the sopranos

overthenest

folks, can anyone help me out! i have just re watched the sopranos and i cannot for the life of me figure out the ending of the sopranos, could anyone enlighted me???

Fishooks12

Figure it out yourself is the idea

The ending is deliberately left open to the interpretation of the viewer.

I think he died

Sunnyisland

Well he is sitting there in the restaurant with his wife & family thinking that he has sorted and ended the war with the other mafia family,And as a person who has ordered many killings before himself he see,s things happening in the restaurant that are clicking in his head that there is a hit going down and is he the target ??


Could be wrong :-)

the_blackstuff

Me thinks it was left open deliberately to allow possible film/series. Really hope I'm right. Greatest series ever imo

philstar

tony taken out

du Maurier

overthenest wrote: »

folks, can anyone help me out! i have just re watched the sopranos and i cannot for the life of me figure out the ending of the sopranos, could anyone enlighted me???

Yes, as Fishooks said, it was left open to interpretation. It doesn't really matter how it ended in a way - to open up the Sopranos series again, even in film, would scar the whole thing. It was what it was, an excellent drama. Some things should be left alone.

Giruilla

It's an open ending. Simple and as boring as that. Either he died or he didn't die.. your choice.

Personally I choose he didn't die, as mob rule is they don't get taken out in front of family member so I can't believe Tony would have been in that situation.

amacachi

He died, there's no debate about it. The camera switches sync up with the last one, darkness, being from Tony's POV.

Bodhidharma

Giruilla wrote: »

Personally I choose he didn't die, as mob rule is they don't get taken out in front of family member so I can't believe Tony would have been in that situation.

Phil Leotardo was killed in front of his wife and grand daughter. Therefore the rules were already broken at that stage.

gibraltar

The creator of the show stated

that Tony was alive at the end of the show as far as he was concerned

I think the point of the ending was to put the viewer into the POV of Tony for a few minutes and feel the fear that is his day to day life - from picking up the paper in the morning to head hitting the pillow at nite he is always looking around to see where a bullet might come from.

d.anthony

If you pay attention to Tony and Bobby talking about death in the 2nd last (I think?) episode. It seems to be a little hint.

MaceFace

Here is the answer:

No one knows. The best "explanation" is that he gets shot by the guy going into the bathroom who was sitting at the bar. This seems to be the accepted ending because of the structure of the scene (google will give a much better and detailed explanation than I could).

Its all irrelevant. Would anyone be surprised if they done a movie or another season at some stage in the future and Tony turned up in it?

So, logically he probably died but logic plays no part in TV.

overthenest

its really hard to call personally i think he was about to go into witness protection and called the family there to let them know, wasnt there fbi guys at the bar??? ready to bring him in??? i think he had enough of it all and ref his conversation with bobby he didnt want it to end that way.....any views???

I think he was taken out also.

Shane10

come on there is no real ending to it is there? just take out of it what you want. me personally i like to think they had there meal and went home...we didnt see him dying so who's to say he did.

Mindkiller

It all took place in the autistic boy's head

Giruilla

Bodhidharma wrote: »

Phil Leotardo was killed in front of his wife and grand daughter. Therefore the rules were already broken at that stage.

Slightly different with Leotardo as he was in hiding so they had to take him at any opportunity they could get. Also his own crew already gave the go ahead to take him out, so the rules aren't the same.

irishme

i have watched and analised this series so many times,read bords and had discussions on forums and chat rooms and in my honest opinion this seems to be the truest explanation!!http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/ ive gon back again thru the final season and as mr david chase says,'its all there'!!

DazMarz

There are so many theories and possibilities... My feeling is that Tony was 'whacked' in the end... For the following reasons.

-The three top members of the DiMeo/Soprano Crime Family (Tony Soprano, Silvio Dante and Bobby Baccalieri) were all targets of the Lupertazzi Crime Family. The other two were killed/incapacitated, and Tony was left. Also, just before New York began their operations against the New Jersey family, Tony met up with the other two men and had dinner. They joked and were happy, and then Silvio and Bobby were victims of the New York hitmen. Why was Paulie or nobody else at this dinner for discussing what moves to make? Only these three? Did this foreshadow that the three would be killed?

-The man in the diner was wearing a 'Members Only' jacket. The same jacket worn by Eugene Pontecorvo as he carried out a hit earlier in Season 6. Foreshadowing that this man is a hitman similar to Eugene?

-The man moves to the gents and this is shown prominently. In The Godfather, Michael Corleone goes to the men's room to get his pistol to murder Virgil Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey. Could the man in this episode be going to get a similar hidden weapon?

-There is a possibility that soldiers from New York loyal to Phil Leotardo could decide to 'whack' Tony, even though the war is over, purely out of retribution and anger, similar to what Tony Blundetto did to Billy Leotardo.

-The fact that most of the members of the DiMeo/Soprano Crime Family that have been there throughout the series are now dead or incapacitated (see: Chris Moltisanti, Silvio Dante, Corrado 'Junior' Soprano, Bobby Bacala, et al) with only Tony and Paulie really remaining, it would be somewhat fitting for the ending to be for Tony to join his fellow fallen soldiers and for the so-called 'Pygmy Thing in Jersey' (as referred to by the New York capos) to be left leaderless and with one of the long-standing members to be taken out.

irishh_bob

DazMarz wrote: »

There are so many theories and possibilities... My feeling is that Tony was 'whacked' in the end... For the following reasons.

-The three top members of the DiMeo/Soprano Crime Family (Tony Soprano, Silvio Dante and Bobby Baccalieri) were all targets of the Lupertazzi Crime Family. The other two were killed/incapacitated, and Tony was left. Also, just before New York began their operations against the New Jersey family, Tony met up with the other two men and had dinner. They joked and were happy, and then Silvio and Bobby were victims of the New York hitmen. Why was Paulie or nobody else at this dinner for discussing what moves to make? Only these three? Did this foreshadow that the three would be killed?

-The man in the diner was wearing a 'Members Only' jacket. The same jacket worn by Eugene Pontecorvo as he carried out a hit earlier in Season 6. Foreshadowing that this man is a hitman similar to Eugene?

-The man moves to the gents and this is shown prominently. In The Godfather, Michael Corleone goes to the men's room to get his pistol to murder Virgil Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey. Could the man in this episode be going to get a similar hidden weapon?

-There is a possibility that soldiers from New York loyal to Phil Leotardo could decide to 'whack' Tony, even though the war is over, purely out of retribution and anger, similar to what Tony Blundetto did to Billy Leotardo.

-The fact that most of the members of the DiMeo/Soprano Crime Family that have been there throughout the series are now dead or incapacitated (see: Chris Moltisanti, Silvio Dante, Corrado 'Junior' Soprano, Bobby Bacala, et al) with only Tony and Paulie really remaining, it would be somewhat fitting for the ending to be for Tony to join his fellow fallen soldiers and for the so-called 'Pygmy Thing in Jersey' (as referred to by the New York capos) to be left leaderless and with one of the long-standing members to be taken out.

+1 and paulie wallnuts was shown to be loyal to no one but himself throughout the series , while in the can , he was attempting to start a dialogue with johnny sack , paulie would have no problem switching to another team , not so with tony , silvio and bobby

Wereghost

It's a Schrœdinger's Cat scenario, I suppose; Tony is in a superposition of whacked and not-whacked. I'm reminded of when Aaron Sorkin, while promoting The Social Network, was asked what the characters from The West Wing were doing now. He replied to the effect that (being constructs of fiction) they weren't doing anything.

Having said that, I always wanted Tony to get his comeuppance and I'm inclined to think that Chase should have provided a more definite conclusion.

Da Shins Kelly

I don't think he died. I think it just ended and that was that.

Lisha

I loved the soprano s. For me the ending could be interpreted in 2ways
1. Tony got shot
2. THe cycle just kept going, cos even if Tony got killed the many more would take his place. ( I always thought Meadow would fill his shoe s but we ll never know)

For me the ending does not really matter it was a great show.
I often still laugh at the old guys playing cards, in the nursing home, v funnny.

Temaz

irishme wrote: »

i have watched and analised this series so many times,read bords and had discussions on forums and chat rooms and in my honest opinion this seems to be the truest explanation!!http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/ ive gon back again thru the final season and as mr david chase says,'its all there'!!

Excellent piece of writing!! It convinced me Tony got whacked

irishh_bob

Lisha wrote: »

I loved the soprano s. For me the ending could be interpreted in 2ways
1. Tony got shot
2. THe cycle just kept going, cos even if Tony got killed the many more would take his place. ( I always thought Meadow would fill his shoe s but we ll never know)

For me the ending does not really matter it was a great show.
I often still laugh at the old guys playing cards, in the nursing home, v funnny.

meadow fill his shoes :eek: , you dont know much about the italian way ( let alone the mafia ) do you

no broads

cena

Spoilers much people. Only started to watch since sky Atlantic started

An Citeog

irishme wrote: »

i have watched and analised this series so many times,read bords and had discussions on forums and chat rooms and in my honest opinion this seems to be the truest explanation!!http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/ ive gon back again thru the final season and as mr david chase says,'its all there'!!

:eek:

Father Damo

The explanation is that for all his talent David Chase is an arrogant lazy git who couldnt think of a perfect ending and wanted to leave the door open for a return if he wanted a few extra quid in 5 years.

Personally Id have thought the feds coming swarming in with warrants would have been better- we never would have found out if he beat the charges or not, and it would leave the anticipation of the new series all the more fresh (as in- would it open with Tony in jail? Acquitted? Conviction quashed? Way more avenues with that ending tbh)

The way I see it, with him having agreed a truce with the New York lads who were half glad to see the back of Phil, theres little motive for Tony to be killed there and then (obviously he made enemies over the years- however gunning down a mob boss in a restaurant during the middle of a mob war would be idiotic, as a key player it is almost certain the feds would have been tailing Tony to the restaurant and would be able to arrest/ shoot any hitman on the spot)

Mindkiller

They foreshadowed it at two separate points in season 6. When Bobby was talking to Tony on the boat about 'You probably wouldn't see it coming' and when Silvio is eating lunch and some guy gets wacked while he's eating. Tony didn't see it coming. Considering how almost the entire series is focalised from Tony's perspective or from people directly involved with him it makes sense that the audience didn't see it coming either.

DazMarz

Regardless of how it ended, this was easily one of the best (if not the best) television series ever made. So many little brilliant, subtle nuances permeate the show; even now when I watch episodes again I see things that I hadn't noticed before or little brilliant moments that may have passed me by on 1st/2nd/even-3rd viewing of the episode. Everything about the show was unbelievably strong; the characters, the acting, the plots, the writing, the production value... nothing was done in half measures and everything was done on the grand scale of a film production, yet the series maintained that gritty, realistic edge that could so easily have escaped and been swallowed up by trying to make it more 'glamourous'.

The ending was left ambiguous (possibly cynically by David Chase as was noted above), but in all fairness to everyone involved in the show, this was always going to be one of the most difficult series to wrap up. The 'typical' endings for mob stories usually ends in bloodbaths, prison, entering into the witness protection programme or a combination of all 3. Here, there is no such ending, no closure, no pretty bow to wrap up the package and leave us all with a feeling of finality.

There would be no ending to The Sopranos that would have been totally satisfying, and no ending would have provided such a debate!

Dermighty

Bodhidharma wrote: »

Phil Leotardo was killed in front of his wife and grand daughter. Therefore the rules were already broken at that stage.

Yes but he had left the mob in more ways than one since his heart attack

Sad Professor

I wouldn't consider it an open ending. He dies, it's pretty obvious. Chase didn't show it because he wanted to piss off all the hypocrites in the audience who were demanding to see Tony lying in a pool of blood at the end as punishment for all his crimes. Unfortunately he screwed up the cut the black which was so sudden it just made people think their cable had cut out, which I don't think was the desired effect.

Father Damo

Sad Professor wrote: »

I wouldn't consider it an open ending. He dies, it's pretty obvious. Chase didn't show it because he wanted to piss off all the hypocrites in the audience who were demanding to see Tony lying in a pool of blood at the end as punishment for all his crimes.

Who the hell was demanding that? Id have taken that. Id have taken seeing him locked up. Id have taken seeing him stare into the sunset and saying something profound and we are left to imgaine his life goes on as it always had.

What we didnt need was what seemed like a signal outage. David Chase is certainly talented, but a talented cock regardless.

iguana

amacachi wrote: »

He died, there's no debate about it. The camera switches sync up with the last one, darkness, being from Tony's POV.

Yeah, but it's only obvious to atheists.

Been watching the series over the past few weeks having only seen bots of the show over the years. just finished the last episode moments ago and there's no doubt in my mind that he was taken out. There was so much foreshadowing in the last few episodes that there really was no need for a definite death scene as all the signs are there. That said the cut to black is very poorly done and I imagine upon first seeing it most people assumed that there tv signal or DVD was broke.

I'm assuming that the shot if AJ's new car and it's license plate ending in RDX is in reference to the explosive and that all the terrorism and war imagery and conversation which was stuffed into the last few episodes was Chase setting up the finale as being about something more than just the downfall of a mob boss. The war stuff felt rather forced and every time AJ opened his mouth to whine about the witld I wanted someone to slap him.

Dotrel

Shot in the back of the head by the guy coming out of the toilet.

First time I saw it was on download I was swearing like a docker because I thought I'd got an incomplete file.

DazMarz

An interesting little theory was put to me tonight by a friend of mine... Who got whacked??? He maintains it was the viewer!!!:D The sudden cut to black, the viewer is the one who gets whacked, as is evidenced by the sudden cut, brought on by the viewer getting a bullet.

Shaky, but a fun theory that gave me a laugh anyway!!!

Father Damo

Ah stop.

There was no ending.

They had a nice dinner. Went home. End of.


Anyone thinking David Chase actually had an ending implied in the scene is more pretentious than he is. It was a great great show but theres no harm in criticising the odd episode (being truthful the final series wasnt all that great compared to the rest)

KeanSeenan

Man would I've been pissed off if that was the case. Plus all endings imply, epilogues aren't a common trend of tv, last I checked.

iguana

KeanSeenan wrote: »

Man would I've been pissed off if that was the case. Plus all endings imply, epilogues aren't a common trend of tv, last I checked.

Well there was 6 Feet Under.


I felt the ending was obvious. To be fair I had heard that the scene just cuts out before I saw it so I wasn't left sitting there thinking I had a bad file or a cable outage, so I understand why it would be confusing for anyone who was completely unspoiled. But other than that it's beyond obvious. I've often had dreams where I die and it's just like that, nothing, no light, no sound, no feeling, just nothing. From your perspective everything is over. So Tony died and the world ended. Earlier in the series Tony had that same dream and woke up very upset and lamenting to Carmella that he died and there was nothing.

beeroclock

They all went back to the badabing for ice cream and cup cakes

Lurved that show so much!

Mindkiller

iguana wrote: »

Well there was 6 Feet Under.


I felt the ending was obvious. To be fair I had heard that the scene just cuts out before I saw it so I wasn't left sitting there thinking I had a bad file or a cable outage, so I understand why it would be confusing for anyone who was completely unspoiled. But other than that it's beyond obvious. I've often had dreams where I die and it's just like that, nothing, no light, no sound, no feeling, just nothing. From your perspective everything is over. So Tony died and the world ended. Earlier in the series Tony had that same dream and woke up very upset and lamenting to Carmella that he died and there was nothing.

I'm pretty sure in that scene he woke up crying 'It's all a big nothing'. Then he realised the crushing feeling in his stomach was a bout of diarrhea.

I don't know. It might still be some subtle foreshadowing. Doubt it though

Father Damo

Mindkiller wrote: »

They foreshadowed it at two separate points in season 6. When Bobby was talking to Tony on the boat about 'You probably wouldn't see it coming' and when Silvio is eating lunch and some guy gets wacked while he's eating. Tony didn't see it coming. Considering how almost the entire series is focalised from Tony's perspective or from people directly involved with him it makes sense that the audience didn't see it coming either.

So the clues are all there. Philosophical musings from the most intellectually challenged member of Tonys crew. Ive seen better 9/11 conspiracy theories than this tripe. The pretentiousness of the debate is beyond belief. NOTHING HAPPENED. Paulie didnt whack him to seize power- he hadnt many allies in New York to fall back on when the power struggle would begin between the Jersey survivors. New York had made peace with Tony. Any other randomers that Tony had pissed off down the years (the Russian. Associates of the black hitman killed in the failed hit on Tony. Associates of the two black lads they whacked after cancelling the hit on Carmine. Associates of the Czech guy Chris killed in season one. The Leotardo member Tony severely beat after he threatened Meadow. Relatives of other victims etc etc etc) NONE of these people would take Tony out when they know full well he is being tailed to the restaurant by the FBI due to the threat to his life.

Gauss

Just watched the last episode last night for the first time. He lived IMO.

Micky Dolenz

Spent the last 5 or 6 weeks watching the show.

Very hard to like any of the characters imo. With regard to the end. I believe he was taken out, the whole season was geared toward it.

kingtiger

imo

I think it was the audience that was "wacked"

fruvai