Sopranos finale

[edensquad]

Did we just get punk'd?!!?

[calltheobvious]

I think that if David Chase walked through my front door right now, my wife would kill him. We both feel so...so used.

[alteran]

Ditto. That was lametacular.

[Raleighfan]

You feel used? Why?....because Tony didn't get his brains blown out in the finale? Seems that perhaps David Chase was telling us that, for all its occupational hazards, being a made man is just a job like any other....Tony is just a common working guy with ups and downs like anybody else. I'll have to chew on this ending for a while....that's just my initial reaction.

[jimsumner]

Agree with Raleighfan that it may take awhile to absorb but my initial reaction is that I am still looking forward to the finale. When is that scheduled?

[Lord Ash]

*laugh*

Best Sopranos post EVER, my friend:)

Yeah, that was pretty lame. When the final big payoff in a series is that "It really did seem like SOMETHING was going to happen, didn't it?!" you are in trouble. I am sorry, I know Chase is all "Life isn't neat, things don't always happen like you expect," but this isn't life, it is a TV show.

*sigh* How lame.

[captmojo]

My first reaction was, "Is this sabotage?, a terrorist plot?, did the cable receiver blow out?-what timing!"

[77devil]

The finale will be the theatrical movie. No wait, there's a sequel.:D

[mapei]

I absolutely loved the episode. Maybe not the actual screen-goes-blank part, though I'm OK with it. The possibility that the screen goes blank because Tony is whacked is a very intriguing one.

I liked that they paid tribute, one way or another, to so many of the show's characters. Almost everyone significant got a good-bye, even Christopher with the photograph. On another site, someone pointed out that Chase's style at the end of each season was to have the big drama not in the final episode but in the one preceding, with the finale given more to reflection. And so it was.

I also thought we DID get resolution to the major story lines: Tony is likely to be indicted and has very little chance of beating it; AJ is re-corrupted, and following in T's footsteps even down to the therapy; Meadow remains in denial about her family's true situation while likely setting herself up (unwittingly?) for a supportive role in the Big Family; Paulie would like to retire but can't; Phil is disposed of, and peace of a sort made with NY; Carmela does indeed know what is really going on in Tony's "business," and elects to keep reaping the material benefits.

Just because Chase didn't show us all the details confirming these things doesn't mean that he didn't give some pretty clear signals. And, to the extent ambiguity remains (did Tony even survive the restaurant? can he beat the FBI rap?), I find that much more satisfying than if things had been resolved with no ambiguity. I think there is no way we were going to get, or be satisfied with, a tidy ending. To me, it would seem less "real," always the show's greatest strength.

Bravo.

[wilson]

I absolutely loved the episode. Maybe not the actual screen-goes-blank part, though I'm OK with it. The possibility that the screen goes blank because Tony is whacked is a very intriguing one.

I liked that they paid tribute, one way or another, to so many of the show's characters. Almost everyone significant got a good-bye, even Christopher with the photograph. On another site, someone pointed out that Chase's style at the end of each season was to have the big drama not in the final episode but in the one preceding, with the finale given more to reflection. And so it was.

I also thought we DID get resolution to the major story lines: Tony is likely to be indicted and has very little chance of beating it; AJ is re-corrupted, and following in T's footsteps even down to the therapy; Meadow remains in denial about her family's true situation while likely setting herself up (unwittingly?) for a supportive role in the Big Family; Paulie would like to retire but can't; Phil is disposed of, and peace of a sort made with NY; Carmela does indeed know what is really going on in Tony's "business," and elects to keep reaping the material benefits.

Just because Chase didn't show us all the details confirming these things doesn't mean that he didn't give some pretty clear signals. And, to the extent ambiguity remains (did Tony even survive the restaurant? can he beat the FBI rap?), I find that much more satisfying than if things had been resolved with no ambiguity. I think there is no way we were going to get, or be satisfied with, a tidy ending. To me, it would seem less "real," always the show's greatest strength.

Bravo.

I agree completely. I hadn't considered the possibility that the blackout indicated Tony's death. I was, however, satisfied. A lot of the complaints throughout the series' life hae been with direct regard to the plot. But in the end, David Chase never intended to tell, "What happens to these people?". He was always more interested in "Who are these people?".

[Jumbo]

I agree completely. I hadn't considered the possibility that the blackout indicated Tony's death. I was, however, satisfied. A lot of the complaints throughout the series' life hae been with direct regard to the plot. But in the end, David Chase never intended to tell, "What happens to these people?". He was always more interested in "Who are these people?".

Agreed. Although I was initially confused, then angry, the ending has already grown on me. This show is ultimately about life, particularly as it relates to Tony's two families. In fact, if I remember correctly, when the show was first set to air, it was advertised almost as a comedy -- Tony could deal with the "family" if he could only survive his own.

The Sopranos has always, at its heart, been about the "actual" Sopranos. And in the end, we see them together. Well, not really together -- Meadow is still struggling to parallel park. And what's more frustratingly real than that? We see at least three characters who make us think "Tony's going down." But we're left with nothing. Did one of those three hit Tony? Is that why it went dark? Maybe. But, more likely, life just went on. And that makes the episode more like good literature and less like formulaic pop culture for an instant-gratification world. I suspect the people who truly loathe this ending also think "24" is Emmy-worthy, featuring good writing. Me? It might not have been what I preferred initially, but it's growing on me already.

[JulesInLA]

Okay my take...very late after a dinner party -

Lots of the music in this episode is also part of the story beginning from when Tony wakes up to an alarm clock with music...

Next when they are at the airport waiting for the FBI guy, Tony says "listen to the music" as the airplanes roar over-head. It's a cue...

Bob Dylan before AJ's car catches fire...listen to the lyrics. It foreshadows the rest of the episode.

Keep listening for the "Twightlight Zone" theme. Actually just before that which seems like a David Chase "hire me - I'm smart - see what I can do thing" if you catch it.

Listen to the music...

AJ's conversation with Carm & Tony about going to Afghanistan becomes a voice about the war's hopelessness...

And when Karl Rove starts dancing, I think it's Chase saying there's a mob out there that everyone is ignoring.

I think that's what Chase was really saying...

"How do you define a mob?"

[alteran]

I suspect the people who truly loathe this ending also thing "24" is Emmy-worthy, featuring good writing.

Hey, no need to get nasty. ;-)

[Rich]

Does anyone else still have a headache thinking about Phil's demise? I can't get that scene out of my head.

[calltheobvious]

Damnit Jumbo,

You watch basketball with a better eye than I do, and now I learn that you watch TV that way, too.

I've watched the finale again since the first run, and I've totally reversed my initial opinion. It doesn't make any sense to have enjoyed the Sopranos for so long in part because it was so different from most everything else on television and then to be disappointed when Chase didn't do what most writers have, which is to put a nice, neat bow on the show and send us on our collective way.

Great literature is great literature because there's enough there there for people to chew on long past the release date. I don't know if The Sopranos rises to the standard of great literature, but the fact that I'll be thinking about the show for years to come bodes well for Chase's grand project.

Well played, Mr. Chase.

[wilson]

Another thing about the ending:
I think Chase is trying to remind us all that these mobsters, interesting and even likeable as they have been over the years, are not good people. The psychological study thread in the last couple of episodes was his most heavyhanded way of saying that while Tony has a "soft side," he is first and foremost a sociopath. At the series' close, he is enjoying a loving gathering of what might be any ordinary family "made in America." But the ominous undercurrent reminds the viewer that, even in the most tender of moments, death hangs over the entire enterprise. Tony is a merchant of death, and in his particular line of work, business can't help but get brought home. Just ask Adriana La Cerva (or any one of many others). For his part, Tony is irretrievably caught. He can't exactly apply for a new job, even though his current one places him and his family in great danger.
As for Carmela, Meadow, and AJ, they are complicit in the whole thing. It's of course never explicitly acknowledged, but they know what Tony does (especially after going on "DEFCON 4," as AJ put it, during the war). They benefit greatly from the nicer side of his work (the money, the respect, etc.). But they also wear part of the target that is constantly on his back. Sure, they might be about to get whacked in the diner, but they might be about to get whacked anywhere, at any time. That's life for them, and as Tony reminded us, "once you're in this family, there's no getting out." That's why it's easy to understand, as Chase suggested at the series' close, why AJ might get into the "family business" via the movie industry, why even Meadow might do so via the legal profession (an aside--wish I could watch her inability to resist the family's gravitational pull and her subsequent emergence as, doubtless, a terrific mob lawyer), and why Carmela says to herself, "well, I've got few other choices, so as long as Tony keeps buying me jewelry and fur coats and Porsches, I'll just convince myself that all is well and maybe he really is in construction, with the periodic assistance of Father Intintola."

[Stray Gator]

I thought the ending was superb. After creating a series of impressions that conveyed a sense of the vulnerability of Tony and his family, and then developing a crescendo of apprehension about potential imminent threats to their safety even in relatively mundane surroundings, the director left the viewers immersed in those uneasy feelings. What I found interesting was that neither Tony nor any members of his family seemed the least bit uneasy or "on guard"--signifying, I suppose, that (a) ordinary people like us simply cannot comprehend what it must be like to live under that kind of constant apprehension; and (b) those who reap the benefits of that life must be willing to pay that price, and manage somehow to adjust and accept it.

[billybreen]

Agreed. Although I was initially confused, then angry, the ending has already grown on me.

I agree. I really liked it.

My impression of the ending is that it's a reflection on the life Tony leads, that even in these mundane situations the next threat is always around the bend. And I think it was as much a commentary on the audience as on Tony -- Chase is showing us how on edge we would be leading this life as his last attempt to cure our glorification of Tony.

Also, seeing Phil get crushed was awesome.

[Mal]

I'm in the thumbs up camp.

At first I was a little bit bothered by how fairy tale it all was - with Tony in the backyard raking leaves, I thought to myself "this guy was totally in purgatory, if not Hell, the last six episodes. He's done nothing to atone, and now all the threads are ending happily?" Where's the comeuppance?

But the final long scene brought it home for me. My heart was pounding after it was over, even though with any other characters or show it would have been the most mundane scene ever. I mean, has anyone managed to fit that much tension into a young woman parallel parking before? It reinforced once more that despite the veneer of normalcy Tony's managed to add to his life, he could die or get arrested at any moment, in any place. Every day. He's screwed, despite the happy family vision at the end. Potential threats are all around him at all times.

I like the "he just got capped" explanation of the blackout at the end. That's what happened to Phil. Never knew it was coming, he just went from speaking to blackness. I doubt that's what Chase had in mind, but it reinforces the whole anytime, anywhere issue nonetheless.

Other memorable parts for me: Carm complaining about the odor at the new house. So symbolic on so many levels. The Phil death scene was incredible. So unbelievably gruesome but somehow made me almost chuckle at the same time. The cat and Tony and Paulie's reaction to it were fantastic. Paulie had some of the funniest lines he's had in years. The FBI agent's reaction to Phil's offing was totally unexpected to me. What was that all about? Wow. Tony going on and on about his mother with AJ's counselor. His vision of the future when he visits Junior was great, too (as well as his placing Bobby's kids above Janice in the order of importance).

Chase totally was toying with people with the final words, though: "Don't stop" with the cut to black was cruel.

I see now, after posting, that stray and billybreen just said what I wanted to, and much more succinctly, so sorry for being slow on the trigger and verbose.

[jimsumner]

Okay. I have it all figured out. Marketing genius. Rush release season eight on DVD. Have alternative endings that the user can determine. Tony turns into government witness. A.J. whacks Tony. Carmela leaves Tony for Dr. Melfi. Imagine the possibilities. Best-selling DVD of all time.

[mapei]

Above I posted that they paid tribute to most of the show's main characters. They also paid tribute to the show's main locales: Satriale's; the Bing; Tony's house; a therapist's office. It's amazing how much he managed to get into 61 minutes that I am sure were much more tightly edited than it seemed.

And, of course, to music, some of which we didn't hear but saw only as titles on a jukebox. Every episode ends with such evocative music . . . except this one, which just ends.

[Rich]

As for Carmela, Meadow, and AJ, they are complicit in the whole thing. It's of course never explicitly acknowledged, but they know what Tony does (especially after going on "DEFCON 4," as AJ put it, during the war). They benefit greatly from the nicer side of his work (the money, the respect, etc.). But they also wear part of the target that is constantly on his back. Sure, they might be about to get whacked in the diner, but they might be about to get whacked anywhere, at any time. That's life for them, and as Tony reminded us, "once you're in this family, there's no getting out."

If this subject matter interests you, there's an excellent book written by Henry "Goodfellas" Hill's children about growing up in a real mob family. The bad far, far outweighs the good. It's called On the Run: A Mafia Childhood. Here's a link to Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Run-Mafia-Childhood-Gregg-Hill/dp/0446615935/ref=sr_1_1/105-7967530-6958814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181581153&sr=8-1

[DevilAlumna]

I think that if David Chase walked through my front door right now, my wife would kill him. We both feel so...so used.

Last night, I would have been happy to help your wife. I nearly yelled at my husband for messing with the remote, until he looked at me with the same accusatory stare; it took us a good 30 seconds before recovering enough to comment.

This morning, however, I think David Chase is brilliant. I can't think of how else the show could have ended, that would have been as thought-provoking or as much in the spirit of the show. Now I want the DVD, to hear the running commentary.

I also want the Season soundtrack, to pay closer attention to the lyrics. HBO ran a special earlier this spring, on the "Music of The Sopranos," and Chase mentioned that he was VERY deliberate about what music he used; I think that was quite obvious in the finale.

[Lord Ash]

Disliked it last night, dislike it today. A great show should NOT end with "Oh man, he REALLY made you feel like something was GOING to happen, but nothing ever did!" I am sorry, I understand all of the levels of depth and all that, but in the end I think it was just a lame attempt to leave it open enough for a movie, nothing more. Money money money.

[3rdgenDukie]

Nah. No movie.

The ending speaks to the impossibility of 'closure' for something this big. It encompassed virtually every aspect of loyalty, love, brutality, betrayal. It was about life and the shadow of death. How do you 'wrap that up'????

You can't in any comprehensively explicit way. Chase would have failed miserably had he tried.

This ending was the only one, IMO, that allows for the viewer to truly begin to understand the magnitude and the scope of the first 80 hours. To reflect on the endless complexity and possibilities that the show so incredibly portrayed.

A movie would truly destroy everything. I can't imagine Chase isn't aware of this, and regards his masterpiece complete in its incompleteness.

[Dukerati]

Angry yesterday, mollified today.

I don't think there is any way that Tony got killed in the last scene. I think the music, the camera angles, the carefully crafted tension were all deliberate to show Tony living in his own personal hell, even when the people he loves most is around him. If you can't enjoy a casual dinner with your family, how does that speak to your quality of life? In a way, Tony's fate is worse than death. In addition, if Tony got popped in the last scene, the gunman would've at least walked next to Tony to try to avoid killing his family-- that's the mafia way (Phil's death illustratees this point). As such, I think Chase would've at least shown the guy coming out of the bathroom.

In all, great ending to a great show. (I would LOVE a DVD with alternate endings though....)

[Raleighfan]

I absolutely loved the episode. Maybe not the actual screen-goes-blank part, though I'm OK with it. The possibility that the screen goes blank because Tony is whacked is a very intriguing one.
......
Bravo.

When the screen went blank, my immediate thought was that maybe T got it from one of the other diner patrons....so I was expecting something else---say, a montage of Tony's life or "Anthony Soprano, 1960-2007"----to come up on the screen and when it didn't, hmmmm... But seems that killing Tony at the end would have been anti-climactic; after all, he's been shot before, seen the white light, etc. and lived to tell about it. Hub almost had me convinced that T was going to get the Big One at the end and I'd kind of fingered AJ (gone completely bonkers) as the one to do it. While the ending might not have been satisfactory to everyone (what an understatement! anybody see the people on the evening news venting about this?), it seems to be in keeping with the way many other episodes ended...as in "what happens next?".

[mapei]

I just don't agree that "nothing happened." Man, if you take the season as a whole, *everything* happened: Tony's most trusted three lieutenants are gone; one of his underlings has flipped. That in itself is MAJOR. In business, Tony is alone (effectively; Paulie and Patsy can't substitute for Sil and Christopher, not to mention Bobby). He is almost certain to be prosecuted. Why should we have to see more to know that?

Meanwhile, Phil got what was coming to him. AJ, after showing occasional signs of growing up, is replanted in the family and the Family, poised to inherit all that means. Meadow is, too.

Junior is irretrievably gone mentally. Janice is already plotting her next moves. Carmela remains committed to her bargain with the devil. Melfi has cut Tony off.

The main message is that Tony is alone with his vulnerability and his demons, and quite likely a prosecution. THAT is the show's conclusion. But his nuclear family, morally compromised though it is, remains. Tying things up in a neater bundle than that wouldn't have been worthy of the moral ambiguity at the heart of the show. I get the impression that some viewers thought this was a formulaic crime drama that needed not just a conclusion, but one with more blood, or least handcuffs. Why?

[JasonEvans]

As someone who does not watch the show and did not watch the finale, I have tried to stay out of this... until now.

People in the diner in the final scene last night:

The guy at counter was Nicky Leotardo, Phil's nephew. Hmmm. Amazing that he would be in the same dinner as Tony. Why would he be there?

The 2 black guys were the ones that tried to shoot Tony in an earlier season but missed and clipped his ear. I wonder if they noticed that a former target of theirs was right next to them and vulnerable.

The truck driver was the brother of someone robbed and killed by Christopher in season 2.

And finally-- do any of you remember the conversation that Bobby and Tony had two episodes ago in the boat? The conversation where they talked about getting whacked? Tony said if you were to get whacked, you would never see it coming and it would just be like everything went black all of a sudden.

Check your DVR. That is what folks in the business call foreshadowing.

-Jason "if folk spaid half as much attention to the Sopranos as they do to Lost, this ending would have been called predictible :D " Evans

[edensquad]

Jason, MSNBC has an article up disputing the NY Times' take on the extras in the last scene (don't know how to link, sorry). Still, count us among those who believe Tony got whacked... and for Tony, there would be no "light" to go to. Only darkness.

The scene that showed what a "Me-Burger-With-I-Sauce" he was? Going to see A.J.'s shrink to ostensibly discuss his son's future... and instead talking about his difficult relationship with his own "mudder." As Carmela rolled her eyes, lol.

Don't think there will be a movie, but, whaddya gonna do?????

[greybeard]

1. Tony's personal demon, the one betrayal he could never resolve, that involving his mother, got resolved when he took the mushrooms. How can you tell; no more ducks. You guys forgot the ducks. In the final scene before it turned night, Tony looked to the sky. The sky was empty. The ducks and what they symbolized, the belonging that Tony sought, were gone; as Tony told Melphi, he had figured it out; mothers are the bus drivers to life; problems come when you insist on trying to get back on the bus. So, Tony, the part of him we can all identify with, prevailed over his personal demon. The sky was clear.

2. The final scene was ambiguous only because we wanted it to be, because we ain't mobsters and Tony is. No way Tony was in danger. Phil went off the reservation when he offed the boss; he had a deranged and narcassistic view of "their thing," that made him the ultimate arbitrator of who fit and who did not. The guys in his crew had every reason to fear that Phil would turn on them or at least put them in unnecessary danger with all the moves he was making. They wanted him gone before they ever met with Tony. So they were not going to take Tony out. No way. So that leaves Paulie. Paulie always seemed to be on the edge, but his actions particularly in the last episode put to rest any notion that Paulie would make a move on Tony if he wanted to, which he clearly did not. Not that he didn't consider it, clearly he did; just that it made no practical sense and also was outside of where, in the end, Paulie's identification lied. He was a formidable part of Tony's thing, their thing; there was in his life nothing else.

3. So what of those guys in that seedy restaurant and what was Tony doing there to begin with. The guys were Jersey tough guys. They probably recognized Tony, and were catching glances of someone of superstar quality who was way out of their class. Not someone they would even dream of messing with. What were they to do but steal a furtive glance. Tony knew that they were looking and why. He was amused by it. Here Chase I think was unfair; went way too far with music and camera in creating the impression that something ominous was going to happen, when logically, that was clearly outside the realm of possibility. Tony, the mobster, fully understood that; we, on the other hand, only thought we understood the game. Happily, none of us really do. Perhaps that that is what Chase was trying to tell us; Tony is a mobster and we ain't.

4. So, why the seedy restaurant? Tony's business clearly had taken a big hit (no pun intended) and he was about to be incurring some astronomical attorney fees. No time to be spending big. Life would be scaled way back for who knows how long, and Tony might well be going away.

5. A word or two about the kids. The daughter learned that she could never live in the legit world when her boyfriend dumped her on return to California and his old man found out whom her daddy was. She was a realist and would suffer no such disappointments again. She would fight them as a high-priced lawyer, using her own wounds as all the motivation she needed to prevail professionally and personally. I think AJ is in far better shape than many suggest. He had a narrow brush with suicide, but seems to have healed some from his broken heart and the negativity that that bereavement caused. So far he has avoided the venality that infuses his father's life, and his father's before him. If he ends up being less the man than one might hope, he also has a decent chance of avoiding being the mobster that his lineage would seem to have demanded.

So, Chase left very little ambiguous, in my opinion. We know that this thing of theirs, this mafia, has received a tremendous, perhaps fatal, blow, and that Tony faces the prospect of a long and financially draining trial that could end up with him in jail (somehow I doubt that and so does Tony; as his lawyer told us, they had been preparing for this for some time; also, most all the go-betweens are dead, and the Feds are not the only ones capable of squeezing Carlo). At the same time, Tony has overcome the demon that haunted him his own life, and has his family around him closer and more whole than at anytime that we knew them. While his surroundings will be shabbier, Tony got no problem with that. He has Phil overseeing a cash cow, and for the time being he is still eating steak. However diminished, his life and this thing still go on.

Did Chase really have to spell all that out?

[Duvall]

-Jason "if folks paid half as much attention to the Sopranos as they do to Lost, this ending would have been called predictable" Evans

Sure, if by paying attention you mean making up theories on nonexistent and imaginary evidence.

The Sopranos is a drama, not a puzzle or an interactive web event. It shouldn't be treated like a show that too often acts like a Sudoku game masquerading as a story.

[alteran]

1. Tony's personal demon, the one betrayal he could never resolve, that involving his mother, got resolved when he took the mushrooms. How can you tell; no more ducks. You guys forgot the ducks. In the final scene before it turned night, Tony looked to the sky. The sky was empty. The ducks and what they symbolized, the belonging that Tony sought, were gone; as Tony told Melphi, he had figured it out; mothers are the bus drivers to life; problems come when you insist on trying to get back on the bus. So, Tony, the part of him we can all identify with, prevailed over his personal demon. The sky was clear.

Well, Tony's rant/whine about his mother during his and Carmela's visit to AJ's shrink would seem to imply that the wounds aren't completely healed, but otherwise I think you've nailed a lot of stuff here.

I disagree with Jason's contention that the conclusion is "obvious." In fact, it is decidedly and deliberately NOT obvious. I think all the talk about "you don't see the bullet coming, you just fade to black" is a clear, intended message. Tony had no field of vision to the bathroom where WiseGuy Tough #1 went to the bathroom and hence the wiseguy could nail Tony pretty much unawares.

On the other hand, Chase is all about music. The music that was VERY deliberately chosen, was unnecessarily featured in the camera work, was a song called "Don't Stop Believin'" by a band called Journey, and featured lines like, "the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on." Not to mention the fact that the gang war was over, and if someone wanted to cap Tony, this was a spectacularly bad time to do it. Even if someone was trying to cap Tony, Tony was at a restaurant which was certainly "out of his routine."

You can obviously make a good case for reading this one either way. Going by just the show itself, I think the case is somewhat stronger for "everything goes black"-- I can't put my finger on it exactly why I feel this way, but it seems the most "Chase-ian."

But then there's this thing called the real world. In the real world, 1) HBO holds the rights to The Sopranos and has a legally actionable fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders, 2) James Gandolfini and Edie Falco will ALWAYS be Tony and Carmella Soprano and will want to work, 3) David Chase will start to look back nostalgically on the 86 episodes of Sopranos he made and some combination of money and inspiration will get to him-- and 4) five or ten years from now we will get a Sopranos movie, and yes, Tony will be in it.

If you don't believe me, I've got 5 words for you-- "Now Who's Being Naive, Kay?" ;-)

I think Chase made this obvious conclusion himself, and we all know he left the door wide, wide open for this inevitability.

I do not hate the ending the way I did when I first saw it, but I am not in love with it now, either. It is certainly clever how pretty much everyone will make the conclusion they want about it-- Tony dead/alive, ending brilliant/lame, movie never/inevitable. In fact, my biggest problem with it is that it is just too "Princess and the Tiger" for me-- a bit too self-satisfied and "clever."

Could I do better? Heck no.

But Chase sure could have.

[Mal]

I see Network TV Jason is still a little defensive of his lack of HBO cred :^) So much so that he's passing along a hoax. I don't have the link either, but it's been debunked. The guy at the counter is credited as "Members Only Jacket Guy" not "Nikki Leotardo, Jr." The guy playing him had never acted on the Sopranos before and in real life he's the proprietor of a local pizza parlor who knows a producer or something like that. So far no evidence has been presented on the trucker. And if I recall, at least one of the two guys who tried to pop Tony a few seasons back was himself killed in retaliation, but I could be wrong. Personally, when I watched that scene, there was nothing in the least bit menacing about the two black guys entering the restaurant. The ominous overtones were reserved for Members Only Jacket Guy and very slightly for USA cap trucker.

The scene as a whole had an element of Norman Rockwell surface (teenage lovers, boy scouts, USA cap), and the multi-racial makeup of the patrons added to the first half of the picture. The twist is that there's a killer in the middle of the room whose presence upends the whole pastoral. At least to me. Here's a panoply of American cliches gathered in one room, except the all-American family entry includes a coldblooded killer mobster. For a show that exploded the cliches of an entire genre and insisted there's a lot more than what you see on the surface, that's the perfect symbolic ending.

Much speculation and comment has been put forth regarding the conversation Tony and Bobby had on the boat, just maybe not in this thread on this board. We're not that dense to have not considered the connection! Anyway, I think the real irony is that Bobby was apparently incorrect, at least with respect to himself. He didn't see it coming, but he didn't get a bullet to the back of the head and go instantly black. By the way, that was 5 or 6 episodes back, not 2.

It's interesting to read greybeard's interpretations. I disagree 180 with most of them, but they're all totally plausible. Personally, I see an indictment of each and every character, especially each of the Sopranos, and our culture in general, through an ending in which it's revealed that no single character has grown up, come to any self-realizations, stood by their convictions in any meaningful way, redeemed themselves or been freed from the mob life generally.

Everyone takes their own conclusions and impressions from good art, I guess.

[mapei]

alteran and greybeard both have great insights. It's all debatable, but that's sorta the point IMO.

I don't know that Chase could have done better, though he certainly has enough genius that it's possible. I for one did not want to witness Tony mortally wounded, and if he had been taken away in handcuffs it would have seemed too "storybook," something I might expect of a lesser show. Likewise if he had taken his own life. It would have been highly unsatifying if he had gone into witness protection or somehow escaped trouble altogether, fat and happy. I have an extremely hard time imagining an ending that would have left viewers satisfied.

One intriguing possibility might have been Paulie walking over to the NY side, leaving Tony even more profoundly isolated. Or one or more of his nuclear family deserting him and/or even flipping. Those possibilities might have had some narrative "weight" to them. But personally I prefer the ending we got.

Added on edit: Mal slipped. More good points.

[greybeard]

Alteran and Mal, in particular, bravo! Very, very good stuff here.

[captmojo]

David Chase did get exactly what he wanted, thought provoking insightful conversation by viewers. Had this been a true story of course we would all know how it ends. Even if he made alternative endings, folks would be selective but with limited reasoning. This fade out has produced precisely what you see here, grand conversation. He is a genius.

[wilson]

Personally, I've arrived at a point where I really don't think the "fade to black" was Tony's death, but it really doesn't matter. Before the finale even aired, I told my best friend & Sopranos viewing buddy, "Whether or not we get to see it, Tony is doomed." Furthermore, the series' lack of resolution is perfect in that it provoked considerable thought and conversation, as we've established. But another thing has occurred to me:
Chase hasn't just denied tidy resolution to the viewers, but also (and I think, more importantly), to Tony Soprano. Even if the series had ended with him in the slammer or on the slab, both unpleasant outcomes, Tony would have the peace that comes with an "end." Tony's choices, however, have trapped him in a reality (a "personal hell," someone here called it) where that end will arrive possibly (probably?) very suddenly and almost certainly unpleasantly. Where, when, and how that end comes doesn't matter, because Tony has chosen a life wherein, in many ways, he himself doesn't matter. The tender moments, like the series' final one, pointed out by AJ (?!?!?!), are forever tainted by the cloud that Tony has invited upon himself. Also, even though he's the boss, he's a mere cog in a machine that was running long before he took its reins and that will continue long after he's gone. The constant spectre of death is enough of a burden, but Tony has two other tortuous thins to confront: a) that spectre cheapens all of his life's moments that should theoretically be free of it, and b) his "work" is something that has been done before, and will be done in the future, in pretty much the same way he does it. So, in exchange for his toils, he has little in the way of a personal legacy, and considerable guilt at having not only killed/ruined countless people, but also having ensnared his biological family in "this thing of [theirs]". As evidenced by Phil's demise, Tony's death is even unlikely to leave a great mark, except upon the (comparatively) innocent, peripheral players in his life's drama, all of whom get reduced to detritus in his wake. Lastly, loneliness is a slow creep for Tony. One by one, his closest associates have met with gruesome ends: Big http://www.dukebasketballreport.comhttp://www.dukebasketballreport.comhttp://www.dukebasketballreport.comhttp://www.dukebasketballreport.comhttp://www.dukebasketballreport.com, Bobby, Silvio (and that's to say nothing of the Apriles, Ralphie, Vito, et. al.). So while his profession clearly isolates him ever so gradually, he has no choice but to continue in it until, one day, it consumes him too. The only question is, will it consume him via a bullet, like the aforementioned colleagues, slow decay, like Junior, or simply via the clink? (I operate under the assumption that T would never flip, but I suppose you never know.) All alternatives are spectacularly unappealing. In any case, after Tony's gone, the machine keeps running without him, and just as it does during his own tortured life, "the movie goes on and on and on."
The release of tidy resolution would indeed be sweet for Tony (as well as some viewers), but his life almost by definition can't end with sweet release...it has to just go black.

[DevilWolf]

FYI ... the black guys who walked in couldn't have been the ones who tried to kill him under Junior's orders. Both of them died. One shot the other by accident, and Tony got the other one right before hitting the parked car sending him to the hospital.

[greybeard]

How could Tony possibly have been taken out in that last scene. By whom and why. We know all the players; who would do it? Why?

To me, the build up by Chase clearly implies the possibility that Tony gets it in the restaurant, but only through the viewer's uninformed and biased eyes. We are expecting it, were expecting it, bought into it for the entire season, seduced into it by the music and filming of the final scene. But, if you take our bias out of the picture, the scene really is quite tame and an assassination at that point makes no sense, not then, not there. Next month, who knows, it is only a business, and enemies are easy to make.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The worst part of the program in all its years imo was the Melphi outting. Seems that a lot must have been left on the cutting room floor preceeding that dinner party. The only way her shrink's actions make any sense is if he is alarmed by news that a gang war is afoot and he fears that Melphi will wind up in the middle of it. Otherwise, his behavior and hers is hard to understand. Does she really need a social science study to know that she is enabling a mobster? Please. On the other hand, she knows that the ducks are gone, and her name is mud among her colleagues unless she does this thing. Tony would understand, it was only business. In fact, he did.

By the way, a point well taken about that scene with AJ's shrink. Wounds heal, the scars remain. When Tony empathizes with AJ, he walks close to the fire. But, in the end, the ducks were gone from the picture.

[edensquad]

I wouldn't make too much of "no ducks"... it was just one glance up at the sky. Tony, after 7 years of therapy, has made no progress (other than no panic attacks): he is still grappling with his fractured relationship with his "mudder," he still is a classic sociopath: no remorse, no conscience... serial adulterer, murderer, thief, gambling addicted (who sees himself as a victim because he lost so much to Hesh).

I'd say we are hardly "uninformed" and biased; David Chase has revealed the monster that Tony is to us all. He no doubt "needed killin'" as we say in the South, lol. And his enemies must have been legion; true, there was no one in the diner wearing a "bad guy" sign on his back, but it is not a stretch to imagine that Tony got his comeuppance for no other reason than the NY mob saw him as a thorn in their side... and they could take a bigger piece with him gone.

On the other hand, he may still be eating his onion rings, lol! Who knows?

[greybeard]

I wouldn't make too much of "no ducks"... it was just one glance up at the sky. Tony, after 7 years of therapy, has made no progress (other than no panic attacks): he is still grappling with his fractured relationship with his "mudder," he still is a classic sociopath: no remorse, no conscience... serial adulterer, murderer, thief, gambling addicted (who sees himself as a victim because he lost so much to Hesh).

I'd say we are hardly "uninformed" and biased; David Chase has revealed the monster that Tony is to us all. He no doubt "needed killin'" as we say in the South, lol. And his enemies must have been legion; true, there was no one in the diner wearing a "bad guy" sign on his back, but it is not a stretch to imagine that Tony got his comeuppance for no other reason than the NY mob saw him as a thorn in their side... and they could take a bigger piece with him gone.

On the other hand, he may still be eating his onion rings, lol! Who knows?

Who is the NY mob and why'd they kill Phil if they were going to take out Tony? NY needed Jersey like a hole in the head; Jersey was never their thing; they were getting paid by Jersey for doing nothing. Make sense; Phil didn't and they helped get him whacked. Nope, NY didn't do it. thorn in their side? The only things he ever said "no" to were Johnny Sac's murderous rage at Ralphie for dissing his wife, and Phil's desire to torture Tony's cousin, instead of just blowing his brains out with a shot gun, which Tony graciously did. Tony made them money, not trouble. They did not take him out.

Getting rid of the panic attacks was no small thing. He didn't go to a shrink to rid himself of his murderous instincts; I think he likes them. Tony was a complex guy, who could quote Dylan to his shrink (you had to love that weatherman line, priceless), and act with restraint or cold ruthlessless, depending upon what good business called for.

No doubt that Chase succeeded in showing the vileness of the mob, of men like Tony. But he also showed that there is something winsome about them, and their thing, something warm and generous and bold, but which hideously overlays the murderous rage and banality upon which it all rests.

We are left with a deep understanding of just how monsterous and horrific men like Tony are. And, while we'd like to think that we understand them--that it is all about the glamour, the money, the women, the action--in the end, Chase shows us we do not. He shows us instead that we still insist on glamorizing them; if we didn't, we could not possibly see that last scene as a murder scenario when the cold hard facts show that it was not.

Just my take; this is fun!

[edensquad]

Lol! This is fun... sorry, but the "cold hard facts" you offer up are just your opinion, interesting as it is ;-)

The FBI guy helped Tony take out Phil by giving up his location. The NY guys merely "shook on it." Wanna take them at their word? Not me. The collections were "light" for Tony's crew as folks sensed a shake-up and were paying more to NY in the power vacuum. Remember that scene? Maybe NY liked that taste.

A stretch? Maybe... but no more so than arguing that these guys had any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Chase juxtaposed family life with "Family" life, and it was jarring all these years... but at no time did I believe Tony or any of these guys had anyone else's interests at heart but their own.

[mr. synellinden]

First, and I think most important, watch Tony's entrance at Holsten's again. He comes from seeing Junior wearing a brown shirt and leather jacket. He enters Holsten's and stares into the restaurant for a few moments. He looks at the center table and sees nobody. It cuts back to Tony looking into the restaurant again, and this time you see Tony sitting at the center table wearing a different shirt. The implication by the way it is edited is that Tony is staring into the restaurant and seeing himself (not to tread into lost territory here, but something is up there).

Second, listen to the music playing before Tony plays "Don't Stop Believing". The lyrics start, "All, all that you dream ..." It's "All that you dream" by Little Feat. And these are the lyrics:

I've been down, but not like this before
Can't be 'round this kind of show no more

All, all that you dream
Comes through shinin silver lining
Clouds, clouds change the scene
Rain starts washing all these cautions
Right into your life, makes you realize
Just what is true, what else can you do
You just follow the rule
Keep your eyes on the road that's ahead of you

I've been down, but not like this before
Can't be 'round this kind of show no more

All of the good, good times were ours
In the land of milk and honey
And time, time adds its scars
Rainy days they turn to sunny ones
Livin' the life, livin' the life lovin' everyone

I've been down, but not like this before
Can't be 'round this kind of show no more
I've been down, but not like this before
Can't be 'round this kind of show no more

I've been down, but not like this before


If you have the show recorded, watch the last scene again. I also think it is interesting how as soon as the Journey song starts, Carmela walks in.

Throwing my two cents in here ... I LOVED the last episode and the entire last season. I think it was by far the best (other than the first season). I don't believe you are supposed to believe that Tony gets whacked. Tony keeps looking up as people enter, not out of fear (he lives with the knowledge, not fear, that he could get whacked at any time). He keeps looking up hoping to see his family members arrive. Once Meadow arrives, that's it. They are all together, eating burgers and onion rings in a truly American diner ... with truckers, boy scouts, lovers, families, different ethnicities, etc. The whole point of the show, from day one, was to put the microscope on an American family who just happens to be fathered by a mafia boss - and how that fact affects all of the family dynamics. The last episode tied that all up brilliantly.

[edensquad]

Ya know, my wife said at the time, "Tony's shirt is different... it's like he sees himself." Was it all a dying dream? (making it different from Bobby's on Dallas).

Great post! I don't think you have to believe Tony got whacked... I just believe he is dead. I'll buy that he had to "settle" some things as he was dying from Junior's gunshot wound.... and, seeing as they were settled, it just went black.

My take and 50 cents'll getcha a Milky Way, lol!!

I just don't buy that David Chase made this deep commentary on society... interviews I've read lead me to believe he is all about the characters and what makes them tick... and telling a great story... which he did.

[greybeard]

Lol! This is fun... sorry, but the "cold hard facts" you offer up are just your opinion, interesting as it is ;-)

The FBI guy helped Tony take out Phil by giving up his location. The NY guys merely "shook on it." Wanna take them at their word? Not me. The collections were "light" for Tony's crew as folks sensed a shake-up and were paying more to NY in the power vacuum. Remember that scene? Maybe NY liked that taste.

A stretch? Maybe... but no more so than arguing that these guys had any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Chase juxtaposed family life with "Family" life, and it was jarring all these years... but at no time did I believe Tony or any of these guys had anyone else's interests at heart but their own.

Back atchya.

I'm not buying the NY thing; Phil was dellusional; NY and NJ had been doing business for two generations. They weren't going to change it. That said, Tony's button men didn't do to good; maybe Phil's did better, only he didn't know Phil was dead.

BTW, I didn't make too much of the ducks, Tony, the shrink, and Chase did. We saw plenty of scenes in the last few weeks where they could have reappeared but didn't. On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be so sure reading the signs; Tony was and look what happened to him. Maybe!

[DevilWolf]

The only thing I know is that it now makes me laugh that Phil's plan was to "decapitate and do business with what's left". Speaking of, that's two of Tony's enemies who get their head cut off (Ralph). Wonder if you could also consider Junior's head to be gone?

[greybeard]

"You, you guys are good. No, you're good you. You got a gift." DeNiro, Analyze This.

[edensquad]

LMAO, grey! If the ending were cut & dried, Chase wouldn't have cut to black, now, would he?!!?

And this thread wouldn't have over 1,200 views ;-)

The great thing about art is: You can think the Mona Lisa is smiling; I can think she looks constipated... and we are both right.

[Dukerati]

I was firmly in the camp that Tony was still alive at finale's end but this recent slate article has me rethinking the ending....

http://www.slate.com/id/2163797/entry/2168249/nav/tap3/

[greybeard]

I was thinking, maybe NY found out that Tony was going to be indicted and took him out because they thought that he might make a deal. Then I'm thinking that that really does not play out because they have to have known what Tony did, that there were two investigations, not one, going on, and that offing Tony would bring the heat back on them, always the bigger fish in the Feds' eyes.

Nope, bad business, unless I'm better at this mobster business than the guys in NY and they missed that final piece. The irony is that we all think we are, that is, smarter at this mob game than all of them, including Tony who clearly was the smartest of them all.

Given the fact that Phil's underling had suggested to Phil that they "make the peace," I still say an assassination is a figment of our own hubris, and not a product of Tony's.

[edensquad]

"It's only hubris when you lose" (Julius Caesar on HBO's "Rome")

[DevilAlumna]

I was firmly in the camp that Tony was still alive at finale's end but this recent slate article has me rethinking the ending....

http://www.slate.com/id/2163797/entry/2168249/nav/tap3/

Wow, same here. Love the comment about Meadow witnessing the tableau, as she has always been the one who stood a bit apart from the family.

[greybeard]

"It's only hubris when you lose" (Julius Caesar on HBO's "Rome")

Now that show had an ending, straight out of Casablanca, yes?

[3rdgenDukie]

T is dead. Chase's genius is in creating the scenario where we, the fans of the morally depraved anti-hero, try to convince ourselves that the loathsome man 'survives'. Tony had accumulated more enemies than just about any man in TV history. Trying to claim he wasn't hit because it wasn't clear which one did it is a fool's errand. In the end, you don't even see it coming - either the physical act or the scenario/motive. And thus there is no resolution. You die - and death is final with no ability to 'look down from above'. That is Chase's message, and it is absolutely brilliant in its darkness.

To me, this is the ending that seems to complete the epic. For all the characters' charms, passions and in some cases, attempts to redeem themselves, it all becomes a 'big nothing'. Carmella accepts her addiction to blood money, Meadow deceives herself in an almost comical way, AJ wanders aimlessly. Paulie becomes king as the kingdom crumbles. June and Sil are in limbos of consciousness. Phil and Johnnie, dead. Bobby is forced to become a killer and then dies. Christopher is cruelly brought back to his disease before his 'father' kills him. Hesh loses his love. Janice her husband and likely her stepchildren. Even Harris and Melfi betray there professions. Artie and Charmane are the only ones who seem to have anything left.

In the end this was a bleak, bleak depiction of the futility of life. We were wrapped up in the action, the brash charisma, the comedy and even the occasional 'righteousness' of the gangster code. We hoped beyond hope there was something redeeming about our 'friends' for ten years. There wasn't.

[greybeard]

T is dead. Chase's genius is in creating the scenario where we, the fans of the morally depraved anti-hero, try to convince ourselves that the loathsome man 'survives'. Tony had accumulated more enemies than just about any man in TV history. Trying to claim he wasn't hit because it wasn't clear which one did it is a fool's errand. In the end, you don't even see it coming - either the physical act or the scenario/motive. And thus there is no resolution. You die - and death is final with no ability to 'look down from above'. That is Chase's message, and it is absolutely brilliant in its darkness.

To me, this is the ending that seems to complete the epic. For all the characters' charms, passions and in some cases, attempts to redeem themselves, it all becomes a 'big nothing'. Carmella accepts her addiction to blood money, Meadow deceives herself in an almost comical way, AJ wanders aimlessly. Paulie becomes king as the kingdom crumbles. June and Sil are in limbos of consciousness. Phil and Johnnie, dead. Bobby is forced to become a killer and then dies. Christopher is cruelly brought back to his disease before his 'father' kills him. Hesh loses his love. Janice her husband and likely her stepchildren. Even Harris and Melfi betray there professions. Artie and Charmane are the only ones who seem to have anything left.

In the end this was a bleak, bleak depiction of the futility of life. We were wrapped up in the action, the brash charisma, the comedy and even the occasional 'righteousness' of the gangster code. We hoped beyond hope there was something redeeming about our 'friends' for ten years. There wasn't.

Sorry, we are talking mobsters here; guys like Tony do not get whacked by people they intimidated, that they did wrong to. It don't work that way. Those folks stay scared, and far, far away. Other mobsters steer clear of such assasinations or they "be gone," like Phil was. He crossed the line when he whacked Johnny Sac's successor. Going after Tony sealed the deal. In your fantasy world all things are possible.

In real world terms, the only mobster who whacked a boss and lived to talk about it was Gotti. Gotti got away with it for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that the boss he killed not only was roundly hated, but also stepped over Gambino's hand picked successor, who was not Gotti, but Anielio Delecruse, who succeeded to his rightful place, only to die of cancer a short while later. Then Gotti became boss. Delecruse was old school, and Gambino's longtime underboss. Oh, there was one other guy who briefly headed a NY family in the modern era who got whacked, Crazy Joey Gallo, Umberto's clam house. Gallo was not called Crazy Joey for nothing. Went up against Gambino himself, straight up against him. And, was trying to take over the Columbo family. Nope. Don't anybody know who killed him.

You are way, way out of your league here. Television. You have to be kidding me.

[3rdgenDukie]

Sorry, we are talking mobsters here; guys like Tony do not get whacked by people they intimidated, that they did wrong to. It don't work that way. Those folks stay scared, and far, far away. Other mobsters steer clear of such assasinations or they "be gone," like Phil was. He crossed the line when he whacked Johnny Sac's successor. Going after Tony sealed the deal. In your fantasy world all things are possible.

In real world terms, the only mobster who whacked a boss and lived to talk about it was Gotti. Gotti got away with it for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that the boss he killed not only was roundly hated, but also stepped over Gambino's hand picked successor, who was not Gotti, but Anielio Delecruse, who succeeded to his rightful place, only to die of cancer a short while later. Then Gotti became boss. Delecruse was old school, and Gambino's longtime underboss. Oh, there was one other guy who briefly headed a NY family in the modern era who got whacked, Crazy Joey Gallo, Umberto's clam house. Gallo was not called Crazy Joey for nothing. Went up against Gambino himself, straight up against him. And, was trying to take over the Columbo family. Nope. Don't anybody know who killed him.

You are way, way out of your league here. Television. You have to be kidding me.

Whatever, mob guy. In the series alone, Tony had a serious attempt on his life by a non-boss (who was not then whacked), and he, as a NJ guy just took out the head of one of the 'five families' after a war that could justifiably said to have been started by him - taking out fat Dom, curbing Koko and whacking Phil's goomah. Hell, Sack of money plotted against Carmine. So internal to the story, hitting or trying to hit a boss was far from unheard of.

And while Castellano was the last 'old school' boss to fall in a coup - it was certainly not unique historically. Lucky took out not one but two bosses and did pretty well for himself. Who do you think erased Mangano?

Cling to the notion that Tony is alive if you want. His consciousness and his world, which we were so privelaged to view for eight years disappeared the moment the bullet entered his skull and stopped the music.

[greybeard]

Whatever, mob guy. In the series alone, Tony had a serious attempt on his life by a non-boss (who was not then whacked), and he, as a NJ guy just took out the head of one of the 'five families' after a war that could justifiably said to have been started by him - taking out fat Dom, curbing Koko and whacking Phil's goomah. Hell, Sack of money plotted against Carmine. So internal to the story, hitting or trying to hit a boss was far from unheard of.

And while Castellano was the last 'old school' boss to fall in a coup - it was certainly not unique historically. Lucky took out not one but two bosses and did pretty well for himself. Who do you think erased Mangano?

Cling to the notion that Tony is alive if you want. His consciousness and his world, which we were so privelaged to view for eight years disappeared the moment the bullet entered his skull and stopped the music.

Sticking to the story, Tony did what? He did not take out fat Dom, Phil did. He took out Phil with the blessing of Phil's family because Phil was deranged and had put a contract on Tony. I don't recall any attempts on Tony's life that went unpunished, and Tony did not take out anybody's goomah. The guy under Phil clearly hated and feared him. When Phil hung up on him, he knew he was in big trouble and gladly took Tony's deal, paying Bobby's widow and all. You have identified no business or other reason for a mobster to make a move on Tony, and there was none.

You are left to defend the improbable notion that someone from Phil's old gang was following AJ around with the hope that he might be joining up with Tony outside the house that evening in order to take out a guy who had just returned their "thing" to some semblence of stability and normalcy. I find that hard to swallow. Otherwise, you are left to suppose that Tony was fair game for any two-bit punk who had a gripe against the NJ boss. Nothing in the years that this series was on the air suggests that that was even a wild possibility.

By the way, Castellano was not an "old school" boss, but instead was known as the business school don, who wanted to take the mob uptown, against their collective wishes. He was killed in an uptown steak house in which his predecssor wouldn't have been caught dead. (tee hee.) He jumped over Delacruse, the old school successor to Gambino, and got whacked so that Delacruse could claim his rightful place and return things to the way they were.

You are not seriously equating with anybody left in Carmine's fictious gang with Lucky Luciano, who, by the way, is not a modern gang figure. He was done, I believe, when he got deported before, or early in, WWII. Lansky got him back in the country after the war by buying off Dewey (financing his run for Governor and then president), who was the guy who got Luciano deported in the first place. (Got that from a book titled, "Lansky"). The days of murder incorporated, and the rough and tumble days of the pre-war mob were a thing of the past in the post-war era. Gallo was a throw back to that pre-war era, and got taken out before he barely got started.

We're talking about the modern mob, and the fractious killings were a thing of the past. Tony did not get killed that night. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. This is better than the old Dodger/Yankee arguments or my yutt.

[3rdgenDukie]

Sticking to the story, Tony did what? He did not take out fat Dom, Phil did. He took out Phil with the blessing of Phil's family because Phil was deranged and had put a contract on him. I don't recall any attempts on Tony's life that went unpunished, and Tony did not take out anybody's goomah. The guy under Phil clearly hated and feared him, and, when Phil hung up on him, knew he was in big trouble. You have identified no business or omerta or other reason for a mobster to make a move on Tony, and there was none.

You are left to defend the improbable notion that someone from Phil's old gang was following AJ around with the hope that he might be joining up with Tony outside the house that evening in order to take out a guy who had just returned their "thing" to some semblence of stability and normalcy. I find that hard to swallow. Otherwise, you are left to suppose that Tony was fair game for any two-bit punk who had a gripe against the NJ boss. Nothing in the years that this series was on the air suggests that that was even a wild possibility.

By the way, Catellano was not an "old school" boss, but instead was known as the business school don, who wanted to take the mob uptown, against their collective wishes. He was killed in an uptown steak house in which his predecssor wouldn't have been caught dead. (tee hee.) He jumped over Delacruse, the old school successor to Gambino, and got whacked so that Delacruse could claim his rightful place and return things to the way they were.

You are not seriously equating with anybody left in Carmine's fictious gang with Lucky Luciano, who, by the way, is not a modern gang figure. He was basicly done, I believe, when he got deported before, or early in, WWII. Lansky got him back in the coiuntry by buying off Dewey (financing his run for Governor and then president), who was the guy who got Luciano deported in the first place. (Got that from a book titled, "Lansky"). The days of murder incorporated, and the rough and tumble days of the pre-war mob were a thing of the past in the post-war era. Gallo was a throw back to that pre-war era, and got taken out before he barely got started.

We're talking about the modern mob, and the fractious killings were a thing of the past.

Well, Gotti didn't take out Castellano either, technically. Tony's guys killed fat Dom, Tony ordered the hit that killed Phil's goomah, Tony curbed Koko personally. He started the hostilities.

Butchie didn't agree to take out Phil because Phil put a hit out on Tony, he agreed because he had failed to carry out that order to its completion and was worried that Phil was going to blame him. He certainly didn't hesitate to kill the #2 and #3 guys, and wasn't the least bit hesitant to start the war, though Albie was. Butch clearly didn't like Tony throughout the series, so I don't think it is remotely a far-fetched theory that elements of NY could easily have determined that T needed to go. They were obviously siphoning off huge amounts of cash from NJ while Tony was in hiding, so that is probably reason enough.

Of course, you also had Paulie, who T had mistreated and walked on until the final scene. And Patsy, whose brother Tony killed, and whom he obviously was treating with great suspicion. Carlo had flipped, so it may have made life easier for everyone if Tony was removed as a target for Fed pressure, which he was obviously about to become.

The point is, if it was obvious who had the motive and opportunity, you 'would hear it coming' and few folks would get whacked. In this regard, we were as blind as Tony.

Historically, many bosses have died in office. The slowdown in the last twenty years has more to do with the huge number that have been successfully prosecuted and the general dispersal and reduction in power of LCN, than any huge increase in criminal morality or collegiality. Gotti was the last to ascend this way, but he was almost killed himself, and since then the bosses have been going to jail more often than getting gunned down.

As far as unpunished attempts on T's life, what exactly was June's?

[mapei]

Junior's shot was an act of senility-induced paranoia and delusion, and thus a red herring.

What's a goomah?

[greybeard]

Well, Gotti didn't take out Castellano either, technically. Tony's guys killed fat Dom, Tony ordered the hit that killed Phil's goomah, Tony curbed Koko personally. He started the hostilities.

Butchie didn't agree to take out Phil because Phil put a hit out on Tony, he agreed because he had failed to carry out that order to its completion and was worried that Phil was going to blame him. He certainly didn't hesitate to kill the #2 and #3 guys, and wasn't the least bit hesitant to start the war, though Albie was. Butch clearly didn't like Tony throughout the series, so I don't think it is remotely a far-fetched theory that elements of NY could easily have determined that T needed to go. They were obviously siphoning off huge amounts of cash from NJ while Tony was in hiding, so that is probably reason enough.

Of course, you also had Paulie, who T had mistreated and walked on until the final scene. And Patsy, whose brother Tony killed, and whom he obviously was treating with great suspicion. Carlo had flipped, so it may have made life easier for everyone if Tony was removed as a target for Fed pressure, which he was obviously about to become.

The point is, if it was obvious who had the motive and opportunity, you 'would hear it coming' and few folks would get whacked. In this regard, we were as blind as Tony.

Historically, many bosses have died in office. The slowdown in the last twenty years has more to do with the huge number that have been successfully prosecuted and the general dispersal and reduction in power of LCN, than any huge increase in criminal morality or collegiality. Gotti was the last to ascend this way, but he was almost killed himself, and since then the bosses have been going to jail more often than getting gunned down.

As far as unpunished attempts on T's life, what exactly was June's?

1. If fat Dom is the guy who preceeded Phil, I'm reasonably certain that Phil took him out, not Tony. If fat Dom is somebody else, who is he in relation to Carmine's crew? I don't remember. After what Koko did to Tony's daughter, Butchie would have done the same exact thing. If Koko was twice his size, Butchie would have hit the guy over the head with a beer bottle and knocked his teeth out his own self.

2. Phil was a completely delusional, narcassist who had and was continuing to put everyone in the NY mob in danger. Butchie, in particular, who when he asked for a sit down with Phil so he could find out what was in it for him to run such risks got hung up on. Now, if you think that this guy was interested in running not only the entire NY thing but the NJ thing too for a few extra bucks, that's your theory. Butchie showed not the slightest inclination to be the king of even one hill, much less two. Why didn't he take out Tony first, by the way, in your opinion. Do you think Phil was wrong in believing it was purposeful? If so, your theory is all wet. If not, your theory is all wet since Butchie was one real dumb mobster, we're talkin real dumb.

Butchie was so wedded to the rules that he would not go against Phil himself; was willing to pay Tony. Why? Because, killing a boss makes you fair game for your subordinates, undermines everything the "thing" is built upon.

Phil had ordered Tony dead, had had his brother-in-law and Sil, his underboss, taken out; this goomay thing was necessary collateral damage to a guy doing what he had to. (have to admit, I didn't get that the daughter of the guy who they thought was Phil was actually Phil's goomay, but now, with your insistence, I can see it. (That entire scenario was not one of Chase's high points).

3. Patsy's son was marrying Meadow. Next. You don't take out the Boss in front of your future daughter-in-law's family, not to mention your daughter-in-law herself, unless you are certifiable.

4. What in heaven's name did Paulie have to gain by killing the one friend he had left on da earth? Phil had mentored Tony and in recent times told T his deepest secrets. That scene in front of the pizza joint was priceless. Sidesplitting too. In his darker moments, Paulie was capable of anything; near miniacal. But only near and he would never off Tony out of rage. Besides, he had nothing but love for the guy during the end game with Phil. That was left ambiguous until the last two episodes, but they made it clear.

5. Paulie also had no reason whatever to want Tony gone at that moment. He didn't even want the added cash from the waterfront, which Tony handed to him on a silver platter. And, when the Feds came down on T's mob, way better from Paulie's perspective to have T there calling the shots; Paulie was crude and an animal, but he wasn't stupid. He don't kill Tony that night in a million years.

June? "There was a man from another galaxy," June? That's your example? Maybe Artie did it because of the fire? Hired somebody to tail AJ so . . . . Please, Tony survived that night.

BTW, we are not talking the last twenty years; rather the last 60. And there almost always is a business reason, whether it's within the rules or not. Even for Gallo that was the case, and he Was crazy.

[edensquad]

Grey,

Passionate points of view make threads interesting... and you certainly are passionate about your take ;-)

(pssssst: not gonna change my mind, though... Tony got popped as Meadow ran in... re-watched it again tonight and no way does Chase cut to black so that the Soprano family can merely eat onion rings).

There will be no movie simply because James Gandolfini is over this role... he says so in just about every interview.

[DevilAlumna]

What's a goomah?

An Italian-Americanon bastardization of "comare."

http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/mobspeak/#g

A mistress. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goomah

[greybeard]

Grey,

Passionate points of view make threads interesting... and you certainly are passionate about your take ;-)

(pssssst: not gonna change my mind, though... Tony got popped as Meadow ran in... re-watched it again tonight and no way does Chase cut to black so that the Soprano family can merely eat onion rings).

There will be no movie simply because James Gandolfini is over this role... he says so in just about every interview.


I have no expectation of a movie, and have nothing but disguest for what mobsters present.

Have long been fascinated, however, and believe that Chase captured quite well, to misuse Leonard Cohen's words, "the garbage and the flowers" in it all. My take on mob life, they have their ups and downs, certainly in NY through the Gotti fall. I do not see gangsters lamenting their fate during down times; they circle their wagons and just keep on keeping on with what they have until that time comes, if it does, when they can grow the business again. They are stronger and more resilliant in that way than most of us. That, I believe is what the series leaves us with; the blackout is a tease to fantacies that we have about what their lives are supposed to be.

By the way, Chase's use of Dylan's, It's Alright Ma, the thinking man's My Way, in the final episode was smashing. As much as I despise what I know of that world of Tony's, G-d help me, I did love that show and, truth be known, rooted for Tony: "if my thought dreams, could be seen, they'd probably put my head, in a guillotine, but It's Alright Ma, it's life and life only."

[alteran]

There will be no movie simply because James Gandolfini is over this role... he says so in just about every interview.

Ask him again in five years after he's had nothing but bit parts and feels like Leonard Nimoy. ;-)

Salon had a few comments on this-- in one of them, their "I Like to Watch" columnist came out with both barrels.

http://salon.com/ent/tv/iltw/2007/06/14/sopranos_reaction/

This column also made a number of interesting observations which I haven't seen in this thread yet:

1) Tony does not "watch himself in the diner, and then he's there at the table in different clothes" (suggesting some sort of post-death dream or out-of-body experience). In actuality, there's a cut, after which he has taken off his jacket and sat down.

2) The Journey song on the jukebox tab with "Don't Stop Believin'" is "Anyway You Want It." Heh.

3) The actor who played the FBI guy says that in this ending, Chase originally had the Members Only Guy approaching Tony's table before the blackout, but has clearly removed it.

Regarding item 3) above, I think this would have been a much stronger ending. The artistry of the "everything goes black" ending would still be there but the ambiguity would be gone, and Chase could still have avoided giving us some sort of cliche'd end scene by cutting there.

The fact that Chase deliberately cut that out tells me that the "Tony is Dead" theory is not "correct," but in fact one of two co-equal possibilities of a "Lady-Or-The-Tiger" ending.

And, as I've said before, the utter ambiguity means Chase won't have to go through any contortions when it's time to do the Sopranos movie.

[3rdgenDukie]

1. If fat Dom is the guy who preceeded Phil, I'm reasonably certain that Phil took him out, not Tony. If fat Dom is somebody else, who is he in relation to Carmine's crew? I don't remember. After what Koko did to Tony's daughter, Butchie would have done the same exact thing. If Koko was twice his size, Butchie would have hit the guy over the head with a beer bottle and knocked his teeth out his own self.

2. Phil was a completely delusional, narcassist who had and was continuing to put everyone in the NY mob in danger. Butchie, in particular, who when he asked for a sit down with Phil so he could find out what was in it for him to run such risks got hung up on. Now, if you think that this guy was interested in running not only the entire NY thing but the NJ thing too for a few extra bucks, that's your theory. Butchie showed not the slightest inclination to be the king of even one hill, much less two. Why didn't he take out Tony first, by the way, in your opinion. Do you think Phil was wrong in believing it was purposeful? If so, your theory is all wet. If not, your theory is all wet since Butchie was one real dumb mobster, we're talkin real dumb.

Butchie was so wedded to the rules that he would not go against Phil himself; was willing to pay Tony. Why? Because, killing a boss makes you fair game for your subordinates, undermines everything the "thing" is built upon.

Phil had ordered Tony dead, had had his brother-in-law and Sil, his underboss, taken out; this goomay thing was necessary collateral damage to a guy doing what he had to. (have to admit, I didn't get that the daughter of the guy who they thought was Phil was actually Phil's goomay, but now, with your insistence, I can see it. (That entire scenario was not one of Chase's high points).

3. Patsy's son was marrying Meadow. Next. You don't take out the Boss in front of your future daughter-in-law's family, not to mention your daughter-in-law herself, unless you are certifiable.

4. What in heaven's name did Paulie have to gain by killing the one friend he had left on da earth? Phil had mentored Tony and in recent times told T his deepest secrets. That scene in front of the pizza joint was priceless. Sidesplitting too. In his darker moments, Paulie was capable of anything; near miniacal. But only near and he would never off Tony out of rage. Besides, he had nothing but love for the guy during the end game with Phil. That was left ambiguous until the last two episodes, but they made it clear.

5. Paulie also had no reason whatever to want Tony gone at that moment. He didn't even want the added cash from the waterfront, which Tony handed to him on a silver platter. And, when the Feds came down on T's mob, way better from Paulie's perspective to have T there calling the shots; Paulie was crude and an animal, but he wasn't stupid. He don't kill Tony that night in a million years.

June? "There was a man from another galaxy," June? That's your example? Maybe Artie did it because of the fire? Hired somebody to tail AJ so . . . . Please, Tony survived that night.

BTW, we are not talking the last twenty years; rather the last 60. And there almost always is a business reason, whether it's within the rules or not. Even for Gallo that was the case, and he Was crazy.


1) Fat Dom worked for Phil/Johnny. He visited the bing and Paulie and Patsy killed him for breaking their balls re Vito. And no, it was not preordained that Butch would do that. In fact, the NY crew was very deliberate when asking to retaliate against Ralph when he insulted Johnny's wife.

2) Butchie made no mention of 'what's in it for me'. We don't see nearly enough of him, especially interacting with Phil, to have the slightest clue whether or not he wanted to be king. As for taking out T, he told Phil he thought he was at the Bing w/ Sil. Why would he be so swift and eager to kill Bobby and Sil, and thus incur Tony's wrath, if he didn't also want to kill T? If he intentionally decided NOT to take Tony out after hitting his B-in-law and consigliere, leaving himself as the #1 or #2 target for retalitation, that would be even dumber than assuming Tony was at the Bing.

3) Probably unlikely. Patsy has intended to kill T in the past, and had his brother killed for a fairly minor reason by T. Patsy wouldn't do it himself, but was linked to foreign hit men, so he could easily do it and disavow responsibility to Meadow.

4) Again, probably unlikely, though Paulie for years was on the edge with T. He had tried to get in with big Carmine and Sack with the implicit understanding that he would move into the big chair with NY's help. Tony once again abused him throughout the final show.

June tried to have Tony killed long before he shot him personally. You obviously aren't too much of a fan of the show if you can't remember the hit June ordered on T in season two when he was perfectly sane. There was no retaliation.

There have been other bosses killed in the last 60 years - Castellano was not some 1/2 century outlier. Some by subordinates, some by rivals. It is far from a far-out idea. Hell, folks have theorized the FBI was in on some.

If you want to believe Tony lived, fine. I just happen to think that his dying is a far more reasonable belief given Chase's almost didactic foreshadowing, and because it fits the overall tone and narrative direction, especially of the last few episodes, much more elegantly than any other outcome. 'Cut to black' as a bleak outlook of our ultimate end - reflective of Chase's bouts with depression - is also completely original, while cut to black simply to leave the plot unresolved, though rare, is not. Chase has always been original.

I loved the Tony character as much as anyone (loathsome as he was), and it is a tough mental jump to believe he died brutally in front of his family. That said, my opinion is that it is grasping at hope to try and rationalize his continued existence in the face of so much effort by the author to show otherwise. Deducing probabilities based on real world crime hits is fool's gold.

I think Chase wound up creating the near-perfect tragedy. Regardless, he certainly has generated an unbelievable amount of discussion, which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

[mr. synellinden]

[QUOTE=alteran;25707]

This column also made a number of interesting observations which I haven't seen in this thread yet:

1) Tony does not "watch himself in the diner, and then he's there at the table in different clothes" (suggesting some sort of post-death dream or out-of-body experience). In actuality, there's a cut, after which he has taken off his jacket and sat down. [QUOTE]

I strongly suggest you watch that scene again if you can. I have watched the last scene about 10 times. There is no question that the shirt Tony is wearing under his leather jacket while he visits Junior and then enters the restaurant is different than the one he is wearing while sitting at the table. Also, the way that last scene is edited, there is no question (at least in my mind) that Tony looks at the table and nobody is there, he looks again and there is Tony sitting at the table. The Tony at the table almost looks up and makes eye contact with someone in the doorway.

Unless there was a continuity mistake with the shirt, there is definitely some sort of gap there.

[greybeard]

1) Fat Dom worked for Phil/Johnny. He visited the bing and Paulie and Patsy killed him for breaking their balls re Vito. And no, it was not preordained that Butch would do that. In fact, the NY crew was very deliberate when asking to retaliate against Ralph when he insulted Johnny's wife.

2) Butchie made no mention of 'what's in it for me'. We don't see nearly enough of him, especially interacting with Phil, to have the slightest clue whether or not he wanted to be king. As for taking out T, he told Phil he thought he was at the Bing w/ Sil. Why would he be so swift and eager to kill Bobby and Sil, and thus incur Tony's wrath, if he didn't also want to kill T? If he intentionally decided NOT to take Tony out after hitting his B-in-law and consigliere, leaving himself as the #1 or #2 target for retalitation, that would be even dumber than assuming Tony was at the Bing.

3) Probably unlikely. Patsy has intended to kill T in the past, and had his brother killed for a fairly minor reason by T. Patsy wouldn't do it himself, but was linked to foreign hit men, so he could easily do it and disavow responsibility to Meadow.

4) Again, probably unlikely, though Paulie for years was on the edge with T. He had tried to get in with big Carmine and Sack with the implicit understanding that he would move into the big chair with NY's help. Tony once again abused him throughout the final show.

June tried to have Tony killed long before he shot him personally. You obviously aren't too much of a fan of the show if you can't remember the hit June ordered on T in season two when he was perfectly sane. There was no retaliation.

There have been other bosses killed in the last 60 years - Castellano was not some 1/2 century outlier. Some by subordinates, some by rivals. It is far from a far-out idea. Hell, folks have theorized the FBI was in on some.

If you want to believe Tony lived, fine. I just happen to think that his dying is a far more reasonable belief given Chase's almost didactic foreshadowing, and because it fits the overall tone and narrative direction, especially of the last few episodes, much more elegantly than any other outcome. 'Cut to black' as a bleak outlook of our ultimate end - reflective of Chase's bouts with depression - is also completely original, while cut to black simply to leave the plot unresolved, though rare, is not. Chase has always been original.

I loved the Tony character as much as anyone (loathsome as he was), and it is a tough mental jump to believe he died brutally in front of his family. That said, my opinion is that it is grasping at hope to try and rationalize his continued existence in the face of so much effort by the author to show otherwise. Deducing probabilities based on real world crime hits is fool's gold.

I think Chase wound up creating the near-perfect tragedy. Regardless, he certainly has generated an unbelievable amount of discussion, which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

1. Don't remember June trying to take Tony out in the second season. What happened? Did Tony know about it? My take on June is that he was a figure who provided comic relief, not someone to be taken seriously. He was second bananna to his kid brother, who stole the only woman June ever loved. Tony thought he was a joke, and so did I. He clearly had a sharp mind, but as a gangster he was oh so over the hill, if he ever got there. A grown up what's his name, Michael's older brother, with a little more smarts.

2. As for Butchie boy, what did he say to Phil when Phil told him that the reception was fading out and hung up? Don't remember. Go back and look. He told Phil that he wanted to meet to discuss his, Butch's future, in the thing. Phil had opened that prospect after rebuffing Butch's suggestion that they try to make the peace with Tony. Butch said something to the effect, "I should hope so," and Phil hung up.

Second, why did Butchie suggest that Phil make the peace with Tony if he didn't want peace. He did not know that Tony had a line on Phil, and did not know that Tony would reach out to him. Ditto for agreeing to meet with Tony. Talking about theatrics, that meeting with Tony indicated that both men knew that the killings were all just business, driven by Phil's craziness.
Business killings are forgiven, if it makes good business. Even Phil was on board with that until he did a 180 on his decision to step back, and decided to take out Sack's successor anad then Tony, all in the name of some egomanical vision of what their thing had been but in nobody's mind but his. Look back on the things that Phil said, in particular in announcing his plan to go after Tony, and you will see how chillingly maniacal he was. It got him killed, with Butchie's complicity.

How your vision that Butchie had it in him to execute a revenge murder and throw everything into complete turmoil escapes me. BTW, Tony was no easy guy to kill. You really think Butchie was going to break the peace that had existed between the two families for two generations and risk having Tony go after him like he did after Phil. Hey, in case you missed something, Tony took Phil out, even though Butchie himself had not a clue where Tony was. Make some sense man.

Had Paulie been able to make a deal with SacK and big Carmine, it is not a forgone conclusion that that would have lead to an assassination of Tony. However, if it had, Paulie was a much younger guy who had not had cancer and had not witnessed the decimation that had just been inflicted. Sack turned Paulie down flat; Paulie was no boss, and everybody knew it, including Paulie himself.

Look, you examine that last scene again, carefully. Not from the loaded eyes of the viewer who is expecting mayheem, but from a cool, dispassioned perspective of how this last season played out. If Tony got whacked in the context of how this thing wound down, Chase left way, way too much inexplicable to me. Perhaps the interstices that would make that last scene explainable as an assassination were on the cutting room floor. They did, after all, miss a holiday weekend show. So, if you are right, and you might be, there are two principal themes of this show which Chase resolved in a way that profoundly disappoints. The first, as I've mentioned, was the Melphie thing; without more, the 12-step like confrontation engineered by her schrink was unfathomable (spelling?). But that would be small change in comparsion to how the show ends.

[NashvilleDevil]

Grey,

I think the attempt on Tony's life by Junior that 3rdgen is referring came in the 1st season. It has been awhile but this is when Tony's mom and Uncle June decided to get rid of Tony. The reason behind this was Tony and his captains had all moved their mothers into the same retirement community and Junior perceived this as a move being made on him. Livia on the other hand wanted to see Tony killed because she felt she had been disrespected by her son. The episode that this hit took place was when he had the long daydream about the beautiful exchange student at the Cuisamano's.

In the 2nd season Richie Aprille came to June for his blessing to kill Tony. June told Richie to ask the other captains but as June told Bobby "He could not sell it" and he decided to side with Tony. Of course this was all made moot be Janice shooting him twice (still one of my favorite Sopranos moments). These are the only two instances that I can think of were June tried to make a move to eliminate Tony.

By the way it has been great to read some of the analysis about the last scene.

[3rdgenDukie]

1. Don't remember June trying to take Tony out in the second season. What happened? Did Tony know about it? My take on June is that he was a figure who provided comic relief, not someone to be taken seriously. He was second bananna to his kid brother, who stole the only woman June ever loved. Tony thought he was a joke, and so did I. He clearly had a sharp mind, but as a gangster he was oh so over the hill, if he ever got there. A grown up what's his name, Michael's older brother, with a little more smarts.

2. As for Butchie boy, what did he say to Phil when Phil told him that the reception was fading out and hung up? Don't remember. Go back and look. He told Phil that he wanted to meet to discuss his, Butch's future, in the thing. Phil had opened that prospect after rebuffing Butch's suggestion that they try to make the peace with Tony. Butch said something to the effect, "I should hope so," and Phil hung up.

Second, why did Butchie suggest that Phil make the peace with Tony if he didn't want peace. He did not know that Tony had a line on Phil, and did not know that Tony would reach out to him. Ditto for agreeing to meet with Tony. Talking about theatrics, that meeting with Tony indicated that both men knew that the killings were all just business, driven by Phil's craziness.
Business killings are forgiven, if it makes good business. Even Phil was on board with that until he did a 180 on his decision to step back, and decided to take out Sack's successor anad then Tony, all in the name of some egomanical vision of what their thing had been but in nobody's mind but his. Look back on the things that Phil said, in particular in announcing his plan to go after Tony, and you will see how chillingly maniacal he was. It got him killed, with Butchie's complicity.

How your vision that Butchie had it in him to execute a revenge murder and throw everything into complete turmoil escapes me. BTW, Tony was no easy guy to kill. You really think Butchie was going to break the peace that had existed between the two families for two generations and risk having Tony go after him like he did after Phil. Hey, in case you missed something, Tony took Phil out, even though Butchie himself had not a clue where Tony was. Make some sense man.

Had Paulie been able to make a deal with SacK and big Carmine, it is not a forgone conclusion that that would have lead to an assassination of Tony. However, if it had, Paulie was a much younger guy who had not had cancer and had not witnessed the decimation that had just been inflicted. Sack turned Paulie down flat; Paulie was no boss, and everybody knew it, including Paulie himself.

Look, you examine that last scene again, carefully. Not from the loaded eyes of the viewer who is expecting mayheem, but from a cool, dispassioned perspective of how this last season played out. If Tony got whacked in the context of how this thing wound down, Chase left way, way too much inexplicable to me. Perhaps the interstices that would make that last scene explainable as an assassination were on the cutting room floor. They did, after all, miss a holiday weekend show. So, if you are right, and you might be, there are two principal themes of this show which Chase resolved in a way that profoundly disappoints. The first, as I've mentioned, was the Melphie thing; without more, the 12-step like confrontation engineered by her schrink was unfathomable (spelling?). But that would be small change in comparsion to how the show ends.

June sent two black guys (season one actually) to hit Tony. One shoots the other and Tony throws the other out of his moving car.

Phil says to Butchie "after this we've got to sit down and talk" to which Butchie replies "I would hope so". No real indication of what the conversation would be about. Butchie wanted to make peace because he was a huge target after missing T, not because business was bad. NY was clearly taking NJ business. I don't think Butchie would have taken out Tony for revenge, per se, but because NY (all of them) always had a thing against NJ, and there seemed to be a clear opportunity to take business. Tony didn't have any idea where Phil was, either, until he was fed it by the NY informer - which had to be either Butchie or Albie.

Paulie was not rebuffed by John, as a matter of fact, John encouraged him, though he didn't take him too seriously. It was clear to Paulie after big Carmine didn't know who he was that John was promoting him in the NY circle. This means little, though, in regards to whether or not he was capable of scheming behind T's back. Obviously he was. It was driven home again this season in FL that T didn't totally trust him.

I agree that the final scene was far less 'edgy' after you know what was going to happen. The 'member's only' guy looks far less threatening. But that's part of the point. Tony, and thus the audience, through Tony's eyes, 'never saw it coming'. From the perspective of how the last season went, Tony getting whacked fits perfectly. Everything/everyone in his life was falling apart more than ever. The gyre was widening. The rough beast slouched towards Bethlehem. Everything was getting more and more f'ed up, with the grand finale being T finally getting smoked.

[greybeard]

You must have been a Yankee fan. Butchie encouraged Phil to make peace with Tony because he thought that Tony would take him, Butchie out, in revenge for Sil and Bobby? Wow. Jackie really must have been out, just like Yogi says.

How come Tony wasn't after Butchie then? How come Tony had no concern that Butchie might be after him? He got where he was by being stupid about such matters? Tony reached out for a deal with Butchie, but did not know that Butchie would come after him, because Butchie really feared that Tony would not live up to a deal that made perfect sense for both of them? Say what?

What exactly would Paulie have left if he took Tony out? Who would he talk about good stuff like all the guys that they killed and how with? What about the story about seeing the Virgin Mary. He put that out there to throw Tony off. To get him to let his guard down. "You overestimate me kid. I'm not that smart."

Nope, 3G, you are blinded by your respect for Chase which is either warranted, in which case he was just toying with us, or the end story, your version that Tony gets whacked, is completely incompatible with the lead in. I accept that you might be right, in which case one can only hope that he wanted and had more intervening shows that didn't fit with HBO's timing--that would have run into the summer season and disappointed those of its viewers who would be summering in their vilas in the South of France or North of Italy where they could have sats but it would be oh so unchic. In that case, which now that I say it is entirely possible, you might be right as to the ending.

But, please don't tell me that story about that fight with my sister. It insults my intelligence, Carlo, it makes me mad. LOL.

[edensquad]

Nobody is budging on their take on Tony's fate... hey, my Mona Lisa ain't smiling, lol! (see prior posts if you have the time).

I'll submit this: the opening scene sure looked as if Tony was in a coffin... foreshadowing? I saw on another site that Tony pushed K3 (strike three??) to play "Don't Stop"...... and Tony, Carmela and A.J. placed whole onion rings in their mouths not unlike communion wafers. A final sacrament?

In each prior year, Tony stared down the dread/fear of possible, if not imminent, death or arrest without such a startling season ending. If this were just "Tony has to live with the burden of being Tony and life goes on," then why not pan out on an idyllic Soprano onion ring-fest, lol?? If he did not get popped, then this false drama is all a big wank... and Chase is quoted as saying that he did NOT ***!!!*** with the fans.

And he could still do a movie with Tony in flashbacks (if Gandolfini signed on.... and he says he has taken this part as far as he can).

Don't get bogged down on "whodunit"..... all signs, IMHO, point to Tony R.I.P.

Or not, ;-)

[3rdgenDukie]

Of course Butch would feel he is a target having taken out two of T's main guys, and what on earth makes you think T WASN'T going after Butch? Whatever. Arguing about motive interpretations in a mob war is getting tedious. Chase routinely introduced random violence throughout the show, and made it clear for years that death was lurking, often unknown and unheard, for just about everyone. Why would it be different for Tony?

For the record, and HBO exec came out at msnbc.com saying that Chase indicated to him that Tony was whacked, that he (Chase) did not have an ambiguous ending in mind. The guy who played detective Harris felt the same thing seeing the full script. When all is said and done, that will be the final interpretation. You can cling to the notion that Chase really isn't trying to say what he is obviously saying, but that won't change things. T is dead. It is a bitter, bitter pill for fans to swallow, me included, who reluctantly admired Tony's good traits and his obvious charisma, despite his hideous deeds. But this was a tragedy, and it ended tragically.

Of course, one could argue that losing consciousness instantly in the company of loved ones was a better thing for Tony than going on.

[alteran]

Tony does not "watch himself in the diner, and then he's there at the table in different clothes" (suggesting some sort of post-death dream or out-of-body experience). In actuality, there's a cut, after which he has taken off his jacket and sat down.

I strongly suggest you watch that scene again if you can. I have watched the last scene about 10 times. There is no question that the shirt Tony is wearing under his leather jacket while he visits Junior and then enters the restaurant is different than the one he is wearing while sitting at the table.


After having watched it again, I still stand by my statement about the shirts. And I totally disagree with your statement that there's no question that Tony is wearing different shirts between entering and sitting at the diner.

The shirt Tony wears with junior is medium/light gray with matching collar. You never really see the whole shirt, because Tony's jacket is on, although you do see the center.

The shirt Tony is wearing sitting in the restaurant is different than the Junior shirt. It has three wide, vertical stripes. What color is the middle one? You guessed it, gray. Since the middle is all we've seen of the "Junior" shirt we can't be sure it's different EXCEPT that the restaurant shirt has a black (not gray) collar.

So, all we have to do is see the collar of the shirt Tony wears when he enters the restaurant to know, right? Well guess what-- we can't see it! When Tony enters, his black leather jacket is two-thirds zipped. All you see is a sliver of gray. You can see the shirt is gray in the middle (like both shirts), and that it has buttons in the upper third (like both shirts), but the collar appears obstructed by Tony's jacket. I say "appears" because the jacket is black and the collar is black, so it's conceivable that it's visible but we can't make it out.

IMHO, Occam's Razor and all, Tony changed shirts between visiting Junior and going to the restaurant. There's nothing that implies that he went directly to the restaurant-- in fact, when Tony was last shown with Junior, it was bright day. When they ate at the diner, it was night. Plenty of time to goof around town, visit a gumar or two, and change a shirt.

Either way, it's moot. I think if this was a "hint" from Chase as to "what really happened", one would think he would make it clear enough that two folks watching frame-by-frame on their DVRs could agree on what they saw.


Also, the way that last scene is edited, there is no question (at least in my mind) that Tony looks at the table and nobody is there, he looks again and there is Tony sitting at the table. The Tony at the table almost looks up and makes eye contact with someone in the doorway.

Unless there was a continuity mistake with the shirt, there is definitely some sort of gap there.

Okay, I back off my statement about Tony not watching himself. The cutting here is definitely weird and jarring, and it is certainly intended to, at a minimum, give the impression of Tony watching himself. When I watched it again, I remembered being thrown by it the first time. I just have no idea what it means-- is it to jar us to increase the scene tension, imply Tony is out-of-body, or something else? The fact is, we'll never know. But it's absolutely deliberate and pretty much exactly as you described.

Two more things struck me while I was watching it again. First, many of the tunes on the jukebox repeat as Tony flips through them. It's way too fast to notice it live, so I assume this is something for us tail-chasers on the internet to obsess about. I'm going to leave that to others, as I've already wasted enough time. ;-)

The other thing that struck me (and I think someone else has mentioned this) is how much significance this scene has gained while talking about it. When I watched it again, I was completely underwhelmed. Not with its style or composition or anything like that. Just that when I watched it again, all the stuff we're bantering back and forth as "significant" just looks kind of understated and secondary. The guy with the cap, who I remembered as almost as menacing as Members Only Guy (MOG), just looks like a bored trucker now. Members Only guy seems way less threatening than he did.

And, for a hit man, MOG is pretty casual about his fingerprints. But there I go again.

[edensquad]

At charlotte.com, the Charlotte Observer's TV critic, Mark Washburn, has a column on the last scene... that pretty much echoes some of the points I made in my last post.

Don't know how to link, sorry. You have to search under Columnists & scroll to Entertainment/Mark Washburn.

[alteran]

For the record, and HBO exec came out at msnbc.com saying that Chase indicated to him that Tony was whacked, that he (Chase) did not have an ambiguous ending in mind.

The ending is ambiguous, period. If it was, we wouldn't be having this discussion. And David Chase absolutely wanted it this way-- there are way, way too many deliberate counter-cues for him to say in earnestness that he did NOT have an ambiguous ending in mind.

In fact, Matt Servitto (Agent Harris) said in the original script, Chase DID NOT have an ambiguous ending. The scene ends with Members Only Guy approaching Tony's table menacingly.

Chase could have still avoided a gratuitous/cliched brain splatter and could still have cut to black, and yet left it so that everyone would have been SURE what happened. BUT HE DID NOT. In fact, he deliberately cut an ending that WAS clear.

I am on record as saying that I think the "everything goes black" ending is the most like David Chase. That's a far cry from saying it's clear, and if Chase had wanted it clear, he could have easily have made it so.

[alteran]

And he could still do a movie with Tony in flashbacks (if Gandolfini signed on.... and he says he has taken this part as far as he can).

Sean Connery said the same thing about James Bond. In fact, he flat out said he'd never do Bond again.

And even though he had no trouble finding work and had no trouble being typecast, he still did "Never Say Never Again," the title of which was supposedly inspired by his anti-Bond quote.

I treat "I'll never do this role" again quotes from actors the way I treat "I'm not going pro" quotes from college bball players. They could very well be sincere at the time they say it, but I just don't believe that it has any bearing on their future decisions.

Flashbacks could save the "Everything Goes Black" ending if Chase does a movie, but he'd have serious age issues to overcome with almost all of his charactors-- particularly AJ and Meadow. I'm not buying. Should it come to pass, however, I'll have to throw in the towel.

I'd bet money, but who wants to make a bet with a ROI 5-10 years out? ;-)

[edensquad]

Dang, I wish I knew how to link!!! CNN.com has a new article up lending credence to the "Tony got whacked" camp.

[jimsumner]

This?


http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/15/television.sopranos.reut/index.html

[captmojo]

Chase should treat the meaning of the end like Carly Simon did "You're So Vain".
Nothing like keepin' um guessing.

[A-Tex Devil]

I suggest everyone reading this thread go to blockbuster, get on netflix or whatever and rent first season disc 1 and watch the first episode.

HI - larious. It's pretty clear they weren't sure about the whoe comedy/dramedy/drama thing at that point. Still classic. Most striking thing -- Tony's voice is completely different.

[Lord Ash]

I was wondering if I was going crazy when it seemed like Tony saw himself sitting in the restaurant.

[mapei]

I actually missed all of the first two and some of the third season. Whenever I would tune in, I would be so repulsed by the crudeness and dislikeable nature of virtually every character (save Melfi, whom I liked) that I would only watch for five minutes or so.

Sometime during the third season, I got hooked, and have seen every episode since then.