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The Final Episode Explained
Posted By: SC
The Final Episode Explained - 05/11/14 09:25 PM
Here's a pretty good explanation of what may have happened to Tony Soprano in the final episode of the show. The explanation seems possible to me.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO LINK
Posted By: pizzaboy
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/11/14 09:35 PM
Totally plausible. And I've been saying that Tony was killed at the diner for the past seven years
.
Posted By: NickyEyes1
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/11/14 09:41 PM
Good theory. I still don't understand why Chase had an unexplainable ending. I thought the ending was great, but it still gave us no closure. Maybe he was just unsure on how to end it.
Posted By: Dellacroce
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/11/14 09:42 PM
Im convinced.
Posted By: SC
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/11/14 09:45 PM
I thought the ending was great, but it still gave us no closure. Maybe he was just unsure on how to end it.
I loved the ending as it was. Chase didn't like to tie things up into a neat, little bundle. Many of the show's storylines went unresolved. I guess it was up to each of us to imagine how the show ended.
Posted By: pizzaboy
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/11/14 09:48 PM
Good theory. I still don't understand why Chase had an unexplainable ending. I thought the ending was great, but it still gave us no closure. Maybe he was just unsure on how to end it.
That's because, as you get older, Nicky, you'll find out that we rarely get so-called "closure" in many areas of our lives. I think that was Chase's whole point. But I'm still convinced that Tony died.
I hate to admit it but Tony definitely died. I think Chase didn't completely end Tony in case the desire to continue his story later on down the road ever occurred.
Posted By: afriendofours
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/12/14 10:57 AM
I still don't think he was whacked in the restaurant, the amount of different people that came in, were all red herrings.
The fade to black in my opinion was really just to say Tony was fucked no matter what. With carlo flipping, it was only a matter of time that either the feds got him or he was whacked after what happened with New York, half his crew was gone.
It was over for Tony basically or it was going to be very shortly. For me there was nothing to really suggest he was whacked, some dodgy looking italian guy going to the toilet, plus a couple of other guys coming into the restaurant, who ended up sitting down.
Will watch the video when im back on the PC though later.
The cut-to-black functions how a coin-toss does for someone who can't make a decision. In the brief time the coin is spinning in the air, you realise which side you're hoping it lands on. In cutting to black without so-called "closure", Chase is asking us to decide for ourselves the moral implications of Tony's potential murder.
Posted By: Lou_Para
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/12/14 09:50 PM
My opinion is that the Sopranos was such a monster hit and cultural icon,that any ending Chase would have picked would not have been good enough.
We watched Tony's kids grow up,saw his rise to power,became intimate associates with our favorite characters,and in general let the show become part of the fabric of our lives for so many years.
How do you end such an incredible run?
I think that Chase made a brilliant decision.Instead of giving us the ending,he let us provide our own. By leaving a blank canvas,he provided each of us with the luxury of closing the show in our own personal way.
Granted he pis*ed a lot of people off,but that's because the viewing public is used to neatly wrapped packages.
Chase paid us a compliment by treating us as more than mindless boob tubers.
At first,like almost everyone else,I wanted to strangle him for leaving us hanging.But as time went on,I realized that he made a brilliant move.
For me,Tony wasn't killed,and the final scene reminds us of what Tony's life is like,now and in the future.
Is a RICO bust imminent? Does he still have a viable crew? Is the New York situation over? He still has to live day to day with the possibility of being hit,as does any Mob guy.
The nice thing is that I can watch the final scene and find enough justification to support my viewpoint.The same can be said for those who believe that Tony got killed at the diner,or that Meadow caught a stray bullet.
No matter what you believe happened when the screen went black,you are right. There is enough there to support any conclusion.
To me,that is the genius of David Chase.
Posted By: cheech
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/13/14 01:35 PM
I thought the ending was great, but it still gave us no closure. Maybe he was just unsure on how to end it.
I loved the ending as it was. Chase didn't like to tie things up into a neat, little bundle. Many of the show's storylines went unresolved. I guess it was up to each of us to imagine how the show ended.
I agree SC...I was disappointed at first like everyone else (thought my cable went out) but looking back on it i think its genius and i wholeheartedly believe he was wacked...going ack to the first episode in that season when bobby says you probably dont even hear it you just go black...and thats what happens at the end...i think it was foreshadowing.
any way we are still talking about it so Chase got what he was looking for.
havent read the link yet, looking forward to it.
Posted By: Lou_Para
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/13/14 03:24 PM
I think that Chase deliberately put the "everything goes black" comment by Bobby in as a sneaky little red herring.
Bobby saw his killers coming,Sil knew he was hit in his car outside the Bing,Torchiano knew he was getting hit,(although Sil didn't at first),Mikey Palmici knew,etc.
In short,everybody who got killed in the show's run pretty much saw it coming,even if it was only a second or two before it happened.
I think that Chase's emphasis on reminding us of Bobby's statement was to give plausible evidence for the "Tony gets hit" ending.
As I mentioned previously,Chase threw in enough stuff in the final episode to support every possible ending. No matter what your take on Tony's fate,you can find sufficient "clues" to prove your position.
Kind of reminds me of the "Paul is dead" days.
Posted By: NickyEyes1
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/13/14 04:47 PM
Bobby never even said "everything goes black" he just said you "probably don't see it coming." But I agree with you Lou.
Posted By: Lou_Para
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/13/14 09:55 PM
Bobby never even said "everything goes black" he just said you "probably don't see it coming." But I agree with you Lou.
Good catch Eyes.You're absolutely right.I don't know where I got the "everything goes black" from.I guess I can chalk it up to a brain fart.As i get older,my daily allowance of them has increased,so I'm sure this won't be the last one.Christ,I hope I don't wind up with a cat in my lap like Junior.
Posted By: NickyEyes1
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/14/14 10:46 AM
Bobby never even said "everything goes black" he just said you "probably don't see it coming." But I agree with you Lou.
Good catch Eyes.You're absolutely right.I don't know where I got the "everything goes black" from.I guess I can chalk it up to a brain fart.As i get older,my daily allowance of them has increased,so I'm sure this won't be the last one.Christ,I hope I don't wind up with a cat in my lap like Junior.
Don't blame your memory, I've seen many people give that as a reason so probably where you got it. Don't know how that got started.
Posted By: waynethegame
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/14/14 10:28 PM
I always figured the influx of people at the end was to show Tony's paranoia, because he's going to have to constantly look over his shoulder for the rest of his life and always have to wonder if he's going to catch a bullet from behind, or run afoul of the FBI, or any number of things.
Posted By: Giacomo_Vacari
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 05/20/14 10:17 PM
That is very plausible. Good find SC.
Posted By: Blake
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 06/25/14 04:20 PM
This quote from David Chase comparing the Sopranos ending to Seinfeld's ending is true and pretty funny.
"It's just very difficult to end a series," said Sopranos creator. "For example, 'Seinfeld,' they ended it with them all going to jail. Now that’s the ending we should have had. And they should have had ours, where it blacked out in a diner." - David Chase
Posted By: slumpy
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 06/28/14 03:03 PM
Here's an interview with Chase about the end that, while still infuriatingly ambiguous, gives a little more credibility to the idea that Tony lived on.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117609/david-chase-speaks-about-last-sopranos-scene-if-tony-dies is post contains several minor spoilers, not counting an extensive discussion of a scene you have, “irregardless,” already seen.
Following a sold-out screening of the “Sopranos” pilot and finale Wednesday night at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, David Chase, the “Sopranos” capo di tutti capi, inevitably addressed how the show ended. Specifically, chief curator David Schwartz as well as many audience-questioners gamely tried to get Chase to answer the question—does Tony die?—that has provoked a million conversations, at least one strangely compelling 40,000-word Internet essay, and several dismissals from Chase. And Chase offered more of the same: Some sly koans, a decent dose of sarcasm, and no definitive answers.
“Well,” Chase responded to one questioner, “the idea was he would get killed in a diner, or not get killed, or somebody would try to kill him, or there’d be an attack.” He added: “I’m not trying to be coy about this. I really am not. It’s not like we’re trying to guess, ‘Ooh, is he alive or dead?’ It’s really not the point—it’s not the point for me. How do I explain this? Actually, here’s what Paulie Walnuts says in the beginning of that episode. He says, ‘In the midst of life, we are in death. Or is it: in the midst of death, we are in life? Either way, you’re up the ass.’ That’s what’s going on.” The audience applauded. “I didn’t say he’s dead,” Chase clarified at one point.
If you’re anything like the audience Wednesday night, you want more of this, so here you go:
* “I wanted to create a suspenseful sequence, and, no, I didn’t want people to read into it like The Da Vinci Code,” he said. “It wasn’t meant like, ‘Wow, the walrus was Paul.’ I mean, what did that mean?” He added, “It was meant to make you feel. Not to make you think, but to make you feel.”
* Chase searched his coat pockets—he looked slightly haphazard in un-tucked white patterned shirt and gray jacket, those corpse-like cheekbones under mischievous eyes—for a passage by the author Carlos Castañeda that he said he had read recently, and which he felt had summed up what the ending means to him. The passage goes: “Warriors don’t venture into the unknown out of greed. Greed works only in the world of ordinary affairs. To venture into that terrifying loneliness of the unknown, one must have something greater than greed: love.” Chase seemed to be in earnest about this ridiculous passage.
* Was there any resonance, Schwartz wished to know, between Christopher’s murder of the “Czechoslovak” waste-management rival by shooting him in the back of head, in the pilot, and Tony’s ostensible murder from the guy in the Members Only jacket shooting him in the back of the head? Nope. “They always go behind, down in their linguine,” Chase shrugged.
* Chase said: “Maybe the most important shot in the [finale] is Tony looking at the sun at the end, toward the end. He’s leaning on the rake. That to me is the key to the whole concept. And that ties back to the ducks and the bear and life on the planet and him taking peyote and seeing the sun come up. And it’s not all negative at all.”
* “I don’t like easy solutions. But the world is a pretty spectacular, amazing place. Both good and bad.”
* On Meadow trying to parallel-park the car: “I think everybody knows what’s going on there in that scene….They may want a rational, verbal answer, but I think human beings know what’s happening there. I hope. I’m pretty sure.” (Me? I’ve always thought of it as an allusion to one of the show’s most important scenes, between Tony and Meadow, at the end of season three.)
* Chase seemed to confirm one of the key points of those who believe that the ending does depict Tony getting whacked, namely, a pattern identified in which a bell rings, signaling the diner’s door is being opened; then the camera shows Tony looking up; and then the camera assumes Tony’s point-of-view. The fade-to-black comes right when we would have assumed Tony’s point-of-view. The bell, Chase explained, is an allusion to a scene between Tony and Bobby Baccala on a lake, in which a bell also rings. (He didn’t mention that this is the same scene in which Bobby says, “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens,” a line Tony remembers in the penultimate episode and which is basically Exhibit A for those who believe that Tony gets killed.) “I had read that very often in Zen ceremonies they ring a bell like that, and what it’s supposed to do is bring you to the present, to keep bringing you to the now—the right now,” Chase said. And he went on to explain the camera-shooting structure: “It would come somewhere, see the person he was going to talk to, cut back to him, and then cut to him walking into his own point of view.”
* “Maybe he choked on an onion ring, I dunno. No, I’m being facetious. But he could’ve choked on an onion ring.”
I was disappointed by just how much so many seemed to care about five minutes of an approximately 80-hour series. I was also disappointed a little bit by Chase, never more than when he disclosed that he identifies with A.J.—“everybody hates that kid. I never did! He was a sweet little chubby kid. Okay, so he was spoiled. I just thought he was a typical, might even be like a Millennial.” But many artists are smaller than their greatest works. And it would be a very great artist indeed who is not smaller than “The Sopranos.”
I believe that both Chase and some of his fans have breached the artistic contract they had entered into. If Chase wanted his thoroughly narrative show to end on a decidedly un-narrative note, then it would be better simply to refuse to comment rather than to spout pseudo-Buddhist nonsense. (Dr. Melfi: “Your thoughts have a sort of Eastern flavor to them.” Tony: “Well, I’ve lived in Jersey all my life.”) And if his narrative show actually concludes with the final plot point of Tony’s murder, well, there’s no harm in saying that.
At the same time, the angered fan who told Chase Wednesday night, “However you made it turn out I would live with, but I feel like I was cheated from knowing how it turned out,” totally misunderstands the autonomy of works of art. The thing exists! It’s even on YouTube for easy perusal! While not straying from the thing itself, make of it what you want! (Disclosure, but really, just something people should know: New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier appears in a “Sopranos” episode.)
There were a few other highlights from Chase’s talk:
* He seemed most gratified to hear that viewers find the series hilarious (which it is) and that the musical choices are impeccable (which they are). Sometimes, he said, the writers would write scenes with specific music in mind. One example? The Tindersticks’ “Tiny Tears” was paired with the failed assassination of Tony in season one:
* The first three seasons of the show feel unusually perfect and self-contained. Chase confirmed that an event that happened before season four had a major impact on him. “I’ve read—it was Emily Nussbaum? Heather Havrilesky?—somebody was doing an overview and said, ‘It was this, it was that, Chase this, Chase that. And then, something in his mind went dark. Chase’s mind went dark.’ Well, yeah. It was 9/11.”
* Chase insisted he had not viewed the pilot since it first aired on HBO 15 years ago in January 1999. “I was floored tonight to see how good he was,” he said of the late, great James Gandolfini.
* I asked Chase what he thinks about TV dramas that have succeeded “The Sopranos” and the recap culture that probably dates to Alan Sepinwall’s “Sopranos” work in The Newark Star-Ledger (e.g., the paper Tony ambled down the driveway to retrieve every morning). Probably betraying my own views, I specifically mentioned “Mad Men,” which is the creation of former “Sopranos” writer Matthew Weiner. Here was Chase’s response:
My personal opinion of “Mad Men” is I think [Weiner]’s done an amazing thing. Without killing people every five minutes. You try writing a show without killing people, fires, stuff like that. He doesn’t do that. I mean a guy got his foot cut off in a lawnmower. I think that show is really special. I really like it….In terms of the recaps—I don’t get it. I don’t know why you would read that stuff. You read what you just saw? That’s one thing. And then picking apart every—it’s like, “I really loved the way Sally Draper walked from the car to the house.” Alright. She walked from the car to the house. “The flip in her step.” Okay. I guarantee you that they just tried to get her from the fucking car.
* Most people who saw the script assumed Chase would shoot the first season around Los Angeles. But he wanted to do it in Jersey. Former HBO head Chris Albrecht agreed, and so the show’s exteriors were shot in north Jersey, while the interiors were done at Silvercup Studios—20 blocks from the Museum of the Moving Image.
* When Chase had to tell actors that their characters were getting offed, he couldn’t help but think of himself like Tony. Al Sapienza, who played Junior’s henchman Mikey Palmice, “really did plead for his life,” Chase said. “The guy who died on the toilet didn’t like it, either,” he added.
Guess what the best part of the evening was? The first two hours, during which the actual episodes were screened! The finale, which I had seen perhaps two or three times, is a little bit rushed and plot-heavy—I was not surprised to learn that Chase had wished he could do one more episode. The pilot, which if I’m being honest I’ve watched a couple dozen times, really is just a very, very special hour. On the big screen, each one of Tony’s pores stood out, and you could read the titles of Dr. Melfi’s books. You notice the introduction of recurring motifs, such as Tony’s justifying savage acts of violence by referring to the victim’s status as a “degenerate fucking gambler.”
“I think the pilot is the series,” Chase observed. “The series is just the recapitulation of the pilot—a longer version of the pilot.” It is true. The very first scene, after all, consists of Tony staring at a mawkish statue of a naked woman in Dr. Melfi’s waiting room. He is in therapy because human beings do things like make statues that have no immediate utilitarian purpose and go to therapy because we aspire to something greater. “A.J.’s trying to figure out what his life is gonna be,” Chase said at one point. “Tony is kind of always figuring out what his death is going to be. Tony’s trying to figure out bigger issues than how you’re going to make money.” As the rest of us figure out bigger issues than how we’re going to make money, we have one advantage over Tony: He didn’t have “The Sopranos.”
Posted By: maddog
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 07/28/14 02:34 PM
I believe the writers wanted to kill tony but couldnt because the money men (HBO) wanted to leave it open for a film
Posted By: PetroPirelli
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/09/14 11:23 PM
Great to finally see this explained. Everybody has had their own theories for so long. RIP James Gandolfini.
Posted By: PetroPirelli
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/09/14 11:24 PM
BTW I don't think David Chase had any intention of doing a movie.
Posted By: DE NIRO
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/27/14 12:35 PM
‘Sopranos’ Creator David Chase Finally Reveals If Tony Soprano Died Or Not In The Finale..
http://uproxx.com/tv/2014/08/sopranos-cr...-in-the-finale/
The more I think about it, it's a good move by Chase to end it like he did. Seven years later, we're talking about the finale and debating whether Tony was clipped or not. Seven years!
How many TV shows (great and terrible) have come and gone since then? Breaking Bad was still in development when The Sopranos finale aired. The iPhone was still weeks away from release. There was no such thing as an iPad. Twitter was in its infancy. There was no Instagram. Twerking was years away. Look how much this world has changed since the finale, and people still talk about it.
Like it or hate it, at least Chase didn't end the series like St. Elsewhere did. If there ever was a crap ending to a good show, that was it.
I just loved The Sopranos, but when I saw the finale, I was totally disappointed.
I think I was probably the only one here on the BB to be so bummed. All the theories of of what happened never did convince me. It was a poorly written (and/or confusing) ending to a fantastic series IMHO.
I'm glad Chase answered because I can't imagine he'd have a scenario that made sense to everybody.
On a side (sad) note, with Gandolfini's passing, and with the thought that anyone else could even be Tony Soprano, I suppose had Chase said Tony did die, it would be kind of fitting, and put this masterpiece to an end no??
TIS
Posted By: afriendofours
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/27/14 04:13 PM
As i perceived it all along that he wasn't dead, it was too heavily implied and the murky figures were all red herrings i always thought.
Good that Chase finally answered it.
As i perceived it all along that he wasn't dead, it was too heavily implied and the murky figures were all red herrings i always thought.
Good that Chase finally answered it.
Good way to put it, "murky figures, red herrings". Maybe this/maybe that......
I DID love Sunday nights here on the BB tho. The Sopranos thread was on fire, with all of us getting into every detail. Such fun!!!
TIS
My regret is I didn't find this board until years after the fact.
We used to have good time on alt.tv.sopranos, but that's just degenerated into some spam hellhole.
Posted By: afriendofours
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/27/14 04:36 PM
It took me ages to watch The Sopranos, im lazy with movies and tv series these days.
It was only years after i got the box set for one Christmas and i think i watched all the series in about 3 weeks, then stuck them straight on repeat about 50 times over lol.
So much replayability, i can stick them on now and you still pick something up new every time.
My regret is I didn't find this board until years after the fact.
We used to have good time on alt.tv.sopranos, but that's just degenerated into some spam hellhole.
Its_da_Jackeeettttttt,
I didn't have HBO then. A friend at work had the first season (maybe 2) on video and she lent them to me to watch. I was hooked immediately & ordered HBO before the next season started.
Being on the West Coast it aired 3 hours later (or so I thought)on HBO. Every Sunday I'd hold back from going to the Sopranos thread cause I hadn't seen the episode yet. It killed me.
Well, little did I realize that I HAD HBO East Coast as well as West.
No, the roots are not blonde.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to join in the discussions AS the episode aired.
TIS
Posted By: XDCX
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/27/14 07:05 PM
David Chase may have finally answered the question that has been bugging Sopranos fans since the series ended 7 years.
Did Tony Soprano live or die?
From:
Vox.com On occasion he breaks his reserve, but makes it clear that I am not to write about anything he says that is an interpretation of his own work, since he believes that the art of entertaining is leaving the audience imagination to run wild. So when he answered the "Did Tony die" question, he was laconic.
Just the fact and no interpretation. He shook his head "no." And he said simply, "No he isn't." That was all.
Welles' magic, Bunuel's real-looking dreams, Poe's sand that keeps flowing through our fingers no matter what we try to do to stop it, are the inspirations for the cut to black. The cut to black brought to American television the sense of an ending that produces wonder instead of the tying-up of loose ends that characterizes the tradition of the formulaic series. Tony's decisive win over his enemy in the New York mob, Phil Leotardo, is the final user-friendly event in Chase's gangster story that gratifies the desire to be conclusive, and it would have been the finale of a less compelling gangster story. The cut to black is the moment when Castaneda and the American Romantics rise to the surface and the gangster story slips through our fingers and vanishes.
I'm not guessing. When I asked Chase about the cut to black, he said that it is about Poe's poem "Dream Within a Dream." "What more can I say?" he asks when I prod him to speak more, and I admire his silence. I am his audience too and he wants me to reach for his meaning. And here's what I conclude. Though you wouldn't know it from watching Hollywood movies, endings are by nature mysterious. There is the instability of loss in an ending as well as the satisfying sense of completion. American television before Chase, with the exception of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, one of Chase's avowed key inspirations for the art of The Sopranos, built a craft that dispenses with the destabilizing aspects of an ending. The true art of closure will not tolerate such a boring decision. Moreover, the art of closure forbids merely telling the audience in words that there is loss, since words can create the illusion of safety and control. Chase's art seeks a silent level of knowing more profound than words. He believes we already know if we open up to that deeper part of us.
Posted By: DE NIRO
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/28/14 02:13 PM
I posted that about 5 post above..
And there's flak coming from Chase's camp that Vox took his comments completely out of context.
Yea I heard Chase NOW says it's a matter of interpretation. I don't think he knew how to end the series. So, just throw something together and let the viewer interpret.
TIS
So, just throw something together and let the viewer interpret.
TIS
Sounds like Season 4.
Posted By: goombah
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/28/14 04:07 PM
My regret is I didn't find this board until years after the fact.
We used to have good time on alt.tv.sopranos, but that's just degenerated into some spam hellhole.
Its_da_Jackeeettttttt,
I didn't have HBO then. A friend at work had the first season (maybe 2) on video and she lent them to me to watch. I was hooked immediately & ordered HBO before the next season started.
Being on the West Coast it aired 3 hours later (or so I thought)on HBO. Every Sunday I'd hold back from going to the Sopranos thread cause I hadn't seen the episode yet. It killed me.
Well, little did I realize that I HAD HBO East Coast as well as West.
No, the roots are not blonde.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to join in the discussions AS the episode aired.
TIS
Oh my goodness, that story is priceless TIS!
Posted By: slumpy
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 08/29/14 06:57 PM
When I first read it I thrust my fist in the air and yelled "YES, FUCKING VINDICATED!"
Then I read the chase response and was like
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
It drives me nuts how coy he plays about the ending. I bet he totally mislead the journalist purposely just so could pull a "backsies" and troll us all.
Posted By: afriendofours
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 09/18/14 11:12 AM
There was a deleted scene where a 4th person walks into the restaurant, they walk up to the table and low and behold its Vito jr with a revolver.
"Whos the Puerto Rican whore now Tony ?" Pop, Pop he puts two bullets in him, drops the revolver and leaves.
Posted By: DE NIRO
Re: The Final Episode Explained - 09/18/14 05:10 PM
haha, good one..
Not to be off topic but speaking of the last episode, I felt like bobby should of been more beware of his surroundings and kept a pistol on him at all times. He made it that easy to get whacked knowing that the family ( soprano family ) was at war with New York and on top of all that, he was in the 3rd position of the top administration of the family. When I saw the scene of him getting clipped, I couldn't understand why he made it that easy to be found and killed. Just a thought