The final episode of the HBO hit series The Sopranos airs tonight. Blogs, message boards, and chat rooms have been abuzz with rumors and predictions of how the series will end, so I thought I would toss my $.02 into the mix (Warning: don’t read any further if you plan to watch the previous episode but haven’t yet done so).
I think the show will end with the revelation that Paulie has been secretly collaborating with New York. Paulie botched the hit on Phil Leotardo on purpose, and Phil was able to whack Bobby Baccala and Silvio Dante using information Paulie had been feeding him. In exchange, Phil has promised Paulie that he will be the boss of New Jersey when the rest of the top brass has been wiped out. Phil doesn’t plan on following through on this promise, however, and will whack Paulie once he has outlived his usefulness. Phil will then promote someone from within his own crew to head up the defunct Soprano organization’s operations and thereby emerge as the undisputed boss on both sides of the river. Lower ranking members of the Sopranos organization will fall in line or meet the same fate as their former bosses. Paulie will thus take on a role similar to that of Fredo Corleone, the dim-witted older brother of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II.
Tony Soprano, after having lost his closest advisers to death (Christopher Moltisanti, Bobby Baccala), incapacitation (Silvio Dante), and betrayal (Paulie Walnuts), will have no choice but to escape New Jersey. He’ll survive Phil’s offensive but will completely lose his empire, with no hope of salvaging any part of it. The final scene will depict a shocked, distraught, and humiliated Tony sitting alone in a motel room reflecting on how it all collapsed. Tony will walk out to the motel balcony, take one last look at the world, and shoot himself in the head. The episode will close with a shot of Tony lying dead in a pool of blood.
A number of observations led me to these conclusions:
• When Phil and his advisers met to discuss the specifics of the planned attack on the New Jersey leadership, Paulie was curiously not mentioned as a potential target. Rather, Phil and his capos only decided to whack Tony, Silvio, and Bobby. If Paulie isn’t working for them, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t try to whack him as well.
• When Silvio and Bobby informed Paulie of Tony’s decision to whack Phil, Paulie seemed angered that he was not included in the consultations.
• Paulie has been shown to be a man of questionable loyalties. He has flirted with the idea of switching sides before, having previously fed information about Tony’s crew to Johnny Sack during Carmine Lupertazzi’s era. He also grumbled when Silvio ordered him to make any payments due to Tony during his coma directly to Carmela.
• Like Fredo, Paulie is also somewhat dim-witted and naive. Paulie believed Johnny Sack’s assurances that Carmine Lupertazzi appreciated and would reward his help, only to later discover that Johnny was just using Paulie for information and had never even mentioned him to Carmine. Paulie has been portrayed throughout the series as a comical character who is ambitious but lacks the intelligence and leadership skills to play a more meaningful role in the Sopranos organization.
• With Christopher and Bobby dead and Silvio incapacitated (he will likely expire at some point in the final episode) Paulie is the only remaining member of Tony’s inner circle. Because of Paulie’s limitations, it seems unlikely that Tony will be able to regroup and defeat Phil with only Paulie by his side.
• Each of Paulie’s disputes with Tony has ended with Paulie seemingly capitulating to Tony’s demands, and Paulie has never spoken harshly to Tony even after being berated or insulted by him. In addition, Paulie is the oldest member of Tony’s inner circle but is outranked by Silvio and (more recently) Bobby Baccala. He has apparently never been considered a serious candidate for leadership, either in succession to Tony’s father or to Tony. It has often been implied that Tony keeps Paulie close only out of respect for his age and years of service to Tony’s father. This perhaps indicates that Paulie has a bottled-up, mounting sense of resentment towards Tony and the others.
• Tony’s few but significant flaws have often been explicitly identified during his sessions with Dr. Melfi and/or illustrated in his many exploits. It seems appropriate that the culmination of these flaws will lead to his downfall. His temper caused him to brutally attack Coco, which sparked the entirely avoidable current war between him and Phil Leotardo. His sociopathic tendencies led him to secretly murder Christopher, unnecessarily depriving him of an experienced soldier and thereby destroying his ability to regroup when put on the defensive by Phil. His chronic depression, exacerbated by the continuous pressures of mob life, will cause him to lose perspective when ousted from his position of power and conclude that death is the only viable escape. When A.J. attempted suicide, Tony mentioned that depression and volatility are common and hereditary personality traits in the Soprano family. A.J.’s suicide attempt was thus a prophetic indication of how Tony would meet his own end.
Anyway, that’s my prediction. In any case, I don’t see Tony emerging victorious; his ultimate defeat seemed all but assured in the previous episode. Steven Van Zandt, who plays Silvio, said in an interview that the finale would be “controversial” and “talked about”, and that not everyone would like it. I can’t think of a scenario more fitting of such a description than Paulie betraying Tony and bringing about a humiliating end to Tony’s life and reign as the boss of New Jersey. Remember: you heard it here first.
UPDATE: That was the worst series finale since Seinfeld. I am never watching another David Chase television show ever again. What a piece of crap.
