Did tony soprano die?
Yes, Tony Soprano dies in the series finale of The Sopranos. The show’s creator, David Chase, confirmed this in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
The ending of the show is famously divisive, with some viewers thinking their cable had gone out due to the abrupt cut to black. Chase originally planned for Tony to be killed in a scene where he returns to New York from a meeting, similar to the way he entered New Jersey at the beginning of each episode. However, Chase changed his mind while driving past a small breakfast restaurant and decided that was the right place for Tony to die.
Some fans speculate about who killed Tony, with theories including Phil Leotardo seeking revenge for his brother’s death or Butchie DeConcini wanting to take over as head of the New York family.
Tony soprano finally gets his come upence!! He pays his do!!! David chase wrote his character as a bad guy!! Tony soprano was never ment to be a liked character!!Soprano fans fell in love with him, James gandolfini broke projection ,,,We all fell in love with his character,!!!,,,yes he dies in the end,,,but its done so well its left open to suggestions.
Did Tony Soprano die?
Was Tony Soprano assassinated by the man in the Members Only jacket in the final scene of the iconic HBO television show, The Sopranos? Did Tony die?
Indeed, he did die. It was probably Members Only who did him in, but that wasn’t strictly depicted.
But, Tony does meet his demise. And, definitively, no less.
It took me years to finally realize this. Like probably most people, I thought the ending was supposed to be ambiguous, and up to the viewer to interpret for oneself. Finally, someone explained it to me, and I realize now that the viewer had no choice in the matter. Tony was dead in the end.
Brutally and with finality… dead…
One of the trademarks of The Sopranos was, from start to finish, its gritty, realistic, no-holds barred approach to the depiction of the mafia. There’s nothing romantic or nostalgic about The Sopranos. It is completely stark and raw in its portrayal of the men who make up the criminal underworld, and the brutality with which they take what they want, when they want, and that includes life and limb.
And, that’s also how the ending should be interpreted. Starkly and raw.
Did anyone ever see a film from some years ago called Radio Flyer? It’s about an abused boy, and how his older brother remembers that this younger boy escapes physical abuse from their step-father by flying away in a makeshift airplane built from a red Radio Flyer wagon.
But, in that film, the way his older brother remembers the younger brother’s end is only a psychological coping mechanism. The older brother, in adulthood, keeps the true memory — that his brother died from their step-father’s child abuse — encapsulated in a story that his brother flew away to live happily ever after.
And, until the very end, the viewers are led to believe the boy escaped, as well, until the reality of what actually occurred hits us like a ton of bricks, usually later, in retrospect.
Well… The Sopranos is not a children’s movie filled with double entendre and hidden metaphors, at least not leading to any possibility for a happy ending. The hero of The Sopranos — or… antihero, in Tony Soprano’s case — was never going to retire on his own terms, or to die peacefully in his own bed.
Tony Soprano was not a modern Vito Corleone. Tony Soprano was the antithesis of that classic, romanticized version of the mafia. Though we saw Tony defy and survive death on multiple occasions, much like Vito Corleone did, that’s where the similarity ends — at surface level alone.
Those brushes with death were never meant to be more than foreshadows of Tony’s ultimate fate; they were never intended to mean Tony was at all superhuman, or a master of death. By avoiding death, Tony was only lucky, not God-like.
And, in keeping with a more realistic version of criminal life, that luck runs out.
When we see the screen cut to black in that final scene, it’s emblematic of the existential view of nothingness after death. From the director’s view, what Tony experiences (or ceases to experience) once he takes a fatal shot to the back of the head, is only blackness and silence.
Even the song that was playing, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, ends mid-lyric. That’s because Tony can no longer hear. His bodily functions failed to continue. That’s what the ending meant. That Tony Soprano was dead. He was no longer conscious of his family, his wife, his children…
Tony Soprano had ceased to live and breath. Did Tony Soprano die?
There’s something else, too:
Even if we project traditional symbolism of Tony being something of a mythological, Herculean figure, Tony still meets a gruesome end. Even under the cloak of traditional symbolic storytelling, Tony dies.
That’s because Dr. Melfi was always Tony’s metaphorical guardian angel. Allegorically, we can say Tony was under her spiritual protection. After all, Dr. Melfi *saved* Tony when he had his anxiety attacks in the beginning, and continued to be a foundation of support, even a sort of last link to anything good that still remained in Tony.
But… let’s remember… what does Dr. Melfi do at the end of The Sopranos?…
She abandons Tony. Dr. Melfi realizes that, for all her efforts, the years of working with Tony to achieve his self-discovery, he is still the same awful human being he was when they first came together. Dr. Melfi knows, Tony Soprano can never be redeemed and for that realization, she finally washes her hands of him.
Suddenly, Dr. Melfi casts Tony out of the Eden that was the refuge of her office. Tony no longer has a sanctuary wherein to retreat, to release and decompress from the constant pressures of his position as mob boss. There is no longer a metaphorical angel watching over him, guiding him.
He is suddenly Samson with his hair having been cut. He is Jonah cast into the sea for disobedience to God. Only, unlike Samson or Jonah, Tony Soprano is a completely evil man.
He will not regain his strength by God’s leave to bring down a false temple around him, nor will he pray to God to save him from the belly of the beast.
Without Dr. Melfi to continuously work with Tony to reexamine himself internally, Tony loses his edge. He doesn’t see the hitman coming, whereas, in years prior, he was always just a split second faster for being so much more self-aware.
Did tony soprano die?
First of all, there is no definitive answer, since the last episode only hints that something is about to happen, but does not depict Tony’s demise. Second, if David Chase is considered the definitive source, the answer is open-ended. I know there’s a widely shared interview quoting Chase as saying that Tony dies, so don’t go there. Chase himself, on Talking Sopranos, repudiates that interview. .
The ending is what you want it to be, just don’t claim it to be the definitive conclusion about Tony’s fate. Yes, the guy with the Made in America jacket goes into the restroom, just like in the Godfather. There’s a reason for that in the Godfather, because Michael could not have the weapon on him in case he was frisked (which is what happened). In this context, Made in America would have no reason to conceal the weapon.
The restroom visit is a tribute to the Godfather, but not necessarily a foreshadowing of Tony’s fate. Chase likes to insert homage to the great mob films, and they don’t necessarily mean anything more than that.
An interesting allusion to Chase’s state of mind comes in Season One, in the episode where Pussy is suspected of being an informant. According to Talking Sopranos, the actor who played Pussy, Vincent Pastore, asked Chase how to play his scenes: “So, am I a rat?” Chase reportedly shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not.” Chase likes ambiguity, and that’s all we can say about whether Tony dies. Maybe, maybe not.
Given the latitude that allows the viewer, here’s my answer. I like the ending just as it is. Tony has felt a sense of doom for the entire series, and it is central to his panic attacks and depression. Some of this is barely suppressed guilt over everything he gets away with. Some of it is the rational estimation that, “Nine times out of ten, a guy like me ends up dead or in jail.”
The series ends mostly where it started, but with Tony accepting his likely fate, knowing that he cannot be anyone else, cannot live any other life. He can only go through life knowing that the axe may fall at any time, but it’s all worth it. That’s what the final scene depicts. The viewer now sees the world as Tony does, a tragedy about to unfold. Did Tony Soprano die?
How long did it take noah to build the ark?
Did Tony Soprano get killed in the last scene of The Sopranos?
First, let’s be clear, David Chase had a very specific reason for making the ending vague. He wanted it to be clear that the rest of Tony’s existence was going to be Hell. If, indeed, he got shot and, while his wife and kids, covered in his brain matter, screamed, bled out at the table in Holstens, he was going, and his dreams gave more than enough foreshadowing of this, straight to Hell, no short stint in purgatory before eventually going to heaven like the other mobsters seem to think, but straight to whatever and wherever Hell is. Of that, there is no doubt.
If, on the other hand, he lived to finish the onion rings that night in Holstens and another 50 years beyond that, maybe his existence on earth might arguably be almost as bad as Hell, especially if you believe that the real Hell is designed to be each individual’s worst possible nightmare. He won’t ever be able to relax because even when eating a family meal in a little Main Street ice cream shop, he has to get a seat facing the door so he can watch because the next person coming through it might be somebody coming to kill him or arrest him.
And going forward, instead of spending his “work day” lolling about at the Bing or in front of Satriales enjoying the company of lifelong friends, he was going to spend it trying to keep his very dysfunctional organization afloat with the closest thing to friends anywhere in sight being Paulie Walnuts, who he’d recently given serious thought to killing in part because he was so annoying, and Patsy Parisi, who was only part of crew because Tony needed to keep him close so he could keep an eye on him because he couldn’t be trusted (in fairness, Tony ordered the murder of his twin brother) and who now seems to have had a personality bypass whenever he is in Tony’s presence.
Even his family is no longer a comfort. He has to live in fear that he might come home one day and find that A.J. succeeded in killing himself and Meadow, in addition to marrying into the Parisi family and binding him to Patsy, was looking increasingly like she was going to be a perpetual student who never gets around to graduating and getting a job that supports herself. Even Carmella was making a life of her own in real estate with only nominal help from him.
Did Tony Soprano die?
Worst of all, Tony can’t even go to his shrink to talk about any of it including his obvious depression. If you believe, as many do, that Hell is each individual’s worst possible nightmare come true, then Tony is in Hell whether here on earth or off in some fabled land of fire and brimstone where a red guy with horns and a bifurcated tail is poking him with a pitchfork.
THAT is why David Chase didn’t show you Tony’s fate. He wanted you to understand that, bullet in the brain or not, Tony was in Hell. Now having said that, he did get killed that night in Holsten’s.
There was too much foreshadowing for it to be anything else. The vaguely Italian looking guy hovering around in Holstens was an italian hit man hired by Phil Leotardo. The arrangements would have to have been made a week or more earlier before the peace deal was struck between New Jersey and New York and before Phil was killed. As a result, it became kind of zombie operation.
The only person aware it was ongoing was dead so the hitman did what hitmen do. He stalked his prey and, when the time right, put a bullet in the back of his head. He was probably back in Italy or certainly on a plane flying back while the cops were still processing the crime scene at Holstens so he was never going to be caught.
In addition to all the foreshadowing is the much more simplistic and obvious explanation. The final scene in Holstens bounces back and forth between several different camera angles. One of them is explicitly Tony’s point of view. From that camera angle, we see exactly what Tony sees.
We see his son enter the restaurant from that angle. We see his wife come in and sit down from Tony’s point of view. Then, we see Meadow also enter from that angle just before the screen goes black. We saw what Tony saw. His daughter then the world went black.
Remember, David Chase had already given use evidence that you don’t hear a sound when the bullet is coming for or near you. Bobby said as much in “Sopranos Home Movies” and Silvio experienced it in “Stage 5” when Gerry Torciano was killed while eating dinner with him and he didn’t hear a sound. So it was with Tony. The bullet, that he didn’t hear, instantly killed him with everything going Black before his head even hit the table. Did Tony Soprano die?
Conclusion
Did Tony Soprano die? Bobby Bacala, in the scene where he and Tony are fishing, says that it will just go quiet when you die. In case you didn’t get it the first time they replayed that scene in the second to last episode. A bullet travels faster than sound. With a gunshot to the head Tony is dead before he hears the shot.
Tony is dead in the final scene. The producers, when interviewed, are too gracious to point out that they foreshadowed this twice. We don’t know about the other family members.
Who did it? All the clues are there.
Fiorio, with the backing of Naples, had Tony killled. Fiorio’s mentor told him he had to kill Tony if he wanted Carmela. Do you think it’s coincidence that he left after deciding not to push Tony into the propellor blades? Did he come across as the kind of character that backs down from a fight? Do you believe that the boss lady, Annalisa Zucco, gave up her best man, Fiorio, because she liked Tony? Think it all through. Tony and his men behaved like boorish imbeciles on their visit to Naples. $80,000 for a stolen Mercedes! Naples was playing the long game—it was meant to be ridiculously high because she was making a play to take over from Tony and instal a more able leader.
Fiorio was the only loose end left by the writers.
Fiorio will be a better manager and won’t need a psychiatrist. Tony was a lousy manager who killed several lieutenants. Any sequel where the North Jersey mob is not run by an idiot will be boring. And Jersey will just be the beginning.
Annalisa Zucca will fly over to the funeral. Fiorio will be there to comfort the widow. Would you stand up to Fiorio if he wanted to be the boss? Actually. Analissa will be the boss but she will stay in Naples.
Did tony soprano die?