What Really Happened
“They wanted to know that Tony was killed. They wanted to see him go face-down in linguini, you know? And I just thought, ‘God, you watched this guy for seven years and I know he’s a criminal. But don’t tell me you don’t love him in some way, don’t tell me you’re not on his side in some way. And now you want to see him killed? You want justice done? You’re a criminal after watching this shit for seven years.’ That bothered me.” – David Chase in 2021.
There is an article online called “The Sopranos: Definitive Explanation of ‘The END’” that reads like a university dissertation. The author is clearly a massive fan of The Sopranos, and provides an analysis of the ending so thorough that it would probably take less time to watch the entire boxset of the series than it would to read the staggering dissection from start to finish. This was the tome that opened my eyes to Chase’s master-stroke. Once I’d absorbed this interpretation, no other interpretation made sense, and I kicked myself for being blind to its genius and logic. In the concluding section of this feature I’m going to distil its main points, while adding a little of my own flourish. Think of it as me standing on the shoulders of giants – those of Chase, and those of the insightful blog author – all the better to spread the revelations of my Sopranos‘ sermon.
So let’s revisit the final scene one more time, and this time add some flesh to the synopsis…
Tony sits in his booth, looking resigned and lethargic. He’s less the vigilant mob boss and more just another regular Joe; one of a million overweight, middle-class, middle-aged men sitting in diners up and down the country waiting for the twin comforts of onion rings and family. There are pictures arranged on the wall behind Tony that serve as a sly wink to the audience, particularly the one of the old mansion house that looks eerily similar to the one from his own near-death coma dreams. Tony selects Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” from the jukebox.
Here’s where Chase starts to get clever. Each time the diner’s door opens, its bell rings and we see Tony looking up in the direction of the noise. In the following shot we see whomever’s coming through the door from Tony’s point of view – or through his eyes, if you like. The bell establishes a pattern of shots and elicits from us a Pavlovian response. We learn to anticipate the sequence: the bell rings, Tony looks up, and we know that whatever immediately follows those raised, expectant eyebrows is whatever Tony is seeing at that exact second. Ding, raised brows, eyes, ding, raised brows, eyes.
Carmela arrives first, followed by AJ (Robert Iler), and all around them, as they sit at their booth, dance the phantoms of Tony’s past: guys who look like guys who’ve tried to kill Tony; guys who look like guys Tony has killed. We know something’s wrong, but we don’t know what. The entire scene is a rising, silent scream of tension. Every moment and movement is pregnant with dread. We know – we just know – that something big – something bad – is going to happen. These are, after all, the dying minutes of the final scene, of the final episode, of the final season. This is it… Tick, tick, tick. Ding, raised brows, eyes. Tick tick tick.
