The Sopranos discussion thread (1 Viewer)

[The Drifter]

The competitiveness & resentment Paulie & Chris Moltisanti had had towards each other was both funny as hell - and at times very tense. And, there were a handful of times when I literally thought they would take each other out, notably:

-The scene outside the restaurant (in an early season), when Chris was justifiably complaining about always being stuck with the expensive dinner bills for the group, and arguing with Paulie that he didn't have to order as much food/wine as he did - which significantly added to the bill - ha ha. I suspect that the only reason they didn't knock each other off right there was because that waiter came out & complained that the tip was minimal, thereby causing Chris & Paulie to to turn their wrath on to the waiter (which resulted in the waiter getting killed). So, Paulie & Chris had to put aside their differences & flee the scene

-The S07 episode where Paulie's "crew" were ripping off Chris's father-in-law by "stealing" his equipment, and acting like it wasn't a big deal. When Chris put them in their place (by throwing one of them out the window), Paulie later took his revenge by ruining the lawn of Chris & his wife's new home - ha ha.

Spoiler: SPOILER

So, it was funny how Chris was still pissing off Paulie/making him nervous - even in death:

-The viewing for Chris & for Paulie's mother (Nucci, who unexpectedly passed of natural causes) took place at the same time. And, Paulie was upset that Chris's viewing had a lot of people, while the attendance for Nucci's viewing was very sparse.

-After Chris passed, a stray cat somehow made it's way into the Bing back room, and kept staring at Chris's picture. Paulie was convinced that the cat was the "ghost" of Chris, especially after he moved the picture & the cat kept staring at the new spot where the picture was placed - LOL.

I guess, if you believe in that sort of thing - the cat may have actually been the ghost of Adriana, who had been a big cat person?!

 

[Bryan^H]

Getting amped up about 'The Many Saints of Newark' I watched some more Sopranos inspired videos this morning This is a really good take on Little Carmine!

 

[Lord Dalek]

Last year during the height of the pandemic I watched the entirety of The Sopranos for the first time.

 

[Jim517]

I've never seen it. I will have to watch it one of these days.

 

[Sam Posten]

My buddy is doing his first watch through now and saw this:

As far as I know nobody in my home town ever noticed it before. Christopher and big pussy are wearing Navesink hats too

Mind
Absolutely
Blown!

 

[Bryan^H]

Last year during the height of the pandemic I watched the entirety of The Sopranos for the first time.

What'd ya think?

 

[ScottRE]

I just finished the entire run, the first time rewatching it since it ended. Absolutely brilliant, if depressing, television.

The first time I saw the finale, I felt cheated, but having watched it again - truly watched it - it all makes perfect sense. I see two possible explanations for the ending.

First is that Tony dies. This is the most popular and probably the one that makes the most sense and others explain it in better detail than I, but the up shot is that the scene is very carefully crafted to set it up that way. Tony enters the restaurant, and each time the bell rings, he looks up and we see his point of view. The guy in the Members Only jacket is too conspicuous to be anything but a threat. Everything is carefully set up so that:

Members Only Guy has a clear shot.
Carmela and AJ are too engrossed in the menus to notice the man approaching from the Men's Room
Meadow is not there to obscure the shot

The bell rings when Meadow opens the door, Tony looks up and his point of view is blackness. He never sees her because he's been killed. He never heard it coming (the obvious foreshadowing was obvious)

Chase didn't want to show his death and honestly I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see AJ and Carmela horrified and covered in blood. The mental image of them and Meadow seeing this played out in front of them is awful enough. The last image we see is the Soprano family enjoying one last peaceful moment. Even AJ isn't a dick for a minute. Everything is set up for the fall of the Soprano family anyway. The RICO case is ramping up, everyone but Paulie is dead. Paulie was considered too inconsequential to assassinate but who ironically would be next in line to run the Family - the last thing he would want. Carmela now has her own business where she can make her own money because you know Paulie won't really help out. Most of the time, the wives are left to their own devices. With Tony dead, I could see AJ spiraling into deeper depression and Meadow becoming a mob lawyer, marrying deeper into the Family. But everything is in place for Tony to be offed by MOG

I'm okay with this ending. But there is one out...

The jump cut. Tony walks in, looks across the room and sees a nearly full dining area. Suddenly, there's a jump cut to Tony sitting and no break in the music playing on the jukebox. Considering the number of times we've been inside Tony's head, everything from that point on could all be Tony considering what to do next. There is no secure place to sit. No place where his back would be to a wall. So he plays out the situation in his mind - the situation where he's assassinated. The sudden cut to black is Carmela arriving and breaking his reverie. We never know what he decided. And also, since this was not a place we saw Tony dining before, how would the MOG know where to go? Was Tony being tailed? We never saw any indication that. Peace with New York was made, Phil was dead (gloriously), there's no motivation to kill Tony at this point. He could just as easily decide to go to Artie Bucco's for dinner.

I'm okay with that too.

Other than David Chase recently backing up the death theories I'm good with both choices. It's such brilliant television and great storytelling. I was hooked and couldn't wait to dive back in. Now I can get back to my Holiday Specials and Christmas episodes!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ve always taken the ending to mean that life for the Sopranos goes on, but that we the audience are no longer part of it. We want some kind of grand summation, something to make sense of the years of violence and wrongdoing we’ve seen, something to reconcile our enjoyment of the characters with the absolutely monstrous ways they behave, but there’s nothing. And while Tony has vanquished his most recent foes (in a sequence that would be the closing montage of most shows of this type), he’s a mob boss running an illegal enterprise; it never ends for him. Every sound outside every restaurant portends a potential threat; every stranger walking into a room could be someone there to arrest or kill him. That’s Tony’s life, always. It doesn’t fit neatly into television seasons; we’ve had our fun and games but this is the life he’s chosen and it doesn’t wrap up neatly for him just because our episode order has run out.

 

[ScottRE]

And I'm totally fine with that too.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And I'm totally fine with that too.

I really enjoyed the way you articulated your two thoughts on it. I feel like what you’re saying in your second idea plays well as the “in universe” version of what’s happening within the show at the same time as what I said is happening - two different perspectives on the same take.

 

[JohnRice]

Personally, I'm fine with ambiguity. The first scenario Scott mentioned, which seems to be the most common, is fine with me, but I'm also fine with there being no answer.

In fact, going on Josh's post, I'm reminded of a movie that is very different, but has that same kind of ending. Martha Marcy May Marlene. I take it's ending very much as what Josh described, but to a lot of people, it... just... ends... which I know annoys them.

 

[The Drifter]

I agree with ScottRE's above post. Re: the final scene of The Sopranos w/Tony & his family

Spoiler: SPOILER

sitting down to eat @ the diner, I felt this was a brilliant ending to an incredible series. I liked the ambiguity. In fact, not only did I like the ending - I feel it was perfect, and don't think it should have ended any other way.

As far as what happened here?! I don't think we're supposed to know the outcome - hence the ambiguity. Yes, Tony could have been the target of a "hit" or an arrest immediately after the final scene. However, IMHO it could easily have gone the other way - the dinner could have gone fine, and Tony & his family could have gotten home safely. If that were the case, would Tony have been killed/arrested at a future time/date?! Unknown.

Spoiler: SPOILER

In any case, glad they ended the show the way that they did & that there was never any "sequel" to the series between 2007 - 2013. And, I know that JG's untimely death in 2013 pretty much eliminated the possibility of a sequel, since I can't imagine anyone other than JG playing an adult Tony Soprano.

Last year during the height of the pandemic I watched the entirety of The Sopranos for the first time.

I remember reading online that a lot of people binge-watched The Sopranos for the first time in 2020, after the pandemic hit. I.e., for some reason, it seemed to be one of the top TV shows that people watched after the COVID lockdown. Interesting. And, coincidentally I did my first re-watch of the show during the pandemic as well.

It's possible this was because the series was on a lot of people's lists of shows to watch when they had time, and lockdown was the first time they got the chance for this. However, you could also say this about numerous other shows.