Sorry, Folks, But--Tony Soprano Got Whacked!

Congratulations to David Chase for the brilliant ending of The Sopranos! And thanks to him for entertaining us and bringing the culture forward, doing his small part to liberate all the young Meadows and Anthonys in America from the dark corner of Sicilian violence. (Assimilation!)

Alas, Soprano fans seem to think they got a happy ending. It's not a happy ending. David Chase supplied all the clues without filling in the final scene, on the artistic theory that if something is obvious to the discerning, you don't need to spell it out: Tony gets whacked!

My evidence. Of course there's the guy in the Members Only jacket going into the restaurant bathroom at the end of the unbelievably tense last scene. My wife tells me this is an homage to a famous scene in the Godfather, perhaps the most important scene in the Godfather movies: when the son at last avenges his father's murder. By that homage, Chase is saying, At last Tony Soprano, too, is about to experience his karma, his destiny, notwithstanding the homely setting.

And karma/destiny is what the last season was all about. Everyone tries to escape the web of Tony's evil life. But none of them can escape it, he sucks them in. The idealistic son Anthony has dreams of a wider community, of service; we pull for him to escape, but he is pulled in, and his dreams too are crushed by the evil mob boss. In one scene in the last episode, he is trying to become a runner, and his evil father pulls alongside and mocks him and makes him get into the gas-guzzling car. That's it, don't you see? Everyone is corrupted. Already Carmella and Meadow have been sucked in. And all the wonderful stage business at the very end with Meadow having trouble parking her car and maybe not making it into the restaurant, maybe being outside the restaurant at the finale--what was that about? It was about Meadow maybe escaping her family's destiny.

And you saw what happened: she doesn't escape. She too is on stage now for the final horrible moments.

Also, let's not forget what happens to Tony's dear friend Pauly in this show. Pauly tells the boss he doesn't want to do a deadly job; Tony muscles him, says he has to do it. And Pauly agrees--and the cat of death, that wonderful symbol Chase has injected into this episode in his restless inventive way, the cat turns his deadly eyes on Pauly.

We don't have to see Pauly murdered to know he is going to die. The cat of death is staring at him. That is the great clemency that Chase shows the viewers in this last show: he doesn't make us watch the deaths of evil people we have grown to love. He indicates that Pauly is going to die and leaves it at that. Similarly, he does not show Tony's death because, admit it, you love Tony. It would hurt to watch him die. But Chase has told us, Tony is about to die. All the arrows point in one inescapable direction. You think it's a happy ending, sorry, it's not.

[James corrected me on bad Godfathers info, below]

Comments

[Rebbe]

Philip - Who loved Paulie Walnuts?

I agree that Tony is going to get whacked and I think it was a brilliant ending by Chase, but Walnuts being loved? Fuggehdaboutit!

[candide]

Thank god it is over! There is no group more disgusting than the Italo-Americans from the South of the peninsula. They are a disgrace to all Italians and especially to the real Italians in the North. Tony is trash. Good riddance.

[James]

"My wife tells me this is an homage to a famous scene in the Godfather, perhaps the most important scene in the Godfather movies: when the son at last avenges his father's murder."

If you are referring to the scene in the Italian restaurant where Michael Corleone murders Solozzo and McCluskey, then I must clarify that he was not avenging his father's murder -- Vito Corleone was alive, he survived the assassination attempt.

The rest of your analysis may or may not be right -- but certainly Chase left it up to the viewer's imagination as to where the story goes from there. This explains the violent reaction from the mass of Sopranos fans -- very few people have any imagination left these days, they want to be shown every detail explicitly. It's very uncomfortable otherwise.

[Montag]

That was the coda of Film Noir, too. No matter how dark the films became in showing corrupt people as sympathetic, the coda was that it must be shown that crime doesn't pay and justice (karma?) triumphs in the end.

In one film the guy does get away with it, but they were forced to add a voiceover postscript that one day he'll be walking along a highway and a Police car will pick him up in the end and justice will be served--even if it wasn't in the movie itself! Kinda like what happened to Tony.

[Phil Weiss]

James,
I stand corrected. That is the scene my wife was referring to. I got it wrong. Thank you for taking the time to correct me with such precision.
And boy are you right about imagination!

Rebbe,
Thanks for endorsing my view. You didn't feel any love for Paulie Walnuts? Oy!
Phil

[alkali]

"Of course there's the guy in the Members Only jacket going into the restaurant bathroom at the end of the unbelievably tense last scene. My wife tells me this is an homage to a famous scene in the Godfather ..."

A key thing you're missing here is that Tony himself recognizes the superficial similarity to the scene in The Godfather, and the audience -- who also recognizes the similarity -- is meant to understand that Tony recognizes it.

You will recall that the scene in The Godfather plays out that way because Michael is patted down prior to the beginning of the "peace" meeting with his father's adversary. Accordingly, to kill his father's adversary, Michael has to go to the bathroom to retrieve the planted gun. (Incidentally, the two shootings which follow are not vengeance for Don Corleone's "murder," but rather for an attempt on Don Corleone's life. Don Corleone dies years later of natural causes, playing with his grandchildren in his garden.)

Here, if someone wanted to kill Tony at the diner, the killer could simply walk in off the street with a gun. In any event, there would not have been any opportunity to plant a gun at the diner in advance. (While it is possible that Tony was followed to the diner, no one but his family knew they would be there that evening -- if I have the chronology right, Carmela decided on the diner in the late afternoon on that same day, and there is no suggestion that any of Carmela, AJ or Meadow discussed that with anyone who might be disloyal to Tony.)

The upshot is that it is wildly implausible that the man going to the bathroom is actually going there to retrieve a gun to kill Tony. The audience is meant to recognize that the similarity to the scene in "The Godfather" provokes anxiety in Tony -- even if, on further reflection, it is highly unlikely that the similarity is anything but superficial.

[BWD]

Eight years ago David Chase created a show for TV with the intention of getting our attention and keeping it. Ever since then, we've been riveted by two things about the Soprano family: the things they do, and the things to come. Every week, Chase would let us feel and experience the former, then leave us guessing and wondering about the latter.

Read what you will into the nudges and nuances of the final show, but it seems to me that David Chase put us all on the edge of our seats and, like he's done from the start, left us there to guess and wonder.

[Sag]

Alkali,

I agree with you. I don't think you can conclude from that scene that Tony definitely gets whacked right there. Presumably, the ambiguity, tension and anxiety are meant to highlight the fact that Tony is still a mob boss. So even when things seem fine, there's always something around the corner. We presumably leave him continuing with his tension filled mob life - maybe he gets whacked some time down the line or perhaps goes to jail...

[Phil Weiss]

Alkali that is too smart, and I will have to try and get some ammo and try and argue with you...
Meantime: Sag, do you accept that Paulie is dead meat; that Chase was showing his future with the cat?
Phil

[Sag]

Phil,

I accept that's Paulie's interpretation of events. And he's right - his friends are dying, he's mortal (and getting older), he's in a dangerous business and he's alone. In typical Paulie fashion, he focuses this on superstition involving the cat. I think Chase means to use the cat to point to all this but I don't think he means to say that Paulie will definitely be shot say 5 mins. after the episode ends. But yes, Paulie dies and he can sense the reasons why.

[Jesse Walker]

Isn't anyone going to note that the final scene cuts off right after Steve Perry sang the words "Don't stop"?

[ed]

In Tony's own words, death is a sudden black nothing. The ending before the closing credits roll is a sudden black screen, which symbolizes Tony's demise.

[wtfbollos]

i think david chase did a marvellous job with the sopranos...

i watched EVERY one...the first 3 series TWICE.

i was very disappointed with how the last episode turned out, but i think trying to second guess what was going to happen next is just that, a guess.

unless DC persuades JG and the others to "do a few more" (or something), then we can just carry on arguing about what we THINK he meant and what MIGHT have happened next.

i must admit i find it hard to accept the end with sil lying in a hospital bed and tony about to be called up by da feds...

there's some more mileage, but i guess we'll have to leave it there...^^

personally, i can find solace in the INCREDIBLY good Rescue Me series 4 starting soon and the CONTINUALLY AWESOME show the shield, which should be back for a series 7 next year, i believe...

if you havn't watched the shield, shame on you!

go get series 1 episode 1 and start from there...you won't be sorry!

kind regards,
wtfbillos

[Montag]

I gotta give the guy credit, he had the sense to end it, like Jerry Seinfeld did with his hit series. The financial rule of thumb is that any hit series is in danger of getting "whacked" after the first 100 episodes, which is the minimum necessary for syndication as reruns. Eventually the creator has to ask themself whether the series should be ended as having run its course, or risk putting it on life support by "jumping the shark." And it takes integrity to grab the bull by the tail and look the situation squarely in the eye like that.

You could say that David Chase did what Tony Soprano couldn't do--he just walked away from it all before it became impossible to save himself.

[cooper]

The commentary above leads me to pass along some of the best advice I ever received, unsolicited or no:

Kill
Your
Televitz

[norman ravitch]

Indeed, yiddish was used to keep things secret from the goyim. It is part of the rabbinic plot to keep Jews from knowing anything about Christians or Christianity, that was the purpose of the Talmud also. It was what made the Jews peculiar. Zionism claimed to redeem Jews from this curse; unfortunately this has not quite happened.

In his novel Shosha Isaac Bashevis Singer remarked on the fact that while his people had lived in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth for 1000 years they spoke no Polish and studied only two dead languages (Hebrew and Aramaic), one Jargon, Yiddish, and studied only the Talmud, rules for a temple service which no longer existed. It kept the Jews under the control of the rabbis.

[anon]

For some context to this separating function of yiddish, it helps to remember the Jewish ban on breaking bread with gentiles. Now only observed by the more fundamentalist sects, this was the norm for most of European history. It was well into the 20th century before the majority of world Jewry were permitting themselves to break bread with their non-Jewish neighbors.

[Bill Pearlman]

anon:
You must be a whole lot of fun at dinner. Can't imagine why any jew wouldn't want to "break bread" with a guy like you. Must be like the Algonquin round table.

[elizabeth]

Alkali wrote "if I have the chronology right, Carmela decided on the diner in the late afternoon on that same day, and there is no suggestion that any of Carmela, AJ or Meadow discussed that with anyone who might be disloyal to Tony.)"

Well Meadow was dating a mobster's son, so she could have told him earlier in the afternoon, which would have given them enough time to plant the gun. There was a leak between the two families as well as with the FBI.

[David Chase impersonator]

For the unimaginative! Here's what I think happens...

So Meadow walks into the restaurant and sits down next to Tony.

The hitman opens the door of the bathroom expecting to have a perfect target of Tony to shoot at, but Meadow is in the way.

He walks forward and fires the gun at Tony, hitting him and Meadow.

Anthony jr tries to defend his dad where he failed before (remember with Uncle Junior and the knife) and struggles with the hitman,
he gets thrown into a table and knocked out and the hitman runs out of there was fast as he can leaving;

Tony dieing on the table,
Meadow dead,
Anhtony jr injured on the floor,
and Carmella in shock.

If they make another episode in the future, i'm guessing it'll involve Anthony and Carmella dealing with their greif- and finding themselves totally alone.
Since Paulie may or may not be dead, the leadership of the Soprano Family is wiped out and there's nobody left to "take care" of Tonys family like he promised.

I reckon it'll end with Tony dieing on life support.

Sorry :(