Tony and family got hit?

email this story
read comments (49)
post a comment

HE reader Roy Batty has convinced me that Tony Soprano got hit last night, and possibly his whole family along with him. Seriously. None of us except Batty and (I presume) a few others were sharp enough to decipher the meaning -- a very obvious one, in Batty's view -- of what we saw. Here's his explanation:

"Just how closely did people who call themselves fans pay attention last night? The writing is not only on the wall -- it's on the floor, the ceiling and fluttering from a banner over the entrance: Tony and probably the family got hit.

"I didn't think so just after it had ended, believing like many that David Chase had simply set up some sort of bullshit ambiguous ending to engender debate. I argued that had something happened, we would not have seen Meadow enter the diner. And that she was meant, as the person least connected to Tony's blood money, to survive because of her distance from the family.

"But I was just going on surface information and not really considering all the things that make it impossible to ignore. While most are in the form of metaphors and callbacks to past characters, the single biggest signpost that is a virtual headstone is the flashback to Bobby and Tony in the boat talking about what it's like to be killed.

"Bobby says you don't see it coming and it's just over. The show then ends with a 'smash cut' to black. It doesn't get any clearer than that.

"I think too many people are pissed that Chase didn't end it the way they had written in their minds or hate the idea that Tony, et. al. are gone. I don't know if it was brilliant, but not seen through glasses of denial it's pretty clear."

"The Hustler" again<< previous | next >>"Pharoah" DVD

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on June 11, 2007 at 1:06 PM

comment #1

popbombdenis says ...

Someone pointed this out to me, which is interesting if true :

"The guy at the table in the diner was Phil Leotardo's nephew.

The guy at the counter was someone that had a grudge with Christopher, and the guys that walked in the door just before it ended had shot Tony 3 years ago."

So either the hit was on, just as Tony's father had been killed, or at the very least Tony has surrounded himself and his family with danger.

Posted by popbombdenis at June 11, 2007 1:28 PM

comment #2

Edward Havens says ...

Having never seen the show (I currently have the first disc from Season 1 sitting atop my DVD player, ready for viewing tonight), I am wondering why it is so important whether Tony and his family got whacked or not. Will one's enjoyment of the six seasons be changed irreversibly if it goes one way or the other, or even not at all? Granted, it's not as brilliant as the ending of St. Elsewhere, but why can't each of us just decide for ourselves how we want it to end and that be the answer?

Posted by Edward Havens at June 11, 2007 1:28 PM

comment #3

rocco says ...

It's seeming more and more plausible the more it digests...although Batty articulated it rather well, it was on IMDb minutes after the show, so there are plenty who've connected the dots with the conversation with Baccala...Meadow walks in just in time to see her father whacked, there's nothing to imply the whole family got hit...since the show was mostly from Tony's POV, the abrupt blackness would merely have signaled his demise...

Everytime I think I'm out...

Posted by rocco at June 11, 2007 1:32 PM

comment #4

Arran says ...

I'll say what I said in the other Sopranos thread: yes, this is a possible and strong interpretation. However, to say that it is the ONLY interpretation and we're all idiots for not seeing it...nope, sorry. It's not the ONLY way you can read it. If you strongly believe that that's what happened, more power to you (and yes, there's much compelling evidence in this theory's favour). But don't try and say that there's absolutely no other way to see it.

Posted by Arran at June 11, 2007 1:32 PM

comment #5

Josh Massey says ...

Popbombdenis: I've read that elsewhere, but is it actually true?

Posted by Josh Massey at June 11, 2007 1:32 PM

comment #6

StewartforPresident says ...

Is is just me or did the scruffy looking guy sitting in the booth look like Robert Patrick(Terminator 2). Tonys old friend with the gambling problem from season 2.

Posted by StewartforPresident at June 11, 2007 1:35 PM

comment #7

CambridgeCat says ...

Yeah, and Bobby didn't see it coming (though we did) and it was over ... for him. I certainly think Chase left that out there as one of the possibilities but the Journey song he played has a chorus of "it goes on and on and on and on ..." too. They're also eating onion rings (circles) and AJ references something said that ended season one, when they were all eating together ... just like last night, the edning of the series. Also, killing Tony in front of his family is a big mob no-no, and killing the family itself would earn the person scorn if not their own murder. Also, who exactly wanted Tony dead anyway? So it's not so clean cut as to say the writing was such that it was "obvious" Tony got whacked.

Posted by CambridgeCat at June 11, 2007 1:35 PM

comment #8

jeffmcm says ...

What's revealing is the insistent _need_ for people to know that something happened or not, and the undeniable fact that David Chase doesn't lay it out for you. I think his 'fuck you' to the audience is a stronger ending than any 'Tony got shot because he was a bad guy' simplistic patness.

Posted by jeffmcm at June 11, 2007 1:37 PM

comment #9

Hopscotch says ...

I don't think they got whacked. I think it just sets up how Tony sees the world from now on. EVERYONE is out to get him. Every person in the diner could be the one that finally ends it.

What the hell is the probelm with ambiguous endings? In films, they're fine. On TV (i.e. the idiot box), please spell everything out for us in bold letters.

Posted by Hopscotch at June 11, 2007 1:42 PM

comment #10

dre says ...

I agree with jeffmcm on this one.

http://www.film.com/tv/story/arrivedercitonysopranosisnomore/13982602/15037730

Posted by dre at June 11, 2007 1:43 PM

comment #11

StewartforPresident says ...

"Also, killing Tony in front of his family is a big mob no-no, and killing the family itself would earn the person scorn if not their own murder."

Well Phil was killed in front of his Wife and Grandkids.

Posted by StewartforPresident at June 11, 2007 1:54 PM

comment #12

NYCBusybody says ...

Nah, the first thing I thought of when that happened was Baccala's "you never hear it coming" speech. So did everyone else I watched it with, and pretty much every forum I went on right afterward was talking about that too. It's hardly a stunning revelation - I think it was purposefully there to be a possible ending.

Honestly, I think that'd be silly anyway. The entire episode (and series) works much better if they're all alive - "Made in America" indeed. All of them in materialistic denial, spoiled children complaining about the world but becoming lawyers and club promoters instead of activists, wife buying into real estate because she has nothing else to do. The inertia of being in the post-American century.

That's more powerful stuff then "ooh, they were all whacked!" Besides, no one whacks the families. That doesn't happen.

Posted by NYCBusybody at June 11, 2007 1:56 PM

comment #13

Jayne Gacey says ...

It's good to see Jeff isn't an easily impressionable mushbrain. I think Hopscotch is exactly right on this one, I think it showed Tony's paranoia pretty well. Also his anxiety about his family and his anxiety about the mob kind of fusing together.

Didn't Jeff just say not two days ago "I don't want to see Tony Soprano die on Sunday night" ?

Posted by Jayne Gacey at June 11, 2007 1:56 PM

comment #14

popbombdenis says ...

Josh - I recognized Phil's nephew, the trucker.

As for the rest, I personally don't know, but supposedly a review of the credits will show that yes, the young black guys are the same ones who shot Tony in the ear years ago.

I for one, think it's just interesting to put the pieces together, even though we'll never know for sure. That is why Chase is a genius. You get the ending you wanted, either he dies or he didn't. It's all in how you choose to look at it.

Posted by popbombdenis at June 11, 2007 1:59 PM

comment #15

Arran says ...

- "Also, killing Tony in front of his family is a big mob no-no, and killing the family itself would earn the person scorn if not their own murder."

- "Well Phil was killed in front of his Wife and Grandkids."

I don't think kiling in front of the family is a no-no, but actually killing the family is. In the penultimate episode Tony said to Carm something like "They don't touch the family, you know that."

Posted by Arran at June 11, 2007 2:04 PM

comment #16

The Movie Man says ...

I think the whole thing is a comment on American corruption through greed, hypocrisy and self-absorbtion. Everyone is concentrating on the last scene, but look at the title, "Made in America", and the continued scenes of people selling out the first chance they get, look at the growing terrorism factor, look at the obsessions with banal pop culture (like Little Miss Sunshine). Look at how the series finale is the direct opposite of the mid-season finale (the false sense of security at Christmas time, like a certian country at one point?) It's about how we'd rather follow anything than ourselves and our problems and our place in this world, which is why Chase perveresly omits the finale scene (which probably is a whacking.) Because with the country facing an implosion, the fate of a fictional mid level mobster shouldn't mean too much.

The ambigious ending had a MAJOR point, and this is a brilliant ending to a brilliant show.

Posted by The Movie Man at June 11, 2007 2:09 PM

comment #17

CambridgeCat says ...

Phil was murdered when they could get him and they were obviously desperate to do so. Maybe mob hits in front of family isn't taboo but can anyone name one that's actually happened? Wouldn't at home with the family be the perfect time to whack a guy?

Posted by CambridgeCat at June 11, 2007 2:19 PM

comment #18

BurmaShave says ...

Those are some good points MovieMan, just remember Made has another meaning in the mob worl. In fact the original title of The Sopranos was going to be Made in New Jersey. Yikes.

Posted by BurmaShave at June 11, 2007 2:20 PM

comment #19

Geoff says ...

IS THAT GUY REALLY CREDITED AS PHIL'S NEPHEW???

Posted by Geoff at June 11, 2007 2:22 PM

comment #20

le corbeau says ...

"In the penultimate episode Tony said to Carm something like "They don't touch the family, you know that.""

So it MUST be true.

If anything, that's ironically foreshadowing that the rules may get changed again. I mean, it's not like Tony's family left HIM alone...

Yeah, that email saying that everyone in the bar is an old enemy is going around, but who knows if it's actually true. It could actually be two different black guys, and NOT Robert Patrick, yet be there to deliberately remind us of some of the people still out there who'd happily whack Tony. To me the restaurant scene says-- maybe it happened right then, maybe it happens a year from now, but the possibility's always going to be hanging over him until it does, and this is what it will feel like, a bunch of random incidents burned into the brain ("if I hadn't taken so long to park, they would have gotten me too").

Matt Zoller Seitz has an excellent piece here:

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/

Best line: "The lack of resolution -- the absolute and deliberate failure, or more accurately, refusal, to end this thing -- was exactly right. It felt more violent, more disturbing, more unfair than even the most savage murders Chase has depicted over the course of six seasons, because the victim was us. He ended the series by whacking the viewer."

Posted by le corbeau at June 11, 2007 2:23 PM

comment #21

Rich S. says ...

Or maybe the people in the restaurant weren't people from Tony's past, but he perceived them as though they were. That would add even more to the paranoia theory.

Posted by Rich S. at June 11, 2007 2:33 PM

comment #22

Krazy Eyes says ...

Doesn't Tony at first see himself sitting at the diner when he first walks in the door? What was up with that?

I liked the ending.

Posted by Krazy Eyes at June 11, 2007 2:40 PM

comment #23

Geoff says ...

That's the interesting editing choice I talked about in another post. His POV and the audience POV, it messes with our perceptions.

Posted by Geoff at June 11, 2007 2:42 PM

comment #24

MickTravis says ...

"Well Phil was killed in front of his Wife and Grandkids."

Actually, he was killed under his grandkids.

I know, I know. He was already dead. But I couldn't resist.

I tend to think the ending was more about the endless paranoia of Tony's life, mostly because they already did a you-don't-hear-it-coming execution when Sil was having dinner with the New York guy and suddenly had blood on his face. Or maybe that's a cue to the future.

Bottom line: There's no answer. The answer is what you want it to be.

Posted by MickTravis at June 11, 2007 2:43 PM

comment #25

Brigadier Pudding says ...

that wasn't phil's nephew in the diner. that myth has already been debunked. and why would the gang-bangers hired by junior in season 1 want to kill tony 9 years later? that dedicated to their craft, are they?

chase whacked the viewers. it's pretty obvious.

Posted by Brigadier Pudding at June 11, 2007 2:44 PM

comment #26

jeffmcm says ...

Yes: 'whacked the audience' (which I saw in Matt Zoller Seitz's excellent review) is the most perfect way to describe the ending. The show goes on, but we're not there to watch it.

Posted by jeffmcm at June 11, 2007 2:50 PM

comment #27

caslab says ...

"What happened to Tony?" is the new "What was in the briefcase?"

Posted by caslab at June 11, 2007 2:53 PM

comment #28

Ian Sinclair says ...

Tony entererd the restaurant, blinks and the perspective changed as we took our seat at the table with him. The killers were there to kill us. That was why Tony wasn't bothered about them. The moment we had to die was when Meadow arrived and needed our seat at the table. Why did we have to die? We had been recognized for who we are. We had been "made." In the quintessential American restaurant: the diner: we were Made in America.

Posted by Ian Sinclair at June 11, 2007 3:01 PM

comment #29

rocco says ...

Saying the family gets whacked is way too much of an extrapolation...we can only infer from what we see on screen...there's enough to surmise Tony's death, but the whole family's? No.

...like at the end of 'Being There' when Peter Sellers walk on water...to guess the water is only an inch deep would be to miss the point...

...and fuck the plot, has there been a more riveting, tense or heart-pumping two minutes of television or cinema in the last twenty years?? Between my wife, myself, and a few friends of ours, everyone in the room was either standing up, holding their heart, or shrinking away from the tv...

Just enjoy the ride...

Posted by rocco at June 11, 2007 3:16 PM

comment #30

BurmaShave says ...

Ian, I dont know whether you're joking or not, but I think thats brilliant and it almost made me cry.

Posted by BurmaShave at June 11, 2007 3:17 PM

comment #31

Ian Sinclair says ...

Not joking, BurmaShave. That's my take on it.

Posted by Ian Sinclair at June 11, 2007 3:19 PM

comment #32

Chris Willman says ...

It's reasonable to wonder if the blackout represented Tony's death. But it's ridiculous to imagine that the rest of the family would get killed along with him in that scenario.

Posted by Chris Willman at June 11, 2007 4:00 PM

comment #33

le corbeau says ...

Gee, it hardly seems ridiculous... the dialogue about how they NEVER hit the family clearly means we should consider the possibility. (And think about the ur-text of the Sopranos, the Godfather movies, where "they" definitely hit "the family" in various ways-- from "Where my wife sleeps! Where my children come and play" to Michael hitting Fredo.)

That said, there is no one answer. Tony got whacked, they all got whacked, Tony had a premonition of his future whacking, the viewer got whacked-- all valid on some level.

Posted by le corbeau at June 11, 2007 4:07 PM

comment #34

Ian Sinclair says ...

Mgmax, you may be guilty of whacking off.

Posted by Ian Sinclair at June 11, 2007 4:11 PM

comment #35

drgogol says ...

"Maybe mob hits in front of family isn't taboo but can anyone name one that's actually happened?"

It's definitely not the preferred way to do business, but, for one, Crazy Joey Gallo was killed while celebrating his birthday with his family: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gallo

And the Philly mob boss Phil Testa was blown up on his own front steps, so they couldn't have been too worried about the family.

************************

"Michael hitting Fredo"

Not the same thing: Fredo was a traitor.

Posted by drgogol at June 11, 2007 4:34 PM

comment #36

Geoff says ...

Fredo obviously "went outside the family" but I don't think he was ever complicit in Michael's attempted murder. Either way, when you're living on the thin line there's no room for mistakes or stupidity.

Posted by Geoff at June 11, 2007 4:39 PM

comment #37

rocco says ...

Oh well, I had dibs on Adriana's mother finally snapping and, with Chrissy already dead, unleash her wrath on Tony...there was certainly enough mention of her deteriorating state of mind during the last season...

...but I digress...

Carm, AJ, Meadow...all were certainly complicit in Tony's life of horrific crime...but inferring their death based on a single statement is too speculative, because we don't SEE ANYTHING at the end to support it...on the other hand, we see the guy eyeballing Tony and look back at him as he gets up for the bathroom...

Posted by rocco at June 11, 2007 4:39 PM

comment #38

trotskie says ...

Isn't there an aspect of cop-out to the idea of murking up the ending, or as MZS suggests, killing of the viewer. If this is Chase's intention he denudes the ostensible heart of the show, its narrative. Once the years start to pass and the frenzy of anticipation which frames this meta-ending is forgotten, what is left behind will be a inconclusive idea that never realized its potential.

I don't need a genius to tell me that the struggles of the human condition continue when I close my eyes.

(And embracing sitting-back-and-enjoying-the-ride allows for too much latitude. It is kind of what got us into this mess. )

Posted by trotskie at June 11, 2007 5:22 PM

comment #39

cm65 says ...

"I predict Phil will be shot by Benny when he stops for gas, AJ's car will blow up just as he's about to have sex with his new gf, Paulie will refuse out of superstition to accept the promotion Tony offers him and the climax will take place with all of the family in an ice-cream parlor."

I keep asking this on every thread here about The Sopranos, but seriously, I'd like to know how Ian Sinclair saw the episode at least a day before HBO showed it, because those "predictions" he made on Saturday are accurate. How did you manage that, Ian?

Posted by cm65 at June 11, 2007 5:59 PM

comment #40

Nate West says ...

I think somebody here has been talking to the Feds.

Posted by Nate West at June 11, 2007 6:22 PM

comment #41

T. S. Idiot says ...

I'm still looking for those ducks.

Posted by T. S. Idiot at June 11, 2007 6:36 PM

comment #42

mitch says ...

good god, this place is rampant with innuendo. The only point I want to make perfectly clear is: mobsters donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t create immediate family collateral damage unless there has been betrayal, informant style. This part of the code is significant because it allows a moral compass with which the mobsters themselves can follow and still feel confident that their loved ones will always be safe from mobster style justice.

Really, I mean, come onÃ¢â‚¬Â¦what other explanation is there for Janice not being dead already?

Posted by mitch at June 11, 2007 6:40 PM

comment #43

le corbeau says ...

"mobsters donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t create immediate family collateral damage unless there has been betrayal, informant style"

Then I guess Sofia Coppola didn't get shot in Godfather III after all, since it never happens-- even in the movies.

Posted by le corbeau at June 11, 2007 7:25 PM

comment #44

BurmaShave says ...

Mgmax, did you even see Godfather III? It seems pretty obvious he was aiming for Michael and missed. Thank you for making me remember a horrible abortion of a film I was hoping to cast out of my mind permanently. Too bad he didn't shoot her in the nose.

Posted by BurmaShave at June 11, 2007 8:52 PM

comment #45

le corbeau says ...

"Mgmax, did you even see Godfather III? It seems pretty obvious he was aiming for Michael and missed."

Yeah, the point is the family could get killed even if that's not the intent. People are talking like having your family around you physically repels bullets. Yet not a half hour earlier we'd just seen Phil Leotardo killed in the presence of his wife and grandchildren. Chase clearly intends for us to take this talk about family being a protection and off-limits as wishful thinking, self-delusion rather than reality.

Posted by le corbeau at June 11, 2007 9:31 PM

comment #46

mitch says ...

mgmax; there's a big difference between shooting one person and offing an entire family. however, I did re-read my post and failed to make my point as clearly as I intended, which now follows:

mobsters donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t *intentionally* create immediate family collateral damage unless there has been betrayal, informant style.

Posted by mitch at June 11, 2007 11:22 PM

comment #47

bmcintire says ...

My guess is Ian Sinclair has ties of some kind to one of HBO's vendors, if not HBO itself. Perhaps a closed-captioning house? Just a guess.

Posted by bmcintire at June 12, 2007 3:39 AM

comment #48

Ian Sinclair says ...

How amusing. First it is assumed that I am a practicing psychiatrist merely because I have a degree in psychology and now I am supposed to work for HBO because of a lucky guess. Work for HBO? After they cancelled DEADWOOD? Fat chance, Lance.

Posted by Ian Sinclair at June 12, 2007 5:02 AM

comment #49