1) From roughly 2004 onward (the Tony B. situation, the War with NY) Tony Soprano was proving to be both troublesome to New York (who, remember, viewed him as a vassal) and within his own family. Capos such as Carlo and Larry were open in the fact that Tony wad fucking them over with the Tony B. crisis; others like Burt were being swayed to new leadership during the War with New York.

2) While Butch gave his tacit approval of the hit on Phil, what authority did he have? The meeting was off-the-books; Butchie, Al and Carmine could all claim no meeting ever happened and no approval was ever given.

They could win by having Tony do their dirty work for them, and then scoring further points by "finishing the job" and killing Tony themselves, all while having plausible deniability as to their complicity in Phil's murder. Meanwhile, Butch emerges as Boss, gains the support of Phil's loyalists by avenging Phil's death by killing Tony, and now has a much weaker and smaller NJ Family which would truly be a vassal family.

3) Even if Butch had the approval of the very Commission itself to have Phil killed, the way in which Phil was murdered - In front of his family, no open casket - changed the whole ballgame. Even though Tony himself didn't mean for this to be the case, Phil was killed in both the most horrible and by Mafia terms, disrespectful way possible; He was killed in front of his family, a no-no, and was denied an open casket - the ultimate sign of disrespect.

Even if Butchie had gotten the approval, members of his own family or other families even might think, "This fucking Tony Soprano is crazy, who does he think he is?" It also sets bad precedent; Jersey could get away with whacking a member of the Commission in such a brutal fashion and even get compensated for the loss of his brother in law? How weak would that make Butchie look as Boss to any Capos/Soldiers who liked Phil? To the other Bosses?

Didn't Tony think about any of this?
Is there any logical way Tony could be alive?

Tony wasn't murdered, the feds nailed him. The next series of The Sopranos is Tony writing a book that never gets published because someone gets wind of it and Tony gets whacked in prison. The audience would have all the flashback material being that Tony has the knowledge of that crime family from a young age. Too bad, Sopranos ain't never coming back.

How about this. Instead of Meadow walking through the diner door and the members only guy shooting Tony could it have been an FBI raid. Carlo was singing to the grand jury and if that's the case then Tony was going down no matter what. I like to think Tony gets indicted and goes on trial and before he's found guilty he pulls a Joe Massino and rats on everyone. That's just my two cents.

Based on everything that happened in the show, the only logical ending is that Tony is murdered.

A more realistic ending in my opinion, although maybe not a better ending, would have been if Christopher doesn't die off, and instead, finally decides to go to the Feds and testify against Tony, and the rest and cripples the family.

Then he would tell all he knows, everyone would find out what really happened with Adrianna, Richie Aprile, Raplh, etc etc. Tony would've finally got exposed.

It was obvious that it was heading that way and Tony knew it so he used the car crash as opportunity to stop that from happening, but realistically that should've been the ending.

Tony Soprano was a money making machine. That's what made his several violations of mob protocol plausible.

There's hints that Christopher had flipped by the time of his death.
The last time we see Chris before the murder, he's drunk and talking about how he could flip and live well in the program. The next time he's with Tony, he dismantles Tony's idealization of his father (the only Mafia connection he and Tony have left) by belittling his father as nothing more than a junkie.

Than you have him playing The Departed Soundtrack. The Departed centers around a gangster's protege who is playing both sides of the fence with the police; said gangster is himself using giving tidbits of info to the FBI to stay out of jail and gain info on rivals; Tony in the end gives up the Arab associates of the family to the Feds in exchange for info on Phil.

Lastly, for the first time in years, Chris, before the accident, is suddenly shown wearing a ballcap again.It is established in Season 4 of The Sopranos that the FBI has a new form of wire wherein the microphone is right inside the ballcap.

Also, Chris advocates for going easy on Phil. Rats aren't supposed to encourage violence in the Mob (bear in mind that Alfie, the snitch in Phil's family, is the only one who speaks against going to war with Jersey). This is a far cry from Chris' attitude earlier in the Season that he "wasn't scared" of the 200 soldiers in Phil's family, especially when you consider that he was on coke, which would normally make one more prone to impulsive, violent decisions.

Also note his jumpiness and nervyness while he's driving. While it could be the coke, it could also be nerves because this is the first time he's wearing a wire for the Feds.

The episode where Chris dies was such a dark hour of television. The manner in which he is killed, follow by Tony's bizarre trip to Vegas, his acid trip. Really caught the viewers off guard. Good stuff.

I hated the last episode. I thought Tony, his wife and his kid would get killed because of the way Frank Vincent got killed in front of his family. I though Tony daughter would be saved because she could not park her car.

So when it went black I hated that. But it going black could make anyone watching it that it ended the way they thought it would.

we all know james gandolfini passed but i still mulling over if tony died. i have been revisiting the sopranos on demand. to kill tony at the end of the series would be overkill imho. he nearly dies when junior shoots him. the doctors tell Carmella he will not make it but tony beats the odds. usually when the mob does a hit they are not going to do it in front of the family. if tony had left the table and went into the bathroom and somebody followed him in there and the screen faded to black i would say tony is a goner. season six was almost like the fonz jumping the shark plus the wait for the start of the season was bad enough. we also didn't know the fate of silvio dante. killing christopher was another stupid idea. tony doing it was even worse. i could see when tony killed tony B because he knew phil would make him suffer. vincent curatola kept the series going imho but then they sort of did the gotti thing when johnny dies of cancer in prison. i also wonder about uncle junior. was this guy acting like he was demented aka vinnie the chin gigante.

Remember Phil gets hit right in front of his wife and grandkids.

Chrissy's death is classic Sopranos symbolism/irony. In the episode of Chrissy's intervention Tony is upset most of all that Chris killed Adriana's dog Cosette by sitting on it and suffocating it. Tony can't get over it and finally says, I ought to suffocate you, ya little prick. How does Chrissy die? Tony suffocates him by holding his nose.

Phil started the war with Tony. Breaking the rules in the commission of war is different than breaking them in peacetime. When Tony is at the diner with his family, an accord had already been reached between the Lupertazzi's and Sopranos. So, in that instance, killing someone right in front of their family would be less tolerable. When Soprano soldier Walden spotted Phil at the gas station, Phil was on the hunt for Tony. It's on site in a situation like that. Doesn't matter if Phil has the Pope with him.

Sketchy subject. Johnny Sack was feuding with Little Carmine on who was going to take over the Lupertazzi Family. Tony B. killed Joey Peeps, Billy Leotardo and wounded Phil Leotardo, so technically the Soprano Family interfered and whacked 3 Lupertazzi wiseguys and wounded a capo and fucked up a soldier Coco Cogliano. Tony killed Tony B. instead of letting Phil and his family avenge their guys death. Phil might've went overboard a little, but Tony started that war inadvertently. Plus the Vito being a fag and not whacking him thing. Not to mention Tony laid hands on a made guy (Phil) in that auto crash.

chris making the movie cleaver wasn't a plus in his column. chris was still doing drugs even after promising tony he would not do them anymore. when chris cries to tony over Adrianna and tony kicks him tony must realize chris is weak and if the feds ever got hold of him he would sing like a canary aka henry hill in real life who was also a drug addict. on another front watched the episode where a.j. tries to kill junior and fails miserably. a.j.'s excuse for doing a stupid thing is mentioning the first godfather movie to tony and tony has to tell a.j. it is just a movie. the feud between phil and tony also had the fact that tony wasn't to happy about killing vito who was a homosexual and married to phil's cousin. finally let's hope tony lived because his family would be in deep shit without him.

"difficult, but not impossible" - AJ

hahahahaha

Chris wasnt going to rat. He has that epiphany at the gas station before Adriana gets killed. Tony was the boss set in the modern age. "You have no idea what it's like being on top." Fuck that life, I'd rather be Barone Sr. Made a legitimate income and socialized with those guys. I'm afraid of my wife watching over me, let alone the feds. On a second note, the feds wont chop my dick off if I fool around. At the end of the day, I hope Tony was shot dead and his family was taken care of by whatever wealth he left behind. I wouldn't want to see him rat or have him and his family suffer while he was in prison. He was a family man and provided for his family. The golden age of the mob is over. Even Frank Costello had to do time. How many of these guys wear the silk suits and strut their stuff like they're invincible. Take Merlino for example, he's out living the life for a few years and BOOM! He's fucked. Even if he beats the case or gets a couple years, he spends a fortune on lawyers and gets his name dragged through the press. Fuck all of that nonsense.

I think Chris was on his way to becoming a rat. Tony knew it, worried about it all the time. Before Chris kills his friend in that apartment he's bragging about how he can take Tony and the family down with one phone call. Looked like it was only a matter of time.

Tony had reason to believe Chris was going to rat from the very first episode, when Chris talked about his screenplay. Tony had a delusional outlook on Chris, that Chris was going to run the family as an intermediary between Tony and the captains, then become boss himself when Tony was gone. He saw Chris as the gangster son that AJ could never be. When Chris told Tony that he had gotten high that night, and Tony saw the tree branch had impaled the car seat that the baby would have been in, he came to his senses (in a sociopathic way) and came to terms that Chris really was no good, and that the company had to finally part ways with him...

close, very close. but the underlying factor was Tony thought Chrissy was bad luck,not only for Chrissy's kid but for TONY and the family. Kind of alluded to in the last episode that black cat looking at Chrissy's picture. Tony gave Chrissy probably more than 9 chances to straighten up before he killed him. There are several subplots going on. Tony not banging Skiff, Chrissy meeting her at AA and banging her, Tony meeting Chrissy's Vegas trim and doing shrooms saying all the crazy stuff he says. Classic Sopranos.

I was at Caesars Palace last week. Walked down the same stairway to the roulette tables as Tony did. Only had a couple of beers, though. No peyote.

i watched the finale on demand. you see the guy going into the bathroom but you don't see him coming out. the screen just goes blank. tony is also telling carm how one of the guys is now ratting them out in witness protection so a r.i.c.o. case could be coming. i believe chase had no idea how to end the series. i also wonder if jim had lived if we would have ever seen a comeback. other shows that have been off the air for years have had short mini series episodes including the x files.

A novel, written by David Chase. Of course, if he did that, he'd still leave Tony's fate open ended. I'd still buy it and read it a hundred times, though.