What I'm trying to say is that nothing happens at that exact instance (Tony does not get shot, the FBI doesn't bust in and arrest him), it's just another day.

Of course, eventually he dies somehow, and he may very well likely be arrested. But it's like when you see the actual shooting of a movie or TV show. You see the outline box of what is being put on film, but there is more to the shot than what the viewer is allowed to see.

The series was just 8 years in the life of the Sopranos. There was more before episode 1 and there is more after the last episode.

The last episode wasn't as much of a "final episode" as it was just a stopping point. Like when the live feed from a sporting event gets turned off. Nothing necessarily happened to the people you were watching, you're just not watching them anymore.

I think we're both saying the same thing.

What about this from the beginning of the 1st part of the last season - I always thought it could somehow be tied to the ending. Anybody want to take a stab?

quote:

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The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.

Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is
Ren the Secret Name. This corresponds to the Director. He
directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret
Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren
came in.

Second Soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem.
Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem
presses the right buttons.

Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is
the third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon,
a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you
might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The
Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his
defense--but not permanently, since the first three souls are
eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four
remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the
Land of the Dead.

Number four is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a
hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a
fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a
perfidious Ba.

Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with
the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the
time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the
Land of the Dead to the Western Lands.

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole
past conditioning from this and other lives.

Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.

---

Here's my stab -

quote:

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The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.

Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is
Ren the Secret Name. This corresponds to the Director. He
directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret
Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren
came in. Livia She controls Tony's life from conception to death.

Second Soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem.
Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem
presses the right buttons.Junior

Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is
the third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon,
a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you
might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The
Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his
defense--but not permanently, since the first three souls are
eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four
remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the
Land of the Dead. Big Puzzy

Number four is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a
hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a
fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a
perfidious Ba. Christopher

Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with
the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the
time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the
Land of the Dead to the Western Lands. Bobby

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole
past conditioning from this and other lives. Sil

Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains. Tony

---

[This message has been edited by jmtamu (edited 6/11/2007 11:12a).]

Actual strippers watching the finale at Satin Dolls, the strip-club that stands in for the Bada Bing.

quote:

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A theory proposed by a reader of the NJ.com Sopranos blog using the handle Lorbnash: the nine episodes of this season have represented the nine circles of Hell from Dante's "The Divine Comedy." The fourth circle, for instance, is for the greedy and the miserly; the fourth episode was Tony and Hesh's gambling showdown. The seventh circle is where the suicides go; A.J. took his dip in the family pool in episode seven. The ninth circle is for the traitors, and Butchie implicitly betrayed Phil. (For added fun, reader Joe Adler pointed out the similarities between the Eugene Delacroix painting "The Barque of Dante" and the Annie Leibovitz promotional image on the season five DVD set. Google them both if you want your mind blown.)

---

[This message has been edited by MookieBlaylock (edited 6/11/2007 11:20a).]

I just heard this idea on TV.

Since Chase filmed 3 or 4 alternate endings, he should include all of them in the DVD Box Seat. That way you end the show the way you like it.

apparently one involves Meadow getting hit by a car. stupid

quote from another board - I'll have to research some more..

quote:

---

So here is what I found out. The guy at the bar is also credited as Nikki Leotardo. The same actor played him in the first part of season 6 during a brief sit down concerning the future of Vito. That wasn't that long ago. Apparently, he is the nephew of Phil. Phil's brother Nikki Senior was killed in 1976 in a car accident. Absolutely Genius!!!! David Chase is truly rewarding the true fans who pay attention to detail.

So the point would have been that life continues and we may never know the end of the Sopranos. But if you pay attention to the history, you will find that all the answers lie in the characters in the restaurant. The trucker was the brother of the guy who was robbed by Christopher in Season 2. Remember the DVD players? The trucker had to identify the body. The boy scouts were in the train store and the brothas at the end were the ones who tried to kill Tony and only clipped him in the ear (was that season 2 or 3?).

Absolutely incredible!!!! There were three people in the restaurant who had reason to kill Tony and then it just ends. This was Chase's way of proving that he will not escape his past. It will not go on forever despite that he would like it to "don't stop". Not the fans!!! Tony would like it to keep going but just as we have to say goodbye, so does he.

---

Hell, I googled Nikki Leotardo and found that same quote on two others boards. I guess we will find out in the next few weeks, or we won't. Only David Chase knows...

One interesting idea is that the audience got whacked, ending our view of their world...

I'm gonna miss it..

I don't buy that quote above.

What about the theory that Tony was in purgatory this whole time (since the Junior shooting)?

Somebody once said that "the best kind of art is that which we can each impose our OWN meaning on" - or something to that effect.

When I was watching live last night, my initial reaction was the same as everybody else - "WTF?", "did my satellite just go out", etc etc.

However, this morning I am liking the ending - it allows each of us to decide what happened.

Maybe Tony was whacked by one of the multiple suspects in the diner.

Maybe they had a family dinner and life went on.

Maybe the FBI took him down right there.

Hell, maybe the terrorist's nuclear bomb went off at that moment and vaporized New Jersey.

We each get to decide, and there is no PROOF of anybody's opinion to be found - just speculation and conjecture, like we've been doing the entire life of the series.

Is David Chase scheduled to be on any TV soon? I think most of the TV viewing country would like to hear what he has to say.

And I agree with the above post.

all I know is AJ better be boinking that jail bait as much as possible.

One of those black guys got killed during Tony's attempted whacking so how could they both be back at the end?

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/06/sopranos-mondays-season-6-ep-22-made-in.html

This is exactly right. It was a very fitting ending.

Ya know, this has got me thinking.

I think a better ending to Shawshank would have been just a slow fade to black when Andy is sitting alone in his cell after getting out of solitary.

**** Zihuatanejo.

Same with Bridge on the River Kwai. Nicholson says "What have I done?" and the credits roll.

More random things I have thought of today that were never resolved:

Melfi's rape.
The Russians.
The 2 girls that ran Christopher and Tony off the road.
The guy on the motorcycle that got run over after Sil was shot.
Phil's grandkids in the backseat of the locked vehicle that crushed his skull - did they get them out? Did the vehicle roll into traffic?

I like this:

quote:

---

And in the end, Chase did what he knew he would all along, in the biggest social commentary i have ever seen on TV, he pulled the plug. He turned off our TV for us.

We were all fools in the living room. Staring at the screen aghast. We were looking for more. And then we caught ourselves... looking for more. (****, we even questioned if the cable went out!)

All of us watching were forced to say "****, he totally got us." It was the most poignant 10 seconds of dead air ever on television.

---

[This message has been edited by AgKJ (edited 6/11/2007 1:34p).]

quote:

---

The 2 girls that ran Christopher and Tony off the road.
The guy on the motorcycle that got run over after Sil was shot.
Phil's grandkids in the backseat of the locked vehicle that crushed his skull - did they get them out? Did the vehicle roll into traffic?

---

All of this is nothing more than collateral damage

quote:

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If there's a movie it won't be continuing from that point, it'll be a prequel to the show.

---

The biggest problem with that is the lady who played Tony's mom is dead in real life. I guess it's possible they could explain her away by having her in the hospital or some such (and do some digital film work of her for token appearances in bed or wherever), but it would be lame.

quote:

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and do some digital film work of her for token appearances in bed or wherever

---

That is exactly what they did for the last episode she appeared in. She had already died at that point.

quote:

---

More random things I have thought of today that were never resolved:

The 2 girls that ran Christopher and Tony off the road.

---

I didn't think there was anything to resolve there. I think it was purely for comic relief. If you read the episode titles before watching the show and try to figure out how the title is relevant you'd see how they shoe horned that title in there just to get you thinking when it had only 30 seconds to do with the episode.

I definitely thought Tony was a goner after eating that orange.

The first thing I thought when the screen went blank was of the scene in Man on the Moon where Andy Kaufman talks about making the screen go fuzzy to mess with all of America.

David Chase just did that. I was one of the few who didnt think that his cable had gone out because the last words you heard were "dont stop" before it went blank.

I loved the ending. Cant wait to go home and watch it again.




Let's Hug It Out B*tch - Ari Gold

I knew you would love it, with Journey and all. I feel that it was a great ending and I can't wait to see the other endings on DVD (rumored)...

like i posted elsewhere, i just dont know how someone who knows "the Sopranos" and is familiar with Chase....could be left unhappy or shocked by its ending.

i was very happy with the ending, and i would have been very disappointed to see it end with Tony in witness protection, or even worse...dead. i think more people are going to understand and like the ending as time goes by and upon further viewings.

there really just was no other way to end it.

as far as the theories and whatnot go about the final scene...the suspicious characters were just nobodies that Chase created to give us all the impression something big was going to happen (classic Chase), they were not related to Phil, they were not people Tony had wronged in the past, they were just people in a restaurant minding their own business, eating their food although the one guy at the counter may have recognized Tony from the news or something. Tony Soprano lives on just as he did before the show started

quote:

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there really just was no other way to end it.

---

sure there was

Meadow could have walked in and eaten an onion ring.

[This message has been edited by SuperDave03 (edited 6/11/2007 3:06p).]

Yum!

when you get whacked, does it all just go black?

guess the audience got whacked last night and is no longer living in the world of Anthony Soprano.

quote:

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That is exactly what they did for the last episode she appeared in. She had already died at that point.

---

Yeah, problem is she at least SHOULD be a central character in a movie preceding the series... But she wouldn't since she's dead. That was my point.

This was a good episode. Closure all around.

Tony’s therapy has in fact ended successfully from his point of view (or as badly as Melfi came to fear): his un-self-aware, sociopathic self, has been validated.

There is also closure in the completeness of Tony’s corruption of Carmella and the kids. There was always some doubt about Carm’s complicity in the mafia life (e.g. her complete naivety regarding Adrianna’s fate); by the end there is no doubt that she knows exactly what Tony is and that she is along for the ride.

The screwed-up, suicidal, angst-ridden AJ is bought off with a BMW, some nookie with an underage fashion model, and an apprenticeship with Little Carmine. So much for his worries about how screwed-up the world is.

And even talented, idealistic Meadow has found herself: she’ll marry a mobster’s kid, and pursue a big money career as a mob defense lawyer. Even better, she has acquired Tony’s capacity for blind self-justification: she’s really doing it all in the name of civil rights.

The narrative may have broken off, but the psychological journey of the characters has been completed – what more do you really need to know about any of them?

Great way of looking at it Redstone.