It might have been as retaliation for the murder of Phil Leotardo (and probably was {EDIT: I’ve got a new theory, explained at the bottom of the article}) or it could’ve been payback for any number of things Tony had done over the years. Honestly, the reason he’s killed isn’t important since he was our focal character throughout the series. Once he’s dead, we die with him, and we’ll never know who did it.
There’s a lot of debate online about whether or not Tony Soprano died at the end. I wanted to take a quick moment to lay out the case for how there is no doubt in my mind that he was killed.
1) “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens.” Bobby says this to Tony early in the sixth season when they’re talking about getting whacked. A lot of attention is paid to this line and they even go so far as to repeat it later as a quick flashback. If this isn’t meant as foreshadowing, then what in the hell else could it be? And when Bobby is killed, he clearly HEARS it happening as he turns to face his attacker. So, the line of dialogue isn’t meant as foreshadowing to Bobby’s death.
2) The Orange Cat.If there’s one thing that mafia-movie fans understand, it’s that oranges are a bad omen. This started back with The Godfather where oranges were used as a way to hint at impending doom. In the final episode of The Sopranos we see Tony eat an orange in front of his wife, Carmella. Also, in the final episode of the series, we’re introduced to an orange cat that has suddenly and mysteriously started hanging out at the safehouse, and is then brought to the pork store after Phil is murdered. The cat spends most of it’s time staring at a picture of Christopher, who Tony murdered earlier in the season. Paulie sees this cat as a bad omen, and even expressesthe idea that it’s a sign of impending death. There’s also a really interesting tie-in to Christopher’s dead ex-fiance, Adriana, in that she used to wear a dress with the imprint of an orange tiger and her mother wore a leather jacket with a tiger emblem, although that might be reaching a bit. All you really need to know is that the final episode of The Sopranos makes a point of explaining that the orange cat is a bad omen and stares at the dead. Then, when we see Tony at the restaurant at the end of the final episode, there’s a big ass orange cat head painted on the wall over his shoulder – perfectly positioned to watch him die. Coincidence? I don’t think so, especially knowing that the backdrop of that restaurant was specifically commissioned for the finale and wasn’t at the restaurant before filming.
3) Members Only. This is the kicker, and whenever anyone argues with me that Tony doesn’t die, this is always what I feel proves them wrong. The first episode of Season Six was called ‘Members Only’ and featured a storyline about a mobster that wanted to leave the mafia, but Tony won’t let him. The man in question is forced to do a hit at a restaurant and we watch as he enters, dressed in a Members Only jacket (an odd choice of attire, and certainly not an accident considering the title of the show) and shoots his target in the right side of the head.In the final episode of The Sopranos, a suspicious man walks into the restaurant who bears an uncanny resemblance to the man that played Tony’s father in earlier episodes. Honestly, when I saw this guy I thought it WAS the actor that played Tony’s father. That’s how similar they look! Anyhow, the guy is wearing a Member’s Only jacket and the camera pays a LOT of attention to him. The last time we see him, he’s headed to the bathroom. When he exits, he will be immediately to Tony’s right, at the exact angle that the shooter in the ‘Members Only’ episode was standing when he killed his target in the first episode. Come on… if that’s not blatant foreshadowing then I don’t know what is.
The theme here is family, and the Members Only actor’s resemblance to Tony’s father is no accident. Tony’s life was dramatically altered by his father’s life in the mob, and while Tony has taken great strides to keep his own son and family from being affected similarly, his life of crime simply won’t allow it. They are about to watch him die during their own version of a Last Supper (there’s even a shot of the restaurant at one point that looks eerily similar to DaVinci’s Last Supper painting.) However, as expressed several times during the run of season six, the mafia leaves the family alone and only kills the members. Members Only.
4) The Bells. Finally, we tie everything together with the ringing bells. In the episode where Tony and Bobby discuss how you probably never hear it coming, Tony hears a bell ring somewhere over the lake. He stops and looks for the source and sees the boat where he and Bobby were talking and the infamous line was said. It’s an odd scene, and very out of place until you realize that David Chase spent two years crafting the final season of The Sopranos. He’s not wasting time by putting in random, odd scenes that have no meaning.In the restaurant at the end, we are shown a bell ringing above the entrance as people walk in. Tony takes notice of the bell, and we see a series of repeated shots of him sitting in his booth, hearing the bell, and then looking up to see who walked in. It is done over and over until the sequence is burned into our brain. It creates a fascinating illusion as well, which I want to take a second to mention.
After the final episode of The Sopranos aired, millions of people started talking about it. I was among a large group of people that SWORE the final frame of the show featured Meadow walking through the restaurant door. That never happens. In the actual episode, you see Tony hear the bell and look up, but then the screen turns to black. People were so convinced that they saw Meadow that a conspiracy theory took hold that HBO had somehow been able to alter the VHS recorders and DVRs of households that recorded the show and clipped the scene of Meadow walking in. It’s a silly idea, but goes to show just how effective the repetitive sequence at the end really was. I am still fascinated with how certain I was that we saw Meadow walking in!
Sorry, I digress. The bell sequence is a clear throw back to Bobby’s statement on the boat about how you probably never hear it coming. Tony never hears it before he is shot in the back of the head. Sorry everyone, but Tony Soprano dies at the end. It simply couldn’t be any clearer. And bravo to David Chase for creating a puzzle like this out of the final episode of the greatest show television ever had.
5) Meadow as the Guardian Angel (This part has been added on 7-31-13). I rewatch the entire Sopranos series about once per year during my workouts (I also mix in some of The Wire, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Sons of Anarchy, all great shows) and every time I seem to notice a few new things. This time I was dumbfounded by something that is so blatant that I’m absolutely ashamed I didn’t see earlier. After Tony was shot by Junior, he spends a couple episodes in a coma and we go with him as he wanders around as a new man. This culminates in him being invited into a hotel, and it’s plainly obvious to the viewer that this is an allegory to death. He’s invited in, and is told he can’t bring his briefcase (aka his baggage). He sees someone that looks like his mother, and is just about to go inside when he hears a little girl calling out to her Daddy. He hesitates, and then decides not to go into the hotel, and we learn that the little girl calling for Daddy is actually Meadow. This is what brings Tony back from the brink of death, setting up the theme of Meadow being his guardian angel (this isn’t literal, but figurative, of course).
In the final minutes of the final episode, we see the Member’s Only guy go into the bathroom, and the camera shifts to an angle that shows Tony, with the empty seat beside him, and beyond that the threshold of the bathroom as the odd man goes in, setting up the angle at which Tony is about to get shot. Meadow is outside, struggling to park her car, and the show pays a lot of attention to her problem. Finally, she gets the car parked and rushes across the street (and the car that passes makes the sound of an airplane, which ties in to the beginning of the show, but I’m not certain what the meaning of that is. Go watch the scene and listen to that car pass; it’s an airplane.) The bell rings, Tony looks up… cut to black.
If Meadow had made it in there quicker, she would’ve been seated beside her father, right between him and the bathroom door. In other words, she didn’t get there in time to intervene with his trip back to the hotel.
EDIT: I have a theory as to why Tony had to be killed, and I wanted to add that in here. In the final episode, we discover that it’s probable that Carlo has flipped. His son was busted selling ecstasy, and Tony’s fairly certain Carlo is giving the FEDs info to keep his son out of jail. New York had made a deal with Tony to stop the attempts on his life, but there are only a few Soprano crew members that ever had direct business dealings with New York. Those people are Silvio (in a coma), Christopher (dead), and Tony. It’s fair to guess that New York has their own leaks within the FED, and thus would’ve gotten word that Tony was about to be indicted. It makes sense for them to simply allow a hit on Tony to proceed, just to cover their bases and finally cut all ties with the Soprano crew. There was no love between Tony and the remaining New York crew, and I think they decided to do exactly as originally planned: They killed (or seriously incapacitated) the top three, and then picked up the pieces afterward, effectively ending the Soprano crew’s hold on New Jersey.
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