Well, the way they make it look like that is by strapping the stunt guy to a harness and then yanking them with a wire of some sort. Of course the harness is strapped to his chest and not his neck or head. I just think I could have come up with a better way of doing that or just shown it as a chest wound. I agree the head would have been mostly gone if the shot had been a head shot.
Actually, I think this episode is foreshadowing AJ’s involvement in the “family.”
The smile on his face as his “muscle” fought with the tresspasser at his party was very telling. He’s obviously not gonna be the college type, and now he’s demonstrated a willingess to make money by breaking the law and to preserve his illegal income with violence. It’s a start.
The season left a few loose ends which is typical for them. There was no resolution or explanation for the Vito/Finn thing. We never found out what Vito’s motives really were or how he responded to getting stood up by Finn.
We saw the grenade in the safe a couple of times but it never went off. Maybe next season.
Still no Russian.
No bear…or was there? Tony running through the woods and walking through the backyard to get to his house kind of became the bear.
I wish it didn’t take so long between seasons.
Is next season definitely the last?
I thought they were going to try to whack Tony when I first saw the FBI guys too. Now Tony’s going to have to live with even more guilt about his cousin, because if he would have let it go just a little bit longer, he may not have had to kill him at all because Johnny Sack & friends got busted by the Feds. Then again, Christopher or one of the other guys could have gotten killed, too. For most of this episode, I was just praying that they weren’t going to kill Christopher. I would have been extremely upset if that had happened. I liked Silvio and Tony’s interaction over the whole deal. I really liked how Silvio was used in general this season.
I loved the exchange between Tony and Carmela about A.J. Especially Tony’s comment about event planning being “gay.” Do you think they really suspect him of being gay, and do you think he is? Since I agree that A.J. is not likely college material and will probably end up following in his father’s footsteps, how do you think it would affect his future in the family? It would be interesting to see Tony’s reaction to having a gay son.
There seemed to be an underlying vein of gay-related issues this season. Many of us suspected at first that Tony B. was gay. Then there was the thing with Finn catching whats-his-name at the work site. Now A.J. It will be interesting to see where this all leads. Too bad we’ll have to wait for another year-and-a-half or so to find out.
I think the episode set up 2 contrasting possibilities for the last season. 1) Everything around Tony crumbles, and he goes down hard or 2) He becomes boss of NY.
And isn’t that what mob life is all about? It’s either all or nothing.
Any speculation on the fate of Mr. Walnuts in the final season? It seems like he’s been on a collision course with Tony for a while now, and they didn’t show his reaction to Tony taking back the picture of “General Soprano” and the horse. Notably, he wasn’t in the room when the other guys subtly thanked Tony S for killing Tony B.
How many final season episodes until he gets whacked? 
True. Even though ‘event planning’ sounds gay, it may be a valuable skill in running, say, a club? After all, there is a vacancy there.
As for Tony feeling guilty about killing Tony B. with the Feds taking Sack away, I think it’ll eat him up, but it was for the best, because he got his mob family back on his side. Before that everyone was talking about how bullshit it was that Tony was protecting his family while everyone else got fucked. After Tony killed Tony B, he got some of that respect back.
I don’t think we’ve been given any serious evidence that A.J. might be gay. He still has the same girl with him from last season. And when he was staying with his dad, he hinted that he wasn’t a virgin anymore. I doubt that he would have brought it up had his experiences been homosexual. Also, I didn’t read anything additional into Tony’s comments about event planning as a career. In answer to your question though, I think that Tony would handle it very badly if his son was indeed gay.
Could someone clarify the line about Feech? I don’t remember which characters were discussing him, but one of them mentioned that Tony had ‘sent the wrong guy up the river’. What was the meaning of that conversation?
I think the speaker meant that Tony should have sent Tony B. up the river instead of Feech, because Feech never would have done the crap Tony B. did.
Thanks. That makes more sense. When I first heard it, I read it to mean that Tony shouldn’t have screwed him, cuz Feech would get his revenge.
I’m sure the folks at East Stroudsburg State (http://www.esu.edu/) weren’t too pleased with tonight’s episode. C student? Parents’ got a crapload of money? ESU is for you! No sign of an actual “event planner” program there though.
Loved how they echoed the bear from the first episode with Tony’s return to the backyard.
i thought that tony might second-guess whacking blundetto after sack got nabbed by the feds, but who’s to say they’ll be able to convict him? and there’s no way they could neutralize the whole family. even if they got johnny he could always arrange a hit on tony from jail. there was no way around it, he did what had to be done.
so guilt shouldn’t be such an issue next season (hopefully). tony did the right thing. the only thing he could do to protect the family.
Which guy is Jimmy Petrille? Is he one of Little Carmine’s guys who took the fall for Little Carmine to get Johnny Sack or is he a Johnny Sack guy who, conveniently for Little Carmine, flipped?
I can’t wait to watch this episode again–when the agents first showed up in the background, I thought it was the damn bear again… So, was Tony the bear or was the final scene simply Tony stumbling out of the woods to his (flawed) sanctuary?
My first thought when Tony turned and ran away was that he was setting up Johnny Sack to be killed (Surprise jackass!). Still, watching Tony run was one of the high points of the season. Still, I don’t get it. How did those agents, who were no more than 50 yards away not SEE Tony run and chase him down? Hell, my grandmother could have caught up to him.
The keg party was another highlight. AJ’s genes are catching up with him. Hopefully he keeps more brains in his head than Jackie Jr (no pun intended) if he does go down the dark path.
Why didn’t Chris call Tony when Leotardo and Co showed up at his moms house? He never even mentioned the fact (at least on screen) to anyone. He could have perhaps saved Vinny Delpino (I know, I just can’t call him ‘Ben’) one heck of an ass whooping.
Damn did they need a helping hand from Furio this season.
They were after Johnny Sack. So they chased him around until they could cuff him (since the indictment was for him, it would look bad if he got away). By the time they realized that Tony was running away as well it was too late.
They’ve reported that next season would be the last, having 10 episodes. But really, ya just never know…
Who was Vinny Delpino (before this episode)? And was there any reason why he specifically got the ass whooping?
After last night, I wonder if Little Carmine had a mole who tipped him that Sack was up. That would explain why he allowed Johnny to ascend without a fight. I’ll have to watch Tony’s call to the attorney again, but I don’t believe he mentioned Carmine in the indictment.
I liked that shot of Carm, looking down lovingly at the bed before turning in, only to reveal she is looking at the house blueprints rather than Tony.
I also wonder what will happen with Paulie next season. I was worried that Tony was going to get violent with him, considering his many outbursts this season, but he just took that painting, which I thought was pretty unnecessary. I’d have been flattered if I was him, not offended. Though it does sort of point back to the dream sequence, where Coach Molinaro told Tony he could be a great leader…
Did Paulie not look terribly hangdog when he said, “You never come over here anymore…”? He seemed genuinely sad that Tony doesn’t visit him anymore.
I thought it was interesting how Christopher managed to twist things around so that Adrianna was a traitor to him. She actually never really gave him up at all, and essentially died tried to save him from the mob. She was just a stupid girl who was bullied by the FBI into screwing herself out of her continued existence.
As for AJ being gay, I don’t get that sense from him, but Carmela and Tony seemed to react with bemused shrugs at the thought. They were much less distressed by the idea than I imagined they’d be. AJ is going to be a chip off the old block.
My final thought of the ep was, how serious will the repercussions for Tony B’s death be for Tony S? I know I’d feel major regret if I killed my favorite cousin and then the reason I killed him was removed from the picture. I assume Phil Leotardo also got arrested…this does leave a power vacuum in NY now. Will Little Carmine step up? Or what?
Anyway, we all have to settle in for a long wait before any of these questions are answered.
Great finale!
I loved Carmella’s unintentional double entendre when she was trying to console Christopher about Ade: “Listen – there’s other fish in the sea.” “Fish” being well-established in the Sopranos lexicon as “informant”, with Big Pussy/Singing Bass, all that. Next scene: Jimmy Petrille spilling his guts.
Speaking of fish, I noticed there was a “fish wrangler” listed in the credits, but I don’t remember a scene with actual fish in it. Did I miss it? Maybe just an aquarium that got lost in the background? Or does this indicate that a fishy scene was cut out?
The way the coach stuff was handled in this episode makes me feel vindicated about my interpretation of the Coach’s role in the dream episode from a couple weeks ago:
When Tony tells Melfi about the dream, she gets a heavily censored version. (Tony is just “seeing” his old coach.) Melfi zeroes in on Tony’s assertion that the coach is someone who indicated he was “special,” and his preoccupation with whether or not Anthony is “special” in the same way. She derides his “sentimentality” about Tony B., little realizing what she’s giving him the impetus to do.
It’s counselling from Silvio (the “consigliere” without the restraints imposed on Melfi) that directly approaches the situation: “I’ve known you since you were a kid – you got a problem with authority.” Tony has his own ideas about what’s right and wrong – ideas that are at odds with the authority that he is both subject to and the embodiment of.
Rommel is a perfect model for Tony, and the History Channel documentary he watched would certainly have given him plenty to chew on. A capable (even brilliant) general – but one who was ultimately unable to give himself over entirely to the chain of command, owing to reservations about the moral right of his masters. Will Tony have to make a similar choice? To attempt to justify his reservations about the authority he serves and face possible disgrace, or to choose self-destruction with the aim of preserving a heroic image?
This is underlined by the confrontation over the restored portrait with Pie-O-My. Paulie sees his embellishments as heroic and grand. He wants Tony to be honoured by his “more traditional” visualization of T.-- “Something that captures what you’re really about.” Interestingly, Tony doesn’t see himself as a glorious General. He sees a “goddamned lawn jockey.” This creates a strange recursion – The painting, which Tony commissioned and then rejected, is remade by one of his footsoldiers as a fantasy portrait of General Soprano. Tony sees himself as a lawn jockey – a traditional image originally commissioned by General George Washington, to commemorate the sacrifice of a slave – a slave who (according to legend) froze to death holding the reins of the horses on the near side of the Delaware while Washington and his troops fought the battle of Trenton. I will try very hard not to project too much about possible echos of that situation in the friction between the New York and New Jersey families, but I can’t help thinking that Tony’s crossing the creek in the snow may have been an intentional touch. Of course, the subject of the painting is raw for him, since Pie-O-My, for him, typifies the slaughter of innocents for the enrichment of venal amoral men – the core of his suppressed philosophical objection to the life he was born into.
Anyway, it was clear that the illustration of what his men expect from him, as provided by the portrait, gave Tony the final push he needed to put Tony B. to the sword for the good of the troops. Some part of him sees that the reins of power he holds are actually binding him, and he balks at that, every step of the way. He’s forcing himself to act the General, but he’s aware of the paradoxical submission that this demands.
God damn, I love this show.