Soprano Urban Legend) -read and what do you think??

Question

It’s official. I now believe Tony Soprano really IS dead.

What convinced me was an excellent parsing of the final episode by this guy Bob Harris in his blog, www.bobharris.com.

Now you can nitpick all you want about piece of this puzzle that don’t fit, but there’s way too many “coincidences” for me to believe that David Chase didn’t purposely hide all these “Easter Eggs” of hints and references in the final episode – and final SCENE – for nothing.

If anything, Chase almost made it TOO obvious. Anyhow, go ahead and read Harris’ entire post, and then re-watch the episode yourself. I’ve tried to summarize the key points Harris makes here….

Opening of the episode shows Tony in a funeral pose, on his back, sleeping.

Tony wakes up and eats an orange early in the episode. Oranges factored directly into the deaths of Don Corleone and Michael Corleone.

If you watch the way Carmela, Tony, and A.J. all eat their onion rings, it’s exactly the way you take communion wafers in church. In Catholicism, administration of the Eucharist in the moments before death is known as Viaticum, derived in part from the Latin for… “Journey.” Helloooo…

Tony has said that his favorite scene in the Godfather is the Sollozzo murder, where he gets whacked by a guy coming out of the bathroom. Favorite!

In the Godfather, Sollozzo’s last words are “try the veal, it’s the best in the city.” Tony says of the onion rings at the little greasy spoon: (the onion rings are) “the best in the state.”

There are a lot of first-person, POV shots (point of view) from Tony’s eyes in the final scene. This is why things suddenly going black makes sense as a “first person” perspective on what it’s like to die.

The fact that the door chimes 6 times only (some entrances to the restaurant don’t have a chime) is a Catholic reference to “6 Bells” or a call to mass. At a funeral, Catholics hold a full mass.

The Journey song “Don’t Stop Believin’” starts EXACTLY when Carmela enters the door. The lyrics of “just a small town girl” and “livin’ in a lonely world” are matched up with tight shots on her face alone, implying what her life will be like in mere seconds.

The shirt is the same one Tony was wearing when he was shot by Jr. in a episode titled “Members Only.” It was a guy wearing a “Members Only Jacket” (vintage 1986, I don’t know if you can even get one now) who was implied as the guy casing Tony for a hit.

All of the Soprano family is wearing BLACK at the table. Funeral? Hello….

There is a “last supper” style shot of Tony sitting at the table, with a slight halo of light shining down on him. This being – presumably – his actual LAST supper.

Tony says to Meadow earlier in the episode: “My chances are flying by me.” A foreshadowing of “life flashing before my eyes” reference to death.

FINAL NOTE: If you think about how Chase ended a great 8 year run with this show, it is perfect. The ending left viewers (at least me) with an empty, shocking, sudden, and WEIRD feeling in your stomach. Why wouldn’t a TV show about a NJ mobster end with a whacking of that main character? Only Chase didn’t SHOW it to you, he made you experience it, and sort of “FEEL” it, if that makes any sense.

Answer 1

I think you have a VERY interesting analysis of the ending! I haven't seen much of the show, but to me the suddenly going black at the end of the show was meant to portray the uncertainty of life, and that it could "fade to black" (if you will) at any given instant. As you have clearly been a follower of the show I think you have a very good analysis of what Chase was trying to get at - that when Tony gets whacked (if that is what happened) its "lights out", or "curtains". If there is going to be a movie, this also leaves the possibilities wide open.

Answer 2

The Urban Legends Referece Pages has a whole section

Answer 3

that is a pretty good analysis.

Another good interpretation that I heard is that after so many years of watching the Sopranos that the viewer sort of felt like another cast member and that us "the viewers" were the ones getting whacked when everything went black for us.