It was episode 19, season 6, “Walk Like a Man.”
He was all set to take out Junior in Season One, and then Junior got indicted.
I rewatched this and noticed the same thing. The bell sound here is the key. Every time we hear the bell we see Tony look at the door and then we see what he is looking at. As the bell rings when Meadow is supposed to come in, Tony looks up and sees nothing.
I think this is probably the best ending I could have ever hoped for.
I’m leaning more and more toward personally feeling that Tony got whacked. I don’t think he definitely did–because I think it was deliberately left open to interpretation and that if you were to ask the writers, they would tell you that there is no “definitely” (unless and until a movie comes out and continues the story). It makes me sad because as much as I hated Tony, I loved Tony. I do think it makes for a very good ending.
The End of the Last Simpsons:
Homer is the first to arrive at the Donut Shop. He gets a plate of donuts, puts them down on the table in a booth, and sits down with them. He toys idly with one, and eats it. Followed in rapid-cartoon fashion by the others. He then gets up and returns with another plate of donuts.
He sees a booth-mounted jukebox station, like they had in the 1960s, and he flips through the offerings while eating two donuts. He sees an album of “The Sound of Music”, and deposits coins in the box and presses the selection button.
The bell attached to the door rings and Marge comes in carrying Maggie and sits opposite Homer, without saying anything.
The Camera shows people in the surrounding booths, Nelson and his gang at a table, incongruously dressed in Cub Scout uniforms. The Bee guy. Krusty at the counter.
The door bell rings and Bart comes in and sits next to Marge.
A Guy who looks suspiciously like a hydrocephalic, bug-eyed Simsons-style caricature of Matt Groening sits at the counter and looks around nervously
Cut to Lisa trying desperately to park her bike in the bike rack, but it doesn’t fit. Frustrated, she looks elsewhere.
Apu , Montgomery Burns, and Smithers mill around in the donut shop.
The Groening guy gets up and moves over a couple of seats.
The door bell rings and Homer looks up. The Comic Book Shop guy comes in.
Lisa tries to park at another bike rack, but it’s broken
The bell rings again. Homer looks up to see Willy come in.
Lisa finally parks the bike next to a tree and goes toward the donut shop.
Groening guy looks about nervously and goes into the bathroom.
We see Homer. We hear julie Andrews singing “Do, a deer, a female deer…”
The bell rings. Homer looks up.
Julie Andrews sings “…which will bring us back to D’oh…”
Homer looks up
The screenm goes black and silent.
For two whole minutes
Homer: Is that it? Am I dead? Or what?
Marge: Homerrrrr. You’re ruining the scene
Lisa; Yeah, Dad, way to ruin the ambiguity.
Bart; Eat my shorts!
Homer: Why, you little…!
(Sound of Bart gagging)
Sound: Suck1 Suck!
Up comes the production company logo, but without the usual music. But when the silhouetted figure raises its finger to its lips, we DO hear “Shhhhhh!”
…
A bit off-topic, but this might be out last Sopranos thread.
Isn’t Meadow supposed to be the smart kid? I remember in the first season, she clued A.J. into the fact that Dad is in the Mob. So, does she actually believe that the FBI is persecuting Tony because he’s Italian-American?
No, because someone pointed out the tranny was in Drive (‘D’), so I don’t think there is much to investigate. I thought it was in Nuetral (‘N’), but was mistaken.
I honestly wonder if Mead is a little less in denial, and more … sly. Is sly the word I’m looking for? I think there’s a possibility that she knows and she’s okay with it. You know, I’m going to go stronger with that – I think she knows exactly what’s going on, and she’s fine with it. Down the road, I could even see Meadow stepping up and inserting herself in the business. Over in Italy, Tony has already overcome his initial suspicion of a family where the daughter was running things on behalf of her father (I can’t remember - was he in jail or ill? Maybe both.) Clearly, AJ is not capable of any sort of responsibility, in this world or any other. I know Tony does not want The Life for his kids, but I can see him rationalizing a different role for his daughter – I don’t think Hesh gets his hands dirty, but he’s in deep. Over and over, we have seen Tony rationalize just about anything when ultimately it will benefit him.
The thing that strikes me is how clueless Patrick seems to be, although he hasn’t had a lot of screen time, so maybe he’s just good at putting up a front. His dad works for Tony, but he seems confused more than anything else when Meadow gets hassled in the restaurant in Little Italy. Later, I thought that any kid of Patsy’s would know more about how to behave better in Tony’s house. But if he’s that clueless, it’s going to be that much easier for Meadow when she gradually starts providing legal counsel to the family.
Oh, and the one thing that continues to not quite fit with me for the ending is what Rilchiam pointed out. I cannot see Carmela planning a family meal in a place like that diner. I could believe it if they were in the neighborhood and decided to grab something to eat at the most convenient place around, but to plan to go there in advance? Even if she wanted to go ultra casual, she’d go to a family-style Italian place, or something like Indian or Chinese.
Apologies if it’s come up before but there was an interesting post on the Television Without Pity forum .
So Meadow sits down, Member’s Only walks out from the bathroom, back to the counter, and then gets up and walks menacingly toward Tony? Am I not parsing that right, or does it sound like a poorly constructed scene (or something else)?
Cal Meacham, you’d better copyright that before Groening steals it. 
Bwhahaha — THAT was hysterical! Bravo Cal Meacham!
From Brian Williams
It’s not cluelessness (not that you’re accusing everyone of that, delphica), it’s about compromise and rationalization (rationalization is more important than sex, as Jeff Goldblum once said)…
Tony is great at rationalization; the better you are at compartmentalizing your ideals the more sociopathic you become.
Carm has helped Tony move boxes of automatic weapons and ammo when they thought the feds were coming, she’s found stashes of money hidden around the house, she’s talked to her priest, and she’s literally been told, point blank, that if she stays with Tony she’s morally culpable.
Meadow has always been more idealistic. When Tony gave her her friend’s Jeep in season 2 (after the kid’s father got too deeply in debt), she was initially aghast, but later defended Tony to the kid. That was her first major compromise. Meadow has certainly been more scattered this season, deciding to go into medicine when she was engaged to Finn, and switching back to law when she began dating Patrick. She’s been volunteering at Legal Aid since she was in college; when she first revealed she was dating Patrick she talked about his idealism and his interest in “constitutional and civil rights law;” and finally the reveal: he’s defending a politician who’s accused of taking kickbacks in a big development deal (Peter Reigert?). So Meadow will end up as the wife of a mob lawyer, and possibly be one herself.
AJ’s political/intellectual/social awakening was much more short-lived, as it was much shallower (how much of Aunt Janice is there in AJ?). He was much easier to buy off once his parents found his price ("…it gets 23 mpg highway…" I wonder what it gets when you’re doing 70 mph through the school parking lot?).
The Sopranos’ lifestyle is supported by violence and human misery, and there’s a lot of collateral damage (as has been made clear the last few weeks). The family has almost no buffer against that violence and misery, so they create mental bulwarks (“remember the good times”) against it. And they tell themselves that the end (either violent death or indictment) is not so close that they have to concern themselves with it right now.
“After me, the flood…”
So in the same vein as “jump the shark,” when will “had the onion rings” become a way of describing a WTF?! ending to a tv show?
“Wow, the last episode of the X-Files sure had the onion rings.”
“That kid at the end of St. Elsewhere had the onion rings.”
It doesn’t even have to be the end of the series.
“Patrick Duffy enjoyed having onion rings in the shower.”
Whether it’s disappointing, unfullfilling or at least unexpected, if it’s a WTF?! moment, it’s had the onion rings.
I heard someone mention “meadowpark” in the same way. Referring to some ending as being a total “meadowpark”
If The Sopranos Finale had been on Network TV by Ken Levine.
Kind of puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?
I know I’m coming in late here, but was it my imaginaton, or was that Jerry Adler (Hesh) in the clip from the Twilight Zone that Tony’s boys were watching on TV in the safe house? Much younger, obviously.
If it was, I think it was pretty clever to put that in there.
lawloot, that is hilarious!
FWIW, I found this Sopranos Glossary on the HBO website: