Soprano Sue reminds us in her blog that the Sopranos’ highly-touted Google Maps promotion is supposed to go live today. We predict this could be an even bigger time-waster temporarily more interesting than Baristanet. Imagine the possibilites of sitting in front of your computer all day and finding where Paulie Walnuts lives, and how long it takes him to get to Tony’s house. There’s only one problem. HBO doesn’t seem to have remembered. Nothing on their website about the maps yet. (Although we did discover that there are a lot of Bada Bings out there.)
While we wait for the map, let’s brainstorm about how the show might finally come to an end — the subject of a story in yesterday’s New York Times.
One thing both men now know for sure is that the voyage of “The Sopranos” is coming to an end. After several years of speculation, Mr. Chase and the executives of HBO came to an agreement that the latest season of 12 episodes, which starts up on March 12, would be the show’s last √¢‚Ǩ‚Äù and then they renegotiated again and added a mini-season of eight more episodes that will be shot in the coming months and played starting next January.
Of course, like with Six Feet Under, it’s got to end with the main character’s funeral, right? So how should Tony Soprano get offed? In fact, let’s make it a contest. Prize: some Sopranos swag lying around Soprano Sue’s house, yet to be determined. Judge: Soprano Sue herself. Points for creativity and making us laugh out loud. And remember, boys and girls, this is a family website. So keep it clean.
Rarely does a Soprano bite the dust in such romantic fashion as getting off’d by the mob itself–I always assumed it would end with a domestic fight over money and a broad–over the years Carmella has had her share of having to deal with Tony’s life-and her resentment has led to hiding money to play the market with-conning him into a house by the shore–she flashed her knowledge of guns—her underlying passion to stray—I say his death will be attributed to that.
Marriage my friends is more dangerous than the MOB.
The most creative and poetic end would be however if he kills himself in a creative reverse rendition of “It’s a Wonderful Life”–an all black and white episode that turns to color as he hits the Hudson.
Tony is depressed. Bike clubs and Dominicans and even Jamaicans have pieced off much of his action. (The latter two allow for an episode or two of ethnic slurs, the former for Italian-American members who aren’t scared of would-be dons.) Christopher is back on heroin. The ABC has finally taken Silvio’s liqor license and he’s retired to Florida after a small stroke. Tony Walnuts has prostate cancer and is alcoholically melancholic over the death of his mother. Tony’s son is a low-grade meth cooker and dealer and his daughter, now married to a surgeon, pointedly uses her married name. Carmela has joined the very same cult Arianna Huffington belongs to and is in CA listening to its leader channel 20,000 year-old Atlantean warriors. And Dr. Melfi (played by a very bad actress who to me doesn’t even seem capable of graduating from h.s.) has finally dropped him as a patient and is again seeing her ex on a romantic basis.
In search of a bracing shot of the “old days,” Tony goes to visit the Russian woman with one leg. She draws him a bath. While Tony’s soaking amid the scented salts, she calls someone and quickly negotiates a price. She laces his wine with downers. Then she whomps him over the head with her prosthetic leg. He expires looking like an adipose, boozer version of Marat. “So long, sucker,” she murmurs, as she steps into a cab to take the next plane back to Russia. At the airport, she calls the FBI anonymously to announce that Tony Soprano is dead. The agent who answers tells her, as he calls up Tony’s thick file on his computer, tells her Tony’s been dead for years, he just didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Bob wakes up with another really strange dream to tell Emily about.
Cathar,
really good! I love the Marat reference. One could see the blood dripping from his head into the water coloring it. Perhaps the “letter” in his hand could be a Chinese food menu on which he is circling his order.
Lets just all hope it doesn’t have a Seinfeld-like ending: Tony and family eating dinner at the table, fade to black.
The Six Feet Under finale was one of the best story endings I’ve ever seen. I have faith that HBO will end the Sopranos in an equally appropriate and memorable way.
Jim stole my thunder.
The last scene will be Tony surrounded by family at the dinner table.
There is no better ending to the series.
The last scene will be Tony surrounded by Trolls at the dinner table.
There is no better ending to the series.
It will all have been a dream – after all there is no mob.
Tony buys a Red Cheetah franchise & eventually kills himself when the thing flops.
Tony stops in at the Red Cheetah in Montclair one night, gets drunk and hits on this incredibly hot, young chick. The chick turns out to be the girlfriend of a top El Salvadorean gang member who follows Tony to his car and shoots him dead.
Ah MM but Tony is not really dead instead he just pretends to be so-
-we see him crawl back into his car and remove his bullet proof vest. He then heads for the back door of Cuban Pete’s were Dominick is waitng with a pitcher of boozeless Sangria–Tony gets so irritated with this that he shoots up the place–and an off duty ABC investigator -who is really dating Meadow happens by the scene and shoots him in the back—meanwhile Carmela is seen unpacking the family’s belongings in the living room of one the new McMansions on Watchung Avenue.
We see the ambulence head towards Moutntainside Hospital —when it arrives we see pasted with scotch tape on the ER doors “closed”.
We then see a close up of the driver of the ambulence and low and behold it is Christopher smirking as he exits the ambulence on the darkened ramp. He tosses off his plastic gloves. And rides off with the rest of Tony’s crew, who now remove their masks as they jump out of the back of the well lite ambulence.
the scene goes black and only the line from the monitor is visable and we watch as it goes flat. In the background we hear the sounds of “when the moon hits your eye like abig pizza pie that’s amore”.
🙂
To add to my own speculation above: there has to be a part for walleroo. Perhaps as the surgeon Meadow is married to. More likely, as one of the bike club members who’s been hanging out (literally, in walleroo’s case, as he wraps his tale around one of the dancers’ poles) at the Bada-Bing until its inevitable shutdown by the ABC for “public lewdness” and liquor law violations.
I will accept suggestions for which part Mazie could play. Iceman, surely you have one? Other trolls?
Tony doesn’t die. He just has anxiety attacks that makes him think he is dying…
Or he could simply die of old age trying to find a parking space in Montclair on a Friday night.
Ever notice how Italian-owned establishments in Jersey never seem to have any problems with the authorities, building codes, and electrical fires? Hmm……
With all his family, friends, and “associates” gone or dead, Tony loses it and starts communing with the geese near his pool again. Then he dies in what becomes the first reported case of avian flu in the United States.
Or in his depression, drunkenness, and befuddlement, he drowns in the pool after a soliloquy filled with old movie dialogue. It’s not clear if his death is a suicide or an accident. The geese look on, unimpressed.
Keep the theories coming. I’ll be opening up the boxes with my personal stash and find some good stuff for a prize!
Sue
Huge amounts of stress build as his empire and family life dissolve before his eyes. Tony begins to fantasize that the only way to relieve his mounting anxiety is to mount his shrink. As he forces himself on her he grasps his heart and has the big one. A non-consensual Rockefeller, as it were.
OK ready—instead of waking up from the dream –for Cathar—After a number more deaths, affais, scandal, the cameraman pulls back on Tony’s face and we see him in a cell sitting next to a Priest–this has been his confession–then you see him doing the walk down the green isle–cuffed and shackled—he enters a well lite room–the camera pans to -the priest who’s head drops and mutters the last rites and Tony has a tear in his eye–with his cuffs he moves to wipe away that last tear-then shakes it off-the closing shot pans to the pool at his home 2 ducks and their ducklings swim serenly in his pool.
Hey, I like my part! I wouldn’t mind being married to that babe, even if only on TV. And you know what’s the best thing about it–I am a surgeon in real life! (Brain.) Gee willikers, isn’t it something how life imitates art?
Cstarling- I like the pool and duck imagery but envision Carmela doing him in with a bullet, straight thru the heart.
He falls into the pool and the final scene is him floating face down surrounded by the ducks and their ducklings.
I think the pool filling with blood has been done in some otherfilm???-my mind in still numb from no coffee-but Chase is big on the “complexities” of woman-
or stranger yet –it begins as a hunting scene–Tony has a cigar in his mouth he takes his son bird hunting with the boys to make him more “manly”–Tony’s lighter isn’t working so he heads back to the car–he returns flicking his bic and Jr turns and sprays him with pellets thinking it is a bird—the end an Accident or was it?
Dr. Melfi’s rape is till unresolved–we find her finally turning to Tony for comfort and revenge- Tony spends his “off” time searching out the perp–the irony is abound as he sees images of Carmela, Meadow, his mother, his sister, the viciously murdered pregnant dancer, Arianna. Tony strangles the perp with his bare hands and he is seen being led away in hand cuffs after Dr. Melfi calls authorities –The Feds are seen taking the phone call in their office angered that Tony the vigilanti screws up their investigation–rather then being charged with their crimes-he will be hailed as a hero.
After a particularly nasty argument with Carmella, Tony, in a rage, rips open his refrigerator, grabs a handful of cappacolla(gabagool), crams it into his mouth and dies, reaching out for one more breath, as Anthony Jr. futilely tries to revive him with a Heimlich manouver.
Speaking of things that are unresolved, I hope that David Chase ties up a lot of the loose ends for us this final season.
Wasn’t it Sunset Boulevard that starts with the dead guy floating face down in the swimming pool?
It could start like this, only with ducks in the pool as well and in B/W and then could shift to color and scenes that lead up to Tony’s death seen through various eyes.
Maybe all of the awful things we’ve seen him do or order done- a recap of his bad deeds.
I Foresee Vito Spatafore getting into some trouble with bith t he NY and the NJ families and he ends up getting killed. I also see Meadow moving to California and marrying Finn ( the dentist ) Christopher is back shooting heroine after t he demise of Adrianna, but he is sleeping with everything that moves.
AJ is put into a treatment facility for behavior reasons, carmella takes a trip to a foreign land ( italy, france?) maybe she is looking for Furio>? Junior gets put in jail, and paulies mom dies this year.
the Clockwork Orange ending–the last scene is Tony with his eyes clipped open as he watches the horror of his life on the big screen–while Beethoven√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s 9th Symphony is played at full volome.
No no no no no. Tony gets elected Senator on the Democratic ticket as a Green candidate (waste management).
David Chase reading this?
Over the next 20 episodes, everyone gets “wacked” … some shot, some run over, some poisoned.
The very last scene is a long long shot… (through the front door, then winding through the house)
this guy w/ a hat or baseball cap on, sitting outisde his pool, drinks on a nearby table, maybe he’s cell phone, another one is ringing.. laptop in front of him. The camera comes closer (slowly) you him some voices (not loud) The camera twists & turns as it comes closer…. some over head shots… The voices are a bit louder but you still can’t make them out.
The very last scene is (a side shot)
of his guy talking on the cell phone w/ one hand, a cigar in the other and you hear him saying
“I have a great idea for a new show about the Mob in Norther NJ. Think we could get HBO interested in it?”
The camera swings around.. the back of the chair, then slowly around the front.. It’s James Gandolfini and you hear the other voice on the phone (now on speaker phone mode) saying “That’s a good idea, David! I’ll talk to the people at HBO & we’ll get back to you”
BTW Mr Chase, my store is available for
you for some scenes. Let me know.
the clockwork orange reference was a double ontondra–if your fimiliar witht the godfather oranges were in scenes just before people got wacked—
-I thought of the whole HBO chase thing-JT I like it but somehow I think it’s a little too trie/lite for Chase-
I keep thinking of the soundtrack for the openinging of the show:
and thinking the end is in here
“You woke up this morning
the world turned upside down
Thing’s ain’t been the same
since the Blues walked into town.
But you’re one in a million
you’ve got that shotgun shine.
Born under a bad sign
with a blue moon in your eyes.
When you woke up this morning
everything you had was gone.
By half past ten your head was going ding-dong.
Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes
like a voice telling you there was something you should know. Last night you were flying but today you’re so low
Ain’t it times like these that make you wonder if
you’ll ever know the meaning of things as they appear to
the others; wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and
brothers. Don’t you wish you didn’t function, wish you
didn’t think beyond the next paycheck and the next little
drink? Well you do so make up your mind to go on, ‘cos
when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.”
thsy all get wacked but him?
Good luck tomorrow, CS. I am thinking about you. Make sure to come back and let us know all is well.
hey ROC I appreciate that-more than you know-hopefully I’ll be out about 12 noon heavily sedated and I can write some nonsensical things and you’ll then know I am fine-THANK YOU.
Please don’t in any way strain yourself on our account. Just come back when you are up for it.
No more entrants we have a winner.
soprano sue–so many endings so little time–like the Interview with a Vampire ending….just before the end a reporter turns off the tape recorder and leaves the hotel room. Tony is sitting in, staring out the window and a neon light is flashing “nevada” outside his room.
then there is the non- ending making room for the Soprano Movie.
CSI meets Law and Order meets The Soprano’s meets OZ.
So….who won?
Tony did –of course;)