WARNING: Spoilers from last night’s series finale of The Sopranos abound.
Let’s leave aside, for now, the question of whether, with that final blackout, David Chase’s refusal to provide narrative closure or any kind of moral reckoning for Tony and Carmela was a fan-frustrating cop out or a true-to-life affirmation of the show’s existential thematic concerns. (We discuss that question at length here.) After all, you surely have plenty of additional unanswered questions. As do we. EW’s reporters will try to find answers to some of these; others are almost certainly unanswerable. We’ll get you started after the jump; if there’s anything we’ve forgotten to ask, add your own questions in the comment section.
- Was one of those suspicious-looking characters in the diner a hitman, one who might have popped Tony after the blackout? Or was Tony more likely to succumb to an onion-ring-induced coronary?
- Was Tony peeling an orange an ironic reference to The Godfather, where oranges were always a sign of imminent death?
- Can an SUV really catch fire that easily?
- Tony and Carmela said they wouldn’t buy AJ a replacement SUV, but isn’t it spoiling him just as much to buy him a new BMW?
- Would Silvio have awakened from his coma? If so, what would thisconnoisseur of strippers have thought of Abigail Breslin’s hoochiedance in Little Miss Sunshine?
- How many times can TV producers make use of Journey’s "Don’t Stop Believin’?"
- Did the Feds really flip Carlo? Did he flip because they pressured his son with a drug bust? Was he the one planning to testify against Tony on that old weapons rap?
- So, is Butchie the head of the New York family now?
- Did Uncle Junior really stash a fortune? Is he too far gone to remember where, or is he just being cagey? Will Bobby’s kids ever see any of that money, or is Tony right to fear Janice would keep it for herself?
- Was Tony going to get back into therapy, either with the shrink Melfi referred him to, or with AJ’s doctor?
- What was up with Agent Harris and his law-enforcement mistress? Was Tony’s dime-dropping on those two terror suspects ever going to pay off, or were they just ordinary, law-abiding folks who happened to be Muslims?
- Might there be a spinoff series for Paulie (Tony Sirico, pictured)? Might it look like this?
- Is the aging Paulie now Tony’s heir apparent?
- Is the Christopher-obsessed cat a reincarnated Adriana?
- Why did Hunter show up after all these years?
- Where has Donna Pescow (who played Meadow’s future mother-in-law) been since Saturday Night Fever and Angie?
- Might there be a Sopranos movie to tie up all these loose ends? Or would Chase be interested only in making a movie about the family’s immigrant ancestors?
- So, whatever did happen to the Russian?
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That ending was WORSE than a Lost episode. ughhhhh
Is Tony dead?
i thought the ending was bold. i was hoping aj would get shot (but that is another issue).
did the FBI agent sleep with that woman to get info on Phil?
did tony ever have the makings of a varsity athlete?
Loved the ending. For the first time in the entire series I understood what life was like for Tony. Every time the door opened it ws a chance for death. Looking around and waiting for the other shoe to drop. That feeling of dread that I had in those last 10 minutes was awful… imagine feeling it for 8 years. Also, loved the fact that while Tony laments his hard driving Mom she drove him to be the man he is. Without that he would have ended up like poor pointless AJ.
Imagine feeling it for 8 years? Yeah…ill do that. In my multimillion dollar home like Tony has. boohoo he felt that for 8 years
A few thoughts
First, on the ending. Chase’s point, IMHO, was to show how even in the most sincere environs (a family restaurant), life for a gangster means constantly having to watch your back. There’s no security, no assurances of safety, even at a diner with the wife and kids.
Regarding the orange, Chase made several homages to gangster flicks throughout the show. Passages from Pileggi’s “wiseguy” were practically acted out in the series, Tony immitated Raging Bull recently, the bathroom guy at the end was straight up godfather.
What struck me, besides Paulie’s survival (I always knew he weren’t no rat), was how empty the seats in front of Satriale’s were. Remember how full those chairs were a few years ago?
Regarding Junior, he was trying to dig up his fortune the ep Tony was shot. Junior probly’ took off with that loot years ago and forgot all about it.
My question is: Did Benny ever get made?
I LOVED IT! Hated it last night, but this morning I love it. I really dislike being able to figure out what is going to happen. The ending they chose surprised the heck out of me, it wasn’t even on my radar, so I have to give them props. ( I was thinking there were 3 choices: arrest, death, or witness protection).
I was on the edge of my seat, it was so tense. They tricked me, and I love them for it! Predictablity is boring.
I don’t have the answers to those questions but I do know that The Walnuts trailer you linked to was terrible. Not funny at all.
What do people think of the rapidly-circulating theory online right now that the guy at the bar in the diner was named “Nikki Leotardo”??? This has all the makings of an urban myth– but the story making the rounds of Inboxes everywhere is that the credits for the episode list the man at the bar as Nikki Leotardo (seems like a weird spelling for a guy, if you ask me) who is apparently Phil’s nephew. And therefore, that final moment of blackness and silence represents Tony’s death– quick and quiet, like he and Bobby imagined it would be when they talked about it on the fishing boat in the season’s premiere.
Of course, IMDB has yet to list the full cast for the episode, so it beats me where the unknown author of this email is getting the Nikki Leotardo info from (I would think anyone credited as Nikki Leotardo from the episode would be Phil’s wife, who left the SUV in drive…) The email is also crammed with lots of other “links” to past episodes.
EW, please get to the bottom of this!!
Tony’s definitely not dead, check out the episode recap at HBO.com
Tony’s definitely not dead, check out the episode recap at HBO.com
Donna Pescow — she was the mom on Even Stevens, still the place to catch Shia Labeouf’s best work.
Here’s my question:
Am I crazy, or was it reveled awhile back that Patsy was a rat for the FBI? If so, whatever became of that?
Re: Donna Pescow – hello! Evie’s mom. Out of This World. I kept staring at her last night, thinking what the heck else was she on. That was it!
REVEALED. :-p
to me, Carmela, Tony & AJ eating the onion rings looked a bit like communion to me… redemption maybe?
I can’t remember what the last shot was before it went black. Was it from Tony’s perspective watching his daughter walk in? If so he prolly got iced.
None of those questions really matter. This is a show that has always defied viewer expectations, and the ending was true to the series as a whole. People die, but life goes on. People sit and talk about the same stupid things they’ve always talked about. They eat onion rings and have trouble parallel parking. But as Don DeLillo once said, all plots tend to move deathward.
Is that it? That’s all their is? I thought my DVR quit. What a shocker. I will echo pdt’s comment that I was wishing that whiny litte pissant AJ would get iced. He annoys me.
MacGuffin alert — that was David Chase in the final shots, the fellow who entered Hosten’s in a bball cap.
Nikki Leotardo got out of her SUV to attend to her dead father and then her car rolled over his face. Nikki isn’t his nephew, it’s his daughter.
I am so sad that The Sopranos is gone forever! It is almost as awful as the day Johnny Carson quit!
That ending was David Chase showing his utter contempt for the loyal viewers who were so invested in these characters and spent so much time speculating and obsessing over how they would end up. By basically wrapping up nothing except for killing off Phil, and making that quick cut followed by 10 seconds of a black screen, causing many people to think the signal was cut, Chase essentially gave all of those loyal viewers the finger.
My question is…why did it take Meadow 20 minutes to park her car in a space that was the size of Texas?
The cat was definitely Adriana. And as for why Hunter showed up again, I think she was meant to serve as a contrast to Meadow–the more middle class Hunter is well on her way to a career in medicine, while the spoiled Meadow drifts from ambition to ambition and will almost certainly follow in the footsteps of her mother by abandoning any career goals the second she gets engaged.
And they got AJ the BMW as part of the “reward” for not going into the Army.
Don’t Stop Believin’: The theme song for Tony Soprano, Aileen Wuornos and the Chicago White Sox.
That speaks volumes.
The girl that plays Hunter is Chase’s daughter – so that explains her return.
Nick, you are a douchebag.