How powerful a force has The Sopranos become in American culture? Our friends across the pond have even written articles today about its valedictory episode tonight. Both the left-wing Guardian and the conservative Telegraph note the passing of the series (HBO, 9 pm ET). Somewhat fittingly, both focus on the impact the final episode will have on Sopranos tourism in New Jersey.
First, the Guardian:
Marc Baron was putting a brave face on his future employment prospects last week. Baron is the lead guide for one of New York’s most successful tourist enterprises – The Sopranos Tour – in which visitors are taken round 45 locations used in filming the TV series The Sopranos
Now, after 86 episodes, 18 Emmy awards and some of the most lavish critical approval in TV history, The Sopranos – an everyday story of Mafia folk – ends today. An expected audience of 10 million will watch the final episode and find out if Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), the psychologically tortured mob boss, ends up sleeping with the fishes.
The Telegraph, interviewing the same man:
Although The Sopranos is about to reach its on-screen climax, sightseeing fans are expected to continue their pilgrimages with the specialist On Location Tours company for a long time. British enthusiasts are already the largest national contingent on the bus tours and the company expects another burst of interest when the final season is screened later in Britain.
“I’m sure we’ll be doing this for another five years,” said the tour guide, Marc Baron, an actor who appeared as an extra in several episodes. “I don’t believe the final episode will cut off all their options for the future.”
Both articles are fun reads, and both engage in some speculation as to what the final episiode has in store for viewers. The Telegraph suggests that Tony sings like a soprano in order to save himself from Phil Leotardo. The Guardian reviews the odds at London bookmakers on Tony’s survival (1-3 for survival, 2-1 against getting whacked). David Chase, the series’ creator, has filmed three separate endings — which will generate plenty of controversy when this last season goes out on DVD, and would presumably include all three.
All I know is that this has been great television. I have watched it since the beginning, and it has consistently provided surprises. It has used sex and violence to show the banality of evil in a way that no series has ever done, and purposefully challenged its viewers’ sympathy for the main characters at almost every turn. Chase has always taken the difficult road in plot development, and I expect no less tonight.
Even though predictions have died quicker than Ralphie Ciferetto on kitchen tile during the run of this series, I’l make a couple of predictions anyway:
1. Tony lives. Having Tony die will make it too easy on him.
2. A member of Tony’s family gets killed. I’m going to lean towards AJ, as I don’t think Chase will want to emulate Godfather III and kill Meadow — but it’s worth noting that she’s spending a lot of time with Patsy Parisi’s son, which could put her inadvertently in harm’s way. That will put Tony in a special kind of hell, making his survival a torment to him
2a. However, it’s worth noting that Tony’s current predicament comes from his overreaction to Coco’s crude threat to Meadow …
3. If Tony gets killed, though, it will be Paulie who carries out the hit. Paulie had to know he came within an ace of not returning from the boat ride in Florida.
4. Phil Leotardo gets killed, possibly by another New York family unhappy with Phil’s declaration of war against the Sopranos.
5. Agent Harris will figure significantly into the plot, either to arrest Tony or to protect him in some way, or maybe both at the same time.
How accurate will these predictions be? Probably not at all, but half the fun of the show will be the anticipation. I’ll write more tonight after the show airs.
UPDATE: The cast shares some reminiscences in the New York Times, for another fun read.
UPDATE II: Joe Gandelman has a great roundup at The Moderate Voice.
My prediction is, it ends with an emotional misstep. Tony gets caught red-handed (on a security cam maybe?) getting angry and icing someone–someone fairly insignificant. Ends with a rookie mistake. Then in some future Sopranos series, Tony will have a series of flashbacks (about Dad, and Junior, and growing up) as he tells the old stories to his cellmate.
I think it will end with Tony heading for a sitdown with Phil. There will be a hint that Phil will use the sitdown to kill Tony or perhaps the other way around. We will never know what happens.
Who frikkin’ cares? Hollywood scum celebrating criminal scum. Never watched an episode and don’t miss it.
The Sopranos always seems to go a direction that no one expects (see food poisoning and talking fish in the season 2 finale). It’s futile to make predictions, and that’s why this show is so great. though, since this is the last episode ever, it does narrow down the general possibilities of what will happen.
Instead of a prediction, I share what I hope happens.
I hope Tony lives.
I hope Butchie gets it.
I hope Furio returns.
I hope Meadow lives.
I hope Junior has one last moment of relevance.
I hope the ducks return.
I have never watched even one episode not because I don’t care, it’s more that I don’t have HBO… the only time I wish I did have it is when folk start talking about the show.
How Will The Sopranos (And Tony Soprano) End?
All good things come to an end…and so do great things like HBO’s landmark series “The Sopranos.”
Creator David Chase has been smart: unlike some TV series that limp off the air having run out of creative steam, “The Sopran…
they all get clipped, as they should. tony gets it at the bottom of his empty pool trying to save the returning duck from the first episode. children and pets……….
The Pelosi’s
So when will Mary Katharine Ham make the cover of Cigar Aficionado? (More Sopranos fever, here.)…
For those of you who don’t like the show: WE DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT AND DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR OPINIONS ON IT, M’KAY?
Really, butt out.
For those of us who care, I hope the show ends without Tony getting killed. I really do.
I like the show, and have enjoyed it since 1999. It’s been a great run.
I am monitoring the British papers on the internet to see if I can get a hint before this evening in the States.
And one more time, if you don’t like it, bugg off and go whine elsewhere.
Jeez.
Good post, mein capitain.
I too think Tony survives the series.
Plot-wise, sitting in the room with a gun to the door is indicative that Tony is too much on his guard for Leo to get him in the space of a single episode without some massive “Benny Hill” plot device…(Benny Hill: a term coined by me and my bros when we were kids to indicate a totally unbelievable plot movement, the kind of movement that could only have occured on the Benny Hill show, and if you dont know who Benny Hill was then i cant help you).
I think the idea of a Paulie taking him out or AJ getting killed has merit.
I am not a violent person in real life, nor do i ever wish bad things on 99.9999% of real life people, but i have been pining for Tony to beat the crap out of AJ for years.
I also wished that he succeeded in killing himself two episodes ago. That character is 100% worthless except to show what a spoiled little disgracia AJ is.
I also think that Bill Guarnere (Frank John Hughes in the role of button-man Walden Belfiore) may play a role, as he has been little involved in the plotlines since he joined the show, although he is hard to miss for all fans of Band of Brohams.
anyway…my money is that Tony survives the series, but Paulie and at least one member of Tony’s immediate family dies somehow.
Miss Meadow must be protectd at all costs, though i would cheer the screen if Janice took a round to the noodle.
Media love to get people wrapped up in this kind of sick entertainment – and obviously they’ve been all too successful, getting the boob-washed to the point they’d rather watch this swill than tend to the gates of the political ladder and the education of their own children.
Who frikkin’ cares? Hollywood scum celebrating criminal scum. Never watched an episode and don’t miss it.
Well i guess that makes we fans of the Show scum enablers . Wonderful.
Media love to get people wrapped up in this kind of sick entertainment – and obviously they’ve been all too successful, getting the boob-washed to the point they’d rather watch this swill than tend to the gates of the political ladder and the education of their own children.
I’ll have you know sir that I for one can remain ‘un-engaged’ and ‘indifferent’ totally without help from any TV show. I think you give altogether too much ‘credit’ to ‘media’.
Lets’ see now — someone makes an outlandish statement which is NOT reflective of ‘objective’ reality WITHOUT EVEN HAVING WATCHED THE SHOW ITSELF —
And on the other hand someone else attributes the situation to an implicit conspiracy to keep the great unwashed ‘ignorant’ and ‘.uninvolved’. Likely also not having even bothered to watch the show itself.
Thank goodness Scott in CA has already summed up the proper responses to these ‘insights’.
It’s a TV show folks and the reason people want to discuss it is that it is a VERY VERY FINE TV SHOW.
Dick Cavett is beyond doubt one of the most annoying, pretentious dweebs extant, but he is neither ‘ignorant’ nor ‘uninvolved’. And he certainly can’t be accused of being a fan of the mundane or the mass media. Or easily manipulated.
And yet—
Hard To Say Goodbye.
Ron, it’s a good show. You don’t like it, don’t watch it, don’t comment on it. Sheesh.
AJ breathes his last pitiful breath tonight. Tony survives but goes to jail, someone in Phil’s own family whacks him
I don’t expect any one REAL importance to get whacked as The Soprano Movie is sitting out there with big time money to be made … you can’t have a Soprano movie without Tony.
Whacking Tony seriously degrades the financial case for the movie, so Tony has to live.