FTA-TV The Sopranos

Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

This is about the only TV series in existence that is actually as good as everyone says it is.

Have nearly finished watching season one on DVD, quality.:thumbsu:

Its too hard watching them on tv. Ive just finished season 5, just bought season 6 and am 3 episodes in.

Found season 5 to be a lot more serious and spiteful than the others. THe others had a lot of laughs in them, season 5 was missing that but its probably the best season that ive seen so far. Tony B, what a character! I hold a lot of hope for season 6.

Im too scared to read the rest of this thread so ill leave it at that.
 
Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

The final episode aired here just a few hours ago. I watched it on a replay that just ended. I hadn't seen the series since I left Australia in early 2000 so I guess I basically just saw the first season. Interesting reading the comments posted on some boards about the ending. I thought it was brilliant.
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

Well if that's not the most controversial last 5 seconds in TV history......ever................................................................................................................................................................................:eek:

I need some time to digest...Chase too clever or too gutless????

Gaso
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

Well I have had a couple of hours to think it over.

I liked the washed out colours of the last ep. They had that grainy feel of 'Saving Pte Ryan', and the use of the weather, T looking up at the trees in the second last scene...how many times over the years did we see him gazing off there.

Phil at the servo...GOLD black comedy!

The cat and Paulie. More GOLD!

The end. Well I thought the TV was playing up or whatever. Chase built up the tension the last couple of minutes I was just waiting for it to go boom whichever way...such an anticlimax, but I guess as I have said thru this thread it will end the way we least expect it...but like that.??!!..I'm going nuts, I need some more posters here!

Gaso

ps this is what I said last week:-I am hoping for something none of us saw coming...that is what has made the show so good for so long!

All my other guesses were wrong.
 
Jun 2, 2001
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

That ... was ...

...

... wow. Completely unsatisfying, and yet it works in so many ways.


Paulie and the cat? That was brilliant. Only Paulie could believe that Christopher had been reincarnated with four legs and fur. And Phil's whacking was nicely brutal, although admittedly I was hoping for the car to plow into a fuel pump and go boom.

For me the real disappointment was how easily Phil was dealt with. At best, Butchie was left looking like a complete wuss and idiot... at worst, he's just a plain old traitor! I wish they'd spent a little more time on fleshing out how that all went down and less time on whiny bloody AJ.
 
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likka

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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

I was hoping something sensational would happen and plot lines would be neatly wrapped up, but didn't really expect this to eventuate.

The characters in the show are nothing if not pragmatic. The brokered truce with NY once again showed this.

The one conversation that was satisfying was when Tony was discussing his impending arrest with his lawyer. Tony virtually admitted he new it would eventually happen, we just didn't know how it would turn out. Tony could go to jail for life, or his crew could whack Carlo and life goes on as per usual.

Final scene was a masterpiece and fitting end to the show.
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

http://http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=24&entry_id=17352

4 times in the final scene, Tony hears the door open. Each time, the bell jingles, camera shows Tony looking up, then it switches to his perspective. 4. The 5th time this happens, it is Meadow walking through the door. The door jingles, camera shows Tony looking up and then switches to his perspective, which is black because he has just been shot in the head. By who does not matter.
5. The above explains the cut to a black screen. From there, you just have to remember the quote; "you probably don't even hear it when it happends right?". From the point where Tony is shot until the HBO splash after the credits is in total silence. The Sapranos was and always will be about Tony. To think that it could go on without him is reaching in my opinion. I believe this was the point of the ending. Anthony Sapranos is now dead, thus the show is complete, finished.
Posted By: chi_town60608 | June 10 2007 at 10:39 PM

So here is what I found out. The guy at the bar is also credited as Nikki Leotardo. The same actor played him in the first part of season 6 during a brief sit down concerning the future of Vito... Apparently, he is the nephew of Phil. Absolutely Genius!!!! David Chase is truly rewarding the true fans who pay attention to detail.


Posted By: carlosthedwarf | June 10 2007 at 10:37 PM

I think these two replies from that link sum it up perfectly.
The part in bold has hit the nail on the head in my opinion.

If the second quote is accurate then there is your killer.
Neat ending just like everyone wanted.

I can't say how upset I am that it is all over.
Looks like I'll just have to watch the whole lot for the fifth time.
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

If the second quote is accurate then there is your killer.
Neat ending just like everyone wanted.

It's a bogus rumour - the actor was Paoli Colandrea, and he has never been in the Sopranos beforehand. He is only credited as 'Man in Members Only Jacket'.

And by the logic of the first post, the show could never have ended... it was deliberately ambiguous, even though some people are convinced that there must be one true outcome.
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

On a related note... who are we presuming wants Tony dead at this point?

Phil's consiglieri and Little Carmine had already agreed that Tony was free to whack Phil if he could find him, so it would take an insanely ballsy New Yorker to go after Tony at this point.

And the FBI seem to have Tony right where they want him, now that they've flipped Carlo.
 

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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

The ending was completely unsatisfactory as I expected.

There is nothing wrong with tying up loose ends, just because that's what the critics want, life to appear to go on as normal. Guess what? its not life, its a television show. And some of us have watched it for 8 years and we want closure. To those who claim Chase is brilliant for leaving us in suspense, bollocks. Anyone can leave everything up the air, it actually takes genius to provide closure. That is something difficult to do, but when it comes off it is so much more memorable, six feet under fans will no what Im talking about.

The finale really highlighted my major problem with the show, TOO MUCH TIME SPENT ON s**t THAT IS OF NO INTEREST TO THE VIEWERS OR OF RELEVANCE TO THE SHOW. In this instance I'm talking about AJ. The finale would have been much better off if its had kept the whining of this idiot to a minimum and focussed on the issues of Tony's family, the flipping of Carlo etc. It frustated me because I think at times it has been a brilliant show, and yet couldve been a lot better at times.

The finale leaves us with the 'you'll never know' aspect. We have that in our own lives, we watch TV for entertainment!!!
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

Yep, and if there are no more sequels to this show we will be talking about this masterpiece of a series in 20-30-40 years time.

The more I have thought about it today the more of a wry grin I have had as to how cleverly it ended.

There are only a few shows that get talked in the same breath as classic TV and with that finale the Sopranos will be one of those that is argued about for eternity.

"Don't stop" or "Don't! Stop!" ??????

Gaso
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

TONY IS DEAD
Body: Tony Soprano was killed....


In fact, the ending was genius if you've paid attention to the show or are just a fan of well developed well thought out plots that all tie together and have the memory of a champ to remember it all the ending was simple, he got killed, but let me tell y'all why and explain in detail... There was 4 people in the room total who had a reason to kill tony.....

The two black guys were paid before to kill Tony when his mother put a hit out on him but he was clipped in the ear in Season One.

The trucker at the booth near Tony was the brother of a Trucker, Christopher killed in DVD player robbery. We last saw the brother when he went to identify his dead brother's body.

And lastly, from the earlier seasons, the Italian man who was sitting at the counter stool, who the camera kept focusing in on, is Nikki Leotardo, Phil Leotardos nephew. He was in one of the early season episodes where Phil and Tony have a sit down....

Here is where the genius comes in....

When Tony walks into the Holston's, you see the camera focus on him, then it switches to his perspective, and you see him looking @ the booth hes gonna sit at...


Then the camera switches back to Tony's face, then it once again
switches to his perspective, and it shows him looking @ the door and looking @ the people come in..... Everytime the door opens the chimes sound.......

Carmela walks in, Chimes.
AJ walks in, Chimes.

This all happens while Meadow is parallel parking, still trying to get inside the restaurant....

At this point the camera switches back Nikki Leotardo who goes in the bathroom...

Then it goes to a scene where Meadow finally parks and starts running into the diner...

The door is about to open, Tony looks up...

and No Chimes...

No Music...

Everything just goes black...

In one of the early episodes of the Sopranos, Tonys is talking with Bobby about what it must feel like to die.

Bobby says, "at the end, you probably dont hear anything, everything just goes black!"

This idea was revisited in the second to last episode during the
last seconds of it, when Tony is about to go to sleep and he flashes back to the memory of him and Bobby on the boat... "You probably dont hear anything everything just goes black"

So in the end, the Journey song was playing, the chimes on the door sounded but when Meadow came in, someone killed Tony.

This is the reason you didn't hear or see sh!t when he died.... it was from his perspective... and everything went black, then the credits.

bada bing

This is floating around...
 

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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

On a related note... who are we presuming wants Tony dead at this point?

Phil's consiglieri and Little Carmine had already agreed that Tony was free to whack Phil if he could find him, so it would take an insanely ballsy New Yorker to go after Tony at this point.

And the FBI seem to have Tony right where they want him, now that they've flipped Carlo.

Logically, there were so many loose threads there is no way they are all going to be resolved in one episode-

I mean seriously, what, we hear the door chime, Tony turns to look and.... is shot at by Furio who was paid by Carmela after the missing Russian stumbled across Ade's body whilst still blundering around in the woods, only to hitchhike a ride with Phil Leotardo's widow who passed the news on to the Feds who told Melfi who after a wrestle with her professional conscience remembered that her rapist was actually the sports store guy and thus a friend of Tony's, leading to her calling Carm and telling her about Ade. Furio's bullet richochets off Uncle Junior's wheelchair as Janice had brought him out on day release to attend the dinner shocking him back into sanity, but the richochet kills AJ, causing Tony to go bezerk and gun down the entire restaurant including the Arabs who were planting a nuclear device in the toilets?!!!

Although at the time it had me swearing and punching the wall, I'm satisfied with the ending now, it makes perfect sense. The Sopranos has always been awesome simply because it doesn't follow 'understood' plot rules- sometimes there is an insane buildup and nothing happens, sometimes people are brutally, unexpectedly killed absolutely out of the blue. As Bobby says, they rarely see it coming, and more often than not it isn't their arch nemesis, its a random hired gun- even if Phil Leotardo had seen it coming, would he even know who Walton was?

One of the central themes throughout the Sopranos is that s**t happens, loose ends emerge, and as with real life, 90% of the time potential problems never materialise, but you sure as hell worry about them, especially if you're Tony Soprano.

Based on the flashback regarding his conversation with Bobby, and the insane buildup in the diner (note the song titles Tony was flipping through incidentally), I'll accept that Tony probably got shot, and that's why the series instantly ended at that point. As for who clipped him, stylistically we don't know because he doesn't, but in terms of story telling it also makes very good sense, because whilst there are a heap of unrelated plot arcs which could see Tony get his, with Phil dead there is none which really deserve to take preeminence in the viewers mind, hence the openendedness.
 
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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

Against.

"I feel the need to debunk the e-mail that’s making the rounds about all the Holsten’s patrons being characters from earlier in the series. The actor playing Member’s Only guy had never been on the show before, Tony killed at least, one if not both of his carjackers, and there are about 17 other things wrong with this popular but incorrect theory."
 

likka

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Re: The Sopranos **Spoilers**

Okay, having watched the last two episodes again last night I am convinced Tony is dead.

Doesn't matter how or why... proof that death is neither neat or predictable. The instant blackness when the perspective switches to him for the last time just makes sense.

Tony was convinced that there was an afterlife, Bobby thought it was just blackness and silence. Guess Bobby was right.
 
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