprano watches the desert sunrise while on peyote & has what can only be described as a spiritual breakthrough. Sun rising, beautiful landscape, overwhelming emotion & the sudden conviction that he finally understands something fundamental about existence.

Except this man recently murdered someone he supposedly loved & whatever he’s discovering doesn’t appear to be making him feel particularly bad about it.

What exactly happened out in the Nevada desert?

Everyone Is Grieving. Tony Is Relieved.

The episode “Kennedy and Heidi” starts with Tony & Christopher Moltisanti driving down a dark road. Christopher is playing Comfortably Numb, perhaps revealing his current state. Tony recognizes something is off…but it’s too late. Christopher swerves the car to miss an oncoming vehicle, loses control & the car violently spins off the road, rolling several times before coming to a stop.

Christopher is badly injured & admits he won’t pass a drug test. Tony assesses the damage, including a tree branch that has pierced the empty child seat in the back. Then he pinches Christopher’s nose shut & suffocates him.

Christopher isn’t some stranger who failed to repay a debt. He’s family, Tony’s protégé, & the man he once imagined would eventually take over. Many believe Tony saw Christopher as more of his son than AJ (his actual son). Their relationship deteriorated over the years through addiction, resentment, disappointment & the kind of mentoring that occasionally involves threatening to kill your mentee.

Tony has plenty of reasons to see Christopher as a liability. The show gives us enough history to understand that calculation, but understanding it doesn’t make watching him carry it out any less horrifying.

Then comes the grief. Christopher’s family, Tony’s wife, the mafia, the friends. Everyone is devastated. Tony is surrounded by people mourning a loss that, privately, feels like a problem solved.

He keeps bringing up the destroyed child seat…Christopher could have killed his own daughter. Sure, that possibility is real but it also gives Tony a justification he can repeat without mentioning the part where he deliberately stopped Christopher from breathing.

What troubles him is how little his own response resembles everyone else’s. They’ve lost someone…he’s been relieved of someone. Now he has to stand around & pretend those are the same thing.

“He’s Dead.”

Tony goes to Las Vegas, where he meets Sonya, one of Christopher’s mistresses. They have sex, smoke weed & eventually take peyote. Apparently the itinerary for processing this particular loss includes sleeping with someone connected to the deceased & exploring altered states.

While tripping, they head to the casino, where Tony starts winning at roulette. Then he says, “He’s dead,” & collapses into laughter.

That moment matters as much as the famous scene that follows. Before the desert, before the sunrise, before the revelation, we see the relief come pouring out. Christopher is gone…Tony is winning. For a moment, those things seem connected.

My reading is that Tony experiences Christopher’s death as liberation from a relationship he no longer wanted to sustain. No more worrying about the next relapse, the next disaster, the next betrayal. No more pretending he still sees a future for the man.

We’ve watched something monstrous but Tony is having a lovely evening.

“I Get It!”

Later, Tony & Sonya sit in the desert watching the sunrise. In a moment that would define the episode, and quite possibly the entire series, Tony stands, throws his arms out & shouts,

“I get it!”

What, exactly, does he get? The episode doesn’t tell us. That’s part of what makes the scene so fucking powerful. We’re given the recognizable appearance of revelation without a helpful little summary explaining what the universe has allegedly disclosed.

If this scene appeared in a documentary about Psychedelic healing, you could imagine the music swelling while someone explained that Tony had finally released what no longer served him. Unfortunately, we saw how he released it.

My interpretation is that his relief has acquired a bigger meaning. What began as I’m glad Christopher is gone becomes something that feels profound, perhaps even cosmically affirmed. The winning streak, the laughter, the sunrise: everything seems to line up.

Alan Watts often described the Hindu idea of lila: existence as a cosmic drama, with the divine playing every part. Maybe Tony’s revelation has something of that quality. The tragedy, the absurdity, Christopher, himself...all part of the same enormous production. Maybe he feels he can finally stop fighting the fact that he’s playing the role of Tony Soprano.

That’s an unsettling possibility. There’s a difference between recognizing yourself as part of the whole & deciding that whatever you do must therefore belong in the script…Tony might experience one as the other. A cosmic drama is a pretty convenient discovery when you’ve just murdered another member of the cast.

But I don’t think we need to solve the scene to take its question seriously. Tony can experience beauty, awe & an overwhelming sense of understanding after committing murder. Those feelings don’t arrive with an explanation of their moral significance.

I recognize something about that moment.

My “I get it” Moment

In August of 2024, I embarked on an ambitious back-to-back Psychedelic journey consisting of Samadhi (an Ayahuasca-like brew containing DMT & MAOIs) at night & Bufo (5-MeO-DMT) the following morning. I do not recommend this protocol, but it was the itinerary I had chosen for my own exploration of consciousness.

This was my second time communing with Samadhi, & it was a far more peaceful & blissful experience than the first, capped off by an intense, super-realistic dream involving a conversation with my late brother.

In the morning, I hopped in a beat-up truck & headed deep into the Mexican jungle for an appointment with the toad. This was my 4th time blasting off with the God Molecule, & other than the first, it was the most powerful: atoms & quarks dancing & vibrating all around me, being bathed in cosmic love, complete transcendence. No part of “me” remained in this realm.

Afterward, I went to the pool where I was staying & was met with the most extraordinary clarity I have ever experienced. My decisions, my patterns, my relationships…all of it was laid out before me in crystal-clear detail, as though someone had handed me an explanation of my own life.

And interestingly, tying back to Tony’s experience, none of it was judgmental. None of it was “you should have gone left instead of right” or “you should have dated this woman instead of that one.” So I understand how a powerful mystical experience can deliver what feels like exactly the message you need to hear without producing a scintilla of guilt or remorse.

Whether that absence of judgment tells us something about the universe or simply about the experience itself is a harder question.

Maybe Feeling Better Is the Problem

We talk about releasing guilt, shedding shame, accepting ourselves & letting go of other people’s expectations…I’ve wanted those things myself. Plenty of people carry guilt they never deserved, or spend years punishing themselves for being human.

Still, what are we accepting? What are we letting go of? Some expectations are suffocating. Others include “please stop hurting the people who love you.”

For Tony, less guilt could mean less resistance to doing whatever benefits Tony. Greater self-acceptance could mean becoming more comfortable with a self everyone else has to survive. The experience might genuinely improve his internal life while offering absolutely nothing to the people around him.

That possibility deserves more attention in Psychedelic culture. We’re very receptive to someone telling us they feel lighter, freer & more at peace. We rarely hear from the person who has to live with them on Tuesday.

Who Gets to Call It a Breakthrough?

Tony’s experience feels profound, but what does it change? Is he more honest afterward? Does he take responsibility? When another person’s needs conflict with his, does that beautiful sense of connection show up anywhere?

We don’t need every Psychedelic experience to produce a better person. Pleasure, curiosity & a strange afternoon are perfectly legitimate reasons to explore altered states. But once we start calling an experience an awakening, it’s fair to ask what someone has awakened to.

Tony stands in the desert & shouts, “I get it!” We never learn exactly what he gets. We do know that Christopher is dead, Tony killed him, & Tony seems to have found peace.

That’s what makes the scene so unsettling. Sometimes peace is what we hope someone will find…sometimes we should be worried about what they’ve made peace with.

Credit to the following YouTube videos, whose breakdowns of this scene helped shape my interpretation:

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I’m honored to share that my work appears in the latest issue of Psychedelic Pathways Magazine. This issue brings together a range of voices exploring psychedelics, culture, healing, creativity & responsible engagement with altered states of consciousness.

You can read the issue here: https://magsfast.com/Magazines/Psychedelic-Pathways-Magazine/Strange-Rituals?code=Friends-of-StrangeRituals-Weisse-disc50