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 controversial 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 Satrials 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.
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.
