Thread 214277719

i don't think he died, but why couldn't it end with a pleasant fade out instead of a cut to black mid senten

>>214277719 (OP)
He died tho

because he did die and you're a faggot ass retard for thinking otherwise

>>214277719 (OP)
why couldn't candlejack I as

>>214277719 (OP)
>>214277742
>>214277855
>>214278002
he took out the boss of NY crime family

that's hella against the rules

>>214277742
>Show literally ends early to deny the satisfaction of Tony's death
>Redditors still insist he died 25 years later

>>214278221
Erm honey, some media literacy please?

>>214278342
>David Chase talking about a non-canon series finale that was never even produced
>Implying this has anything to do with the real ending
Sweetie...

>>214278417
>talks about tony getting whacked
>immediately starts talking about tony being in a restaurant like he was in the final scene
yeah there's definitely no connection at all there

>>214278690
People will just cope. They have a parasocial connection to the character so the idea he may be dead is too much for them and they deny it

Either meadow came in too late or she didn't.

>>214278221
>all that build up and the entire ending diner scene is just there cuz! it's not build up to anything!

>>214278690
theres obviously the implication he MIGHT HAVE died, but very deliberately zero actual evidence that he did. the member's only guy wasn't actually acting suspicious at all, he's only made suspicious through tony's paranoia about him
it's deliberately, completely, utterly ambiguous and always will be (david chase probably would have said something by now if he was ever going to) but autists HATE ambiguity of any sort and so can never accept not getting the final, concrete answer of tony's fate

>>214277719 (OP)
Why did it cut to back just because Tony died? It’s not like the show was told entirely from his pov.

did the nigger ban me or what

>>214278962
>the member's only guy wasn't actually acting suspicious at all
its literally a homage to that scene in the godfather where al pacino goes to the bathroom and comes out with a gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlgzL7B8ghM
also said to be tony's fav scene of all time
https://youtu.be/sZIWL-Nrwvw?t=200
its not about tony being paranoid, he's relaxed the whole time, why go out in public at all if he's afraid of getting whacked?

>>214278962
Exactly this

>>214277719 (OP)
Why are people incapable of accepting there are things you will never know for certain?

>>214279262
>Someone goes to the bathroom
>Therefore it's an homage to another time someone went to the bathroom

>>214279302
because i wasted 86 fucking hours on your show david

>>214279262
yes, i know.
>its not about tony being paranoid, he's relaxed the whole time
he's clearly not! the camera movements follow what tony is focused on throughout the scene - member's only guy evokes in tony the godfather, then he focuses on the pair of black guys because he had so often used the exact sort of people to do hits
how exactly is "guy goes to the bathroom" any objective evidence that said guy retrieves a gun, comes out and shoots tony in the back of the head?

>>214277719 (OP)
I think David Chase is a spiteful old fool who gets a kick put of pretending his no-budget ending is some sort of ‘statement against violence’ when it actually fucking undermines his entire statement with the show and lets the character off the hook and leaves the audience ‘guessing’ like that fecklessness is supposed to be more valuable than a clear answer to the existential questions the show burdens the viewer with.

>>214280228
>>214277719 (OP)
It's pretty obvious Chase ran out of ideas for the ending so decided on the mid-sentence cut to black as one last surprise for the audience. The canonical ending that Chase has unwittingly revealed in interviews is that Tony died (3 o'clock, you probably don't even hear when it happens, Patsy Parisi and Butchie both aiming to kill Tony earlier in the show), but I understand from a narrative perspective why he pretends it's ambiguous.

>>214278195
Especially when it was done by a glorified crew

>>214280228
chase is a bitter asshole, but i enjoy how season 6b is clearly him firing on all cylinders with full control. but then you get his weird statements that "have no answer" that i always find hacky and gay. i'm fine with the ending but my god chase is a smarmy asshole about it
made in america in general seems to be filled with lots of chase's weird choices/statements that you can only assume what the fuck he was trying to get across. uncle philly dying surrounded by a bunch of american flags is one of them

>>214280228
I think it was supposed that the mafia isn’t glamorous or like Scarface and the reality is you just go dark before knowing what happened. Being a wise guy ain’t all it’s cracked up to be so stay in school kids.
But then again, I am extremely media literate

>>214280228
>lets the character off the hook
if you actually wanted to see tony get his brains blown out all over his family you are a proper mongoloid retard and theres nothing that can be done for you

>>214280579
Why? Because David Chase said so? You dont even believe that yourself.

>>214280456
Sometimes media literacy means going beyond the author’s decisions. 12th grade reading level is defined as being willing to address that the work is a statement and the author can make disagreeable statements or share them in flawed ways

>>214280746
Sometimes media literacy is the friends we made along the way

>>214280331
wrong, see >>214278962

>>214278962
What value does ambiguity really serve here

>>214280627
>Why? Because David Chase said so?
no because it would have been extremely cheap and lame. just imagine if the episode actually ended that way. tony gets shot, carmela and meadow scream... cut to credits? absolute slop-tier, cheesy garbage

>>214281258
>just imagine if the episode actually ended that way. tony gets shot, carmela and meadow scream... cut to credits?
You act like that's the only way to write it. Tony can die earlier in the episode and we can have scenes about aftermath, they can write about the characters each being alone from Tony and what life is like without him before shooting Tony at the end, and yes they could actually end it on a simple but poignant long-coming on-screen murder, that can work too.

>>214278815
it doesn't matter in the end
don't stop believing

>>214278877
The build-up was clearly the point. It was the end for him. He either died there or he'll end up in prison because Carlo flipped. That's what it's like to be
>made in america

>>214281305
i dunno. it's tony's story, he should really be there until the end. having the show end without him would be very strange

>>214282012
Honestly if they had actually included screams during the cut to black, that would have worked too. While I ultimately love the choice to use first person instant death of all senses in the ending, the ambiguity is not necessary even if it's hard to square

>>214280228
he either gets
a) shot on the spot
or
b) paranoia for the rest of his life

>>214278195
He had permission from the real boss Little Carmine

If they were gonna kill him they should have done it in an interesting way
>Members Only walks behind Tony
>Bell dings indicating meadow has walked in
>Tony looks up
>Sees Livia instead, she sits at a different table alongside Johnny Boy
>Tony looks over, instead of Carmela it's Christopher, across from him is Big Pussy
>Tony: "What the fuck is this?"
>Chris: "The end T, had to happen sometime"
>Puss: "it's not so bad once you get used to it"
>Show slowly comes to a close as Tony looks at a menu and they make small talk

>>214282231
He had himself whacked.
>h-he wouldn't do that in front of his family!
Sure he would, just like he rubbed Meadow's friend's car in her face. You can see the look on his face when Meadow does her spiel about him being persecuted, he realizes how toxic he actually is for them.

>>214282307
Artsy but no

>>214277719 (OP)
spoilers man

>>214282321
100% what happened. It was foreshadowed all through the show, S6 especially. Tony spends the whole final episode putting his affairs in order, even going to visit Junior to tell him to leave any money to Bobby's kids. He knew he was going to die.

>>214282284
>it’s just like my star wars potterino LOST!!!

>>214282284
ts is so tuff, don't let the other anons give you shit for this baby girl.

>>214282364
That's Tony realizing he's cooked. He knew he was probably going to die, in the sense that a wounded animal knows it's happening no matter what, but no he did not hire a hitman to kill him in front of his own family

>>214282384
oh shit nigga was that really the ending, I never watched Lost.

>>214278994
Every time someone walked into the restaurant Tony would look up and it would show his POV, the last time he looks up it cuts to black instead of his view of the door

>>214282817
Obviously the building’s electricity just experienced an outage. Get some media literacy bubb

The lag effect and vulgarity of death of other characters was used to foreshadow tonys death and the creator said as such. Its not a question.

>>214283061
>hears and sees everything happen

Absolutely, he died, and Meadow was his guardian angel during the entire series. Every time Tony faced danger, she managed to save him in some way. But where was Meadow? She was stuck parking, which hindered her from protecting him.

>>214283273
oh wow cool and what did we learn from this

>>214283273
How did Meadow save him from the negroes?

>>214283251
staging an assassination in the aisles of a store like that is absolutely insane. just fucking comical

>>214283296
what do we learn from him not dying?

>>214283273
Jimmy olsen over here

>>214278221
He literally does die though, that's the fucking point. We cut to black because we're in Tony's POV
>Bobby says that you won't hear it when it happens
>Patsie says it won't be cinematic
>Tony himself says that the world goes black and that's it
>We get Tony's POV every time the door bell is rung, last time this happens it cuts to black
>Members Only jacket guy being a direct reference to Eugene, a man who was fucked over due to Tony's greed, AKA an assassin representing Tony's sins
>Two black guys walk into the diner, same black guys that Tony jokes about and which try to kill him in the show
>We see a picture of the white house in the background, house which in both his nightmare and near-death experience represents Hell
>Tony is attacked from his three of clock as Chrissy warned and the show reiterates a ton of times until the finale
>Meadow, his guardian angel who saves him from Hell, is too late to sit besides him, protecting him from his three o clock
>Direct reference to 2001 where we see Tony look at his future self, this being a hint that we're seeing Tony in Hell watching his corruption and death over and over and over again
>Whole entirety of Made In America showing how fucked Tony is every way to Sunday, how he failed in his redemption arc to the point of forgetting what he told AJ about "remembering the good times", and focusing on his sins and the death of people around him, with Chrissy represented by the cat and Paulie talking about seeing the Virgin Mary
There's objectively no fucking way to deny that the Sopranos ends with Tony getting taken out in front of his family like he did to Phil and that the final reveal is that the entire show is Tony in Hell seeing his downfall and death forever, much like Chrissy's eventual Hell is seeing how his dad was a total loser and how his glorified era of mobsters was actually just a pathetic mess

Tony 100% didn't die - Chase wanted big movie bucks so he ended it on the biggest cliffhanger ever and figured he could wait out HBO till they gave him a movie deal

Then 5 years later gandolfini died with a gut full of seafood and booze

>>214283318
I agree that he died, my complaint is that the ambiguity was hoity-toity author elitism. Tony's death caps off a long-intended message of self-destruction and the utter inevitable failure of his ridiculous and hypocritical way of life. What I don't agree with, is that meadow being his 'guardian angel' means anything thematic, unless you can explain it to me

>>214283371
Yeah of course he died but it's occluded and its made into a puzzle so the show could have some lasting impact where people have to discuss it and explain it for all eternity, which is nice and all but ultimately a cheap parlor trick and degrading to the original text

>>214283392
Haha oh man nasty if true

>>214283448
How is it degrading? It wasn't made a puzzle, it's pretty fucking obvious if you pay attention to the show. The point was that Tony doesn't deserve a cinematic death or a last stand or whatever, he's a fat sociopath who got killed off like everyone else that he himself bumped off, and at the end of the day he won't be remembered except by his family for how traumatizing the event was. The point was always to show how awful the Mafia lifestyle is, that's what the Sopranos is all about, a direct criticism of Godfather-esque films glorifying mobsters

>>214283409
thought you were referring to the first past, also curious in the original posters further interpretation of the guardian angle (pretty clever huh?)

>>214283534
>The point was that Tony doesn't deserve a cinematic death or a last stand or whatever
It's not about him, its about us! You can easily film an undignified death! I appreciate the finer details of this explanation, but I don't fully believe it was the only and most right choice! David Chase has been completely clear with his intent to scold the audience with this ending!!! And he blames it on wanting us to see the main character punished, as if seeing him punished would be a celebration of his character! I ask you, evaluate this!!!

Funny ideas for him getting whacked
>one of the NJTP whacks tony when he was getting off at I-280. After he dies paulie goes on one of his autistic rants at the funeral " I told ton to get the ez pass but he don't listen"
>some slut catfishes her way into AJ's life, and just brings a bomb to the house, tells him she has to go to the bathroom to change her tampon, and boom. Final scene is debris from the house floating in the pool alongside tony's items like his watch. And we see on the ducks pick it up.
>something stupid like he just gets killed in a freak accident like hit by a drunk stacy in a crosswalk in new york, all because he saw melfi on the street and got distracted

>>214283578
anon didn't invent the meadow guardian angel theory, it's old hat.

>>214283620
if its old hat it should be even easier to elaborate on it

>>214283534
> always to show how awful the Mafia lifestyle is
Little Carmine and Beansy had it nice

Tony’s death was a humiliation ritual on the audience.

it's been retroactively made clear he died but
>>214283392
is right in that chase left it ambiguous enough he could revive the show for a revival or a film - only for Gandolfini dying making the point moot.

>>214283392
would be more believable if chase didn't direct a movie after the sopranos with james that nobody saw

>>214283371
There's also the fade in from white when he comes out of his coma. Another clue is the scene when Jerry Torciano gets murdered and Silvio's reaction is delayed, reinforcing the conversation Bobby and Tony had about not even realizing it when it happens.

>>214283771
>reinforcing the conversation Bobby and Tony had about not even realizing it when it happens.
>>214283251

>>214278342
Chase started teasing this years after the audiences came up with the theory to take the credit. He is not a highly detailed director that keeps track of details. Just look at TMSON or all the retcons and fuckups in the rest of the show. Basically every "clue" is a red herring Chase spammed them in S6 to keep you guessing. Tony even teleports to his seat in this scene without interrupting the jukebox music. Then he started hinting that the leading theory was true to take credit.

>>214283668
Little Carmine as a character is meant to showcase the idea of the Mafia being just awful. He's the retard who spends his time trying to sound clever by using words he doesn't even know, but by the end of the show he realizes that the bosses are actually a bunch of idiots with no power (wearing "paper crowns" as shown in his dream) and that it's just a general world of death, decay and moral corruption which his father was a slave to. That's why he tells Tony that he isn't involved anymore during his scene at the golf course. We even see him ordering a far healthier meal than Tony who's stress eating, and Tony himself ends up looking miserable when he realizes Carmine Jr.'s wife actually loves him and he still has his soul and a way out whereas Tony is addicted to his sociopathy and his wife wouldn't really give two shits if he died, she'd just inherit the cash and move out
TLDR Little Carmine may have been bad at talking but he was the cleverest one, he got out and is living a rich, legal lifestyle where there's no risk of getting killed off and he's out doing fun activities with his family

>>214283637
She's a good luck charm, this is for sure and probably intended. Season 1 the FBI raids Tony and fails because Tony isn't there, because he's out with Meadow looking at colleges. Season 3 Junior orders a hit on Tony but Mikey Palmice backs off because he sees Meadow talking to Tony. Season 4 Tony's in this big fight with Johnny Sack regarding Ralphie's fat joke, Tony has to leave and de-escalate that conflict because Meadow got in a car crash. Season 5 Tony S is helping Tony B hide from retaliation after Tony B killed Bill Leotardo, Tony S leaves after Meadow calls freaking out about Finn being beaten, protecting Tony S but abandoning Tony B to danger. And then the finale where she's not there and Tony seems to die

>>214283796
Yeah, there's some irony there, but if you watch that scene Bobby sees the gunman coming before the gunman even fires. And even still he has no time to react. There's a brief moment where Bobby just stares at a guy holding a gun, looking like a doofus.

>>214283802
I agree with all that, OR he also shows what it's like to be utterly manipulated by the only guy who's richer and safer than anyone and who runs the whole thing, who by playing you during only a few meetings a year into thinking he's stupid, gets you to kill and die and send him money for nothing.

>>214283829
You forgot the most obvious one, Meadow is the one that saves Tony from literally dying and going to Hell in Mayham

>>214283898
Oh yeah. And doesn't she take the bugged lamp to college so the FBI have to cancel that part of the investigation? It happens a lot iirc

>>214283829
she was so slutty doe

*spoiler alert* I was employed at HBO while they filmed the finale. I managed to get a glimpse of Tony's death scene.

>>214283920
goddamn his farts must've been terrible

Okay gang but why is the fucking episode called 'Mayham' though? Like isn't that stupid even if we go through every pun this may have meant?

>>214282284
Tony looking up and seeing Livia or his father for a split second would be a kino ending, but it would make it pretty definite that he died. Obviously Livia's actor was dead so it'd be hard to pull something like that off without it looking crappy

>>214283913
And in College, as in S1E5, the whole plot is about Tony being honest to Meadow so she's honest to him, but after he takes out a rat he lies to her so their relationship becomes more strained. Meadow is meant to represent goodness, which Tony occassionally tries to follow but because it'd mean having to deal with his traumas and mental issues he eventually foregoes and choses to be directly evil, the easy choice. This is a constant thread that pays off at the end when finally Meadow isn't there to defend him, it's too late, he lacks any goodness and his wickedness takes him to the one place wicked people go.

David Chase, being the old punitive catholic he is, embraced the didactic more than he did the interpretive, and as he grew in power, so did he grow in identity of didact. stupid man

>>214284151
Absolutely. Well spoken

I wonder if the restaurant he ate at leans into it and has his last order as a meal option.

Like okay if the ending is meant to be 'ambiguous' then how does David Chase know the answer? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!?!?!?! And why does he get so angry when he spills the beans!?

>>214284224
https://holstens.com/the-sopranos/

>>214284303
Neat, but I was talking about James' last meal and the place in Rome where he got the fried prawns a foie gras.

Probably should have replied to >>214283920

>>214284151
>Meadow represents goodness
IN HER GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE

>>214284343
Haha no.
I imagine not

>>214284354
le fucking gay ass italian-catholic notion of the whore-madonna conflict in mother mary. get a fucking grip italianos, i am sick of you neuroses, really

Also did anyone catch David Chase's interview with The Rolling Stone about The Many Saints of Newark before it came out? They asked him if the movie was good and he hesitated and explained he had to cancel being a part of it because some relative of his died, and he could barely muster an endorsement. lmao

Hey remember that movie

>>214277719 (OP)
Cause David Chase is a pretentious hack

>>214284530
chase had to drop out of directing it, but i don't think it would've saved the shitty script at all