As everyone knows, the last episode of the Sopranos is airing this Sunday at 9 PM on HBO. As this seems to be the most analyized TV Show ever, and everyone has a theory, this is the thread to post your prediction of how the show ends.
My prediction:
Phil’s crew kills one of Tony’s family members (I’m thinking Carmela, since there has been drama with every other cast member but her this season). Tony realizes to save the rest of his family, he must leave “the business” by going into the witness protection program, taking AJ and Meadow with him. A few months go by and his panic attacks start back, and he realizes he needs to go back into therapy to get his meds, and gets referred to the new local shrink: Dr. Melfi, who had relocated after being fed up with her practice in Jersey. The show ends where is began in Dr. Melfi’s office.
I have a feeling Chase is going to go out of his way to defy expectations. No Sopranos get killed. No more major characters get killed. Realizing he has no options – he can’t win a war with New York and he can’t turn rat (both because it would defy his sense of honor and because the feds would never offer him terms he could accept) – Tony gathers his family, leaves the “family” to Paulie, and splits. The series ends with the Sopranos in some quiet backwater of New Jersey, trying to start a new life without the mob … and without Tony getting his head blown off.
That would provide the moral reckoning many are looking for in the end of the series, but without giving into simplicity or cliché; it stays true to the character and the ethos of the show.
Truth is, I have no idea how it will end. I wouldn’t bet on a nickel on the above coming to pass … I think Chase will surprise us all. The only thing you can count on: you’ll get to the end of the episode and STILL want to know what happens next.
How I’d write it from here: it opens with Tony in his little room on the mattress, with that giant gun sort of pointed at him. He dreams/imagines various scenarios from that point–what happens in the war, what happens to his family, etc. He realizes that none of the options with him in them are any good, and Melfi was right that he wasn’t going to change. (She didn’t quite say that, but that’s the upshot.)
So he turns the rifle on himself.
My prediction is that we’ll come back somehow to the Kevin Finnerty bits, especially since they hinted at it while Tony was tripping in the desert. The one thing I don’t expect is anything linear, which is great–I’ve always loved this show when it gets surreal.
I’m predicting:
Tony and Paulie vs. Phil and Butchie will be interrupted by the cops pulling up and arresting all of them on some charge or another. Agent Harris, who seems to have taken a liking to Tony, wants to protect him, and sets wheels in motion to stop the NY/NJ war from behind the scenes. The trumped up charges don’t stick, and they are all kicked back out on the street, except for Phil, who they find something on and hold. The crisis averted, for now, ducks fly overhead.
I’ve only seen one or two episodes of The Sopranos, but I can tell you that the final scene of the series was shot in my favorite childhood ice cream parlor in Bloomfield, NJ just down the street from my parents’ house.
I’m placing my bets on Tony living until the end and cooperating in some way with the Feds. Not necessarily making a plea deal, but there’s always the chance that the Feds could help out the Soprano crew somehow in exchange for counter-terrorism actions. (What? The US Government supporting a violent regime in order to fight another violent but more dangerous regime? Say it ain’t so!)
WhiteKnight, you should probably put that in a spoiler box. Not that it’s a terrible spoiler, as those things go, but some people try to avoid even the slightest bit of spoilage.
Also, we should probably fight, being bizarro-world versions of each other.
(I get to be the evil one; I already have a goatee.)
Tony tries to fight realizes it is pointless. Turns on everyone and goes to the Feds. The NY and remaining Jersey guys are rounded up but before Tony can enjoy his new life of freedom under the WPP he’s killed… proabably in a pointless robbery by some young punk.
Last shot
Pauly orders an ice cream cone…and talks the ear off some poor unfortunate (you know he’s gonna get away… he’s survived Cancer and Tony’s boat trip they have to let him just drift uselessly)
Tony alive, but everything that meant anything to him - family, “family”, relationships, money, home, peace of mind - destroyed literally or figuratively. I’d say even the ducks will turn on him.
Won’t read this thread, 'cause I’m weird like that but I just wanted to say this:
In the weekly episode thread, I suggested A.J. might be the Soprano offed by the end – perhaps because he tries to see Rhiannon after going into hiding.
But after watching the episode on Sunday and last night, I got a weird feeling when Ro and Carm were looking at the Paris pictures.
I know Carmela wore a big fur hat at that time, but in the picture they showed, it looked they filmed it so that it seemed like Carm had a big halo over her head.
I predicting Carm will die, leaving T without nothing to hang around and/or live for.
The last scene shows that AJ is an autistic, mute little boy, and has a treasured snowglobe with all of the cast inside.
or…
We learn that everything we’ve seen has been drawn from a movie script that Christopher, a failing Hollywood screenwriter who’s never even been to New Jersey, is working on.
or…
Tony is savaged by a New Jersey suburban bear.
or…
Carmela and Suzanne Pleshette wake up in bed together. Carmela says, “Honey, I just had the weirdest dream…”
or…
Tony is in the WPP and moves to a suburb of San Diego, where guest star Rick Moranis is his FBI bodyguard until he can testify. Tony still wants to run a racket or two but runs afoul of the local DA, played by Joan Cusak.
Phil plants a bomb in Tony’s car. Only Tony doesn’t get in. For some reason, Meadow, AJ and Carm get in. Meadow and Carm are blown to smithereens and AJ is left horribly disfigured. Tony has to care for AJ for the rest of his life. After seeing his family family destroyed, he has no desire to live the other family life any longer, but he can’t get out. He needs the money for AJ, and anyway, if he shows the slightest weakness, he’s a goner. He has to spend the rest of his life earning while running from Phil, or fighting Phil, or working for Phil, or else he has to turn rat. Nice job, T. We’ll be left wondering what he’ll choose. Nothing else gets resolved.
WK is lucky that somebody didn’t call him a bad name
This supposed “final scene” could be the last scene that was shot, not necessarily the final scene of the show. That was my take all along. I can’t see it possibly ending that way.
I don’t have a clue how it’s going to end, but I’ll tell you how I want it to end.
I want the ending to be surreal, symbolic, and profound. The show has always been that way, and unfortunately the past few episodes have been totally fixated on the nuts-and-bolds mob-politics storyline - leaving behind all the surrealism and art of earlier seasons. The tension is dramatic, and interesting, but I desperately want something more than “Tony gets killed/Tony goes into Witness Protection.”
I want the ending of the series to have nothing to do with mob-politics. I want it to be out-of-the-blue, unexpected, and bizarre. I want to think, “never in a million years did I see that coming.”
Christopher wakes up, discovers that he’s not dead, and realizes that the past few years have all been a dream.
He’s really a waiter at a Mob-owned restaurant/bar, and he’s been shot in the foot by one of the regulars with a hair-trigger te,mper, and this dream of his is his way of getting back at those wiseguys.
Tony really is Kevin Finnerty. Who, while not a child, did have a fever (Comfortably Numb) from some complication or operation. All the characters are actually part of his family, but have nothing to do with his “family.” Thus you end up with the ice cream shoppe scene to end the series.
I really, really, really, really don’t think the show is going to go back to “Kevin Finnerty.” That would be pulling a St. Elsewhere, totally played out and cliche. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I think David Chase is more original and creative than that.
