This type of ending is a classic, just like a short story by Frank Stockton, The Lady Or The Tiger.

Either presumed ending works: "Tony Lives" or "Tony Dies" ...
It's up to the viewer to think about it.
Just like "The Lady Or The Tiger."
Perhaps you will never decide.
I think that's what David Chase intended.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2007-06-13 20:20 by schillid.

meliBlo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> ever hear of mike and the mad dog
> they support my theory, and btw i bet they never
> heard of you, what radio station do you intern for
> anyway


NO MOVIE
[www.aintitcool.com]

But listen, I don't have to defend where I work; I mean do you even have a job? I work at a radio station in the Cleveland market. I have never heard of your local hacks and I am sure they have never heard of me. I have not been an intern for a long long time, I host an afternoon drive show and the feedback I get is really about 50/50
split down the middle of Tony living or dying

And THAT is the point you rude fvcktard!
It is open to interpret, nobody is right and nobody is wrong, but your inability to see anyone else’s point of view as at least having merit really does show what a stooge you are.

Can somebody really be wrong or right if they like or don't like the Bigger Bang album? Some think its great some hate it - but ALL are entitled to interpret what Mick and Keith mean and if they did a good job.

I see every possible thing that can be read into the end of the show, and I like reading different perspectives and opinions... however I am careful not to call anyone’s opinion wrong just because its not mine.

FrankM has argued the 'everyone lives' side very well and in a civil manner, and I want you guys to be right I REALLY DO!
I want to believe Tony is fine and that there might be more New Jersey adventures - but in my heart, I don't.


But this thread has evolved past that at this point and is now really about whether you are open minded enough to allow others to have different interpretations than yours without being attacked by you?

thought you were done with this thread radio scum,btw in the article you posted chase goes on to say he never says never, if an idea pops in his head he would consider a movie, guess you forgot to notice that huh



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-06-14 01:25 by melillo.

My heavans but don't you have alot of time to post your asinine opinions. I don't check in for a day and you alreay have an imediate post. DO you work or do ANYTHING? How old are you? I would guess young since you seem to make no sense and are unwilling to see any other POV than your own

The article says IF he did a movie, it would have to be set in 2006 or before because there is no way to do a sequel
I WONDER WHY?
maybe because everyone except Paulie is dead.
The article also says that it is all there IF you want to see it.

But as I said, there is no right or wrong.... however you like the ending to be is fine

or can't you live with that?

bottom line, I am sick of talking about a TV show with a retard.

but you are right about one thing
I did say I was done with this thread, and I now truely am



now go my little meliBlo, before the short bus pulls away and leaves you, you sweet little simpleton




melillo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thought you were done with this thread radio
> scum,btw in the article you posted chase goes on
> to say he never says never, if an idea pops in his
> head he would consider a movie, guess you forgot
> to notice that huh

Even think the end its up to your imagination I have to agree with this perspective showed on these video:

.....never really sure why people pretend not to see or understand what's in fornt of their eyes.....but the ending was great....the series was great and Tony ended up as he began....a family guy doing what he does to get by..............good bad or indifferent..........and life does go on and on and on.....

I'd like to believe that he got whacked, but I don't think he did.

He looks up when the doorbell rings, and sees Meadow enter the diner...and that's it. His whole family is there with him now. He keeps his family.

Losing them was his main fear going back to the first episode when the ducks flew away, which causes his panic attack and sends him to Dr. Melfi.

But it's not exactly a happy ending. His crew is decimated, and he's going to remain paranoid, miserable, and in fear of getting whacked or pinched until the day he dies.

Rip This Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> .....and life does go on and on and on.....



how do they put onion rings into their mouths?

They
pop
them

At first I smiled thinking,we.re gonna get a movie...but now I'm sad because I feel that Tony is really dead. Lights out...just a brillant ending to a great show.RIP Tony!

keefriff99 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to believe that he got whacked, but I
> don't think he did.
>
> He looks up when the doorbell rings, and sees
> Meadow enter the diner...and that's it. His whole
> family is there with him now. He keeps his
> family.
>
> Losing them was his main fear going back to the
> first episode when the ducks flew away, which
> causes his panic attack and sends him to Dr.
> Melfi.
>
> But it's not exactly a happy ending. His crew is
> decimated, and he's going to remain paranoid,
> miserable, and in fear of getting whacked or
> pinched until the day he dies.


exactly, thats what chase was trying to get us to think about, plus the words to the journey song say it all anyway, chase said he left it right in front of us, the words to the song are the meaning of that ending

Even if I could somehow bring myself to accept that it was a good ending,that's a leap of faith I haven't made yet. But did they really have to end with Journey?.........Ugghhhhhhhhh,seriously wouldn't You Can't Always Get What You Want,have worked much better?

Chase always threw curveballs. That was the pattern of the entire show. When you thought Tony would whack Richie, Janice did it instead. When you thought there would be a high octane climax at the end of season 5, the feds moved in. He goes one way and then changes course.

He built up the drama at the diner and then nothing happened- unless you want to believe something did.

Watch the jukebox scene and you see the next song is "Any Way You Want It"- as if Chase left the ending up to us, but imo after looking at all the clues he lives.

...........interesting piece on the show......

but wait a second: the Sopranos ending.
So Uncle Junior doesn't remember being boss of New Jersey. "That's nice." Tony Soprano walks away in horror, leaving June there in his wheelchair, looking out a window, lonely and isolated.

Then cut to Tony walking into a restaurant.

Cut to Tony's POV of the place.

Back to Tony standing in the door.

Then back to his POV, but there's Tony's sitting at the table. So he's seeing himself sitting there.

For all the discussion that this episode had provoked, I haven't seen anything that addresses this. Everything I've been reading has been about the abrupt ending, but nothing at all about the fact that this entire scene in the restaurant seems to be -- well, more than a bit unreal.

And then, once the camera shifts to this Tony sitting at the table, there's a POV shot of the door where I swear it's Janice Soprano walking in, but we never see her again in the sequence.

And I don't know about anyone else, but when Tony first start leafing through the table jukebox, my eye went right to "THOSE WERE THE DAYS", followed by "THIS MAGIC MOMENT." And then it pans down to "Magic Man." "Don't Stop Believing." "This Lonely Place." I don't think anything that happens after that first cutback to Tony actually happened. Plus, there's something way too staged about the entire scene. It's just set up much too squarely, the blocking's off, and there are too many weirdo extras (the boy scout troupe? that one guy walking across the field of vision at the beginning?) to make this altogether real.

So what is this? My theory: it's a vision of Hell. Tony's had them before, of course. But all his dreams and plans are ruined. The grand and glorious heritage of his father and uncle is gone. Everyone who mattered in his crew is dead, some by his own hand. Paulie is the only guy left, and he gets a promotion by default, and he has to be pressured into taking it. One of his guys flipped, which means that he's probably getting arrested soon. There ain't no one who's going to lead the family once Tony's gone; the dream dies with him. Dr. Melfi kicked his ass to the curb, so any hope of trying to further rationalize his evil is gone. He learned from her why he's so @#$%& up, but at every juncture in his life, instead of changing himself, he used his upbringing as an excuse, a crutch, a rationalization. His family is right there with him; they've all made their beds. Janice is off to the side, where she's always going to be; he'll never be able to get rid of her. Everyone who comes into his life is a potential killer. Tony is @#$%&, burnt, and he can't bullshit, buy or bash his way out.

So why the abrupt ending? It's very easy for Tony to imagine Carmela and AJ with him in his inferno. Carmela's had plenty of chances to walk away, but she's damned herself to avoid facing her own culpability. AJ has been a doomed project from the start, so @#$%& it, give him a BMW and a job and watch him sell out his "principles." Fine, great, you expect it from these two. But Meadow? The one who was supposed to be smarter than this? Meadow's becoming an immigration rights lawyer because she saw her dad carted away by the FBI once too many times, and in a masterwork of denial, decided it was because he was Italian, and not an actual crime boss? Meadow's acquiescence to her father's sociopathy is something that even Tony's mangled psyche can't handle. That's why she spends all that time trying to park the car: Tony's mind is trying to keep her outside of the restaurant, away from the island of doom that the rest of the family is condemned to. And once he looks up and recognizes that she's there, as doomed as the other three -- blackout. It's too much to bear; it's Tony's greatest failure. Just like his mother ruined his life, Tony has ruined his daughter's life. The series began with Tony blacking out, and it ends with him blacking out.

I think everyone who's been bitching about this ending never got what the series was about. Yes, it's about the Mob and "whacking" and blah blah blah, but it's always, always, ALWAYS been about the denial at the heart of modern American life. Tony's just another scumfuck exurbanite with a McMansion, doing horrible things to make money, trapped in a loveless marriage to a wife who turns a blind eye to not just his adulteries and personal failings, but the horrors he commits to sustain her lifestyle, with two kids, one bright, one not, and coworkers and subordinates who are all out for themselves. And with everything that's happened over the course of the show, no matter how shocking the events, no matter how many atrocities they commit, everyone in that world turns a blind eye to the truth, because that's the only way these people can sustain themselves. You could be Tony Soprano, says David Chase, immersed in a life that's total bullshit. In the end, the only one to save herself was Melfi, and that's only because she was an outsider. She nearly got sucked in, of course, and she clung to Tony much longer than she should have, since that sort of denial is extraordinarily seductive. In the end, though, the bubble is ruptured, and Tony Soprano and his families are utterly ruined.

One last note to support my theory: I am pretty sure that Tony never, ever, EVER discussed business with Carmela. Yet when Carmela sits down, Tony talks about how Carlo's going to testify? Carmela only learns about Tony's mistakes when the FBI shows up at her door, ruining dinner. I think that's the clue that none of this is actually happening; I can't see Tony talking shop with Carmela. Rather, if it is all a vision of Tony's, it's a tacit acknowledgment that Carmela is doomed along with him, so why not share a thing or two. We're all friends on this bus, right? UPDATE: Ahh, apparently I was wrong about this point, as those more knowledgable about the series have pointed out. HELLO DEADSPIN.

Afterthought: The more I think about it, the less tenable the "it was all in Tony's head" part of the theory becomes. Thanks to the power of INCONVENIENT FACTS, I'm not going to push that angle. If I'm right, I'm right, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, eh. That's the "dramatic device" part of the theory. What I think is the important part is just why the show ends so abruptly, and that part -- Tony blacking out because he simply cannot accept that Meadow is part of his doomed reality -- I'm going to stick with. Because that's been the whole theme running through the show: how Livia @#$%& with Tony so relentlessly. And in not being able to help himself, Tony had @#$%& with Meadow's life completely. That, I think, is the essential tragedy of The Sopranos -- not just that Tony is doomed, but that his doom has dragged down the one person in the world he wanted to save. Meadow was always the one who could take care of herself; now, she's just @#$%&. Tony won't be carrying a dead Meadow onstage in his arms, but death doesn't have to be that literal.

That's an awesome analysis. I noticed how Tony comes into the diner and seemingly sees himself, but I thought it was done to show how Tony HAD to pick a location in the diner that faced the door, so he could spot trouble coming...although it DOES appear that he's wearing a different shirt. I can't tell for sure, because the shadow of his jacket obscures the color of his shirt somewhat.

I thought Meadow's difficulty parallel parking signified how she didn't "fit" with the family. She's beautiful and brainy, yet she can't seem to shake her doomed family, and she's succumbing to them rather than blazing her own independent path.

cool analyses....orrrr maybe meadow is so much a basic and inherent part of the family (she subtly but directly manipulated Tony to violence on one recent occasion) that, despite her 'priviliged' upbringing, she dosen't 'fit in' (the parking thing) with the world of expensive cars and ivy league college girls...
she's as much soprano as tony...if there were ever to be a spin-off, i see meadow, similarly to the woman mob boss in italy that tony slowly warmed up to...i see meadow as every bit as ruthless as tony, and seemingly acquiesent like carmela, but every bit as married to denial and greed...and every bit as capable of violence, however subtly managed, or direct, if it comes to that.
meadow is tony next time around. just a guess for fun.

Beelyboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> cool analyses....orrrr maybe meadow is so much a
> basic and inherent part of the family (she subtly
> but directly manipulated Tony to violence on one
> recent occasion) that, despite her 'priviliged'
> upbringing, she dosen't 'fit in' (the parking
> thing) with the world of expensive cars and ivy
> league college girls...
> she's as much soprano as tony...if there were ever
> to be a spin-off, i see meadow, similarly to the
> woman mob boss in italy that tony slowly warmed up
> to...i see meadow as every bit as ruthless as
> tony, and seemingly acquiesent like carmela, but
> every bit as married to denial and greed...and
> every bit as capable of violence, however subtly
> managed, or direct, if it comes to that.
> meadow is tony next time around. just a guess for
> fun.


.....in the end I think one of the saddest developments was Meadow's demise...I always held out hope that she would somehow break free...... I agree Beelyboy she perhaps inflamed and spurred Tony into what was one of the most ugly and graphic violent scenes of the entire show.