I'm going to list what I think could have been some of the possible outcomes for The Sopranos ending.

1. Tony Soprano gets shot, but not his family.
2. Tony Soprano along with his family gets shot.
3. Tony Soprano's family gets shot, but not him.
4. Meadow walks into the bullet taking the hit instead of Tony.
5. Hitman attempts to shoot Tony, but misses, and Tony pulls out a gun and shoots the Hitman.
6. Someone in Tony's crew, Paulie for example, was aware of the hit and got to the restaurant just in time to prevent the shooting.
7. Nothing happens. No one gets shot.

If it were up to me, I would've chosen #5 for the outcome. Actually that's how I would've started off a Sopranos movie.

May I throw out another possibility? The audience was whacked. Since the show was based mainly on the relationship between mob boss and therapist and that relationship was now over for good, we no longer get to see the rest of the characters' interactions. The blackout was the viewer being whacked.
In short, many, many things could have unfolded.

So I'm reading a post made by some dead guy??

I've heard of a ghost writer but this is crazy.

Interesting possibility Sopranoleone, I like that idea. It very well could be possible that the blackout meant that the audience got whacked.

Meteorite.

Carmella wakes and finds Furio showering in her bathroom and realizes the last 4 seasons were all a dream because Furio actually did throw Tony into the helicopter blade in Atlantic city.

I agree, it was all a dream. But Tony wakes up and finds Finn in the shower. They stop at Ralphie's to pick up Janice's vibrator, then they run off to elope in Vermont. Christopher is a bridesmaid, Paulie is his Maid of Honor. Surprisingly, the only straight one is Vito.

Who can resist the reasoning of Don Cardi!

Tony chokes to death on an onion ring.

After he trips over Adriana's body.

Okay guys lets be serious.

Okay.


The most likely, along with #7. Though I'd have to say I'm against it, for reasons I've said here.

Very unlikely. Where in the series do you see any family intentionally getting shot? The closest I can think of is the Ukranian Phil Leotardo look-alike's mistress.

Even more unlikely than #2.

GDFATHER PART III LOLZ!

Like Junior's attempted hit on Tony at the end of Season One? Nah, I don't buy it.

Nah, on two levels: why would anyone be aware of it, and why wouldn't Paulie simply ring Tony?

As likely as #1. Reasons #2 to #6 have little weight. The blackout comes down to #1 and #7 - if it's even a question at all.

No. When he sees Ade walk in.

Actually I believe #5 would be most likely and that would be the case if they are making a Sopranos movie.

Only thing that bothers me is that we actually are not being shown the obvious, because if we watched all seasons closely it has always lead up to his death. As in we should know without being told. The convo about when a hit takes place, things go black. The fact that the hitman has a members only jacket??? The kind of people who are members only are the same that "Join the Club". And whats Tony going through during that episode??? Christophers 3 0' clock dream. Look where the bathrooms roughly situated in regards to where Tonys sitting.
Number one is most likely. Paulie coming in to save him. Throughout all the entire final episodes.. paulie becomes much more aggitated. After Tony taking him for that boat ride it wouldn't be totally stupid to think Paulies the one who has him wacked.

If you watched the same "Sopranos" seasons as I did, you should know that David Chase NEVER went out of the way to tie up loose ends (the Russian in the pine barrens, the guy who raped Melfi, etc.) and the "obvious" (as you put it) was never quite that.

No matter how agitated Paulie got at Tony, Paulie would always stay loyal.

Maybe not. He came awfully close to switching to the New York Family headed by Carmine Lupertazzi and he would have done so if Johnny Sac had truthfully told Carmine about Paulie's unhappiness with Tony Soprano.

Switching families does not necessarily mean that Paulie is not loyal, he gets upset with Tony's decisions sometimes, but he still listens to Tony.

It depends WHY one would switch Families. Paulie would have done so because he, at that point, didn't like Tony. That doesn't sound like loyalty to me.

Switching families is the very definition of not being loyal.

It's not that Paulie didn't like Tony, Paulie was upset with the way Tony was running things, but Paulie still listened to Tony and continued to obey every order given by Tony, that's loyalty, even if Paulie considered switching families the fact that he continued to obey Tony shows that Paulie is still very loyal. By the way, this is off topic but I would've loved to see Paulie as the boss.

Paulie's very transient. His mood - loyalty included - is dependent on his weekly income.

Inaccurate. Watch season four again.

But what factors decided his "return"? His defection across the Hudson fell flat. "Loyalty" doesn't really come into it with these guys. It's not an honourable, noble attribute; it's determined by capital gain.

The mob life in a nutshell. One of the most concise points ever on the subject of "loyalty" within the mob.

Of course Capo still had to take a shot at capitalism .

Capo, I have the entire complete Sopranos series box set, and Paulie telling Johnny Sacramoni about that joke made by Ralph Cifaretto and then denying it to Tony was not disloyalty, you could say that lying is a disloyal thing to do when speaking to the Boss, but in that situation Paulie did the best thing, Paulie did that to prevent himself from getting whacked, now if it any other situation where he lied to Tony about something else, than that would be bad, but in this situation it would be an exception, or if it were a case where the FBI approached Paulie and ended up ratting to save his own life, than that would be disloyal even though Paulie would never do that. Besides that incident, any other time Paulie always remains loyal to Tony. Capo and Pizzaboy, how many times to I have to get this through everyone's head, the Mafia was loyal for hundreds of years, then certain people within it started to get greedy and ended up ratting, but disloyalty did not appear much within the Mafia until the 1970's. Everyone on this forum is acting like the Mafia had no loyalty and respect when in fact it did for a very long time.

But The Sopranos isn't set before the 1970's so there would be Disloyalty in the Mafia then.

Yeah, but the series is set in the 21st century.

As far as the hundreds of years, how do you know? And please, don't tell me "because my family told me so." You were challenged in the real life threads by both Don Cardi and Turnbull, who are both your intellectual superiors, and all you could come up with was, "because my family told me so."

You make post after post without stating source material, then you get mad when you're continually challenged.

OK, let bygones be bygones and let's move on.

My own 2¢ on this subject of "loyalty" - there's been a small element of disloyal wiseguys before the 1970s but we don't hear too much about them mainly because they had a tendency to disappear ( ). One notable case before the '70s was Joe Valachi.

Pizzaboy, with the amount of immaturity presented by many of the users on this board Don Cardi and Turnbull are far from being my intellectual superiors, when we're talking about the Mafia, I know for a fact I am much more intellectual superior than most if not all of the people on hear, from what I've noticed most people on hear think they know it all when they are completely wrong, I know the Mafia inside and out but I am forbidden to explain how I know, I have the facts and I know the facts but I am forbidden to show or explain the facts, I can tell you the facts but you are just gonna have to take my word for it, at least I know that I know the truth. No one on hear is able to provide source material, probably because it's either inaccurate or source material can not be found, so you have no right to tell me that I need to provide source material when no one on hear is able to do so even though I am able to do so, but like I said I am forbidden to do so. If you want to find out the truth from the source, join the Mafia and see for yourself.

I tried, Geoff.

I really tried.