My well thought out theory on "The Sopranos" finale

[TeeVeeCloset]

This is all OPINION.....I have been holding this back for a long time because it is quite complicated and really cannot be expressed in this thread properly because of the so many brillant David Chase writings and producing.......bottom line is....at the time the series ended, chase was quoted as saying "Just watch the episodes, and the ending is right there" SO I DID, and analized...

first thing is Chase had a brillant way of creating the episode titles, like the one named Kennedy & Hiedi....the one where Chistopher dies, can anyone tell me why that episode is named that? I know the answer...but will wait for someone else to tell me....BTW....the one where Bobby is killed is named "The Blue Comet" named after the train he was purchasing at the time of his demise.

alright the ending in brief....the answer is all in episode #1 of the final season 6 titled "Members Only" in which a minor character tries to get out of the mob and eventually hangs himself, he is also a informent. The episode begins with a mysterious voiceover (very deep meanings) and shows each character, Bobby is shown with his trains (he eventually dies in a train shop), Meadow is shown stripping for her boyfriend (meaning she doesn't live up to her potential and probably winds up stripping, and in the finale, she can't even park the car... her character does change by the finale and does a complete 180% turn around and feels the goverment is against her father), Janis is shown alone breast feeding her baby (bobby of course dies) Christopher is not shown (dead)....anyway during the entire broken up into two parts season 6, Tony is constantly first seen lying down looking up bloated and deathlike......this is the same episode where he is shot by Uncle Junior....meaning he is shot in the first episode of season 6 and possibily the last of season 6.

While the crew is sitting around, someone busts the character who wants to get out that he is wearing a "Members Only" jacket and being out of fashion....when his wife finds out that Tony won't let him leave the mob, she is shown several times saying, "someone should put a bullet in his head"....

Flash now to the famous finale.....the man at the counter is wearing a jacket, it is not seen as a "members only" jacket as he looks suspious and enters the bathroom (ala "The Godfather).....now read the credits...all the people in the restaurant are credited as minor roles....except the man in the jacket, it says "Man in Members Only Jacket".....why wouldn't chase just say man who enters bathroom or at counter?, especially when you don't know he is in a "members only" jacket unless you read the credits......

translation OPINION.....a member of the widows family from the "members only" episode had him killed, as Chase stated he also asked HBO to originally give him a full 30 seconds of black as the episode ended....HBO thought it was too long, they settled on 10 seconds.......Chase didn't want the audience to see Tony killed, but cleverly came up with a way you could choose your own ending....

but you must admit, Chase did everything for a reason, right down to background music, TV shows playing in background, etc......like the obsure "The Jokers Wild" gameshow playing in the finale when Tony visits Junior, a show that hasn't even been seen on GSN in years! Also after Silvio is shot near the end of the series, the TV in the hospital is shown first playing a slicing and dicing infomercial translating he is probably brain dead.

Basically if you have the DVD's watch those two episodes back to back and it will all make sense.....the first and last episodes of the final season 6, which was broken up into two parts.

Thoughts???????

[hoosierelvisfan]

I just watched the series finale last night for the first time. I had heard previously that the last episode just went "blank" and it ended there. I expected it but nonetheless the ending really did irritate me. I have to admit that Meadow having trouble parking did amaze me when I saw how much room there was between the cars!!!! I could see her having problems parallell parking UNTIL I saw how much room she had!!!! LOL! IMHO, I think they kept focusing on the different people coming into the restaurant because they wanted people to be "off-balance" and expect anyone of them to kill Tony at any minute . . . e.g., the man wearing the jacket who went into the bathroom; the man who wore the vest and the baseball cap (ala some of the other shooters in previous episodes); the two younger men who went to the jukebox, etc. The only reason to focus the cameras on any of them was to throw the viewers off by thinking any of them could have come into kill Tony. And the way the episode ended by the screen just going black, quite frankly, any one of the above-mentioned people could HAVE killed Tony or it could have been that none of them did anything and the Soprano Family just quietly finished their supper and went home. But that's the irritating point, I suppose, everybody thought that something would happen to Tony to finish the series but the viewers were just left hanging not knowing what happened.
The thing about Meadow's speech near the end of the episode where she tries to explain what exactly made her go into wanting to study law had to make me laugh. Where she said that watching the policy and feds coming into the house and taking away Tony in handcuffs made her aware of, how did she phrase it????????, if the goverenment could single THEM out . . . . I thought, you have got to be KIDDING me!!!!!! Tony was involved in death and destruction on every side and involved in every sort of vice. I'm thinking to myself, Tony was the one that brought all of these cops and feds to his doorstep from time to time. Meadow was trying to make Tony out to be some sort of victim. Huh???????? Well, all in all, I was very confused and disappointed in the last episode. BTW, in regards to the title for the episode where Christopher is killed, the episode is named after the two girls that were in the car that had to swerve when Christopher crossed over the line. Beyond that, I have no idea as to the "deeper" meaning why this was the episode title.

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

[TeeVeeCloset]

Originally Posted by hoosierelvisfan

I just watched the series finale last night for the first time. I had heard previously that the last episode just went "blank" and it ended there. I expected it but nonetheless the ending really did irritate me. I have to admit that Meadow having trouble parking did amaze me when I saw how much room there was between the cars!!!! I could see her having problems parallell parking UNTIL I saw how much room she had!!!! LOL! IMHO, I think they kept focusing on the different people coming into the restaurant because they wanted people to be "off-balance" and expect anyone of them to kill Tony at any minute . . . e.g., the man wearing the jacket who went into the bathroom; the man who wore the vest and the baseball cap (ala some of the other shooters in previous episodes); the two younger men who went to the jukebox, etc. The only reason to focus the cameras on any of them was to throw the viewers off by thinking any of them could have come into kill Tony. And the way the episode ended by the screen just going black, quite frankly, any one of the above-mentioned people could HAVE killed Tony or it could have been that none of them did anything and the Soprano Family just quietly finished their supper and went home. But that's the irritating point, I suppose, everybody thought that something would happen to Tony to finish the series but the viewers were just left hanging not knowing what happened.
The thing about Meadow's speech near the end of the episode where she tries to explain what exactly made her go into wanting to study law had to make me laugh. Where she said that watching the policy and feds coming into the house and taking away Tony in handcuffs made her aware of, how did she phrase it????????, if the goverenment could single THEM out . . . . I thought, you have got to be KIDDING me!!!!!! Tony was involved in death and destruction on every side and involved in every sort of vice. I'm thinking to myself, Tony was the one that brought all of these cops and feds to his doorstep from time to time. Meadow was trying to make Tony out to be some sort of victim. Huh???????? Well, all in all, I was very confused and disappointed in the last episode. BTW, in regards to the title for the episode where Christopher is killed, the episode is named after the two girls that were in the car that had to swerve when Christopher crossed over the line. Beyond that, I have no idea as to the "deeper" meaning why this was the episode title.

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

You are indeed correct about "Heidi and Kennedy", it demonstrates how David Chase thought of very deep or odd obscure episode titles for viewers to figure out......I agree with everything you said and many of the the points about the series finale were written and analized at the time......I know this is years after the fact and maybe no one really cares to analize the finale anymore, but if anyone still does care again, please watch the first and last episodes of season 6 back to back and perhaps others will see my very well analized theory, this includes the credits of the finakle, as to why the man that entered the bathroom, was credited as "Man in Members Only Jacket" referring to the title of episode #1 of season 6.

[hoosierelvisfan]

The more I think about it, I think that Tony was whacked and that the black screen where everything goes black and everything goes silent was David Chase's way of showing Tony being whacked in an "artistic" sort of way. That's why they showed the flash-back to him and Bobby talking in the boat where they were talking about "I guess it's true, you don't hear them coming" or whatever was said. I don't remember the exact phrase just now. Anyway, whether or not the black, silent screen was the "artistic" way of saying that Tony got whacked and never "saw it coming" . . . . or whether the black, silent screen was meant merely to leave the ending up to the imagination of the viewer . . . . either way it was a weak ending, IMHO. For six seasons, this show was "in your face" in regards to being graphic so to end it this way was a real cop-out, . . . again, IMHO. I personally never got to see the ending episode until this week because we don't have HBO and so I've had to wait and see all the episodes on DVD. I never got the final DVD set until last week so that's why I never saw it until this week. After watching all of the Season Six episodes, I think that they should have stopped the series after season five. Season six did not live up to the rest of the series, IMHO. It is interesting to make note of the episode titles because some of the titles are obvious but other titles such as "Kennedy and Heidi" are really not obvious and you really have to pay attention to see where they got the title from.

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch