The Sopranos ending

You may find this thread of interest.

I'm not clicking on R1's line, but I'm also watching ... for the first time. I can't believe I missed out on this the first time around. Great show.

The other thread is closed. WHAT HAPPENED

Presumably Tony was shot and killed.

Christopha comes back from the dead

They left in a hurry to catch a flight to Disneyland.

Was J Gandolfini a TORTURED SOUL

R3 has limited attention span and reading capabilities.

Did the fat lady sing?

While watching a Sopranos clip on YouTube, it occured to me that I wouldn't have shed a tear if Carmella, Meadow, and AJ all got whacked with Tony. They were all annoying and despicable in their way.

Not a chance, R5!

He'll burn in hell for eternity!

One of two things happened: an act of shocking violence or a outwardly uneventful pleasant family gathering. It's ambiguous: meant for you to consider both outcomes and draw your own conclusion.

What's the problem with that? Others than for the millions of people so idiotic that they insist that writers wrap up beloved series neatly and unequivocally.

People expected a little more of a climax from a series that had no problems sending others out with a bang when their time came.

If the producers wanted to leave it open ended (to possibly dig up the show again at a later date) they could have done that without cutting out and feebly disguising it as an artistic choice.

Tony said there’s only two ways out for a mob boss: dead or in the can. Carlo was set to testify against him. So either way Tony was dead. In regards to whether he died or not, I’m going with the former. Meadow was late parallel parking and had she arrived on time she would’ve obstructed the man in members only jacket’s vantage point. “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens.”

Every time the bell rang, Tony looked up and you would see Tony’s POV. In the final seconds, the bell rang, Tony looked up, and the screen went black because Tony was killed by the Man in Members Only Jacket. You see the assassin stare at Tony twice and you see him get up and go the bathroom presumably to load his weapon.

Based on an interview from a while back the scene was referred to as Tony’s death scene

It was chase that referred to it as Tony’s death scene in an interview.

R16 cont

And I'm still out there trying to park this fucking car!

Nothing happened. Period. How the story goes on if up to you - they could get killed or not. Live happily ever after or not. Or something in between, up to you.

A pattern is established. A bell rings, Tony looks up, cut to: a shot of Tony's pov. This happens 7 times.

The 8th time, when Meadow arrives, bell rings, Tony looks up, cut to: a blank screen. This is now Tony's pov, as he's been shot in the back of the head by the man in the Members Only jacket. Get it? "You probably never hear it when it happens." A line said by Bobby early in season 6, and very explicitly recalled by Tony in the penultimate episode.

It is very clear that Tone is no longer with us.

R12, it's perfectly reasonable to find the ending of The Sopranos to be a cheap narrative trick by David Chase without being an idiot.

By the end of the show, the notoriously prickly Chase had a great deal of contempt for the 'bad fans' of the show who were only interested in who was getting whacked and not the show's deeper ambitions. It's not hard to see the ending as his means of denying them that satisfaction, but I've never found that the show earned that last moment of ambiguity, which felt out of step from what the show had established over the years.

I also have to approach Chase's recent clarifications regarding the final scene with cynicism. Of course he can say that Tony Soprano is dead now that James Gandolfini can't reprise the role, whereas back in 2007, a Sopranos movie with the original cast was still a possibility.

No r9 Ginnie Sac was still in mourning

I thought the ending was amazing. Very non-traditional and totally surprising. It’s also ambiguous, which I liked much more than the expected Tony gets whacked scenario. I remember people going nuts when the screen went black. Can’t ask for anything more than that for an ending

It was meant to convey the stress and low grade panic Tony felt all the time. He couldn't even a family meal at Holsteins without without watching the door at all times.

Tony died knowing Meadow switched birth control.

Notice how Carmela, AJ, and Meadow were all wearing black - symbolizing what they will wear to Tony’s funeral.

Personally, I think he died. There’s no question about it. All the clues are there. The real question is who put the hit on Tony? Was it Paulie, Patsy, or Little Carmine and Butchie in New York? The Sopranos made a truce with NY and Butchie gave them the OK to whack Phil. Paulie was a standup guy so I don’t think it was him either. That leaves Patsy. Patsy did try to kill Tony in season 3 and he gives Tony an annoyed look at Meadow’s engagement party. But would Patsy really whack Tony just before his son is set to marry Tony’s daughter? So yeah he definitely died but I do want to know who ordered the hit. The man in members only jacket probably got made instantly after killing the head of a mafia family like Tony.

Why the fuck dies that matter, R27? Someone with a grudge or a worry.

I don't understand having to understand every action, every motive, every subsequent reaction... Does it ever end?

They're fine! They send their love!

Remember the scene in The Godfather where Mike goes to the restroom to get the planted gun...

[quote]The 8th time, when Meadow arrives, bell rings, Tony looks up, cut to: a blank screen. This is now Tony's pov, as he's been shot in the back of the head by the man in the Members Only jacket.

Was Livia waiting for him at the light at the end of the tunnel?

There is no open interpretation. David Chase said the original scene was for Tony to be explicitly whacked in NYC but they rewrote it to be more subtle when it suddenly occurred to him that Tony should be killed in a diner. The man in the members only jacket retrieves a gun from the bathroom and shoots Tony in the back of the head. We don't see or hear anything because neither does Tony. So the show creator eventually just came out and said it's exactly what everybody thought all along.

I live two blocks from the ice cream parlor it was filmed at. They recently renovated and the booth the Sopranos were sitting in was auctioned off for $82,000.

There is no bell or jukeboxes.

They do have a fake jukebox in the Sopranos booth. The renovation looks the same, but they put in new benches. Tourists still come to sit in the booth.

I took it like Tony was dead but that the rest of them were left alive. The cuts on that scene were awesome. #RIPJIMMY

At the time, I took it as the audience got whacked. But now I accept it was Tony.

I still think it was the best finale of a series ever.

I thought that it was brilliant then and brilliant now.

I loved how that last 2 minutes just amped up the tension second by second, my heart was beating out of my chest.

Meadow trying to parallel park, ect.

That quick fade to black and how it sat there black for a bit.

I love it more now than then I think!

Black and silence.

R38

With luck that is how we all go really quick

[quote]Chase had a great deal of contempt for the 'bad fans' of the show who were only interested in who was getting whacked and not the show's deeper ambitions.

What WERE the show's deeper ambitions? I think it's a high quality show, but I really can't understand why so many men (it's mostly men) think it's the best show ever.

I read somewhere that Chase wanted the blackout to last longer, 1-2 minutes but HBO objected.

That would have been hilarious, all these viewers in their living rooms going nuts, banging the tv, calling the network, fuming, crying, swearing, Chase's little joke on all the duped fans of a homicidal psychopath.

As another poster mentioned, Chase grew alarmed by the intensity of the show's popularity, which is why he inserted the episode where the psychiatrist pointed out how therapy only teaches a psychopath how to disguise it better. We were all fooled, in other words, the doctors as well as the audience. Tony would never be anything but a violent monster. That's entertainment!

[quote] It's perfectly reasonable to find the ending of The Sopranos to be a cheap narrative trick by David Chase without being an idiot.

You sound like fun at parties.

The major theme in the last season is redemption. While the Tony Soprano character was very likeable especially in the earlier seasons of the show, he still was always a violent monster. When Tony is in the coma, the monks inform him that they've initiated a lawsuit against him and that he must accept responsibility. When Tony says he can't do that, the monks tell him that the lawsuit (death at Holsten's) will proceed. Upon waking up out of the coma, Tony has one last chance at redemption and modifying his behavior. Tony's mantra "each day is a gift" doesn't last long. The old Tony resurfaces - beating up Perry, cheating on Carmela, ordering Bobby to kill that Canadian guy, killing Christopher, etc. Thus, his demise is at Holsten's.

Meadow's two failed attempts at parallel parking signify the two failed attempts on Tony's life - the two black guys from season one and Uncle Junior putting him in a coma. Meadow successfully parking her car on her third attempt implies that the third assassination of Tony Soprano will be successful.

In my mind the hit man is Eugene's brother. Eugene is the guy who wanted to move down to Florida and Tony wouldn't let him so he offed himself. They both wear a Members Only jacket

David Chase did slip up and reveal that Tony dies.

[quote] Alan Sepinwall, “The Sopranos Sessions” co-author, asked Chase, “When you said there was an end point, you don’t mean Tony at Holsten’s [diner], you just meant, ‘I think I have two more years’ worth of stories left in me.'”

[quote] Chase slipped up with his reply, which sounds like a confirmation of Tony’s death. “Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end,” he said. “Tony was going to get called to a meeting with Johnny Sack in Manhattan, and he was going to go back through the Lincoln Tunnel for this meeting, and it was going to go black there and you never saw him again as he was heading back, the theory being that something bad happens to him at the meeting,” he continued. “But we didn’t do that.”

[quote] Co-author Matt Zoller Seitz caught the slip and called Chase out on it. “You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene,” he told The Sopranos creator.

[quote] Realizing his mistake, Chase took a long pause. “Fuck you guys,” he replied.

R45: Watch the "Members Only" episode and there's a lot of foreshadowing of Tony's death. Eugene, wearing a members only jacket, kills Teddy Spirodakis (TS initials). Teddy was eating fast food just like Tony was eating fast food at Holsten's.

Holsten’s is not “fast food.” It’s a diner/ice cream parlor

The death of Eugene was sad, IMO. He had inherited money from an aunt and wanted to buy his way out of the "family."

The attached link is a good read.

R48: He was eating onion rings dumbass.

They ALL got murderized. It's pretty clear.

Yup. Why would Bobby Bacala get killed and Tony spared?

Lot’s of restaurants serve onion rings, moron. Not just fast food places.

Not fast food.

Tony is really most sincerely dead.

Did Meadow whack him?

I wouldn't be caught DEAD in a Members Only jacket!

[quote] Tony is really most sincerely dead.

Link?

I'm watching it again now, nearing the finale. I have far less empathy that I generally did the first time around. After Adriana I'm happy to see them all die - irredeemable sociopaths, the lot of them. I felt the same way about Walter White during the second watch.

Phil got whacked in front of his family. In revenge, Tony got whacked in front of his family. Head shot, because Phil’s head was gruesomely run over.

Tony was shot in the head. Lights out.

Period. The end.

It's not ambiguous at all. There are dozens of things that were said and that happened that make zero narrative sense if Tony survives that scene.

Just look at my analysis at R20. Everything is done in The Sopranos for a reason. That pattern of shots ending with a blank screen was no willy nilly randomness. There was a reason he shot it that way: to convey Tony's death without making it just another run of the mill hit. It's quite a brilliant way to do it really.

I’ve always wondered if Tony was whacked by a person who wasn’t a pro, maybe not even mafia related. Some guy who was eating, saw the family, went into the restroom to think about it, and came out and shot him. He could have had a family member killed by Tony, or repeatedly had to pay him money . . . the number of victims that Tony left behind is insane.

On the other hand, I hadn’t made the connection to the members only jacket and Eugene.

The guy at the counter who kept turning to look at Tony, got up to go to the bathroom where a gun was supposedly stashed and came out blasting ala Pacino in The Godfather..

They obviously left it open for a reason but real life fate said fuck you David Chase.

Before the finale all of Tony's mob family support had been taken out, so he was isolated and alone and now really didn't have a life to go back to. So he was already dead before the family ate that meal at the diner

R60 Adriana knew what she was getting herself into and the family she was marrying into. You don’t snitch on your family because you got busted for E, and she was letting that fat fuck sell it out of the club. More bad judgment. Adriana was one of my favorite characters but she got what she deserved. I mean she didn’t but she did at the same time. Furthermore after she finally came clean to Chris and he nearly choked her to death she should have called her FBI friend and 911. Her character’s story arc was brilliant. David Chase is brilliant.

The Sopranos is also one of the first dramas to have shocking plot developments that didn’t seem just for shock value. They actually contributed to the character’s growth or demise and overall story arc. Like when Uncle Jun shot Tony.

R51 is an idiot.

Chase decided to just pull the plug rather than have a ride into the sunset. And he sets up some menacing stuff in the diner, not to tell us “Tony is getting whacked right now,” but to tell us that this life he leads is intrinsically dangerous and includes the chance that, at any moment, he could be assassinated.

It was a great ending but so many of the lowbrows who watched for the violence and missed the subtext were SURE it meant Tony had died because the screen went blank, which was idiotic.

James Gandolfini was superb as Tony. A match made in tv heaven, I think.

R72 He and Carmella didn’t seem like they were acting from season 1 to the very end. It’s amazing how these characters were able to speak them in such a way that they could execute high caliber acting so consistently. To me they both gave the best dramatic performances on television of all time. This may sound corny but HBO slogan is right. Shit wasn’t tv, it was HBO. Nothing else on tv like at the time.

The Sopranos was a cut above. Everything worked.

I personally think he died.

Vito’s lover wacked him for failing to protect Vito.

The screen went black for several minutes at the end and I thought my cable fucked up. No! Not now! Then the credits rolled.

[quote]It was a great ending but so many of the lowbrows who watched for the violence and missed the subtext were SURE it meant Tony had died because the screen went blank, which was idiotic.

Well smell you. A fade out would have meant life goes on. A sudden black screen means the guy came out of the restroom and blew Tony's brains out all over the onion rings.

The ending was brilliant! We're still analyzing and talking about it. I think Tony was whacked. We all loved him and wanted to be with him, but he was a despicable murderer, which we tend to forget. He did have a conscience, which we think we were attracted to as well. I sincerely doubt that most mafia guys have the conscience Tony did. I think that's why we loved him so much.

Why would a camera-eye view going black indicate that one of the characters being shown has been killed?

It was a deeply flawed ending. The story would not end (with a blackout) just because Tony died.

Without listening to the show's "intended meaning," leaked and sneaked out and then discussed, since a creator's intention does not translate into a correct reading of a work of art, which must come from the art itself, the meaning of the ending is that it all just goes on and on with that oppressive risk for all of them always there, even in the most mundane family gathering.

Remember, the series was called "The Sopranos," NOT "Tony Soprano."

That's the critical fact.

R20 Great explanation. Thank you!

Yes, he dies in the end. I think it's out of character for Tony & Carmela, etc., to be in this bright, crowded diner. Seems like they'd be lying low for quite some time, considering how Bobby Bacala, Phil Leotardo. Silvio, etc., got picked off in public places.

Yes, Tony and Carmela always made the wisest decision in every situation

I still think it was the best finale of all time, 2nd would be the 2nd season of The Comeback (I suspect the show will be back for another season in next couple of years though)

I can still remember vividly my heart started beating out of my chest when they sat down in the diner and Meadow trying to parallel park. Don't Stop Believing playing, "Isnt that what you always say, Dad- Remember the good times".. I knew something was off (because of the time) there was only 2 minutes left and that made my heart beat even faster. They way the tension built over nothing really- The dude headed for the bathroom did not even alarm me as much as the time....and the quick editing with Meadow-- I have never experienced a finale like that... And once it faded to black - I was applauding- I thought it was utterly brilliant.

[quote]I still think it was the best finale of a series ever.

No, R37 & R84, you're wrong.

Six Feet Under was the best series ending of all time. Look it up if you don't believe me -- this ending was deemed the best ending ever for a TV series by countless reviewers.

R85- Back in the day SFU WAS my favorite show of all time.. Now its 5th or 6th-

I like that finale (and I actually loved that 5th season) but this musical montage is pure soap opera. It was brilliant at the time and I cried like a baby-

However, I disagree, but I would put it #3 where finales are concerned.

Mad Men is probably still my favorite show of all time (followed by The Sopranos and The Comeback) and that finale barely gets #10 for me.

I loved the build of tension as they’re sitting there and the bell rings every time some enters the diner.

I was so engrossed I was one of those people who thought their cable had gone out. I was so pissed. Then the credits roll and I was stunned. I loved the finale.

In retrospect, I think the finale was brilliant. “You never see it coming”.

I always liked the theory that it was us, the viewers, that got whacked.

Didn't David Chase pretty much admit that they had no particular ending in mind other than "don't stop believin'", whether someone lives or dies? Basically, there's no deeper meaning, just a stupid Journey song that he based the ending on.

Fade to black, forever it seemed. Then the credits rolled.

David Chase said his friends watched it and said YOU KILLED HIM OFF! He said fuck you guys, while laughing.

[quote]Six Feet Under was the best series ending of all time.

R85 Breaking Bad ending is also one of the best. The music choice - Badfinger's Baby Blue - was also perfect.

I don't think Tony died. I think the series ended with nothing much happening. And that was the point. For people who never saw it before we shouldn't spoil it though.. I'm in the home stretch with season 3. Right now Paulie and Christopha are lost in the woods. It is unintentionally hilarious.

It turned out Meadow was both Carmela's daughter AND her sister.

Looking forward to the HBO documentary about David Chase and The Sopranos origin. Includes clips of some of the screen tests for the characters; looking forward to Steven VanZant and Ray Liotta auditioning for the role of Tony.

Christopher Walken's wife was the casting director for the duration of the series. Brilliant choices.

The fight scene between Tony and the character played by Annabella Sciora was intense.

I agree, R97. I also think she was one of the most frightening characters ever. She clearly had Borderline Personality Disorder and seemed capable of anything, in a mindless way that the other sociopath characters didn't seem to have.

Yes, R97, one of several very intense scenes. Carmela gets intense, so do Christopha and Adriana.

With a character as huge and dominant as Tony Soprano, what's the alternative? Let's assume this had to end with death or prison. I think watching him get whacked and then a funeral, scene would have cheapened the entire series. Watching the FBI arrest and cuff him would have been even worse. No, Chase ended it the right way. At first I held out that he didn't get killed, but now I believe he absolutely got killed. My biggest question was, who did the hit. Who knew he would be there? I don't recall him ever going to that diner before that night. If he had gotten hit at Artie's restaurant it would make sense. Or at a meeting with the NYC gang. Discussing it with some friends they all agreed it was a hit ordered by the New York mob.

FYI: Drea De Mateo, Adriana, is anti "Woke" and very Trump-ish. Appears on Fox a lot.

[quote] I don't recall him ever going to that diner before that night.

Apparently it was a place that they liked and were familiar with.

R98 I'm trying to remember the character. Is she the car salesperson? Didn't she take Carm home from the dealership and then spend time with her in the Soprano home? Shit. I loved that show. I have to watch it again. I'm getting my characters and subplots confused!

Yes, R103, that's her. I was thinking of that scene with Carm and the fight scene later with Tony as I wrote that post.

- R98

Comparing The Sopranos to the Italian series Gomorrah, the latter is a more more interesting show. I didn't find the psychodrama of The Sopranos all that compelling after season 2. But the ending of The Sopranos is better because of the ambiguity. Gomorrah got silly and lost track of what it wanted to say about organized crime in Italy. Its finale probably would have been more satisfying to American audiences, but it was kind of stupid.

R98 People with BPD are usually the inverses of sociopaths. They feel too much. That’s why the ending of Fatal Attraction was so controversial. They can do fucked up vengeful shit just like anyone else but they usually self destruct.

R106, Gloria Trillo did self-destruct, she hung herself. People with BPD feel a profound sense of emptiness, a lack of self. They use people in very unhealthy ways to fill that emptiness. They don't give a shit about anyone or anything except their own feelings and needs. Like all Cluster B disorders, including sociopaths, people with BPD have a profound lack of empathy and compassion.

R106. Yea she did. I don’t agree they don’t give a shit about other people feelings. The trauma they’ve encounter clouds their judgement when they are perceived hurt. BPD will love too strong.

I meant r107.

I just saw the fight scene between Bobby Baccala, and Tony at the summer cottage after a night of too much drinking and it was REALLY intense. Like, I know after that Tony was gonna kill him or at least try to kill him. Which would make Janice, Tony's totally unbalanced sister, who has shown herself capable of killing, my prime suspect in the "Who killed Tony?" Sweepstakes. People think it's a mob hit, but I'm not so sure.

Fun fact. At one point the show was still at NBC and big wigs wanted the name to be changed as they thought viewers would think it was a singing show.

[quote]My biggest question was, who did the hit. Who knew he would be there? I don't recall him ever going to that diner before that night. If he had gotten hit at Artie's restaurant it would make sense.

Maybe he was followed there.

Of course he could have been followed. But IMO and I just don't think there was anyone left to kill him. Carlo was talking to the Feds. Paulie was kind of last man standing, because Sil was a vegetable. Phil was dead. I've gone back and forth on this, I don't think he was killed at Holsteins. I think the next stage of Tony would have been played out in a court room, and in rebuilding his crew. But all the interesting characters that made up his world that we met and followed for 8 years were gone. David Chase would have had to start almost from scratch recreating Tony's world. For a while I thought Janice would kill him, but she has more to gain from keeping him alive. Yeas, theories about, but as a practical matter from a narrative perspective Tony didn't die at that restaurant that night. He may die at some future time, I see him getting shanked in prison, but not that night.

Toward the end of the series, Chase was showing that the era of the US Italian mafia power was already coming to an end anyway. Better law enforcement crackdowns, cashless businesses they could no longer extort, failed other new projects, etc.

Tony no longer had a world that he go back to. He was essentially dead already. No one wanted to see a fat middle-aged powerless Tony in prison story. He'd be someone's bitch by day 2.

I agree, r114. Plus small businesses were being torn down due to gentrification or being replaced by chain restaurants. I can’t remember what character it was, Sil maybe, that noticed the Italian neighborhood was getting smaller and Chinatown was getting larger.

That was Butchie, R115, while on the phone with Phil in the series finale.

R114 I doubt Tony would be someone's bitch in prison. More like he'd be running the cell block and best friends with the guards.

R117, I firmly believe that Tony would get hit in prison. Shanked. Not for some grand purpose, but as revenge from some nobody whose life he fucked up.

According to Lorraine Bracco, even Gandolfini didn’t know that it would end the way it did.

It's so obvious, Carmella paid to have Tony whacked. She knew she would be beyond reproach if she and the kids were there. Carmella was quite the gangster herself.

[quote] I just saw the fight scene between Bobby Baccala, and Tony at the summer cottage after a night of too much drinking and it was REALLY intense. Like, I know after that Tony was gonna kill him or at least try to kill him. Which would make Janice, Tony's totally unbalanced sister, who has shown herself capable of killing, my prime suspect in the "Who killed Tony?" Sweepstakes. People think it's a mob hit, but I'm not so sure.

No, Janice was upset at Bobby for having gotten into a fight with Tony (even though Bobby was "defending Janice's honor").

So, NO, Janice did not have Tony killed.

Tony was Bobby's and Janice's source of income.

[quote] Toward the end of the series, Chase was showing that the era of the US Italian mafia power was already coming to an end anyway.

Tony says, in Season 1 (talking with Dr. Melfi), that he feels sad that he came in at the end of the Mafia. So, the "end of the Mafia" was recognized in Season 1.

Sorry if this has already been posted, but I see some people saying they didn’t know what the cut to black silence meant. I think Chase has been pretty clear:

He said he got the idea for what ended up being the finale when he was driving and spotted the restaurant that would inspire the one in that scene.

"I saw a little restaurant. It was kind of like a shack that served breakfast," Chase said. "And for some reason I thought, 'Tony should get it in a place like that.' Why? I don't know."

Though he did imagine that Tony died in that diner after the cut to black, the producer said it "bothered" him how much viewers wanted to actually witness his death.

"I had no idea it would cause that much — I mean, I forget what was going on in Iraq or someplace; London had been bombed! Nobody was talking about that; they were talking about The Sopranos," Chase told THR.

"It was kind of incredible to me," he continued. "But I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me."

"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, yeah," Chase concluded.

I'm debating watching this. I never watched while it was airing because I have little interest in gangsters/mafia but I keep hearing how good it is. I've never seen the godfather movies either.

While Chase doesn’t say it, his irritation at the audience (expressed in r123) supports my interpretation.

He took the audience inside Tony’s world so completely that it made sense to “whack the viewer” as punishment for identifying with Tony. That’s what the sudden black silence meant to me. We, the audience, had been killed when Tony was killed. Because we deserved it.

In the HBO doc, Chase talked about how he couldn't bring himself to shoot a scene showing Adrianna being murdered.

It was probably the same way with the finale, he didn't want to shoot something that showed Tony/James being murdered.

Chase was also paranoid about show leaks and knew that any scenes of Tony's murder would certainly be leaked before the finale

If Gandolfini was also surprised by the ending that actually aired r119 I wonder how he thought the show was going to end.

Obviously, he can't tell us now, but they must have shot something that Gandolfini thought was going to be the series finale that wasn't used. Unless he was too drunk to realize that they never shot a scene that was meant to be the final one

[quote]I have little interest in gangsters/mafia

It’s not about the Mafia. They’re a backdrop to the story, a lens through which we look at our society at large.

It kind of is about the mafia—Tony’s business and home families.

And of course, the sad, unfinished history of the Newark Museum of Science and Trucking.