sopranos finale
 

First of all, I can't believe this subject hasn't recieved its own thread yet. I remember when Seinfeld went off the air; I remember it was such a big deal I got to home from work early. Guess our collective priorities have shifted.

Anyhow, like everyone, I was instantly dissapointed. Furious even. Then I thought about it. (Sopranos in general rewards deep thinking) The two things I liked best about the series was its honesty and its uniqueness. The finale thus satisfied what I'd come to expect. Everything you need to know, you know. Tony's damned and that's it--do we really need the gruesome details? Haven't we had enough? Haven't we learned everything we need to know about Tony?

It didn't end in blood (although Phil Leotardo's death more than satisfied the audience's blood-lust), but with honesty. Yeah, our quick thrill was denied, but we were given something much richer instead, even if it takes awhile for us to realize it.

I had the same reaction. And yeah, I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more web chat about it, since the ending is so unconventional.

I was stunned at first. Like, no, that can't be it. What happened? Did Meadow just walk in and that's all Tony was looking up for? Or is it a gun man, the guy returning from the restroom who kept glancing at Tony? Does the sudden blackout suggest Tony's sudden loss of consciousness as the bullet hits his brain? Then I realized, it doesn't matter. Like the whole series, it's open-ended, uncertain, ambiguous. It feels now like there was no other way to end it.

I need to watch that bitch!!!

I really want to watch it again. I hope it's repeated this week. I think there were some inside jokes I didn't catch the first time around. Chase has a great way of poking fun of his audience's expecations.

the sopranos finale did what the sopranos has done to us every season since season 3.....DISAPPOINT!! sopranos is done and they cancelled my favorite show, Rome, so now i cancell HBO...good job chase, you just cost hbo million of subscribers

The more I think about, the more brilliant it seems!

Very unconventional but at the same time, very "Sopranos"--open-ended, gray. The last sequence I think is probably the most suspenseful scene I've ever sat through, especially for television. Allowing the audience to decide for themselves the fate of Tony? But one spin on it that I've heard, that I think fits the mood perfectly of that last scene, is that the audience ourselves gets whacked at the end. That's why we suddenly can't see or hear any more of the scene. It's like the creepy gangster guy came out of the restroom and blew us away in the back of the head.

Personally I like the lack of closure, since, the Sopranos have always existed in such a wonderfully (and human) gray-area, it wouldn’t seem right to have everything come to an end wrapped a nice little bow.

But there was still some payoff. Phil gets killed, Tony and his guys reach out and negotiate peace between NJ and NY, Tony visits Junior and seemingly come to terms with him (not forgiving, but at very least accepting), Tony visits Janice and seems come to terms with her, too, et cetera.

Chase is brilliant at poking fun at audience expectations. I think that not giving us a big bloody typical shootemup gangster ending was fitting, not to mention genius on Chase's part.

Tony got whacked.
his daughter saw him get whacked as she entered the shop.
There were dead people in the diner. re-watch it.
also, check the credits as to how they list the people in the restaurant at the final scene.
Tomny himself has said it, when you get whacked, it is out of nowhere, you don;t see it coming, just like [phil leotardo did not see it coming either.

the cat thing with paulie walnuts was hilarious.

Dead people in the diner? What are you talking about, Rob?!

So, getting whacked, coming out of nowhere, could still mean the audience getting whacked, not Tony. Tony looks up, sees "us," the viewer, get whacked by the creepy gangster guy who came back out of the restroom. We're over, we're the ones who are dead now. The Soprano family go on without us.

The cat could be Chris, reincarnated.

that cat is too old for that

the cat is probably adrianna

gmku's got the right idea. keep thinking about the seemingly simple ending and it unfolds like a chinese box.

if it's true that chase filmed three seperate endings, think they'll be on the dvd? a year from now, maybe we can have the (now) boring endings everyone predicted.

The last shot: Tony's face. Depressed. Far more dramatic than a bullet in the brain.

Ah, yeah... That's why it's a pussy cat...

Another theory: All the "suspicious" characters in the diner are the FBI. Tony and his family are meeting to go into witness protection. That's why Tony looks depressed in the last shot. An agent has come to the table to initiate the switch, and thus ends this chapter of Tony's life.

No way man, in the 2nd to last episode Tony had aflashback to a convo he had with Bobby, about being whacked, and how it is probably quick and silent and then everything goes black.
In this episode, shady charcters are all around,a dn since tony has trained huimlf to be on guard all his life he focuses on the suspicious people, and then he hears the bell signaling his daughters' entry into the restauranta nd all goes black o the words "don;t stop" in the Journey song he played.
black and silent and quick.

Tony Soprano is dead.

also, in the credits, the guy in the member;s only jacket that was at the bar and went to bathroom before the big "fade to black" is listed as last name LEOTARDO, which is Phil, NYC boss, who just got whacked's last name.

I can't say for sure but does the FBI give clemancy to mob bosses? Tony was a boss, they don't want to give witness protection to a mob boss, they want to indict and imprision them.

I hate to admit it, Rob... but what you say makes sense. Dammit.

ehhh, i think after watching and waiting all thsi time (how many seasons did we have to wait over a year for it to return?) chase owed the fans a better ending. im sure he cost HBO a ton of subscribers, but those people were gonna get rid fo HBO anyway after sopranos, unless they watch any of the lame shos left on that channel. try to break it down all ya want, it wasnt right not to show us how it all ends after all this time. since the last 3 seasons have been so bad compared to the first 3 seasons, i shouldnt be disappointed, ive been disappointed with sopranos since the beginning of season 4 thru last nights episode, so i shouldnt be surprised, but i still am

but its not just Sopranos, most if not all seasons finales and series finales i have seen almost always disappoint, and this was no different. so tony get killed when the screen went to black, fine, but show it for fucks sake, i think we as fans deserve as much

I rewatched it tonight, and now I think you're wrong, Rob. I didn't see anything in the credits about Leotardo associated with the man in the member's club jacket. Tonight it just seemed very ordinary. Tony didn't look surprised, depressed, or anything when he looked up. He simply looked like he recognized someone familiar, in this case, Meadow. Nothing happens. Tony and family live. However, I still suspect they were getting ready to go somewhere. The Journey song--"ready to take a midnight ride into anywhere..." Carmella's look on her face and her voice, when she tells Tony in the yard that the diner is the consensus, and when she meets Tony in the diner. She just looks resigned, like she doesn't like what's happening, but has given up. And AJ mentions focusing on the good times. I don't know. I just still get the vibe.

The guy who went to the bathroom was Phil Leotards nephew, the trucker with the america hat, was a guy Tony and chris hijacked in the first or second season, the two black guys are the guys who tried to kill tony in the second season. Meadow's shitty parking was a metaphor for her trying to find her place in life, and yeah the whole sound going out thing was a reference to death being silent and quick, Rob was right for the most part except those people weren't dead, they were just people who would want Tony dead.

hmm... i thought it was predictable...

I'll avoid reading this thread till I've watched the final episode, which will be tonight. I'm sure Chase has come up with a good ending.
Can't wait.

Hmmm, is on on tv in Holland? I seem to have no idea when it comes to dutch tv.

Torrents Kingo, torrents!

In the final episode, notice that when Tony wakes up, the bed has sheets. When he went to sleep the bed had no sheets on it, it was just mattress. This might indicate that the whole last episode is a dream. Possibly.

Oh, I hate the dream endings. So cheap.

Yes, I agree with this sentiment, I have always hated "The End" type of endings. The only true ending to people's lives are death, and hey, if you want to think Tony bit a bullet in the end, great, you sicko. :) In the end "The Sopranos" gave us all the possible endings. Tony, died, his family died, he gave himself up to the FEDS, or maybe he was going about unaffected, business as usual. All those apply, and it makes for a better ending. All viewers who need a "THE END" in the thier movies and series finales, well too bad, this ending made you think, and imagine, David Chase gave you your ending, you just have to use your noodle in order to watch it.

Although it is one of many possible interpretations of the series finale episode that Tony is shot and killed at point-blank range, the man in the diner that enters the bathroom (ala The Godfather...a deliberately cheap ending-option for a certain mindset) is not credited as Nicky Leotardo; the rumor being regurgitated began as a (no surprise here) New York Times article. He is listed in the credits merely as "Man in Members Only Jacket."

Go back to the "Seven Souls" montage at the beginning of the final season and the ensuing first episodes of the season. The viewer's salt was already being tested. People that were either sadly or angrily disappointed shouldn't be so shocked, although the blank screen (in all its relevant connotations & despite the earlier flashback to Tony & Bobby in the boat) was a trickster's ending, to be sure.

Perhaps an important notation to make when offering conjectures (hell, Tony awakes to an outfitted bedroom in the beginning and even changes shirts towards the end--both with many explanations possible) about the Soprano family's "final" journey, is that the b-side to "Don't Stop Believin'" is "Any Way You Want It." Speculation abounds with the open ending that there may be a feature film forthcoming. For now, Chase has intimated that he's already entertained ideas of doing a movie depicting a day in season six we didn't see, or a film about the "old days" when Tony was just a youngster.

The inclusion of The Twilight Zone episode "The Bard" (humorously about how Shakespeare would write for television) I found cute, since critics have been known to refer to The Sopranos as "modern-day" Shakespeare.

The show has always examined how we rationalize and prioritize things and in the episode, A.J.'s arc goes from giving Dylan a thumbs-up & wanting to join the military to jetting off in his new BMW with his high school part-time model girlfriend. "While one who sings with his tongue on fire..." haha. Great stuff.

Quite understandably, the cat has also been commented on numerous times in this thread. There are lots of funny moments in the finale, but perhaps the best was Paulie with the cat. While, according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the forty-nine days in bardo (plus however old the cat was) had not yet passed for Christopher to be the cat (who, it seems, would relish tormenting Paulie), the cat, yes, could be Adriana, or maybe even Big Pussy if one subscribes to this particular sort of reincarnation interpretation.
More importantly, the cat is yet another in the line of symbolic animals used throughout the series to identify elements of Tony's psyche or to represent Tony himself.
And, perhaps most interesting and clever, is that the cat-as-Tony is also a reference to Schrödinger's cat, a post-Heisenberg Principle thought-experiment designed to illustrate the uncertain incongruencies of particle physics in hopes of discovering more precise knowledge about our universe.

 

After an hour the cat is in a quantum superposition of coexisting alive and dead states. Yet when we look in the box we expect to only see one of the states, not a mixture of them.


Whatssa matta, cat got your tongue?

I'm too stupid for them, sorry. Send the bloody dvd its been months you lazy boy

Wow! The ending couldn't have been better. Loved it. The way I see it, Tony doesn't get whacked. Meadow comes in and that's that. Life goes on.
Phil's liquidation brought some relief and happiness, 'cause he's the only one that really wanted Tony out of the way.
The other New York families weren't keen on it from the start.
Also, I wonder if Ford agreed with the idea that one of their latest models would be used to flatten Phil's head.
Their logo appears twice, just before the squish.

The squint wacko had me worried thoughout the last few episodes. Didn't trust him for one minute. Sneaky bastard.
Paulie's irritation with the cat was very funny indeed. I also liked the fact that Little Miss Sunshine was playing on the tv
in the intensive care unit, where Sil lay in a coma.
All in all, it's been a good 8 years. I'm gonna miss staying up late on Thursday nights to watch Paulie Walnuts catching a tan under his chin.
Well done Chase.

Here's the alternate ending that was shown on the west coast.


Make sure you're sitting down before you watch this.
You will be shocked!!! Don't say I didn't warn you!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1j0b613tXI :D :D :D

Damn, I didn't get the full effect because I let it load while I was up and around doing other things and heard the Astley song...lordy.

Ford...accept no substitute for when you want to run over fiberglass replicas of your enemies. Much of The Twilight Zone "The Bard" has Shakespeare trying to cope with pressure from sponsors.

Since Tony is going to get a ten year sentence, that means he'll be out in five with good behavior and so, presto, the option is still open for more Sopranos, or a Sopranos movie.

well after viewing it yet again, and pondering the end of the Sopranos I understad it now.

It is WE, the audience, who got whacked.

After having followed the lives of tomny soprano and his two families, we were treated to 10 amazing tension building minutes, showing us how Tony Soprano REALLY lives, jumping at every sound, anyone can be an enemy, anyone could be a cop, constant paranoia, to thepoint where it feels like you are having an attack of some kind, and just as it builds and builds *CUT TO BLACK*

no sound, no light. It was not Tony who got it. It was the audience. We all got whacked. It came out of nowhere and with no warning and it was all just black.

excellent!

The angle utilized right after Tony enters where we see him at the booth lends creedence to the audience-got-whacked theory. Also, Tony left the house and visited Uncle Junior in the state facility while on the way to Holsten's, and when he removes his leather jacket, he is wearing a different shirt in the diner. Somehow, I don't think this is a continuity error, but was done on purpose.

The Tony-gets-killed thing is also, on some level, a valid interpretation. As someone pointed out, it's the classic "the Lady or the Tiger?" ending.

The people in the diner were picked on purpose to screw with viewers, despite what Chase says.

The guy in the booth with the "USA" hat, is rumored to be the brother of the trucker that Christopher stole the DVDs from in Season 2. Other speculation concerns the man at the counter who uses the restroom, the boy scouts, and the two black guys at the display.

The guy at the counter who strides in just before A.J. could easily be a bodyguard, an FBI agent, or just a non-regular customer trying to locate the bathroom. Or just maybe he really is there to whack Tony, although to use the similar ruse to the one in The Godfather seems a bit lame to me. The Sopranos reference pop culture, to be sure, but usually it's not such a direct reference as all that. Besides, the angle that everyone keeps referring to where "Tony sees himself" clearly establishes that he is in a straight line of sight with the front door of Holsten's. If you'll also notice the layout of the restaurant and the booth in relation to the bathroom when Man in the Members Only Jacket goes by, one can tell that Tony would have had to look over his right shoulder to face any assailant coming from out of the restroom. Instead, he faces straight ahead in the ending shot as he notices Meadow come through the door.

 

No shit. That's what I've been saying. I told that to somebody else (not here) and they called that smug and pretentious. But fuck them. That's what happened. I'm convinced of it, too.

Wow. This is gonna be some "Paul is dead" thing. Speaking of whacking (off)....

Did the critics get a different version? I can't believe the crap I've been reading. In Newsweek, it mentions how the song playing over the credits is by Journey. "And what a great journey it's been." Yeah, good line, moron, but the credits were silent.

Theory: The last shot of Tony is right before another panic attack. He falls down on his fork and it goes through his eye, into his brain, killing him instantly.

here's the thing, too: What's the point of view of the camera? It's OUR point of view. WE see what the camera sees. So when WE get whacked, camera goes dead (or vice versa?).

The point of view isn't Tony's. The point of view is omniscient, changing from character to character, scene to scene. It's the viewer's point of view through the camera. That to me is the most compelling evidence supporting this idea.

Plus, Tony's expression--he's not surprised or anything. If he'd looked up to see a gun in his face, there'd have been at least a flicker of shock. There's nothing. Just dead pan, like, yeah, he's seen us before. The look of shock would come a moment later, after we're whacked, after the moment the trigger is pulled.

asshole. worst post ever.

Off-topic: Who does the show's theme song?

I looked it up once, cuz my girl gets so excited when she hears the song, she actually grinds against the couch which makes ME get all excited and....
never mind.
I looked it up. it is a UK band, and the single or album is a BIATCH to find. the group is called
ALABAMA 3


here is their site
http://www.alabama3.co.uk/

"Watch your mouth pipsqueak!" :cool:


Anyway, I visited the HBO/Sopranos forum to see what the diehard fans thought about the ending, and someone pointed out that the pilot episode of Sopranos starts off with a black screen, followed by a mugshot of Tony sitting in Dr. Melfi's practice. It lasts a couple of seconds before she finally walks in, and he starts talking about himself and his "family". The finale ends in pretty much the same way. A mugshot of Tony, followed by a black screen and silence. Full circle. The onion rings they get as a starter symbolizes that. <That last sentence is a little farfetched, if you ask me.

Also, if Tony supposedly gets whacked by the suspicious guy that goes to the restroom, he would be looking over his right shoulder in the last shot. It's clearly obvious, that he hears the front door bell, and looks up to see Meadow coming into the diner.


You can buy a CD compilation of some of the songs including the full version of the theme song. A friend of mine bought it through the Sopranos website. Let me add that I've got The Sopranos Family Cookbook, which is fantastic. A must have. Great italian recipes, spiced with humor.