I really wasn't sure what happened to Tony the first few times I watched the series. I assumed he died because the guy in the Members Only jacket looked like a hit man, but I was not completely convinced. After reading interviews with David Chase (in which he strongly hints that Tony was wacked) I was finally convinced that he was killed. How did you feel about Tony's death?

I was actually quite sad about Tony's death. I was surprised I felt this way considering that Tony is a completely fictitious person. However, the Sopranos is so well written and the character development is so strong, I think most viewers feel that they really know Tony personally. Even though Tony was a murderer and did terrible things I still missed the guy and his death was depressing. Tony's life was generally on a downward spiral during the whole series (even as his business was on an upswing), but I couldn't help but root for him.

I saw a black screen not Tony dying so for me he didn't die.Tony is still living somewhere..

I interpret the ending in a different way, so can't comment to his "Death".

since he didnt die, i didnt feel anything.

I hate it when people say he didn't die. You drive me crazy!

In his interviews David Chase nearly said flat out "Tony was killed."

Could you post a link or provide any more info on the interview in which Chase says"Tony was killed". Chase has always been kind of coy and evasive about whether or not Tony survives the final episode, and I(like a lot of people) would love to hear him put it to rest once and for all.

The only thing I'm not clear about in your post is the quotation marks. Normally this would mean that Chase actually says the words "Tony got killed". Right before that you use the phrase "nearly said flat out" which would mean that he didn't say the words "Tony got killed".That would leave us right back at square one,which of course is whether or not Tony dies in the last episode.

If you could shed some light on this,I would appreciate it.

I should not have used quotation marks. There is a specific piece written that convinced me that included many quotes from various interviews with Chase. I will try and find it.

Search on google for "The Sopranos: Definitive Explanation of THE END". Set aside at least a half hour to read it. It is basically a long essay in which there are several main points that drive home the idea that Tony was killed. It is multiple pages - you MUST read every page. Below are some quotes from David Chase. However, these quotes are not a substitute for reading the entire essay.

Quotes from David Chase in 2012:

“Tony was dealing in mortality every day. He was dishing out life and death. And he was not happy. He was getting everything he wanted, that guy, but he wasn’t happy. All I wanted to do was present the idea of how short life is and how precious it is. The only way I felt I could do that was to rip it away.”

“He [Tony] was an extremely isolated, unhappy man. And the finally, once in a while he would make a connection with his family and be happy there. But in this case, whatever happened, we never got to see the result of that. It was torn away from him and from us.”

Quotes from David Chase in 2013:

When asked to shed light on the final episode, David Chase said:

“Well, what Tony should have been thinking, I guess, and what we all should be thinking — although we can’t live that way — is that life is really short. And there are good times in it and there are bad times in it. And that we don’t know why we’re here, but we do know that 20 miles up it’s freezing cold, it’s a freezing cold universe, but here we have this thing called love, which is our only defense, really, against all that cold, and that it’s a very brief interval and that when it’s over, I think you’re probably always blindsided by it. That’s all I can say.”

Another David Chase quote from 2013 on the final episode:

Chase comes very, very close to confirming this theory. “We did a lot of POV stuff,” he says. “I did a lot of setups with POV shots in that episode. People have not picked up on that.”(Watch the final series of shots closely: He sets up a pattern of them from Tony’s point of view.) “The only thing I would say definitively about it is, whatever happened, Tony put himself there. It was the world as he saw it. He was responsible for where he ended up – wherever that is. Just as in the beginning, he sent himself to therapy and he was looking at that statue.” (He’s referring to the very first POV shot in the show – another tacit confirmation.)

You have to set aside a lot of time to read that essay. In the end there is a mountain of evidence to support the idea that Tony was killed at the diner, and Chase does eliminate certain other theories as possibilities.

In the last quote I listed, Chase discusses the POV shots. He admits much of the diner scene is shot in Tony's POV. Some people ask, why was there no gun shot?

Bobby Bacala once said, "You probably don't even hear it when it happens right?" Also, Silvio was at dinner with a New York gangster once. That gangster was shot and blood splattered - and then we heard the gun shot after. Also, I am not into science, but bullets probably travel faster than sound and it is simply logical that Tony would never hear the gun shot.

Thanks mldetriot,I have some free time so I'll check out the stuff you mentioned.

And people that assume he did die, when you never saw him die, drive me crazy. Not once did David chase say Tony died. You are making the assumption you want to make. Show me where David Chase says "Tony died in the season finale"

A black screen does in NO WAY mean he died.

If anything, it showed his paranoia and how he knows he could die at any moment.

Bobby saying that shit on the lake and the screen going black means he died? lol...give me a break pal

okay, so how does "much of the scene being shot in POV" mean that it was his POV from that instance and he died?

Was a gun ever shown? He wouldnt turn around and see a gun if someone was sneaking up behind him to shoot him and his family would have been staring right at the guy screaming tony behind you!

People like YOU drive ME crazy.

Dude hes right they basically were driving that point the whole final Season U don't c it coming it just goes black!!! Do u really hav to c Tony getting shot man!! or does Brain power come into play and actually following the whole final season!

I don't think Tony was killed, at least not in the diner. I don't think he would have been hit in front of his family.

This wasn't really supposed to be a debate on whether or not Tony died. We will all go nuts. Let me know what you think of that essay if you managed to get through it Lou Para.

"Tony was dealing in mortality every day. He was dishing out life and death….All I wanted to do was present the idea of how short life is and how precious it is. The only way I felt I could do that was to rip it away".
This seems to be the closest that Chase comes to actually saying that Tony was killed,and I can understand how people could view this as the proof of that scenario.
I am of the opinion that because of the enormity of the show,no definitive ending,regardless of the outcome, could have possibly lived up to the viewers expectations. Therefore,I still maintain that the "rip it away" comment refers to Chase ripping away the whole Soprano universe from the viewers.
In all fairness to Chase,he kind of became a victim of the phenomenon of the show .I don't believe that anyone could have forseen the legendary status that the show attained.
His only real out was to not end the show, which is what I believe the final was designed to do. This way,everyone's opinion is correct,and they can cite convincing evidence,regardless of their position,because everyone is right.
IMHO,Chase's ending was pure genius.

I agree with you that we could all wind up nuts debating Tony's survival. In the world of series television,this is the equivalent of the JFK conspiracy/lone nut debate.
Good thing there wasn't a grassy knoll behind Holstein's,or we would all end up like Uncle Junior.

Although I believe that Tony didn't die,your original thread asked how we would feel if he did. I would be saddened at the thought of his family having to go on after seeing him murdered,but I wouldn't have any sorrow for Tony. He was not a good man,and outside of his blood relations,his murder would be no great loss.

I'm going to make one last post on this and analyze Chase's quotes. Most important is the interview with Richard Belzer which I did not post above. You must look at the sum total of Chase's quotes, not just one quote. Please read the entire thing if you are going to comment on this.

When discussing Tony and the final scene Chase says, "All I wanted to do was present the idea of how short life is and how precious it is. The only way I felt I could do that was to rip it away." (You can only draw two possible conclusions from this statement. Life was ripped from somebody. Chase either ripped away life from Tony or he ripped away life from the audience and Tony lived on.)

If the final scene was shot in Tony's POV (as most people suspect) then undoubtedly life was ripped from Tony. When discussing his use of POV in the final episode, Chase says "I did a lot of setups with POV shots in that episode. People have not picked up on that" and "The only thing I would say definitively about it is, whatever happened, Tony put himself there. It was the world as he saw it." (Chase's comments nearly confirm that a sequence from Tony's POV occurred in the final scene. And if he were shot in the head, Tony would be dead and no longer see the world. Thus the black screen. The idea of the audience being wacked doesn't hold water because Chase created a sequence from Tony's POV in which he repeatedly hears the door bell jingle and looks up towards the door. The screen goes black just as Tony would see the door and Meadow entering. Also, there is no reason to think the audience is "beside" or "with" Tony during the series and a hit man would want the audience dead. Also, it is unlikely that Chase would plan years in advance to "wack" the audience and cut them off from viewing the Sopranos.)

In a book on the Sopranos, Chase says he had the idea for the ending years in advance and "As I recall, it was just that Tony and his family would be in a diner having dinner and a guy would come in. Pretty much what you saw.” (Chase mentions this "guy" because he is significant. He is referring to Members Only guy. We know this because he is the only single man that walks in. Other murders throughout the Sopranos were committed by men wearing the same Members Only jacket. Chase does not say why he is significant, he only hints that he is significant. This quote also helps dispel another theory of the final scene. Given that Chase planned the ending years in advance, it is doubtful that his only message is that Tony will spend his life paranoid and looking over his shoulder. This ending does not require advanced planning and is fairly shallow given the depth of the series.)

Chase's most revealing interview is with Richard Belzer:

While talking with Belzer, Chase says "There had been indications of what the end is like. Remember when Jerry Torciano was killed? Silvio was not aware that the gun had been fired until after Jerry was on his way down to the floor. That’s the way things happen: It’s already going on by the time you even notice it." (Chase specifically cites murders as an indication of what happens in the final scene. Clearly, somebody died in the end and they never saw it coming. Logically, this would be Tony. Because were are in Tony's POV in the final scene we never hear a gun shot because bullets travel faster than sound. Tony (and us because were are in his POV) is dead before seeing the gun or hearing the shot.

Richard Belzer: "I was working with Steve Schirripa [Bacala] recently. We were judging “Last Comic Standing” for NBC and we were talking about a lot of things and he was saying he heard all of these theories for the show that had nothing to do with your intention and wasn’t anything the actors thought. Like little hints along the way, like a word, like when Tony and Steve (Bobby Bacala) are on the boat at the lake and they say “‘you never know its gonna happen” or “you never know its gonna hit you”".

David Chase: "That was part of the ending." (Chase repeats the fact that when you are shot in the head, you may never see it coming and you definitely never hear it - and he reiterates that this is part of the final scene)

Richard Belzer: "Oh, it was? see, what do I know? Were there other things in previous episodes that were hints towards it (what occurred in the final scene)?"

David Chase: "There was that and there was a shooting in which Silvio was a witness. Well he wasn’t a witness, he was eating dinner with a couple of hookers and with some other guy who got hit and there was some visual stuff that went on there which sort of amplified Tony’s remark to Bacala about you know “you don’t know its happened” or “you won’t know it happened when it hits you”. That’s about it." (Chase again cites murder as a hint to what happened in the final scene. He reiterates the idea that you won't even hear it coming - you just die. The only person that would be killed in the diner and not hear it or see it is Tony as we are in his POV.)

Also, in reference to Tony, Chase says, "They wanted to see his brains splattered on the wall (at the end). I thought that was disgusting, frankly." (This explains why Chase chose the POV sequence and put us in Tony's head when he is shot. He did not want to simply have Tony executed in a gory and bloody scene.)

Lastly, when discussing the final scene Chase says "He [Tony] was an extremely isolated, unhappy man. And then finally, once in a while he would make a connection with his family and be happy there. But in this case, whatever happened, we never got to see the result of that. It was torn away from him and from us.” (Tony was happy at that moment at the diner with his family. If the audience was wacked, then that moment was not "torn from him". Tony would have lived on. The only way this quote makes sense is if Tony was killed and that happy connection with his family was torn away from him and us. Chase's language is more revealing here than he probably intended it to be. There is far more evidence to support the theory that Tony was murdered at the diner than any other theory.)

Christ, you guys should have been here when that episode first aired. What arguments over the fate of a fictional character!

I personally think that Tony was killed, and that Chase spared us from seeing Meadow and Carmela and AJ, mouths agape, lives shattered. But I don't care how anyone else interprets it. Because it's only a fucking television show.

And Midetroit, I returned your pm. Twice.

Meadow can agape all day long

I don't think he was killed, but Chase left it open to interpretation really.

Who do people believe killed Tony from who we seen at the restaurant ?

Bro! Its sooo obvious the guy had a members only jacket on!

That means he did the godfather gun from the toilet thing and killed Tony!

It was big pussy's long lost brother!

<end sarcasm>

yes we really have to "c" it!

Try some of that brain power. It won't kill you.

Hey, I don't mind a debate about it. To each their own.

What is annoying is this guy basically calling people stupid if they don't agree with him saying Tony was definitely killed and chase said it, which he never did, at all.

mldetroit,

Do your parents know your on here talking about the Sopranos?

The end of life doesn't necessarily mean death, imprisonment, especially life imprisonment, is essentially the fulfilling the same outcome.



the only thing chase confirms here is that something happened to Tony.



You are delving way too deep into this quote. Literally the only information chase conveys here is that 1. the diner scene was decided upon as the finale early on. 2. There is a "guy" in the scene.

I fail to see how a murder versus an FBI sting would somehow require less planning on Chase's part. We're talking about a television series here. This sounds more like he's talking about the technical aspects of making the show than the allegorical content of the scene.



"the end" in this quote is not referring to the end of the series, but the end of life through violent means.



I'd really like to see the full quote on this. It seems like you are taking things way out of context.



Again, nothing here suggests he was insinuating that Tony was murdered.



The fact is Chase has no reason to play coy about tony's fate if he was murdered. Virtually none of the quotes you used are even discussing the final episode, let a lone the final scene. You are projecting a-contextual quotes to try and bolster your unrelated opinion on Tony's fate. I'm not saying you're wrong, Tony may well have been murdered in that diner -- But looking to chase for evidence is fruitless unless he is flat out telling us what Tony's fate really was.

But since we're cherry picking Chase quotes, here are some actually contextualized quotes from the man himself bolstering the non-murder version:

*“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.

* “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.”

* “Maybe he choked on an onion ring, I dunno. No, I’m being facetious. But he could’ve choked on an onion ring.”

This last quote encapsulates Chases Blithe coyness about explaining the ending. There literally is no ending. The ending is whatever you want it to be, a mob murder, an FBI sting, or an effin' onion ring! This is what I have taken away from everything Chase has said about the finale.