Straight up. The best final episode of any TV series I’ve seen. It starts out as literal as possible, and ends as figurative as possible. And this is the same way we grew to know Tony — first as just a mean gangster, and over time as a very full and complex person. In rapid unedited succession, the things I loved:
1. “Woke up this morning. Got myself a gun.” Open scene: Tony wakes up; got himself a gun!
2. Godfather reference #1; Quote from The Godfather: Sonny, “No, no, no! No more! Not this time, consiglieri. No more meetings, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks. You give ‘em one message: I want Sollozzo. If not, it’s all-out war: we go to the mattresses.” Tony wakes up having literally, the night before, gone to (sleep on) the (empty) mattress(es). Ok, I may be stretching this one here.
3. Funny, funny funny! The whole bit with the cat and Paulie was hilarious. And more classic Paulie: He sits down at Bobby’s funeral and undoes the top of his pants. Phil’s whacking (the gruesome aftermath). The FBI agent cheering when finding out that Phil was gone. This was the sort of stuff that made the show so great in the early days.
4. Godfather reference #2. Vito Corleone celebrated Michael’s war-herodom. Tony and Carmella did everything they could to talk AJ out of going to war. They were much happier with him producing a scummy mystery movie.
5. AJ as stasis. AJ seemed to have been transformed over the last few episodes into a politically aware person who might rise above the lowlife status of his dad and friends. Nope. After his car burned up and he decided to take the film job instead of joining the army, he proved to just be a rich bratty kid with a BMW dating an underage high schooler.
6. Phil’s whacking. His head had gotten too big. So it got flattened down to size. And two episodes previously he had ordered his guys to “decapitate” New Jersey. What goes around…
7. Back to the beginning. To Junior: “F*ck the birds! You and Johnny ran North Jersey!” (has to be taken in reference to Tony’s issue with the ducks from the Episode 1). Also, when meeting with AJ’s psychologist, he goes through the history of his mother with her — which was an almost instant replay to his first meeting with Dr Melfi in Episode 1.
8. Twilight Zone reference. My brother-in-law pointed this out. But when Tony’s watching an old black-and-white sci fi episode of The Twilight Zone or something in the hideout, it looks like Junior is the star. When he talks to Junior, Junior tells him that “martians stole his money”.
9. The underlying theme of lost glory. The Godfather (above-mentioned) references represent a much grander version of the mob lifestyle than what the Sopranos live.
10. Lost Italian heritage. Phil’s guy is talking with him on the phone in Little Italy. When he hangs up, he’s in Chinatown and looks really lost. All that’s left of the great Little Italy is one little block. And in the final scene, Tony chooses Journey over Tony Bennett on the jukebox (my brother-in-law also pointed these two out to me).
11. Lost power. Tony and Paulie are chatting at a table in front of Satriales. That place used to be packed. But now it’s just the two of them, looking sort of pathetic. Even though Tony’s won the battle with Phil, what does he really have besides a family that makes him miserable and one remaining made guy (Paulie) who has always been a pain. Paulie has always complained about getting passed over…and then he doesn’t even want the job that Tony’s offering him when he’s the only guy who could take it. For eight years we’ve believe that Tony is the modern day Godfather. But in all actuality, Tony’s sort of small potatoes when it comes to terrorism and all of the other horrible stuff going on in the world today.
12. Lost motivation. When Tony tells Junior that he and Johnny “used to run north Jersey”, Junior blankly says “that’s nice.” This is what it’s all come down to…it just doesn’t really matter.
13. Lost hope. Tony realizes that he not been the influence he needs to be with his family. Meadow tells Tony that she wants to be a lawyer because she feels that Italians are not treated fairly. “If I hadn’t seen you taken away by the FBI so many times, I’d probably be a boring suburban doctor.” The look on his face is just plain depressing. Similarly, when finding out Meadow’s college dropout friend was no longer a screwup but instead in med school, Carmella gives a look of sheer disappointment.
14. Religion. Paulie tells Tony that one time he saw the Virgin Mary. Tony tells him “f*ck strippers. We coulda made millions!”. That’s his spirituality.
15. Onion rings. The fried, greasy, imperfect, but wonderfully tasty ring. The imperfect circle goes on.
16. The suspenseful last 5 minutes. I can’t remember feeling so nervous at the end of a show when everything apparently is supposed to be great. The bad guy is gone; the family is there; the happy music is on. But nope! Wow! And to think that creepy feeling is what Tony lives with every minute of every day. Remember a few episodes ago when he decided he couldn’t even go out and get his newspaper in the morning anymore because he didn’t feel safe? Terrible!
17. Godfather reference #3. The guy going to the bathroom at the end. Michael Corleone’s first hit occured in a greasy Italian restaurant. He went into the bathroom to get the gun and came out shooting. At the end of the episode last night, the random guy kept staring at Tony and then slowly walked into the bathroom right before everything went black.
18. The unknown. Did the guy who went into the bathroom get Tony? We’ll never know. But the real question is, does it matter? Even if he lived, it seems he was going to be indicted in a Grand Jury due to testimony of one of his own guys (Carlo) against him, or he would get to live out his time in an unhappy marriage with guys that he doesn’t really like or trust. Regardless, cut to black. No music. Just reality.
Here are the things that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Please speculate away in the comments!
1. Meadow. She knew something was going on. Did her boyfriend give her some inside info on the pending Grand Jury case against Tony? Why was she so nervous when parking the car? Carmela seemed to know that something was up, too; she looked strange when telling Tony that Meadow was going to be late to dinner because she was “at the doctor”.
2. The FBI. Was the female agent who was sleeping with the main FBI guy somehow involved with Carlo’s plans to testify against Tony? My brother in law seems he thinks he remembers Carlo’s son getting busted for drugs earlier this year. If so, is that what caused Carlo to flip?
3. The cat and Paulie. I can’t figure this one out. The cat loved Christopher. Is this another Godfather reference? Christopher was obviously the true “Michael Corleone” to Tony (as AJ was just a screw up), but Tony killed him anyway. So is this cat’s love of Christopher some reference to Marlon Brando’s cat in The Godfather? And why did Paulie hate it so much? Is it something to do with Paulie getting passed over by Christopher in the ranks? After all, Paulie was the only guy in the family who was of Junior and Johnny’s generation. And he was originally Christopher’s mentor. (Another take, I’ve recently seen some comments in another post suggesting that the cat is Adriana).
One last time, wow! Some day, some time in my life, I’m going to have to make a real effort to watch all of the episodes again in succession over the course of a few months. I honestly believe that drama doesn’t come any better. Original, referential; serious, funny; metaphorical, popular; timeless, contemporary. Thanks David Chase, James Gandolfini, HBO and everyone else involved in The Sopranos. It’s been amazing.
