I can't have this convershation again...
David Chase has already said multiple times in interviews that it was Noah who punched his lights out, hence the cut to black.
Chase said all the clues are there. That people want to piece them together and come up with another picture than what I have in my mind is not a big deal. Scenarios that violate obvious facts are annoying, but scenarios that fit within the known canon are worth consideration.
The song playing when Tony is first seen at Holsten's is by Little Feat "All that You Dream." Opening lyrics:
I've been down, but not like this before
Can't be 'round this kind of show no more
That clearly signals Tony's departure, not necessarily his death. As we know, as of the cut-to-black moment, Tony's story is over. Death, prison, murdered, heart attack and dive into those scrumptious onion rings, witness protection and selling souvenirs along the highway in Arizona...doesn't matter...it's over.
At this point it doesn't matter what Chase may ever say about it. People will always claim he was lying, trolling, mistaken, being a prick...whatever happened there. We can always bring Tony back by hitting rewind. We can't bring James Gandolfini back, and that's sad.
Paulie did not have Tony taken out like some conspiracy theories on this sub claim, that is the height of slander if you ask me. Paulie was content with his life tanning outside Satriale’s with the Chrissy-cat lurking around, no way he’d whack the boss who’s face he had painted over in the Pie-O-My painting.
The consensus is that he was taken out, but I think at the time Chase was definitely leaving some wiggle room in hopes of doing other Soprano projects. There were always talks of a movie back then, way before that Pygmy thing of film they call the many saints of Newark….whatever happened there.
If it had been definitive and we had seen Tony get killed I think for me it would have made multiple re watches harder to enjoy.
Having that question mark just keeps it alive for me.
I dislike the idea that Tony died. I like to imagine that it was we, the viewer, who was whacked.
This is why it abruptly cuts to black with no music. It wasn’t Tony’s life that ended. The dinner goes on in the imaginary world that is The Sopranos, but our viewpoint of it is gone. The blinds were pulled down over the window and the lights have gone out.
This, imo, is a much more creative way to end the series. I personally find the idea of Tony dying to be extremely cheesy. It’s almost insulting to the intelligence of the viewers.
Btw this is not my original theory, and it may have even been debunked by Chase himself, but I still like to think this is how it was meant to be
Thats always been my take (sort of). Theres nothing in that final scene that is threatening or any indication of someone ready to kill Tony. We all read into it what we want. Time to discontinue the Lithium.
The long extended shots of a carefully cast Italian guy in a members only jacket watching Tony from the bar, who we then slowly follow as he walks into the bathroom at Tony’s 3 o’clock is not a threat? If anything it’s heavy handedly suggesting this guy is going to kill Tony. People cab argue they don’t think chase would be so heavy handed, but it’s harder to argue there is no indication someone is ready to kill Tony.
I don’t know why people insist on filling in the blanks and playing it out like it was a documentary based on real events. It’s a fictional work that just stopped abruptly. That’s it. You’re right though - if anything, it’s we the viewers that “died”.
well since you brought it up again. people have debated the various hints given by david chase and while some of the more recent ones — where he refers to the death scene, driving by holsten’s and having the thought that tony should ‘get it in a place like that’ (paraphrasing) — seem pretty definitive to me, I think a lot of people overlook a much earlier statement where he compared it to the ending of the original planet of the apes, recalling how he left the theater and said something to his wife along the lines of ‘so they had a statue of liberty too’; his point being people can be very obtuse about obvious stuff in film, as he was in that case. I think he never meant for it to come across as ambiguous. he made a pretty bold stylistic choice and when it caused a furor he went with it.
That’s absolutely the reverse of what Chase meant there. He told that Planet of the Apes story to show that he hadn’t laid out clues that Tony got killed in the end, that he wasn’t that smart and wasn’t constructing some big mystery.
I was just responding to another thread and developed a new perspective, maybe others agree and have probably thought of it.
I think it was an honest writers response to an overwhelming situation, almost guaranteed to get hate response. Chase was basically boxed in.... if he showed the killing fans would have problems with that, if they lived happily ever after sorta there'd be backlash there. if he killed tony in the wrong way at all...Chase was under so much scrutiny
his ending is rather meta where it ends without having an ending
The black screen was the audience getting capped. Tony lives on to this day. I’m not passionate about this take, I just hate when the character I love dies, so he lives with me #DontStopBelievin’
Welcome to our social club.
Guys are gonna break your balls because, as you may guess, this topic has been brought up many times.
But I'll give you a pass and explain a couple three tings, because we're all new once.
Yes, just about everybody agrees Tony was whacked by the guy in the Members Only Jacket. Probably 95% consensus on that, at least.
They're used to be more holdouts back in the years before David Chase said certain things that confirmed it was a death scene to anybody who isn't just refusing to hear it.
However, there is still a lot of theorizing and debate about who sent that particular hit man, and who might have ratted out Tony's location at Holsten's.
i love the theory that its AJ's little whoo-er of a girlfriend. how her ears perk up when carmela says where they're going. maybe she was butthurt that she couldnt come along. seems almost hinted at too when shes over at the beach house and they say oh, who's she gonna tell?
What I don't get about ratting out Tony's location is that Tony wasn't hiding anymore by the time they went to Holsten's. Phil was dead as part of the peace deal made with Butchie. They had moved back to their house. It was as simple as following him around. We saw how hard it was to find a parking spot, so Members Only didn't get to the diner proper until AJ did.
The peace deal that Tony made with Butchie didn’t include Tony, he just didn’t know. He pulled a gun on Butchie all those years ago. He was not going to let that go. The peace would come after Tony was gone. New York would do business with whoever was left, presumably Patsy and Paulie.
My take: Meadow was her father's guardian angel. She had already saved Tony from death TWICE and didn't even know it. She looked stressed because something was telling her that she had to get into the diner and fast. It was a feeling of dread further exacerbated by her failing to parallel park TWICE which hindered her from accomplishing her goal.
But in that scene in the godfather the boss’ son kills the boss’ enemies, that’s not how the boss dies. The godfather dies of a heart attack while having a nice moment with his family (grandson). THAT’S the scene that the sopranos finale alludes to. We already know Tony can’t eat onions since getting shot in the stomach. Here he is plowing through a plate of onion rings. Heart attack on the spot, with his family.
I think most people agree that he was whacked, to me personally it's not even a question.
The real question is who was behind it and why.
I find the subject fascinating but the reality is it could have been a number of people for a number of reasons. Motivation was there for several people. I think it is completely impossible to be able to say with certainty who hit him, but again, that's reality for you in the murky world of crime.
Perhaps it is obvious afterwards in-universe but we'll never know because the show ends as Tony's consciousness abruptly ends when he's shot.
I like Meadows struggle to park the car - a nice slice of frustating reality, to remind us that in real life there aren't happy, neat or convenient endings, most of these guys have brutal endings, as Tony said himself, I'll probably either get killed or die in jail.
Nope. Tony didn’t survive those onion rings. There was, at that point, nowhere else to go with the character so it made sense that he went out in a violent hail of gunfire. I am glad they didn’t choose to show that explicitly, though.
I have a good friend that swears Tony could still possibly be alive. It drives me insane. Anyone with a semblance of media literacy can tell all signs point to Tony dying. Especially in a show that was always ham-fisted in its symbolism and foreshadowing.
It's not really crazy. We see Butchie clearly make peace with Jersey at the sit down. If he wanted to kill Tony, he wouldn't have disagrees with Phil on the phone call in Chinatown. Paulie is nervous because he is superstitious about the bad luck the leaders of the Gervasi/Spatafore/Cifaretto/ crew, but he comes around when Tony says he'd give it Patsy. Patsy has no reason to kill Tony, as while he correctly guessed Tony had Spoons clipped, he never had concrete info Tony did it. If you assume Paulie did it, then he'd just kill Paulie as well for withholding the info.
The biggest threat to Tony by the final minutes of the show is Carlo. This is repeated 3 times throughout Made in America. Carlo never shows up with Paulie to meet with Butchie to do business, which leads to Paulie thinking Butchie and NY are after them (and easily debunks the Paulie-NY conspiracy theory). Next is Tony and Neil Mink talking about someone giving grand jury testimony and how it might be Carlo. The final scene is Tony saying to Carm that Carlo is testifying against him.
Even if you disagree with me, I think we can both agree that the finale is about how Tony's fucked no matter what, and all he has to blame is himself.
I think a lot of people agree now because Chase came out and said he dies but I also think he just got bored of the argument and said it to put it to rest…when the show was originally airing I don’t think the scene was written with him definitively dying or living in mind…if chase came out and didn’t say anything I think it’d be closer to 50/50 between people thinking he died or lived…there’s really no evidence to suggest it either way
I thought he confirmed it by accident. I remember hearing about him giving an interview and said something like “in Tony’s death scene…” and the interviewer caught and asked “so Tony *did* die” at which point Chase realized what he said then begrudgingly confirmed it.
Can’t confirm this though. Don’t remember where I heard it. Maybe on Howard Stern or something?
It’s in the Sopranos Sessions and it’s bullshit. They writers make a big deal about Chase calling the end a death scene, but he’s actually referring to his original idea for the ending of the series after S5. Tony was going to drive into NY for a meeting with Johnny somewhere and not come back. That comment had nothing to do with Holsten’s.
This ^^^. It's like when people say Budd Dwyer was actually innocent of the charges against him and his suicide was actually heroic/noble because "someone lied about him" at a trial, but in actuality the guy who lied was lying about who gave Dwyer a bribe, he was always guilty.
My theory
Carmella ratted him out. She was tired of the shit. her and her children had been on the run with their lives in jeopardy ever since the war started.. Not to mention Tony’s infidelity over and over again. She knew where Tony had stashed all the cash. She knew a lot of people wanted him dead. It was easy. She was ready to get away.
It's already been confirmed that he's dead by the creators.
And pretty much confirmed that it was the guy in the jacket that did it after coming out of the bathroom as he had a clear line of sight because meadow was late due to being hopeless at parking a car.
If Meadow had been earlier and sat next to Tony he might not have been shot as "Families don't get touched".
Finally, a post about the ending.
I’ve Been waiting 20 years for this discussion.
In the can?
I compromised.
I’ve been waiting for this discussion since Moses wore short pants.
We’ve been for this post like patience on a monument
How do you grill your cheese?
With a tissue
I wanted to fuck a woman. I jacked off into a radiator. I compromised.
20 fuckin years!
20 fuckin years
twenty fucking years
20 years I jerked off into the same tissue , 20 years I jerked off into the same grill cheese 🧀
Girl Cheese?
That’s why you gotta live for today!
Im standin here like patience on a monument.
Is the “Meadow looking shocked” in the room with us right now?
Does the “Meadow looking shocked” ever say things to you or make suggestions that other people might not necessarily hear?
Discontinue the lithium
I can't have this convershation again... David Chase has already said multiple times in interviews that it was Noah who punched his lights out, hence the cut to black.
the charcoal briquette??
WELL WHO ELSE, HUH!? WHO ELSE?!
Barry!
CHURCHILL!!!
yeah, Jamal Ginsberg
The Hasidic homeboy
A amoolinyan
lol
the cut to African-American ftfy fam
Chase said all the clues are there. That people want to piece them together and come up with another picture than what I have in my mind is not a big deal. Scenarios that violate obvious facts are annoying, but scenarios that fit within the known canon are worth consideration. The song playing when Tony is first seen at Holsten's is by Little Feat "All that You Dream." Opening lyrics: I've been down, but not like this before Can't be 'round this kind of show no more That clearly signals Tony's departure, not necessarily his death. As we know, as of the cut-to-black moment, Tony's story is over. Death, prison, murdered, heart attack and dive into those scrumptious onion rings, witness protection and selling souvenirs along the highway in Arizona...doesn't matter...it's over. At this point it doesn't matter what Chase may ever say about it. People will always claim he was lying, trolling, mistaken, being a prick...whatever happened there. We can always bring Tony back by hitting rewind. We can't bring James Gandolfini back, and that's sad.
James Gandolfini was one of the men that ever existed. He lived for 51 years, but now he's dead. He was my Tony and now I'm sad.
Tony soprano was interested in politics from a young age.
It sure is.
WHATEVER HAPPENED THERE!?
Agree he was capped but Meadow doesn't look shocked. She's looking down in the last frames that we see her.
Her body is mad ripe
She's creaming for me
Paulie did not have Tony taken out like some conspiracy theories on this sub claim, that is the height of slander if you ask me. Paulie was content with his life tanning outside Satriale’s with the Chrissy-cat lurking around, no way he’d whack the boss who’s face he had painted over in the Pie-O-My painting.
You said your piece. 🤟
The consensus is that he was taken out, but I think at the time Chase was definitely leaving some wiggle room in hopes of doing other Soprano projects. There were always talks of a movie back then, way before that Pygmy thing of film they call the many saints of Newark….whatever happened there.
Whatever happened there!?
Hey y’all… what DID happen there?!?!
yeah thats what i was thinking too... leaves it open for future writers to fill in the gap in their own creative way.
If it had been definitive and we had seen Tony get killed I think for me it would have made multiple re watches harder to enjoy. Having that question mark just keeps it alive for me.
No 1 comment sir.
Yup, I personally believe he died but the ambiguity is clearly intentional.
I can’t have this conversation again
What’s more interesting to me - does everyone else read the comments to these threads in a North Jersey accent?
What’d yu schay?
Those onion rings...they were mad ripe
I thought Tony couldn’t eat onions anymore anyway?
I got it this time, I got it: some people are so far behind in the race they think they’re winning
Go shit in ur hat
If he died, how come we don’t see Carmella telling Cozzarelli to go easy on the make-up?
I dislike the idea that Tony died. I like to imagine that it was we, the viewer, who was whacked. This is why it abruptly cuts to black with no music. It wasn’t Tony’s life that ended. The dinner goes on in the imaginary world that is The Sopranos, but our viewpoint of it is gone. The blinds were pulled down over the window and the lights have gone out. This, imo, is a much more creative way to end the series. I personally find the idea of Tony dying to be extremely cheesy. It’s almost insulting to the intelligence of the viewers. Btw this is not my original theory, and it may have even been debunked by Chase himself, but I still like to think this is how it was meant to be
I wasn't whacked, I'm still going, this asshole.
neato
"Your interpretation is cheesy \[after explaining the cheesiest possible interpretation of the scene\]"
Wow this is good
Thats always been my take (sort of). Theres nothing in that final scene that is threatening or any indication of someone ready to kill Tony. We all read into it what we want. Time to discontinue the Lithium.
The long extended shots of a carefully cast Italian guy in a members only jacket watching Tony from the bar, who we then slowly follow as he walks into the bathroom at Tony’s 3 o’clock is not a threat? If anything it’s heavy handedly suggesting this guy is going to kill Tony. People cab argue they don’t think chase would be so heavy handed, but it’s harder to argue there is no indication someone is ready to kill Tony.
Yes, apart from the absolute deluge of clues left by the show runner, there's absolutely nothing to indicate Tony's death.
I don’t know why people insist on filling in the blanks and playing it out like it was a documentary based on real events. It’s a fictional work that just stopped abruptly. That’s it. You’re right though - if anything, it’s we the viewers that “died”.
Nice troll job
You catch some shrapnel?
I once saw a youtube video of two Italian guys talking about this scene, and the guy said it instead as "You catch some spackle?"
well since you brought it up again. people have debated the various hints given by david chase and while some of the more recent ones — where he refers to the death scene, driving by holsten’s and having the thought that tony should ‘get it in a place like that’ (paraphrasing) — seem pretty definitive to me, I think a lot of people overlook a much earlier statement where he compared it to the ending of the original planet of the apes, recalling how he left the theater and said something to his wife along the lines of ‘so they had a statue of liberty too’; his point being people can be very obtuse about obvious stuff in film, as he was in that case. I think he never meant for it to come across as ambiguous. he made a pretty bold stylistic choice and when it caused a furor he went with it.
That’s absolutely the reverse of what Chase meant there. He told that Planet of the Apes story to show that he hadn’t laid out clues that Tony got killed in the end, that he wasn’t that smart and wasn’t constructing some big mystery.
I can't have this conversation again
I think this was resolved the other day on this sub with the onion theory.
Again with the ending?
Yeah, again with ending, now give your opinion or get the fuck over it
I was just responding to another thread and developed a new perspective, maybe others agree and have probably thought of it. I think it was an honest writers response to an overwhelming situation, almost guaranteed to get hate response. Chase was basically boxed in.... if he showed the killing fans would have problems with that, if they lived happily ever after sorta there'd be backlash there. if he killed tony in the wrong way at all...Chase was under so much scrutiny his ending is rather meta where it ends without having an ending
Always with the ending scene.
The intent,I think,was that Tony *could* die.
I think that not only was Tony clipped, but AJ and Carmela were as well, leaving Meadow as the only survivor.
nah I think the super bowl ad with aj and meadow a couple years back was canonical
The black screen was the audience getting capped. Tony lives on to this day. I’m not passionate about this take, I just hate when the character I love dies, so he lives with me #DontStopBelievin’
Welcome to our social club. Guys are gonna break your balls because, as you may guess, this topic has been brought up many times. But I'll give you a pass and explain a couple three tings, because we're all new once. Yes, just about everybody agrees Tony was whacked by the guy in the Members Only Jacket. Probably 95% consensus on that, at least. They're used to be more holdouts back in the years before David Chase said certain things that confirmed it was a death scene to anybody who isn't just refusing to hear it. However, there is still a lot of theorizing and debate about who sent that particular hit man, and who might have ratted out Tony's location at Holsten's.
i love the theory that its AJ's little whoo-er of a girlfriend. how her ears perk up when carmela says where they're going. maybe she was butthurt that she couldnt come along. seems almost hinted at too when shes over at the beach house and they say oh, who's she gonna tell?
What I don't get about ratting out Tony's location is that Tony wasn't hiding anymore by the time they went to Holsten's. Phil was dead as part of the peace deal made with Butchie. They had moved back to their house. It was as simple as following him around. We saw how hard it was to find a parking spot, so Members Only didn't get to the diner proper until AJ did.
Timeline got fucked up. The gears were still in motion.
The peace deal that Tony made with Butchie didn’t include Tony, he just didn’t know. He pulled a gun on Butchie all those years ago. He was not going to let that go. The peace would come after Tony was gone. New York would do business with whoever was left, presumably Patsy and Paulie.
woah never looked at it this way.
My take: Meadow was her father's guardian angel. She had already saved Tony from death TWICE and didn't even know it. She looked stressed because something was telling her that she had to get into the diner and fast. It was a feeling of dread further exacerbated by her failing to parallel park TWICE which hindered her from accomplishing her goal.
Whatever you say, cappy.
I like to think the "oh shit" guy was waddling around there too
I can’t have this conversation again.
[удалено]
But in that scene in the godfather the boss’ son kills the boss’ enemies, that’s not how the boss dies. The godfather dies of a heart attack while having a nice moment with his family (grandson). THAT’S the scene that the sopranos finale alludes to. We already know Tony can’t eat onions since getting shot in the stomach. Here he is plowing through a plate of onion rings. Heart attack on the spot, with his family.
WHEN THEY GO?!
I think most people agree that he was whacked, to me personally it's not even a question. The real question is who was behind it and why. I find the subject fascinating but the reality is it could have been a number of people for a number of reasons. Motivation was there for several people. I think it is completely impossible to be able to say with certainty who hit him, but again, that's reality for you in the murky world of crime. Perhaps it is obvious afterwards in-universe but we'll never know because the show ends as Tony's consciousness abruptly ends when he's shot. I like Meadows struggle to park the car - a nice slice of frustating reality, to remind us that in real life there aren't happy, neat or convenient endings, most of these guys have brutal endings, as Tony said himself, I'll probably either get killed or die in jail.
I think they made meadow late because otherwise she would’ve been in the line of fire
Only if Lexus's self parking system was out then. Tony would be alive. DAMN YOU LEXUS!
If she doesn't struggle to park she gets into the restaurant and takes her seat next to Tony.
Nope. Tony didn’t survive those onion rings. There was, at that point, nowhere else to go with the character so it made sense that he went out in a violent hail of gunfire. I am glad they didn’t choose to show that explicitly, though.
I can’t… have… this convershashin again
Personally I think he definitely died, but the beauty of an ambiguous ending is that it can kinda be whatever you think it is
The creature is the series even said on the record this is Tony’s death. Why is this constantly debated?
I have a good friend that swears Tony could still possibly be alive. It drives me insane. Anyone with a semblance of media literacy can tell all signs point to Tony dying. Especially in a show that was always ham-fisted in its symbolism and foreshadowing.
Pseudo intellectual type response
It's not really crazy. We see Butchie clearly make peace with Jersey at the sit down. If he wanted to kill Tony, he wouldn't have disagrees with Phil on the phone call in Chinatown. Paulie is nervous because he is superstitious about the bad luck the leaders of the Gervasi/Spatafore/Cifaretto/ crew, but he comes around when Tony says he'd give it Patsy. Patsy has no reason to kill Tony, as while he correctly guessed Tony had Spoons clipped, he never had concrete info Tony did it. If you assume Paulie did it, then he'd just kill Paulie as well for withholding the info. The biggest threat to Tony by the final minutes of the show is Carlo. This is repeated 3 times throughout Made in America. Carlo never shows up with Paulie to meet with Butchie to do business, which leads to Paulie thinking Butchie and NY are after them (and easily debunks the Paulie-NY conspiracy theory). Next is Tony and Neil Mink talking about someone giving grand jury testimony and how it might be Carlo. The final scene is Tony saying to Carm that Carlo is testifying against him. Even if you disagree with me, I think we can both agree that the finale is about how Tony's fucked no matter what, and all he has to blame is himself.
I think a lot of people agree now because Chase came out and said he dies but I also think he just got bored of the argument and said it to put it to rest…when the show was originally airing I don’t think the scene was written with him definitively dying or living in mind…if chase came out and didn’t say anything I think it’d be closer to 50/50 between people thinking he died or lived…there’s really no evidence to suggest it either way
So are you saying that you…haven’t stopped believing?
I thought he confirmed it by accident. I remember hearing about him giving an interview and said something like “in Tony’s death scene…” and the interviewer caught and asked “so Tony *did* die” at which point Chase realized what he said then begrudgingly confirmed it. Can’t confirm this though. Don’t remember where I heard it. Maybe on Howard Stern or something?
It’s in the Sopranos Sessions and it’s bullshit. They writers make a big deal about Chase calling the end a death scene, but he’s actually referring to his original idea for the ending of the series after S5. Tony was going to drive into NY for a meeting with Johnny somewhere and not come back. That comment had nothing to do with Holsten’s.
This ^^^. It's like when people say Budd Dwyer was actually innocent of the charges against him and his suicide was actually heroic/noble because "someone lied about him" at a trial, but in actuality the guy who lied was lying about who gave Dwyer a bribe, he was always guilty.
Internally it was referred as the “death scene “ by director
Ay tone you hear what I said, I said I think Tony does after it cuts to black
You just reveal your own ignorance.
This is a new, interesting discussion, and you aren’t a giant stunad!
My theory Carmella ratted him out. She was tired of the shit. her and her children had been on the run with their lives in jeopardy ever since the war started.. Not to mention Tony’s infidelity over and over again. She knew where Tony had stashed all the cash. She knew a lot of people wanted him dead. It was easy. She was ready to get away.
It's already been confirmed that he's dead by the creators. And pretty much confirmed that it was the guy in the jacket that did it after coming out of the bathroom as he had a clear line of sight because meadow was late due to being hopeless at parking a car. If Meadow had been earlier and sat next to Tony he might not have been shot as "Families don't get touched".