Patsy himself almost took out Tony in the season 3 premiere, so you know his resentment ran deep. One by one, the other members of his immediate family arrive - except for Meadow - and they start to eat onion rings and indulge in small talk. Alan: This is all-important, and well see what happens to the conversation now that the phrase death scene is out there. Feeling that there was no way out, Pontecorvo hanged himself in his basement. Adam McKay Has Sold His Next Celebrity Hangout. Did he just want out ? Copyright 2023 Endgame360 Inc. All Rights Reserved. The significance of the crow in that scene has been much discussed. Whether we get to see what comes next or not, which is a more entertaining, exciting, and/or thematically fitting conclusion to the story of The Sopranos: Tonys abrupt death or his continued existence? Eugene Pontecorvo has one of the most tragic arcs of all characters on The Sopranos. In fact, its the most obvious interpretation, given that Tonys pissed a lot of people off over the years, and in the overwhelming majority of gangster stories, the main guy dies at the end. Carmela's construction of her spec house is suspended, due to a "stop order" issued by a building inspector because improper lumber has been used. Maybe the ending is saying, This guy never got it. Alan: The distance he walks is shorter each time, and when he gets to Holstens, we just cut from him looking at the restaurant to him in the booth, in a way that suggests hes seeing himself really, that hes seeing the whole scene play out, like hes already left his body and is just envisioning what might come next back on this mortal plane. As for Patsy Parisi (Dan Grimaldi) ordering the hit, that theory does have some validity. Gigi defected to Tony Soprano's crew in August 1999 following the execution of Philly Parisi (Capo of Junior's crew while Junior was incarcerated). He is a prototypical underachiever and a constant source of stress and anxiety for his parents. On the occasion of the shows 20th anniversary, weve published a book about it, The Sopranos Sessions, combining reviews of each episode, a new interview with series creator David Chase, and selections of our Star-Ledger articles about the show. ", Vito responds with "What? Roy Wood Jr. Talks Scandals at White House Correspondents Dinner, Watching Frank Oceans Coachella Set Online Wont Be Easy. That final scene is something he felt was correct, and that came out of his desire to subvert or amend the traditions of the gangster film, while perhaps coming to terms with the fact that he was unable to escape them. Death is what happens, end of story, right? Tony had antagonized the Lupertazzi family on several occasions in the past; hed defended the indefensible (Ralph Cifaretto) and backed another banished capo (Vito Spatafore); and, last but not least, he began working with the FBI while another member of his crew became a full-fledged informant. In terms of the metanarrative, Adriana had to be killed as a logical ending to her tragic story. I made arguments like the one above, about how a secret assassin repping an enemy we never heard of before would clash with every narrative rule the show ever followed. (Tony had Patsys brother killed in season 2.) But Meadow is marrying into the extended Family by getting engaged to Patrick Parisi and becoming a lawyer two things Tony never wanted for her and AJ recently survived a suicide and is so lacking in direction that this low-level job working for Little Carmine feels like a salvation. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Teddy Spirodakis: Killed at a diner by Eugene on orders from. Little Carmine was the rightful boss of the Lupertazzi family but was outstead by Johnny Sacromoni and then Phil Leotardo. is now attending college. But at the. Before I wrote about television for New York Magazine and Vulture, I wrote about it for the Star-Ledger, New Jerseys largest daily newspaper, sharing a beat with my friend Alan Sepinwall, who is now the TV critic for Rolling Stone. Alan: What I mean is, maybe that cat is Christopher reincarnated, or maybe its just a cat that wont stop hanging around Satriales and staring at a photo of Christopher. Thats one more reason why this scene feels dreamlike, along with all those incidental characters, like Members Only Guy and the uniformed Boy Scouts, who feel like people youd meet in an 80s music video. The cat turns up at the safe house and gets brought back to Satriales, much to Paulies horror You cant even put them near a baby; they suck the breath right out! particularly once it starts fixating on a photo of Christopher from the set of Cleaver. Why did Eugene kill himself Sopranos? RELATED: The Sopranos: The 5 Tallest (& 5 Shortest) Actors In The Cast. By 2000, he is made captain of the Aprile Crew. Deep down, he recognizes that Carmela is a good mother. And the single most obvious thing to do in a gangster movie is to kill the main character out of reflex, or because the storytellers want to express that crime doesnt pay. And he has Phil killed. With his wife bitter and his son using heroin, Eugene hangs himself. and our The controversial ending has led to over a decade of theories and speculation as to whether Tony was killed by a hitman - but now we finally know what happened to the mob boss. He was pretty crazy. La La Anthony, Chloe Fineman Will Play Fashion Correspondents at Met Gala 2023. Or him surviving three car wrecks, one of which fatally wounded Christopher. The murder happens in a restaurant, as does Tony's. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. And I think I would have been equally disappointed if hed said, Tony is alive. And thats because I like not knowing, and to me, everything about this ending says, Youre not supposed to know, youre supposed to live in the not-knowing.. But Tony needs help, and he starts getting it in a sit-down with Leotardos captain, Butch DiConcini (Greg Antonacci). I couldn't find much of anything. But the scene can be about the idea of Tonys imminent demise without actually featuring it and, if were being stubbornly pedantic, it doesnt feature it. It could be that Chase simply likes ambiguity and confusion. Hey Bobby, do you know youre getting a wife? Alan: Tony's situation as he enters Holsten's is complex however you look at it. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Now that Fleishman is out of trouble, Caplan can go back to catering. Christopher Moltisanti had him kill Teddy Spirodakis in Boston as a favor for him; Moltisanti promised to convince Soprano to let Pontecorvo retire as a reward. Obviously he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I mean its a prompt for us to think about death and life, and what weve done with our lives. The time was certainly right. And the last we see them together, Tony was still acting like a jerk toward Patsy. -All 92 deaths analyzed, evaluated, and . This guy has much more self-awareness and sensitivity than other people in his line of work, but is still a prisoner of his conditioning and maybe his genes, and always seems to fall far short of enlightenment. Sirico reportedly racked up a total of 28 arrests in his younger life, even if he was only . He, along with Vito Spatafore and Donny K., found Gigi Cestone dead on the toilet in the Aprile Crew hangout after suffering a constipation-induced heart attack. I had thought, for instance, that the sense of paranoia instilled in the viewer by the rapid editing style Chase uses for the scene was shared by Tony himself that, perhaps, the point of it all was to finally put us in the mind-set of the main character, to make us realize, This is how miserable it is to be Tony Soprano: to spend every minute of every day worrying about who could be coming through a door to kill you.. (April 2006) His eyes are closed, hes not noticeably breathing, and the camera angle makes it look like hes lying in state at the funeral parlor, waiting for his friends, family, and viewers out here in TV land to pay our respects. I thought I saw a couple of blacks running that way." Since the tension with New York boiled over to a full-blown war, both Tony's family and Family have been on the lam. Blow-Up is one of his favorite films, and it has a famously non-definitive ending that invites the viewer to project their own meanings. In the episode Eugene and his wife have an unexpected financial windfall when a beloved aunt, the wife of a successful Hollywood agent, leaves him $2 million in her will. Did Eugene die in Gattaca? We dont get to watch the show anymore. Professionally, he has just survived a war with New York has, in fact, enough juice that he was able to . Im reminded of that moment in D-Girl where Dr. Melfi summarizes existentialism for Tony. At some point, Pontecorvo became an FBI informant, and he sought to retire to Florida with the $2 million that he had inherited from his late aunt. He is a capo in the DiMeo crime family and leads the Curto crew. He states to his friends that, "The only thing I ever found in the street was my first wife," showing that he hasn't had much good luck in his life (and at least one failed marriage). The Austrian physicist Erwin Schrdinger famously theorized that if you place a cat into a box with some kind of hazardous material, the cat may live or die, but until you actually open the box to check, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. While Junior cowers in a closet upstairs, Tony manages to dial 911 before passing out. With Tony and the Feds both hindering Eugene's chance to escape the mafia life and his stress caused by his unstable home life, Eugene sees no way out and hangs himself in his basement. Problem here is Little Carmine had always got on well with Tony and had no reason to kill him, in fact Tony was one of the . Things you buy through our links may earnVox Mediaa commission. I know now, and I dont have to worry about this anymore.. Except the longer you and I talked about it, both on our own and with Chase, the less substantial that idea felt, too, until by the end, I wasnt entirely sure that even Chase knows if the guys dead or alive. Matt: If youre lucky, youll remember the little moments, like this, that were good. The end of season one. If Meadow just walks in and the family enjoys the rest of their onion rings, a nice meal, and some ice cream, what happens to Tony Soprano after? In both of those, Chase employs an unusual editing style, cutting directly from a shot of Tony looking out at the space hes just entered to a different point of view where hes already crossed most of the distance to the relative hes come to see. Its become increasingly clear to me as weve worked our way through the entire series again, with over 10 years of perspective on that finale and nearly 20 years of living with the show in some form, that Chase is an intuitive writer, somebody whos not trying to send messages or create puzzles for people to solve, but is just trying to make people feel and think and question themselves. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Kind of like SAMCRO. Matt: Yes. Plus, that last stretch of 21 episodes does have a persistent chill, visually and plot-wise a series of deaths and declines, with a lot of the color bleached out. Though he wont give up Phils location, Butchie says his crew wont retaliate if Tony whacks Phil. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Alan: I hear what youre saying. At Hesh's request, Tony tries to reach out directly to Johnny through his optometrist brother-in-law, Anthony Infante, but Johnny is only paying attention to his immediate family's financial troubles. And, as I said, it proceeds from the speakers need to have Tony die at that moment, not from any evidence in the scene itself. But while it's the mob and anything can happen, this doesn't really make sense either. In the episode Unidentified Black Males, while he and Little Paulie Germani are engaging in what initially began as a harmless banter at the Esplanade construction site, Little Paulie goes too far in Eugene's mind when he conveys through an innuendo that Eugene is a homosexual. I think Tony died at that moment is a valid interpretation. I knew where I was going. Where am I going?" What is this ending saying? Richard "Richie" Aprile is played by David Proval.Richie is the older brother of acting DiMeo crime family boss Jackie Aprile Sr., and was a capo in the DiMeo crime family before being sent to prison for ten years. On The Sopranos, they didn't know Vito Spatafore was gay when he was made, and when they found out, they killed him, which is the expected reaction when it comes to homosexuals in the mob. Butchie had antagonized Tony in the past, but at this point in time he agrees his boss Phil went too far. For Robert Funaro, who played Eugene Pontecorvo for 24 Sopranos episodes (seasons 3-6), getting killed definitely had a silver lining. Eugene has a talk with Tony about him and his family moving to Florida permanently. As writer Terence Winter told Entertainment Weekly , "At the beginning of season 5, we realized it would happen at the end of the season. With this in mind, I looked up the meaning of Pontecorvo. Both Dr. Melfi and Janice suggest a retirement home or assisted living for him, but Tony forcefully refuses. And, other than a couple of ugly fights, he has been getting along much better with Carmela since she took him back than he ever did during the first six seasons of the show. It could refer to the Mafia code of being a member-only and never a retiree, just what Eugene Pontecorvo attempted to become. informs Eugene they also reject his notion to move to Florida, as they need him in New Jersey to help build a case against Tony in the wake of Curto's death. That matters much more to me, ultimately, than a definitive answer. I dont believe its necessary to establish that to discuss the ending of the show, nor do I think the evidence necessarily points to that. Why is this critical episode dominated by a character who hardly mattered before? The following is an excerpt from The Sopranos Sessions, in which Alan and I debate the still-controversial last four minutes of the show and come to different conclusions about what it meant. Hey Bobby, you know youre getting a son? Hey, this is f*cking great. The hit was ordered by . So at that point, you have to ask: Why would Tony Soprano become a target for a hit right then? It's also a reference to the episode's title, "Unidentified Black Males". Alan: I dont know the answer to that hypothetical, because either one seems like the kind of thing The Sopranos might do. The man in the Members Only jacket, played by Paolo Colandrea, is a one-shot character on The Sopranos. Youre going out this way, but its gonna be good. He whacked the viewer. To have that storyline, I jumped on it and tried to ride it as best I could.. He jolts awake within moments, but we begin our final hour in Tonys company with this image of him suggesting that hes already dead, and that he just like Silvio watching the Gerry Torciano hit needs some time to catch up with the finality of the situation. Tony said, This is good. Good story, right? I dont know why do you think he offed himself. Many fans speculate that the title of this episode, and the events that take place within it, foreshadow the true nature of the. Eugene is also an informant for the FBI, and has become more valuable to the Bureau since the death of Ray Curto; they, too, will not free him. Do the Feds show up a week later to arrest him, Carlo having finally given them the missing piece of their RICO prosecution? This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. Though he was present and had lines in the episode He is Risen (S03E08), actor Robert Funaro is not credited at the end of the episode. Matt: Yeah, hes checking out the scene in there for self-protection, but he does that everywhere he goes. So maybe hed have a relatively fine old time drifting into old age. Because, while youre right to point out how Chase and company have very deliberately put us in a death-obsessed frame of mind during this final run, during the preceding seasons he showed us time and time again that he was never interested in doing the obvious thing. Getting killed off on the hit mob show meant losing a well-paying job with unbeatable exposure. The Sopranos abruptly cut to black at the end of the series finale. Frankly, Im not even sure why were still debating this. Eugene Pontecorvo inherits $2 million and would like to retire with his family to Florida. Eugene drives to Boston and finds Teddy eating dinner at a fast food restaurant and shoots him repeatedly in the head. At the start of Made in America, the Sopranos series finale, Tony and his crew are still at the safe house, where theyd gone to the mattresses. The hunt for New York boss Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) continues. Reddit community dedicated to the HBO hit TV series, The Sopranos, and movie, The Many Saints of Newark. Bearing gifts, he goes to Tony to ask permission. Eugene doesn't respond. This leads me to believe that a relative of Eugenes, The Man In The Members Only Jacket is the one who killed Tony out of an act of revenge for Eugenes suicide. When discussing the final scene of The Sopranos, many people rightly focus on would-be assassins in Holstens. We can all go home now. Lizzy Caplan Would Return for One More Season of. It wasnt like these staccato scenes. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Personally, hes on good enough terms with his immediate family that theyd all happily join him for onion rings and more at their favorite ice cream place. Phil Leotardo, now the acting boss of the Lupertazzi crime family, is taking care of business for the imprisoned Johnny Sack. Vito is thinner and is now a spokesperson for a weight loss company; he is Tony's best earner and is ambitious. More recently, I found myself swaying over to Team Tony Dies, not only because of the death imagery throughout the season including the way so many episodes open, as this one does, with Tony waking up from a deep slumber but because some of my initial, long-hardened impressions of the scene didnt hold up under further scrutiny. And does that matter? And the scenes he got to do for Eugenes death helped. His first act on the show is seen in "Proshai, Livushka" when he and Bobby Zanone assault a garbage sanitation man for threatening to rat out Ralph Cifaretto. Professionally, he has just survived a war with New York has, in fact, enough juice that he was able to kill a rival boss with the tacit approval of Phils successor but his organization is in a shambles. Eugene Pontecorvo The Sopranos really is about mental illness and the inherent hardships of the human condition, and Eugene Pontecorvo ( Robert Funaro) embodied the intersection between duty. 86 Related Topics The Sopranos Drama series Television 55 comments Best Add a Comment [deleted] 1 yr. ago I hate that when you ask, What happened at the end of The Sopranos? and people just shrug and say, Well, he died! A better question is, What did that ending mean?. And if Tony drops dead after the bell rings, whether from a bullet or (like poor Gigi Cestone) internal distress, obviously the next few moments involve Carmela, Meadow, and AJ being horrified and grief-stricken, but what comes after? Yeah, I was thinking that, too that despite the hours weve spent talking to Chase about the ending, I dont think its necessarily been explained in any meaningful sense, in terms of what happened next, and I get the impression that Chase cant really explain it either. It is a zombie film that focuses on the mental collapse of survivors and the human . Thats all I wanted to say.. The Obama-Springsteen friendship continues on. This ending puts us in their shoes. Did Eugene kill himself so his family could move to Florida? While Tony is cooking dinner, Junior, thinking he is a long-dead mobster, shoots him in the gut. Does Tonys death alter the career plans of either kid? Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. Shazam! Its fun for me. Michelle Obama and Bruce Springsteen Tore Up the Stage with Glory Days. I think it would fit with the cycles of experience depicted in the series. I like having to make a case for a particular interpretation or just throw my hands up. Christopher Moltisanti assigns Eugene the task of taking out a guy named Teddy Spirodakis in Boston who owed Christopher money and failed to pay him. Phil is gone, Butchie made peace with New Jersey, and anyone else who might wish Tony a violent end is out of the picture. With a despondent wife, a drug-addicted son, a dangerous and stressful job he hates and can't leave, the specter of the FBI looming over him, and no hope of the new life that seemed so close, Eugene hangs himself in the basement. Host Roy Wood Jr. and President Biden made a case for why this goofy event is important. There are a number of minutes in life [] and [then] theyre gone. Between that, his sketchy upbringing, his junkie son who hates him, and the Florida letdown, Gene was under a bunch a heavy shit. I think you could make a better case for Tony Dies if you assume hes dead before this scene even starts. The episode marks the first appearances of: "7 Surprises From The Sopranos 20th Anniversary Celebration", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Members_Only_(The_Sopranos)&oldid=1134519036. Over the course of the next few minutes, he glances twice at the family's table before standing up, walking past the table before entering the restroom . Matt: All right, let me back up for a second and say that at no point during my now ten-plus years of arguing about the meaning of this scene have I said that Tony died is an inconceivable or unacceptable interpretation. Eugene subsequently becomes a made man in the following episode "Fortunate Son" along with Christopher Moltisanti. His wife was already miserable, his son was struggling with drugs and his daughter was still young, any of them seeing his dead body would be traumatized. This is what I keep coming back to. That coffinlike image isnt the first major allusion to death of the final season, nor the last of Made in America alone. But still, it's implied she isn't very well connected herself -- she only assumes that Eugene has killed people, meaning she's out of the loop -- and I can't get over the jacket and the family resemblance. (For that matter, Members Only Guy could be the loved one of a Soprano victim himself.) Matt: Death shows the ultimate absurdity of life. AJ Soprano. That's a no-go." It's Pontecorvo, "crow bridge." Thats why Members Only was really great, he said on Talking Sopranos. Nearly two years have passed. Paulie, long the most useless captain on the payroll, is the only major ally he has left. (Well, maybe not the scouts.) He loved his family, the only way they could get the inheritance money and go to Florida is if he was dead, he ended his life for their benefit. The ultimate fate of Tony Soprano, the crime boss and protagonist of the television drama the Sopranos, has perhaps finally been revealed by the show's creator. This guy lives a charmed life. Actually, when you really think about it, the ceremony where the crow appears is the event that seals Tony's fate -- if Eugene hadn't been made, he would have been able to retire to Florida when his aunt left him $2 million, he never would have killed himself, and Tony never would have been murdered in revenge. Later Eugene is revealed (to the viewers, not to the mob) to be an informant for the FBI, who also prohibit him from leaving. But the very fact that Chase devotes so much time to what seems like nothing makes the whole scene all the more nerve-racking. Theres a reason The Twilight Zone keeps coming up, whether in conversation or on the safe house TV in the finale.
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