Man in Member Only Jacket (Finale)

The actor who played the man at the counter in the members only jacket is Paolo Colandrea. My first thought was, wow what an Italian sounding name. In fact it sounds like this guy was "from the other side". Now, how many times did Tony "farm out" a big time hit to the "zips" in order to insulate himself from being implicated. I mention this because is it possible the actor chosen to play the part (Paolo Colandrea) was chosen partly because of his name? If Tony and the jersey crew had ties to the homeland it would be plausible to think NY had at least similair ties! I know this may be a little far fetched but I feel that using this actor was something David Chase INTENDED and hints to this man being a hired hit man from "the other side". It would make perfect sense given that Tony would have NO IDEA who this guy was and in the last episode he makes no indication of being on edge or concerned with him, although, Paolo definetly has distinct intetrest in what was going on at the Soprano family table in Holsten's.

I don't think David Chase (or anyone else) would hire someone based solely on their name.

Obvioulsy not SOLEY based on the name but the thinking is partly. It is not all that outlandish an idea??!

So why didn't he whack AJ before entering the restaurant?

Stop straining that feeble mind of yours with questions like this. You really think A.J. would have been his target? You think he'd whack A.J. and then wait patiently for Tony?

Stick to something you know.... like plagarizing.

I'm just saying that when the hitman kills Tony at the table, AJ and Carmella will be opposite.

Could they catch a stray bullet?

Could AJ go after the gunman from the restaurant?

Could AJ have a vendetta later in life?

Season 6, Pt 2, final episode. Tony and Carmela in kitchen after Bobby gets killed...


"Family's don't get touched...you know that." — Tony to Carmela.

I already knew that.

would you seriously be afraid of AJ's revenge?

Only if you were in a nuthouse like Uncle Junior.

It IS an interesting theory. I like it.

He's just a guy who gets up from the counter and walks to the restroom - nothing more. However, our speculation is what Chase intended.

I understand that is what we see but obviously there is more to him than that? Why is he so interested in he Soprano table?? He is obviously VERY nervous (we can see that as well). Tony has no idea who he is and it is obvious from the scene that he has no concern for the man (as he walks by the table Tony briefly glances at him the immediatly looks back down at the menu.

I also like how someone pointed out the scene when Tony picks AJ up from the police station after he tried to kill Junior and AJ sceams at Tony about how he mentions, while watching the Godfather, that the scene when Michael kills Sollozzo was his favorite scene of all time. The last scene from the Sopranos sets up a similar scenerio occuring.

If it is an assassin, then:

1) Who is his employer?
2) The answer is most likely New York. But then:
3) Phil's dead. Butchie made the truce with Tony.
4) Why would Butchie kill Tony? It doesn't make sense; without the direction of Phil (or the direction of Tony), the two families wouldn't have much business to attend to.
5) Is it possible that the Members Only guy was employed by Phil, and when Phil was killed, word couldn't get to Members Only? It's possible, but unlikely.

The last scene is at once relieving and tense. With Phil gone and the NY/NJ war over, he has every reason to sit down and enjoy a meal out with his family. On the other hand, his shrink has left him, his son just tried to commit suicide (and previous plotlines tell us he's prone to recurring depression), and Carlo just flipped to the Feds. Indictments are on the way.

The scene mirrors not so much Tony's paranoia, but his need to be paranoid. He can't live comfortably, he can't afford to. All this wealth and prosperity has brought him to a miserable, wretched life, with only surface grins and warmth.

So if the Mafia only brings misery and the Feds, why then do people join the Mob?

Very good and succinct explanation.

That guy in the Members Only jacket is significant only because of the explanation above.

In short, money; wealth. This is the American Dream, after all.

But I don't think "join" is the right word; people are born into the culture in which crime (not necessarily organised crime) proves an easy option.

What good is $1million tucked away while you are on a life sentence?

Exactly.

I believe Tony was killed when the screen went black. We switch back and forth from Tony's POV to our usual POV and the black is Tony's POV again in my opinion. That said, Maybe an old order from Phil, who was in no position to cancel it. This is the most likely option.

Butch had watched Tony show him and his crime family disrespect when curb stomping CoCo and pointing the gun at Butch. If Butch is making a move to be boss, he can't let that go unanswered or he wouldn't get any respect.

I wonder if David Chase ever really thought about it...I wonder what he would, personally, like to believe, as far as who killed Tony. Chase went too many extra steps to set the scene for Tony getting whacked (specifically having the orange tiger picture put on the wall of the resteraunt for example). So no doubt, in Chase's mind, Tony was killed that night. I just wonder if Chase has any of his own ideas about who did it and why.

I agree, although more with the idea that Butch was behind the hit. he was the new BOSS and NEVER liked Tony, even before the stomping of CoCo and Tony pointing the gun in his face (remember the scene when Tony goes to see Phil in the hospital afetr the heart attack?) Also, why would Butch, much like Phil want to "share" profits with Tony. I really feel it made sense for Butch to stay with the "decaptiate and do business with what's left" plan. Besides, two of the top three were already dead.

Also agree with the POV theory as well. Every time the bell rings we see Tony look up and then immediatley are taken to his POV. When the bell rings upon Meadow coming in Holsten's we see Tony look up and when we SHOULD go to his POV........total blackness! he never ,as Bobby asks in episode one of the last season, saw it coming!!

I will forever hate Chase for this ending.

I don't get the hate. Why? Because Chase denies us moral closure?

It's very anti-network television; very anti-Hollywood.

Life is like that; those who oppress keep on oppressing, and continue in their affluence and misery. Don't forget the finale is called "Made in America".

It's very cynical, and it's very honest.

I love it. It's a masterpiece of tragedy.

Couldn't agree more, Capo. A masterpiece of tragedy it is.

Nah, more because The Sopranos was a show I could chuck on and vibe to etc. Didn't need any complex thought to watch the show. It was pretty straight forward and to the point. Then this bullshit ending where you can't really get anything from it except endless theories and shit.

Should have ended it how it was. A great show with a straight forward flow. Not this purposely cutting to black suddenly etc.

I don't know. I'm ranting. I definitely don't think it's genius, or clever at all. Just annoying. Hence all the talk around the world about it. Chase got what he wanted. But what he wanted didn't fit one other episode or the flow of the show.

Fuck him.

Yes, I'm drunk and my views are pointless.

I used to think the Sopranos was pretty simple too. Until I began watching the seasons over again a few times. There is actually a huge underlying mine of psychological nuggets. It's there, under the surface.

The entire last episode (and last season for that matter) was full of symbolism. You just have to recognize it.

Yeah maybe I cam off the wrong way. I don't think the show is "simple". Just straight to the point when it came to the plots and story lines.

Yeah I watched this episode again yesterday.
Still trying to crack this nut even though there is no real way of knowing what happens unless one day Chase tells us.
The only this is that damn guy in the members only jacket that makes me un-sure about Tony's survival and he's a bit shifty looking.

Speaking of members only jackets, before Vito pulls up Eugene about wearing one I had never really heard of them? Is it just a common styled jacket worn by mafioso in the 80's & 90's? What's the significance?

I think Capo de la Cosa Nostra has great points. Where's the point in killing Tony after Phill already getting whacked and a truce made with Butch. I mean there's still motive, an eye for an eye I guess or an order from Phill that was never cancelled by Butch but...
I've got to say I think they have dinner and walk away. Eventually Tony goes to trial.

In many ways I find the does-he-live-or-doesn't he question quite irrelevant. In the final scene I find an endearing sense of circularity, both in the "life goes on" vibe (Tony's possible death notwithstanding) and the thematic wrap-up.

The show begins as it ends, from Tony's POV. Both are women: the alluring green statue in Melfi's waiting room (off limits, largely, for Tony's family), and Meadow's entrance to the restaurant (a family scene; the family returns).

The show takes as its opening point a son (not a gangster) who wishes to vent about his mother; hereafter, said mother interferes with business - family becomes Family.

At the end, Tony survives both family (he gets back with Carm, he outlives his mother, his children finally have some career direction) and Family (Phil is dead, things begin to look rosy again) and sits down for one Last Supper.

The Sopranos was fiction, right? It ended as it ended.

I also believe Tony was whacked, and the reason was most likely Carlo. Remember, he was going to flip, and that could've triggered a domino effect that would've ended up hurting the New York bosses. What if Carlo's testimony was so damning that it made Tony himself flip? Gangsters don't generally like to leave stuff like that to chance. If I was the New York boss and I heard that a high ranking NJ guy was flipping, I'd start cutting all ties too, starting with Tony, the biggest tie.

(Phil setting up the hit)It's extremely possible if it was on the same day.(Phils death and Tonys family night out.) Phil and Butch are speaking on the phone when Butch suggests reaching out. He says sorry your breaking up, now we well know that Phil could still hear Butch, but just like the guy that took the food from his plate, Butch has now offended Phil. Phil is the type to kill his own family if he felt betrayed enough. (Vito) It's extremely possible when you think about it.
Especailly if the man was from Italy, as the orders go through a middle man and are not negotiated directly.

Eugene Pontecorvo wore a Members Only jacket when he whacked a guy in a restaraunt in the first episode of season 6.

A guy in a Members Only jacket is hanging around Tony before the blackness.

In addition, I think a lot of Tony's paranoia was based on the decisions that his children were making, as I would describe Carm and Tony as content with the way the children were turning out, and not happy. They were content, because things could have been infinitely worse after the NY/NJ war and AJ's contrived attempt at suicide. But in fact, their worst fears were coming true with their children as Meadow was looking to marry the son of one of Tony's associates. Are we to believe that she and Jason Parisi were truly going to become civil rights attorneys, or would they turn their legal efforts to helping 'the family'?

But it was AJ's path that was turning the most ominous. After a shallow attempt at suicide, he does a complete 180 (per usual) and decides to join the army. But then, after Tony AND Carmela present a bogus job in the 'film' industry with Carmine Jr., and talk of Tony investing in a future night club, AJ completely drops the Army idea in a split second. In his last scene, before the final supper, when he goes to pick up his girlfriend from school in his new BMW, notice the absence of color in that scene--it has a very 1920's German Expressionism eerieness to it--I think it's synonymous with AJ and his new nihlist pal, who are completely devoid of any real emotion or life at that point. Life really means nothing to AJ b/c he has been given everything by his father (the new car, after the previous one caught fire), which is precisely what Tony told Melfi many times that he didn't want for his son. At the last supper, AJ tells Tony and Carm how much of a phony, artificial job he has with Carmine, Jr. to which Carmela replies, in her typical suburban-mom rhetoric, "You may not know this, young man, but you are gaining valuabe contacts" to which AJ casually shrugs off and quips with his now infamous "Remember the good times, right?" A tell-tale sign that the times at hand were not so good. AJ certainly wouldn't have been able to escape the mafia life if he spent his career operating a night club financed by 'waste management' funds.

Of course, I think Tony's death would have changed all of that. Meadow would have dropped Jason; AJ loses his bogus job with Carmine Jr., and upon his father's death, finally gains a meaning and understanding of life that Tony desperately wanted him to find.


...Thoughts?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKYNXo-jUBo

Season 6I Opener. The song forecasts a lot. Ray being a rat. The word death is mentioned and shows a Train and then Bobby. Meadow is called Guardian Angel and 3rd one out.

Is Meadow being late what allows Tony to get whacked?

For what it's worth, one of the scenarios Sammy Gravano and John Gotti considered for killing Paul Castellano was to assassinate Paul in a diner he always ate at. Paul's booth was near the men's room, so their plan was to send in someone Paul didn't know, have him walk into the men's room, and then come out shooting. Sound familiar?

Could be a coincidence, but it's obvious from the show that they took a lot of inspiration from real mob stories.

I'm not sure Tony was in fact killed in the end, although it gives you the impression he was. I personally think it's 50/50.

But to add a valid argument to a possible reason for it: you can't just get away with killing a "boss", especially one of the major New York families. Not even if you're a boss from New Jersey.

It doesn't have to be Butchie who gave the order. I agree that it is unlikely the order came from. But it is likely it came from the other families on the Commission. What signal would it give to others that you can get away with killing a boss? From their perspective, they had to make an example and Tony was a rotten apple that had to go. The best solution would have been to make a clean sweep after all the chaos, which Tony was partly responsible for.

And it's also plausible the guy could have been hired by Phill when he was still alive. Something equivalent also happens in Road to Perdition.